DISEASE OF THE BODY A MENTAL STIMULANT. 79 



determining the current of thought, than as showing how prone the 

 thoughts are to run in undesirable currents when the body is out of 

 health : " During an epidemic of fever, in which an active delirium had 

 been a common symptom, it was observed that many of the patients of 

 one particular physician were possessed by a strong tendency to throw 

 themselves out of the window, while no such tendency presented itself 

 in unusual frequency in the practice of others. The author's informant, 

 Dr. C, himself a distinguished professor in the university, explained 

 the tendency of what had occurred within his own knowledge ; he hav- 

 ing been himself attacked by the fever, and having been under the care 

 of this physician, his friend and colleague, Dr. A. Another of Dr. A.'s 

 patients, whom we shall call Mr. B., seems to have been the first to 

 make the attempt in question ; and, impressed with the necessity of 

 taking due precautions, Dr. A. then visited Dr. C, in whose hearing he 

 gave directions to have the windows properly secured, as Mr. B. had 

 attempted to throw himself out. Now, Dr. G. distinctly remembers 

 that, although he had not previously experienced any such desire, it 

 came upon him with great urgency as soon as ever the idea was thus 

 suggested to him ; his mind being just in that state of incipient delir- 

 ium which is marked by the temporary dominance of some one idea, 

 and by the want of volitional power to withdraw the attention from it. 

 And he deemed it probable that, as Dr. A. went on to Mr. D., Mr. E., 

 etc., and gave similar directions, a like desire would be excited in the 

 minds of all those who might happen to be in the same impressible 

 condition." The case is not only interesting as showing how the mind 

 in disease receives certain impressions more strongly than in health, 

 and, in a sense, may thus be said to possess for the time an abnormal 

 power, but it affords a useful hint to doctors and nurses, who do not 

 always (the latter indeed scarcely ever) consider the necessity of ex- 

 treme caution when speaking about their patients and in their presence. 

 It is probable that a considerable proportion of the accidents, fatal and 

 otherwise, which have befallen delirious patients might be traced to 

 incautious remarks made in their hearing by foolish nurses or forgetful 

 doctors. 



In some cases doctors have had to excite a strong antagonistic feel- 

 ing against tendencies of this kind. Thus Zerffi relates that an Eng- 

 lish physician was once consulted by the mistress of a ladies' school 

 where many girls had become liable to fits of hysterics. He tried sev- 

 eral remedies, but in vain. At last, justly regarding the epidemic as 

 arising from the influence of imagination on the weaker girls (one hys- 

 terical girl having infected the others), he determined to exert a stronger 

 antagonistic influence on the weak minds of his patients. He therefore 

 remarked casually to the mistress of the school, in the hearing of the 

 girls, that he had now tried all methods but one, which he would try, 

 as a last resource, when next he called " the application of a red-hot 

 iron to the spine of the patients so as to quiet their nervously excited 



