BODY AND MIND. 217 



referring anger to the liver as its seat. Even Solomon makes mis- 

 guided passion to be typified by the " dart," which strikes through 

 the liver of the unguarded subject ; and Jeremiah similarly conveys 

 the idea of intense grief in the metaphor, "my liver is poured upon 

 the earth." These ideas have long since been exploded ; but there 

 remains with us the equally curious notion that the influence of the 

 mind upon the body may extend so far as to produce the serious 

 disturbance of function which results in jaundice. Is it not probable 

 that upon some such notion respecting the causation of jaundice, 

 the ancient belief regarding the connection between the bile and 

 mental states depended ? On some such belief hang Shakespeare's 

 words : 



Why should a man whose blood is warm within, 



Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 



Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice 



By being peevish ? 



Unquestionably we may find very direct evidence of the near con- 

 nection between mental states and suppressed secretions when we 

 turn to medical records. An eminent authority in the practice of 

 physic writes : "Certainly the patJiemata mentis play their assigned 

 parts ; fits of anger, and of fear, and of alarm have been presently 

 followed by jaundice. . . . . A young medical friend of mine had a 

 severe attack of intense jaundice, which could be traced to nothing 

 else than his great and needless anxiety about an approaching exami- 

 nation before the Censors' Board at the College of Physicians. 

 There are scores of instances on record to the same effect." It seems 

 thus in the highest degree probable that there exist between mental 

 states and the functions of the liver, relations of the most intimate 

 kind. It is, however, equally important to avoid the fallacy post hoc 

 ergo propter hoc. As Dr. Carpenter remarks, " It is a prevalent, and 

 perhaps not an ill-founded opinion, that melancholy and jealousy 

 have a tendency to increase the quantity, and to vitiate the quality, 

 of the biliary fluid ; and amongst the causes of jaundice are usually 

 set down the indulgence of the depressing emotions, or an access of 

 sudden and violent passion. There can be no doubt, however, that 

 a disordered state 'of the biliary secretion is frequently rather the 

 cause than the consequence of a melancholic state of mind, the 

 blood being sufficiently vitiated by a deficient elimination of bile, to 

 have its due relations with the nervous system seriously disturbed, 

 before any obvious indications of that deficiency make their appear- 

 ance in the jaundiced aspect of the cutaneous surface." 



Amongst the most remarkable effects of mental emotion in pro- 

 ducing curious and well-nigh inexplicable changes in the bodily 

 organisation, are those witnessed in the changes which the skin or 

 hair may undergo under the influence of care and fear especially. 



