INFLUENCE OF THE BRAIN ON HEALTH. 259 



in speech, could not have cured with the best reme- 

 dies that man could produce." 



Every one, indeed, who has either attended in- 

 valids, or been an invalid himself, must often have 

 remarked, that the visit of a kind and intelligent 

 friend is highly useful in dispelling uneasy sensa- 

 tions, and in promoting recovery by increased cheer- 

 fulness and hope. The true reason of this is simply, 

 that such intercourse interests the feelings, and 

 affords an agreeable stimulus to several of the 

 largest organs in the brain, and thereby conduces 

 to the diffusion of a healthier and more abundant 

 nervous energy over the whole system. The extent 

 of good which a man of kindly feelings and a ready 

 command of his ideas and language may do in this 

 way, is much beyond what is generally believed ; 

 and if this holds in debility arising from general 

 causes, in which the nervous system is affected, not 

 exclusively, but only as a part of the body, it must 

 hold infinitely more in nervous debility and in ner- 

 vous disease ; for then, indeed, the moral manage- 

 ment is truly the medical remedy, and differs from 

 the latter only in this, that its administration depends 

 on the physician, and not on the apothecary, on the 

 friend, and not on the indifferent attendant. 



The powerfully stimulating effect of mental ex- 

 citement on the bodily functions is familiar to every 

 one, and is duly noticed in the works of the novelist 

 and poet. In nine cases out of ten, a visit to a 

 watering-place, or a journey through an interesting 

 country, does more good by the beneficial excite- 

 ment which it gives to the mind and brain, than by 

 all the other circumstances put together. It is 

 indeed greatly to the credit of the medical depart- 

 ments of both army and navy, that the influence of 

 the mind in preserving and restoring health is more 

 correctly appreciated and provided for than it is 

 even in private practice. In the late expeditions of 

 discovery to the Northern Regions, the utmost 



