342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EMOTIONS AND INFECTION. 



BY M. CH. FEKE.* 



n~^HE relation that exists between the activity of the nervous 

 system and resistance to causes of destruction may be illus- 

 trated by facts of different sorts. It has been often remarked, 

 and the registers of the academies confirm it, that we find many 

 old men among scientific and literary people. Whether the re- 

 sistance in question is attributable to the habitual exercise of the 

 mental functions, or vital resistance and mental power are con- 

 jointly attributable to a good natural organization, the relation 

 is no less certain. The same relation is found, susceptible of like 

 interpretations, among persons without cultivation, whose exist- 

 ence has been, as we might say, all organic, and who are more 

 exposed to the action of atmospheric inclemencies and to all the 

 chances of mortality. The remark is attributed to Baillon by 

 Cabanis that porters and laboring men offer only a feeble resist- 

 ance to blood-letting and purgatives. Nothing is more remark- 

 able than the facility with which weak-minded persons succumb 

 to acute diseases of every kind. 



Many violent maladies have been supposed to have been pro- 

 duced under the operation of moral influences. Sennert believed 

 that fear was capable of provoking erysipelas. Hoffmann also 

 made fear and the adynamy resulting from it play an important 

 part as the predisposing cause of contagious diseases. Dr. H. 

 Tuke believed, in particular, in the influence of fear upon the 

 contagion of rabies. The breaking out of rabies has been some- 

 times observed after psychic emotion. Bouley cites the case of 

 a dog which went mad after having been immersed in water. 

 Gamldia cites a similar case in a man, and another in a woman 

 who was frightened by a drunken man. In order to avoid 

 the influence of fear, Desgenettes concealed the name and the 

 nature of the plague ; and it is to be remarked further that the 

 Turks died less rapidly of it than the Christians. Cullen sup- 

 posed that sad emotions favor contagious diseases, and particu- 

 larly the plague. This disposition to contagion after violent 

 emotions which determine discharge of the secretions may be 

 partly explained by the fact that the conditions that diminish the 

 proportion of the liquids of the blood favor absorption. It, how- 

 ever, seems at least probable that the nervous discharge is accom- 

 panied by alterations of the blood and modifications of the in- 

 terior medium which justify the popular expressions concerning 

 having bad blood and turning the blood. It is admitted that 



* From his work on the Pathology of the Emotions. Paris : Felix Alcan. 



