SC I EN CE -Supplement. 



FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1885. 



THE MIND-CURE. 



The attraction of the mysterious is proverbial ; 

 and, as no satisfactory explanation has yet been 

 offered for the series of phenomena which are 

 included in the term ' mind-cure,' it is not sur- 

 prising that the general interest in it keeps 

 ahve. The facts are both too old and too new 

 to be ignored. From the time when Moses lifted 

 up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and 

 assured those who had been bitten by the desert 

 scorpions that if they looked fixedly at it they 

 would recover, down to tlie present day, when the 

 faithful Catholics visit Lourdes in crowds, re- 

 ligious, psychological, and medical records have 

 contained 'authentic' accounts of mind-cures. 

 The facts have been heralded under different 

 names , — ' miracles,' ' mesmerism,' ' animal mag- 

 netism,' ' spnitualism,' 'expectant attention,' the 

 ' faith-cure.' They have always aroused attention, 

 they have given rise to many theories and endless 

 disputes, and they have baffled explanation. The 

 last attempt to solve the problem^ is no more 

 satisfactory than others. What are the phenomena 

 Tvith which it tries to deal? 



If you fix your mind upon one of your fingers, 

 and look at it steadily for five minutes, you will 

 become conscious of sensations in that finger 

 which were previously unnoticed. If the finger 

 happens to be cut, the pain will become more 

 acute, and it may begin to bleed. If it does bleed, 

 and you feel alarmed, you will breathe more 

 rapidly, your heart may palpitate, and your face 

 wiU turn pale : you may even faint away. This 

 is a simple series of phenomena which illustrate 

 the interactions of mind and body. If you hap- 

 pen to have overeaten, and in consequence begin 

 to suffer from indigestion, you will notice not only 

 a physical discomfort in the stomach, but also an 

 indisposition to mental effort, an undue weariness 

 on slight emotion, a growing inclination to look 

 upon the dark side of things, and, if the dyspepsia 

 becomes chronic, a decided persuasion that your 

 financial affairs are becoming involved. Niemeyer 

 relates a story of a very wealthy man whom he 

 treated for chronic catarrh of the stomach. During 

 the disease he thought he was near bankruptcy, and 



1 Mind-cure on a material basis. By Sarah E. Titcomb. 

 Boston, Cupples, Upham, dt Co., 1885. 8°. 



left unfinished a building that he had begun, be- 

 cause he thought he had not sufficient money to 

 continue it. After spending four weeks at Carls- 

 bad, his old strength and feelings returned, and he 

 finished his house with great splendor. Probably 

 there is no one who cannot recollect some instance 

 equally striking of an influence of bodily condition 

 upon mental action. 



The facts of central localization of late estab- 

 lished, have been thought to bear somewhat upon 

 this subject. Every portion of the body sends in 

 a set of nerve-threads to a corresponding portion 

 of the brain, so that an imaginary map of the 

 organs and surface can be pictured upon the sur- 

 face of the cerebral hemispheres. The changes in 

 any organ are therefore communicated to the part 

 of the brain which presides over the organ ; and, 

 conversely, changes in that part of the brain may 

 be communicated in turn to the organ. If we 

 accept the theory that when the attention is di- 

 rected to an organ its part of the brain is thrown 

 into activity and becomes highly receptive and 

 highly potential, we have simply advanced from 

 one set of facts to another without at all toucliing 

 the problem of how the interaction is brought 

 about. 



There are certain affections, however, which can 

 be explained satisfactorily only on the theory that 

 the disease lies, not in the organ which is supposed 

 to be affected, but in the part of the brain which 

 corresponds to it. If my finger is receiving im- 

 pressions of heat or cold which pass unnoticed 

 until I think of the finger, it is conceivable that 

 my attention might be held so closely to some 

 startling sight, that even a severe and painful im- 

 pression in the finger might be unheeded in my 

 interest in the terrible spectacle. Soldiers in bat- 

 tle have been known to go on fighting, though 

 wounded, without perceiving their wound. Here 

 a true mental loss of sensation has been present. 

 Conversely, I may be in such a state of expectation 

 regarding an organ, that a slight sensation in that 

 organ may be misinterpreted and exaggerated tiU 

 it corresponds with the expected feeling. At night, 

 in the dark, how our youthful fears have been ex- 

 cited by a slight noise in the room ! The story 

 goes, that a Fi-ench convicted criminal was told 

 that he was to be bled to death ; and when his eyes 

 had been bandaged, and his arm touched with a 

 cold u'on, drops of water were allowed to f aU into 

 a basin at his side, where he could hear them. 

 He gradually became more and more pallid, and at 



