544 



SCIEJSrCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 150. 



last it was impossible to resuscitate him, though 

 not a drop of his blood had flowed. Here the 

 mental sensation was so intensified by attention 

 and expectation, that general bodily effects of a 

 fatal character ensued. The experiments of Mes- 

 mer and Braid are familiar to the older generation. 

 To the younger the miracles of Lourdes are equally 

 well known. They all correspond to the facts 

 already cited, and simply increase the weight of 

 evidence in favor of the proposition that mind and 

 body interact. 



The question will at once arise, Are there any 

 limits to this interaction? It is just here that 

 parties divide. A scientific physician will affirm 

 that even in certain organic diseases, where per- 

 ceptible changes have gone on in the tissues, 

 nature can effect in her slow but steady way most 

 wonderful repairs. But that there are limits even 

 to the powers of nature, is equally well proven. He 

 therefore cannot believe that mental action, how- 

 ever strong, can restore an organ which is hope- 

 lessly destroyed, or can hasten the process of re- 

 pair to such an extent that in an instant changes 

 are produced which ordinarily require weeks. He 

 is, however, familiar with the fact that many 

 diseases whose mental effects are as evident and 

 distressing as in the former class are not attended 

 with organic change ; that in these the organ lies 

 quiescent, ready to do its work at any time under 

 the proper stimulus ; and that here an instanta- 

 neous cure of the disease is possible under cer- 

 tain circumstances. In a word, he believes that 

 functional diseases may yield to mental influences, 

 but that organic diseases cannot be greatly modi- 

 fied by them. On the other hand, the ' Christian 

 scientists,' among whom Miss Titcomb may be 

 classed, do not admit this distinction. Taking for 

 granted the existence of thought-transf err ence, they 

 hold that ' ' the cure of disease is affected by the 

 idea of health becoming, imconsciously to the 

 sick person, the dominant idea in the sick person's 

 mind by transferred thought. Thus the mind- 

 curer's mind is concentrated upon the idea that 

 the sick person has no disease ; and this idea be- 

 ing transferred from the active braia of the mind- 

 curer to the passive brain of the sick person, it 

 becomes there the dominant idea, and the sick 

 person becomes well " (p. 13). A number of suc- 

 cessful cases are related (pp. 46-48), but in none of 

 them are there taherent evidences of the existence 

 of organic disease. Asthmatic attacks, as is well 

 known, come on at night, and pass off in the 

 morning. It proves nothing, therefore, to state 

 that such a patient was treated in the evening, 

 and ' ' when visited the next day was found to 

 have recovered entirely" (p. 49). Further, "A 

 gentleman residing in the same street with the 



writer was very ill with Bright's disease. He 

 had been delirious for weeks, and all hope of his 

 recovery had been abandoned. On passing the 

 house one day, the writer gave the patient, whom 

 she had never seen, a ' treatment.' She found after- 

 ward, upon inquiry, that the patient had recovered 

 from his delirium almost immediately after the 

 treatment was given. She continued to treat the 

 patient, unknown to him or his family, for a fort- 

 night, when she learned that he was able to be up 

 and about the house" (p. 50). Now, aside from 

 the facts that delirium rarely occurs in Bright's 

 disease, and never ' for weeks,' and that the ma- 

 jority of cases recover spontaneously, according 

 to a high authority, the query arises, whether the 

 ' treatment,' which was given in this manner, had 

 as much effect as the medicines the man was 

 probably taking — especially as the 'treatment' 

 seems to have consisted simply in a ' concentrated 

 thought ' on the part of a party unknown to the 

 man. This reminds us of the tales of witch- 

 craft, with a somewhat heightened degree of im- 

 probability. Post hoc with Miss Titcomb is equiva- 

 lent to propter Jioc. But a sober criticism will not 

 hesitate to condemn such statements, because they 

 assume not only the universal action of ' un- 

 conscious cerebration,' but also the possibility of 

 general thought-transf errence, — a fact which is 

 disproved both by the English and more strongly 

 by the American society of psychical research 

 {Science, July 3, 1885). If the logic of such reason- 

 ing is questionable at the start, the conclusions are 

 hardly worthy of a mention. But this is a fair 

 sample of much of the reasoning which has re- 

 sulted in so-called explanations of the mind-cure. 

 Start with a theory not based on facts to explain 

 certain phenomena which have not been established 

 as facts. It is evident that for an explanation of 

 mind-cures we shall have to seek further. 



That there are authenticated cases of sudden 

 recoveries from serious affections of a functional 

 nature, is admitted by all. That the intimate 

 connection of mental and bodily action in health 

 and disease exists ; that such connection has a 

 basis in anatomical structures, which are chiefly 

 nerve-fibres ; that nervous influences may pass 

 over these fibres from the organ to its correspond- 

 ing brain area, or in the opposite direction ; and 

 that under great mental strain or excitement the 

 passage of such influence may be either suspended 

 or greatly increased in intensity, producing un- 

 expected effects at either end of the transmitting- 

 fibre, — are facts which are proven by experiment 

 and observation. To go beyond the facts is to 

 venture into a maze of theories, none of which 

 can satisfy a logical mind. 



A. M. 



