imagining that we are affected with them. The consequence of a fancied disorder for a protracted period, is certain organic disease. The patient who fancies he labors under an affection of the heart, disturbs the circulation, which is ever influenced by the moral emotions, until at last this disturbance creates the very malady which he dreaded. The imagination, however, has not thus always been destructive of health and life. To its influence may be attributed the occasional cures at the tombs of saints, amid the ashes of a martyr, or by a canonized bone. Many a person has thus cured himself when he has devoutly attributed his restoration to health to some saint in the calendar. The charlatan reaps his harvest from the operation of this principle. The patient's mind is filled with accounts of "surprising cures of undoubted authority," and in consequence takes his draught, mixture or pill, with a sure and certain faith that he will be made whole. Pills of no more abstruse materials than bread and water have thus been known to effect the most marvellous cures. The wonderful remedial powers of Perkins' metallic tractors, which created so much wonder for a while in the world, were undoubtedly, in a large degree, owing to the influence of the imagination, as was proved by the equal success of the false tractors: rheumatism, stiffness of the joints, and paralysis, were cured by bits of wood, tenpenny nails, disguised in sealing wax, slate pencils dignified with a coat of paint, tobacco pipes, pieces of gingerbread, and other equally harmless materials.

"John Peacock," says Dr. Haygarth, "had been affected for four months with weakness of the hip and severe rheumatic pains, brought on by working in a damp coal pit. The false tractors were applied; at first they caused considerable pain and very restless nights; but after a few trials he began to sleep unusually well, had fewer attacks of pain, and appeared happy and confident in the idea that a remedy had been discovered for his complaints. With such a subject the event may be easily anticipated. This morning he came to thank me for my services. I cannot help mentioning

Haygarth on the Imagination.
Dr. Robertson, of Tennessee.

one circumstance respecting this man; he came to me one day complaining of a violent settled pain in his forehead, which he said 'almost distracted him,' and requested me to draw it out.' The pieces of mahogany (false tractors) were drawn gently over his forehead for a minute and a half, when the throbbing began to abate, and in two minutes had nearly ceased. In about three minutes the man arose from the chair saying, 'God bless you, sir, now I am quite easy.' He was attacked with this pain only once afterwards, which affected his vision considerably, but it was removed as easily as in the former instance."

"Such tricks hath strong imagination."

Man, says Aristotle, is an imitative animal, and this truth holds good in the production and extension of diseases as well as in the habits, occupations and amusements of life. Boerhave records that "A person fell down in a fit of epilepsy in the ward of a hospital where there were many persons present who witnessed the effects; such was the impression the occurrence made upon the spectators, that many were thrown into similar convulsions." We find in Babington's translation of Hecker on the "Dancing Mania," the following further illustration of the influence of sympathy in producing disease. "In Lancashire, a girl in a cotton factory put a mouse upon the bosom of one of her fellows, which frightened her into convulsions, which continued for twenty-four hours. Three more were seized the next day, and six more on the following one, and in four days from the first, the number of patients amounted to twenty-four." Lock-jaw is said sometimes to be taken by a witness of the disease, from mere sympathy with the pain and suffering of the patient.†

A medical writer, who was an eyewitness to the effects of a great religious agitation or revival, compares the convulsions of those "who were affected with the spirit" to the movement of a newly caught fish when thrown upon the land, and another authority, in describing a similar affair in Lanarkshire, says the agony under which they labored was expressed not only by words, but also by violent agitations of the

† Good.

§ Dr. Meik.

body, by shaking and trembling, by faintings and convulsions, and sometimes by excessive bleedings at the nose. Our every-day experience of the effects of revivals, "protracted," and camp meetings, freely confirms the truth of these statements. The fanatic preacher, insensible to the sweet influences of the meek spirit and gentle charities of our Saviour's gospel of love, skilled in the dialectics of the "raw head and bloody bones" school of eloquence, appeals to the fears and passions of an ignorant audience, thunders out his anathemas and stern denunciations, and pictures to them in awfully vivid colors, "the burning gulf,"

," "the fiery hell," "the unquenchable flame," and "the unceasing torments," the terrors that await them in another world. Thus are their bodies and minds tortured into disease of the direst kind. Thus are made unnumbered victims of convulsions, idiocy, madness, bedlam and the church-yard. Of the influence of study and the exercise of the intellectual powers upon the physical functions, our author remarks:

"It is an opinion not uncommonly entertained, that studious habits, or intellectual pursuits, tend necessarily to injure the health and abbreviate the term of life

that mental labors are ever prosecuted at the expense of the body, and must consequently hasten its decay. Such a result, however, is by no means essential, unless the labors be urged to an injudicious excess, when, of course, as in all overstrained exertions, whether of body or mind, various prejudicial efforts may be naturally anticipated."

The justice of this view is substantiated by the fact of the long life of many devoted to literary occupations. Boerhave lived to seventy years of age, Locke to seventy-three, Galileo to seventy-eight, Sir Edward Coke to eighty-four, Newton to eighty-five, and Fontenelle to a hundred. Leibnitz, Volney, Buffon and others, lived to very advanced ages. Many of the greatest men of our own country, as Chief Justice Marshall, Jefferson, Franklin, Jay and others, lived the lives of patriarchs. There seems but little question that a certain extent of mental activity is beneficial to the health, and that the degree of intellectual exertion that can be healthfully

sustained depends much upon the original constitution of the mind and the force of physical energy which accomFanies it. Dr. Sweetser is disposed to think that the injurious effect of study upon the physical health is exaggerated, and that the disease which is often the accompaniment of a studious life arises from the transgression of the obvious laws of a judicious hygiene. That disorders of the digestive functions are more frequent in our academic institutions than in those abroad, is a well recognized fact that there exists a perfect disregard of physical education, is equally well established. It is not so in the universities abroad. The ablest wrangler in the halls of Trinity or the first classic of Christ Church, is not seldom the boldest swimmer and the stoutest oarsman of the Cam and Isis.

It would appear from the statistics collected by Dr. Madden, in his interesting book on the Infirmities of Genius, that certain intellectual pursuits are more conducive to long life than others; that the average age of the Natural Philosophers is seventy-five years, being the greatest, and that of the Poets fifty-seven, being the smallest. Those studies which draw most largely on the imagination, seem less favorable demand the exercise of the dispassionto long life than those which simply

ate reason.

Our author remarks judiciously and with force upon the blighting influence of a too premature intellectual education. It would be well for every parent to mark well and digest his pertinent observations upon this subject. The hot-bed system of education, which is too prevalent among us, is a crying evil. There is nothing so injurious to the physical health and vigor, as the forcing prematurely the mind, while the body is in its youth and weakened by the demand upon its strength for growth and development. It does much towards filling the churchyard with the youthful dead.

"Præcocibus mors ingeniis est invida semper."

Youthful prodigies of learning are too often youthful prodigies of disease.

"Premature and forced exertions of the

mental faculties must always be at the

enfeebled by overlabor and digestion, impaired by indulgence, finds his appetite improve, and his capacity for food increase, by attention to style and elegance in the serving of his dishes, while a plain and inelegant simplicity which appeals only to the grossness of a hungry appetite, fails to excite a desire, if it does not produce a positive disgust. In sickness, the delicate fastidiousness of the patient often interferes with the operation of a nauseous medicine, and frequently great anxiety for the peculiar operation of a remedy prevents its action. In fever, the symptoms increase in intensity by the most ordinary excitement of the mind. Often, the confidence inspired by the gold-headed cane and wise Burleighnod of the physician, exerts a more excellent influence than the most efficacious of remedies. When the body is weakened by disease, and the powers of life almost stilled, a sudden arousing of the mind will give renewed vigor to the wasted frame, cause the blood to course more freely through the veins, and bestow the physical energy of health upon a system suffering previously from the debility of disease.

"When the mind is quicken'd, out

the

Haller quotes a case of gout cured by a fit of anger. The severest toothache not unfrequently departs, upon approach of a dentist armed with a formidable wrench. The most whimsical remedies have proved efficacious in cramp; and many other diseases have been unable to resist a necklace of toads, rings of coffin nails, and such epicurean niceties as gladiator's blood, raw liver, and vultures' brains. Intermittent fevers have been cured by the swallowing of live spiders, of the snuff of the candle, and by charms of various contrivance. We doubt whether such remedies would prove equally efficacious at the present day; but assuredly, human nature is not so far changed, as to be insusceptible of the same mental effects as those to which such cures are traceable.

We

The extensive resources which the fine arts disclose, might be made liberal use of as a means of curing disease. Music, whose influence is so powerful on the mental emotions, would prove a fruitful source of useful remedy. have ancient authority in favor of its employment. Pythagoras directs certain mental disorders to be treated by music. Thales cured a disastrous pestilence by its means. Martinius Capella affirms that fevers were thus removed. Aulus Gellius tells us that a case of sciatica was cured by the influence of sweet sounds, and Theophrastus maintains that the bites of serpents and other venomous reptiles can be relieved by similar means." We find it stated in a late medical journal, that the convulsive movements in a case of St. Vitus's dance were completely under the control of music, that they were quickened and increased by rapid and stirring tunes, subdued and repressed by slow and gentle airs.

It is a question of deep interest to the medical philosopher, how far the constitution of modern society affects the production of disease and the duration of life. "It is not the direct and known risks to our health," says a late writer in Blackwood, "which act with the most fatal effects, but the semi-conscious condition, the atmosphere of circumstances, with which The great artificial life surrounds us. cities of Europe, perhaps London above

all others, under the modern modes of life and business, create a vortex of preternatural tumult, a rush and frenzy of excitement which is fatal to far more than are heard of as express victims to that system." Existence in the active world of a large city necessarily involves, as society is now constituted, such a degree of mental wear and tear, that the most robust physical organization cannot long sustain it without suffering. The excitement of politics, trade and commerce, the intellectual efforts of the statesman to meet the demands of his high station, the anxieties of the great merchant whose millions are at stake, stimulate the mind to such activity, that disease is inevitable. Nervous affections, disorders of the brain and insanity, seem the almost unavoidable evils of our higher civilisation. Those facts, if true of older countries, apply with tenfold more force to society as organized in America. The very spirit of our institutions urging to constant progression, the frequency of political change, the absence of fixedness of social position, the rich man of to-day being the poor man of to-morrow, the continuous struggle for advancement, the prize being accessible to all, the disenthralment from antiquated modes of thought and the universal spirit of free inquiry, beget an unrest unknown to more ancient forms of society. It is not surprising, then, that insanity, nervous diseases and the disorders of the digestive functions, the frequent effects of excessive mental activity, should abound to such an extent among us.

To counteract the morbid influence upon health of the mental restlessness of our community, men's minds must be diverted from

"The passions and cares that wither life;"

the anxieties, the toil and trouble of business, and relaxed by the healthful influence of the gentler emotions. To promote this end, the most efficacious

means seems to be an extension of the taste for pleasures of an elevated character.

There is a great want of capacity among us for the right enjoyment of life. Surpassing all people in commercial enterprise and laborious energy, skilled beyond example in the means and appliances" for the acquisition of wealth, we are far in the rearward of most nations in the proper appreciation of its uses. The end is lost in the struggle for the means. Living in a land where the laborer is deemed worthy of his hire, where industry meets the highest reward and the necessaries and luxuries of life are of easy attainment, we strive with a might unequalled by the want-compelling efforts of the foreign worker to whom a pause from toil is starvation. We journey along the rugged road of life, without reposing by its waysides of pleasantness and peace. Our care-worn countenances and saddened looks strike the stranger as a curious illustration of our boasted happiness. The companionable Englishman, missing among us that spirit of good fellowship which at home prompts the merry gathering and prolongs the social hour, and the pleasureloving Frenchman, feeling his holiday cheerfulness chilled by the dull monotony of our working-day life, conclude that "all work and no play" has succeeded in its legitimate effect of making Jonathan a "dull boy."

We look for a remedy to this unwise intensity of devotion to business, to the encouragement (coupled with the improvement) of the theatres, to public concerts, the founding of galleries of art, the establishment of national holidays, the promotion of social pleasures, and otherwise extending the motives which may urge to refined enjoyment. In the absence of these, the public mind will continue to seek, in the fanaticism of religion and the excitements of trade and politics, for that stimulus which serves to administer to the prevalent passion for mental intoxication.