CHAPTER XIV.

MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MIND AND BODY IN DISEASE, 288

Inadequate views of this influence prevalent. Importance of understanding it. Connection of mind and body. No proof that mind is essentially indestructible. Manifestations of mind connected with and dependent upon the material organization. Brain in some sense seat of mind—central organ of the nervous system, with which mind is connected. Other subordinate nervous centres. Bichat’s idea of the seat of the moral sentiments. Weakness of mind in sickness. Slight causes affect it strongly. Importance of quiet in sick room. Difficult to secure it. Visitors. Conversation. Children as easily disturbed as adults. Holding up physician as a bugbear to them. Exciting the mind commonly irritates bodily disease, whether in the brain, or in some other organ. Death of Hunter caused by a fit of passion. Duty of physician sometimes to excite the mind in various ways and degrees. Influence of imagination upon the body. Use to be made of mental association in the treatment of disease. Diversion of the mind. Influence of change of scene on the invalid. Monotony of sick room. Settled gloom with which the sick sometimes afflicted. How removed. Want of tact in managing whims of the sick. Notional dislikes. Fretfulness and impatience. Deranged sensations erroneously supposed to be mere imaginations. Importance of a faithful study of mental influences to the physician.