MIND AND DISEASE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 241, 5 July 1919, Page 10

MIND AND DISEASE

(By Basil Tozer, in the "Daily Hail")

Some,'vears ago a friend of mine was bitten by a tamo fox. He becamo so terrified at the thought that he might go mad that ho becamo very ill ami died within a month. Tlw.doctor who attend-, od him told me, I remember, that almost any disease, not' excepting hydrophobia, could be contracted through _i'eai\ iho (ox was not mad, and is still alive. 1 know a kenne'.man in a fox-hound kennels whose arms aro bitten all over. 1 asked liim once if ho had no fear of getting hydrophobia. Ho laughed, and replied that lie "never bothered to think about it." There is a. story' well known in tno West of England of.a coachman on oneof the old coaches which used to run from London to Exeter. The coachman was extremely nervous about-his health, nnd one day some of his friends decided to plav a practical, joke upon hun. At evfry town where the coach stopped one of his friends would come up to him and say: "How ill you are looking! What is the matter?" Or words to that effect. Hv the time the conch reached Exeter the'coachman, was seriously ill, and he died next day.