THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION and the Worth of evidence.

Evening Star, Issue 4175, 14 July 1876, Page 4

THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION and the Worth of evidence.

Incidentally we .(‘British Medical Journal ’) may gather from time to

i time curiously valuable evidence of the , worthlessness of subjective evidence ' respecting mysterious agencies. The I ‘Student’s Journal’ lately published ! somo ward notes of the impressions ■ which patients occasionally derive from ; the use of the clinical thermometer. ; A young woman who was convalescent,* and whose temperature had long remained norma), had a slight relapse, which she attributed to hav|ing had ‘‘no glass under her arm i 1 lor a week.” A man suffering, from ' acute rheumatism obstinately refused j.to have his temperature taken any ' more, saying “it took too out of him ; it was drawing all his strength away.” A man had been in, the habit for some time of having his temperature ■taken daily under his tongue with , a thermometer that had been doing severe duty iu the axillm of other patients. One night, a brand nfew* thermometer was applied to his mouth next day he declared he was not so well, and said, “ the glass was riot .so strong as usual j he felt at the tiirie the taste was different, and it had done him so much good.” A'kister in one of the women’s wards says that many of the patients:'think; the thermometers are used to detect breaches oi the i;ule against having unauthorised edibles * brought in by friends • and she, accordingly, does not disabuse tbeir minds of their innocent 'superstition. These “ impressions” are precisely- the sort of evidence on which metallic tractors,’ galvanic belts, mesrneris s, and animal magnetisers rely lor their vogue.