MIND AND BODY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1734, 5 July 1917, Page 1

MIND AND BODY.

There is a strange and intimate connection between the seemingly unrelated processes of the mind and the body. Yet as the art of doctoring progresses, it is more and more brought homo to the physician that if lie would be competent to understand and treat the ills of the flesh he must have something more than a mere (‘usual knowledge of the workings of man’s mind. The old and very hackneyed'tag, mens sana in corpore- sano, is found -to have a truth even more profound than had been thought. Indeed, it may be open to question whether a healthy mind and a healthy body can live apart. In the matter of minor and temporary derangements of the one or the other we must all have experienced how direct is their mutual dependence. The effect of such emotions as worry, anxiety, fear, hope, or, indeed, any excitement on the whole process of alimentation from appetite to the remoter digestion is too familiar to need exposition. And every doctor knows from long and frequent experience what a large proportion of ills which the patient refers to bodily derangements are in truth but symptoms of an ill-balanced mind, and consequent nervous instability. With the mental and nervous mechanism working as it should do, the ordinary bodily functions should proceed unknown to consciousness. The ill-balanced mind, the so-called morbid and over-intro-spective mind, by continued contemplation of the ego, becomes aware of these physiological workings, and begins meddlesomcly to interfere with them. And just as the selfconscious often blush on all occasions, so the morbidly introspective divert the blood-stream and the general nervous activity from their normal to this or that organ. In all these cases a sort of vicious circle becomes established, and the deranged condition of the bodily functions resulting primarily from the workings of an ill-balanced mind itself reacts on the mind, increasing its disorder and consequent inefficiency. The rational treatment of these conditions, therefore, must proceed along two lines concurrently, and must aim both at reviving normal physiological activity and restoring mental balance and a certain measure of complacency.