THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1909. DOES THE MIND RULE THE BODY?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3160, 12 April 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1909. DOES THE MIND RULE THE BODY?

Does the Mind Rule the Body? asks and answers Dr. Woods Hutchinson in the "Saturday Evening Post." One of the dearest delusions of man through all the ages has been that his body is under the control of his mind. Even if he did not quit* believe it in his heart of hearts, he has always wanted to. The reason is obvious. , The one thing that he felt absolutely sare he could control was his own mind. If he couldn't control that, what could h*»? Ergo, if man could control his mind and his mind could control his body, man is master of his fate. Unfortunately, almost in proportion as he becomes confident of one link in the chain he becomes doubtful of the other. Nowadays he has quite as many qualms of uncertainty as to whether he can control his mind as about the power of his mind over is body. By a strange paradox we are discovering that our most genuine and lasting control over our minds is to be obtained by modifying the conditions of our bodies, while the field in which we modify bodily conditions by mental influence is steadily shrinking. "For cen- , turies," says the writer, "we pun ished the sick in mind, the insane, loading them with chains, shutting them up in prison cells, starving, yes, even flogging them. We exorj cised their demons, we prayed over them, we argued with them—without the record of a single cure. Now we treat their sick and ailing bodies, just as we would any other class of chronic patients, with r°st, comfortable surroundings, good food, baths and fresh air, correction of bad habits, gentleness and kindness, leaving their minds and souls praetically without treatment, excepting in so far as ordinary, decent humanity and consideration may be regarded as mental remedies —and we cure from thirty to fifty per cent, and make all but five per cent, comfortable, consented, comparativly happy. We are still treating the inebriate, the 'habitual drunkard, as a minor criminal, by mental and moral means with what hopeful results let the disgraceful records of our police courts testify. We are now treating truancy by the removal of adenoids, and the fitting of glasses; juvenile

crime by the establishment of playgrounds; poverty and pauperism by good food, living wages, and decent surroundings, and all for the first time with success. In short, not only have all our substantial and permanent victories over bodily ills been won by physical means, but a large majority of our successes in mental and moral diseases as well. Yet the obsession persists, and we long to extend the realm of mental treatment in bodily disease. That the mind does exert an infiuenec over the body, and a powerful one, in both health and disease is obvious. But what we are]_apt*to forget is that the whole history of the progress of medicine has been a record of diminishing resort to this power as a cure. Instead of being an untried remedy it is the most thoroughly tested, most universal, most übiquitous remedy listed anywhere upon the pages of hisory—and, it may be frankly stated, in civilised countries, as widely discredited as tested. The proportion to which it survives in the medicine of any'race is the measure of thai race's barbarism and backwardness. To-day two of the most significant criteria of the measure of enlightenment and of control over disease of either the medical profession of a nation or an individual physician are the extent to which they resort to and rely upon mental influence and opium. Psychotherapy and narcotics are, and ever have been, the sheet-anchors of the charlatan and the miracle worker."