INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2014, 12 June 1885, Page 2

INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION.

~ In, reference to the influence of the imagination, on the body, a doctor tells the following story ■ in the Chicago Times:—. ..

"A big'hulking fellow 1 about ten miles from the towii I was practising in, got the idea that he was going- to die at just 11 o'clock in the forenoon of a certain day. About 9 o'clock a messenger came for me. I hurried out. When I got there the crank ( had' fifteen minutes to live, according to his calculations. He did look like a man on the verge of eternity. His eyes were dim and sunken, his face had that peculiar pallor which heralds the near approach., of death, and his breathing was very labored, The family were gathered-around ingas they took a final leaWSomething had to be done quick. uTere was a smart-looking woman there, and I called her aside.: Pointing to lie clock on the mantel-piece wliich the patient was watching, I said " When I havehin< attention turn that. ahead," Then I crowded into the family room, bustled them into the next room,' sat down on the edge of the bed, and began telling that fellow one of 'the, most horrible murder stories you ever heard;" I locate! it right in the town where, he kn«ty everybody, named ' the woman killed, went into blood curdling details, and so completely interested the man that he had , forgotten about' his 11 o'clock appointment. When I gave him the chance to look again it was twenty minutes to 12, and he was actually mad for a time,, claiming that he, had, been tricked. He finally got to laughing, and we all took dinner together! . The next day, he whipped two men at a barnraising, for twitting liim_about the programme of death that miscarried."