Hope as a Remedy Against Disease.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1973, 28 February 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Hope as a Remedy Against Disease.

Dk. J. Mortimer Gbanville has been lately rather Beverely handled by the medical proes of London, because he wrote a letter on this aubject to one of the daily papers. He ia criticised aa having performed an unethical act in thus advertising himself in an unprofessional manner in a lay journal. This question we will leave to our transatlantic brethren, while we say a few words upon the aubject matter of hia letter. But little touched upon, hope aa a remedy against disease in, if wisely and judiciously employed, one of the most valuable and useful means that the physician can employ. Call it what we may, and reason about it as we please, no ma'i of experience will for an instant question that imagination, the prejudices, the mental condition, the conviction of the patient, in many cases, exerts a most powerful and a most real influence upon the progress and termination of diseased conditions. Ha 3 it not happened to every one of our readers (it repeatedly has to us) to diecover accidentally, so to apeak, a condition of chronio disease, which has evidently been present for years, and yet the patient has maintained fairly good health, and is, at the time of the discovery, in no immediate apparent danger ; yet when told that he is afflicted with an incarabla disease that may carry him oil in a few days, or that he may live for months, immediately wilts, like the sensitive plants when touched, and dies in a day or two? Again, do we not all know of cases of chronic disease, in persons with a happy, hopeful, contented disposition, disease that we felt sure would soon prove fatal? And yet we see them go on day after day and year after year enjoying apparently good health. Of course we are familiar with find thoroughly recognize the faot that worry, that mental anxiety, is diametrically opposed to good health and long life; and in this fact we recognise the explanation of the influence of depressing opinions and advice ; for if we tell a man with a nervous temperament that he may die in a few days, from that moment all peace and contentment vanishes from his life, while anxiety, worry, and unrest take possession of his whole being. The practical point to be deduced from these reflections is that it will redound not only to your patient's advantage, but also to your own professional reputation, to make it & rule always to take the most hopeful view that is possible of the patient's condition, especially when the man or woman is one of the " nervous, worrying kind," and always to remember that " hope kept alive " id the great secret of success among quacks. Let ua steal their thuader. — The hied, and Surg. Reporter.