THE 
MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM 
IN THEIR 
RELATION TO DISEASE. 
BY j / 
EZRA M. HUNT, M.D. 
FROM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF 
NEW-JERSEY, 1861. 
lto-§|0rk: 
JOHN A. GRAY, PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND BINDER, 
FIRE-PROOF BUILDINGS, 
CORNER OF FRANKFORT AND JACOB STREETS. 
1861. ESSAY. 
THE MIK'D AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IK THEIR GEKE- 
RAL RELATIOKS TO DISEASE. 
BY EZRA Jtf. HUNT, M.D. 
Although the mind and the nerves are by no means synony- 
mous terms, yet both, so far at least as inorganic life is concerned, 
have to do with thought, sensation, volition and motion ; and 
as such we can not thoroughly dissociate them. There is no 
definite septum by which we can divide them, no mediastinum 
which spreads its surface between them ; but intermingling 
and commingling they are intimate co-workers in elaborating 
the repeated miracle of existence. With their bearings upon 
mental philosophy, and the abstractions of human logic, we 
have little to do. No theme deals more in hypothesis, and 
none is less determinated by the balances and weights of mere 
human reasoning; but when we take the more sunny side of 
the subject and view it in its bearing upon medical science and 
medical art, we find in them both practical points which it is 
immensely important we should investigate and understand in 
order that we may be successful in deriving from them true 
principles of practice. 
We are encouraged in this attempt by the amount of accu- 
rate knowledge in other departments, and the aid which this 
furnishes in conducting such an inquiry. Anatomy, not con- 
tent with general divisions of bone, sinew, and muscle, has 
dissected down into the minutiae of matter until it enables us 
to speak with precision of the varied parts of this elaborate 
machinery. Physiology, with the delightful achievements of 
the present century, passes us from organ to function, and by 
rigid scrutiny and close analysis introduces us to the laws of 
secretion, excretion, nutrition and repair. Pathology comes to 
our aid with its revelations of the distinct relations of certain 
symptoms with definite changes, thus redeeming from the 
oblivion of death, pieces of disease, in order to construct from 
them living ideas which should tell for good on the treatment 
of the next sufferer; while amid them all, the microscope, as 4 
THE MIND AND NEKVOUS SYSTEM. 
an earth-angel of light to our calling, penetrates, with its mul- 
tiple of eyes, the hidden points too minute for human optics, 
and brings even these to the cognizance of the microscopist’s 
mind. Thus we are not groping in thick darkness when we 
attempt to grasp at the connections of nerve and mental states 
with the actual phenomena of disease. 
When physicians were shut out from any such knowledge, 
we very naturally had the Galenists, with their theories of heat 
and moisture, and all their fanciful descriptions, while amid the 
dangers of learning, just extensive enough to be indefinite and 
venturesome, the alchemists experimented with almost equal 
rashness in crucibles and human stomachs. Next came the 
mighty war of the solidists and humoralists, one finding all the 
status and germ of disease in the solid, bulky, and located ma- 
terial, while the others beheld the liquids as the source of all 
bodily ailments, and the veins and arteries as the high roads 
and channels of death. From all these discussions, two impor- 
tant theories have been handed down to us of the present day, 
as the basis of medical science, and together with experience, 
as the foundations of correct practice. The one introduces us 
to man as a machine, to which the general laws of mechanics 
duly apply. It is important that we should continue to keep 
this view before us. In surgery it is a prominent indication, 
and in internal obstructions and local difficulties, we may often 
avail ourselves of the laws of gravity, and since Physiology has 
shown us how organs act, even this mechanical view is worthy 
of careful and thorough analysis. Yet we must not so admire 
the wonderful construction of the human form as to give undue 
preponderance to this idea. Errors in this respect showed 
themselves among our medical ancestors and still cling with 
tenacity to some practitioners. They led to manifold contriv- 
ances for putting and keeping bones in place and yet neglected 
general and hygienic measures. They felt the great indication 
to be to cleanse the stomach, move the bowels, unload the 
lungs, unlock the liver, drive out the eruptions, spur up the 
kidneys, and draw off all congestions by depleting the veins. 
This is the mechanics of medicine. 
The second introduces us to man as a laboratory. It looks 
upon the human system as a chemical establishment upon a 
large scale—upon life as a grand chemical result, and the prac- THE MIN'D AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
5 
tice of medicine as merely an effort to correct the erring chem- 
istry of disease. These views have received an impetus from 
the wonderful discoveries which the science, in our age, has 
heralded, and from the manifold combinations it has offered 
for our trial. 
The laws of chemical action have a deal to do with the hu- 
man system ; but not only are we not mere chemistries, but 
the chemistry of man, as much as there is of it, is the most 
subtle and intricate of its departments, and the following 
sources of error must .be remembered : 
I. Changes and combinations which will take place invari- 
ably out of the body will not always occur within it. 
As far down as the stomach you may follow an acid with an 
alkali, or a poison with its chemical antidote, yet oven here we 
find sources of trouble, and must be on the look-out that our 
new compounds are not redissolved. When we pass this, the 
only portal gate to the vast system of absorption and circula- 
tion, our chemical affinities are involved in many doubts. Be- 
cause a certain substance is wanting in the blood, we do not al- 
ways most directly furnish it by giving a chemical preparation 
containing it. In fact, medicines, parts of which are not in the 
blood in its normal state, such as Iodine and Quinine, are some- 
times our most efficient remedies, and are not known to act 
chemically. 
II. The results of the act of chemical combination may be 
deleterious to the system even though the compound itself 
■would be innoxious or useful. There are gases set free and 
noxious vapors formed in the process of combination, and 
when we proceed to treat the human system as a chemical 
power we must take account of these liabilities. 
III. The laws of chemistry which are applicable in health, 
are not equally so in disease. Physiological and pathological 
action are two very different things, and the laws of the one 
do not guide to those of the other. In Cholera, as has been 
shown by administering coloring material, one great terror is 
that absorption is suspended, chemical conclusions as to astrin- 
gents, etc., are stultified, and nothing, or nothing at least ex- 
cept the most powerful stimulants impressing the nervous sys- 
tem, can reach it. In low fevers, and in many other diseases, 
what chemical laws there have been are set aside. How few, 6 
THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
after all, are the remedies which we have reason to believe act 
chemically. In the poisons of the exanthemata, we do not at- 
tempt chemical antidotes—in fevers we do not know of speci- 
fics—in inflammations we can not neutralize, and in chronic dis- 
eases we can not follow out chemical laws. Chemistry is, to a 
great extent, a demonstrative science, and yet the effects of 
medicine on a diseased system, it seldom demonstrates to be 
chemical. Quinine has not been shown to act chemically on 
miasm, Colchicum on the gouty diathesis, or Chlorate of Potash 
on Stomatitis. Though alkalies benefit Rheumatism, there are 
serious and unanswered difficulties in the way of supposing 
them to act merely as neutralizing lithic acid; and in the great 
variety of medicines, how few show us a definite chemical 
power. Fear, emotion, and the like, will cause acid and alka- 
line reactions as well as Potash or Vinegar. When we obtain 
results, we must always value them as experience, but not al- 
ways put them down as chemical results. 
M. Trousseau, before the French Academy of Medicine, of 
late ventured so far as to say, that: “ In the field of practical 
medicine, the chemists have not only no camp, but hardly 
enough ground to raise a tent upon.” But our design is not 
to sustain such an opinion, or unduly to depreciate the value 
of either mechanical or chemical means, for we have already 
spoken of them as valuable contributions from the past. We 
only desire to restrict their claim within proper bounds, to 
subject them to accurate tests, and now to notice a third view 
as equally important in making out the philosophy and prac- 
tice of treatment. 
We have to do with something besides man the machine, 
and man the laboratory. There is something more ultimate 
than these in the investigation of human material and human 
life. A knowledge of nerve laws and of mental states as a 
part of the physician’s attainments, and as having direct bear- 
ing upon treatment, must be fully recognized. We have an 
all - powerful, controlling, nervous agency; and connected 
therewith, an acting, thinking mind, which pushes in behind 
our mere flesh and blood calculations, and shows itself a 
power to be measured and met in the successful management of 
our patients. 
This view has already modified the treatment of many in- THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
7 
tense mental diseases, so that in asylums the strait-jacket and 
severe drastics have, in many cases, been superseded by the 
sympathetic influence of favorable outward circumstances, and 
by attention to such means as soothe and overcome, through 
mental and nervous impressions. 
But in other diseases, too, we are certainly living in an age 
of wonderful modifications in treatment, in part to be traced to 
this mento-nervous view of man, or to an experience which, 
in advance, has thrust such investigations upon us. The days 
of heroic remedies and heroic practice have almost passed 
away. We now hear more of the adynamics than of the dy- 
namics of disease, and are in search for phlogistics rather than 
antiphlogistics. The asthenic type even in inflammatory dis- 
eases is thought of as well as the sthenic and sub-acute ail- 
ments, with a prominent nerve element, attracting more and 
more our attention. The doctrine of irritation has thrust it- 
self in behind that of inflammation. 
In affections of the same general name as those in which our 
predecessors bled by the quart, Prof. Simpson is giving chlo- 
roform almost “ ad libitum.” Opium even in pneumonia and 
active inflammations, is disputing more and more vigorously 
the ground of the various depletives. Veratum Yiridi, and 
other sedatives are sueing for the place of eliminating depres- 
sents, and where the lancet, the emetic, and hydragogue cathar- 
tic once held the supposed regis of health, Belladonna, Aconite, 
Strychnine, and Hydrocyanic Acid are claiming a more direct 
and effective sway. 
Another significant point is, that these nervous and mento- 
nervous disorders are manifestly on the increase, and those 
who have been perplexed and troubled over this class of cases 
have, no doubt, sometimes united in the wish of that ubiqui- 
tous woman of Sydney Smith, Mrs. Partington, who “ wished 
that she had lived in times when people had no narves.” 
As we compare our experience with the subjects treated by 
the older authors, or as those among us venerable with age 
and practice compare their present with their earlier experi- 
ence, it is readily admitted that there is a great proportionate 
increase of these diseases, and, what is equally important, of 
nervile and mental symptoms in diseases not entitled to that 
distinctive appellation. Not only has neuralgia become a pop- 8 
THE MIND AND NEKYOUS SYSTEM. 
ular disease, and hysteria so common even in men that au- 
thors do not object to the general application of the term, but 
fevers and inflammations have their mento-nervous element, 
and the name typhoid attaches itself in connections which 
would have seemed marvellous to the synochial Cullen, the 
bold Hunter, and the bleeding Rush. This being the case, we 
need not only to be chemists and pathologists, but nerve phys- 
iologists and psychologists too, not in the visionary sense of 
those resolving all disease into mystery and ideality, but rather 
in the substantial view of the thinking, conscientious, practical 
physician, who sees in his profession a vast scope of necessary 
science, and feels called upon to study mind and matter both, 
in order to obtain successful results. We must know some- 
thing of human nature as well as of human flesh—of nerves as 
well as of muscles—of the moving powers of functions as well 
as the chemical laws and organs through which they are exe- 
cuted. We must be physicians not as dealers in physic, but, 
remembering the true derivation of our names, be practical 
philosophers in the study of man’s nature. 
Using the term Neura-Psychology as denoting that science 
which teaches us the relation of the mind to the nerves, and of 
both tft disease, we believe it rapidly taking its place by the 
side of Mechanical and Chemical views of the human body; 
and, with these, as destined to acquaint us still more intimately 
with the fundamental laws which will in time guide to a more 
demonstrative practice. Examining the centres of nerve 
power—of sensation, emotions, perceptions and will—we are 
at the starting-points of disease, as well as of health. We are 
among the pivots and finer workmanship of that mighty ma- 
chinery whose unseen driving-wheel is the Intellect, whose 
life-power acts first amid nerves, and whose methods of action 
bear directly on practice. The Phjrsician, in making out his 
line of treatment, must ever have this in view—not, like the 
Specialist, confining his mind to the one idea, or, like the 
Charlatan, giving the credit of results from a real principle to 
unprincipled spiritual manifestations, sugar-pills, or magical 
manipulations; but, in so far as it is an appreciable law of 
human life, applying it to the management of disease. 
That we may not seem to over-estimate these views, it may 
be worth our while to notice, for a moment, how far this prin- THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
9 
ciple is tacitly or avowedly recognized by cotemporaneous 
practical writers on medicine. 
“Impressions,” says Watson, p. 971, “ which are unheeded, 
are unfelt and inoperative.” . . “ The senses become im- 
passive in proportion as the mind is fixed upon some absorbing 
subject of reflection, or enchained by some powerful emotion 
—impressions made upon the organs of sense are no longer 
taken notice of; the corresponding sensations, if they are 
excited at all, are not remembered, and the effect of such 
impressions is as if they had never been ; they are not followed 
by the usual consequences.” ... 11 The morbific effect 
of cold upon the system, is certainly modified by the degree of 
attention that is paid to the sensation it excites.” 
“There are not wanting,” says Wood, “facts to show that 
changes in the character of the blood, causing disease, may 
result from the action of the nerves, and the secretions become 
unhealthy under perverted nervous influence.” (Yol. 1, p. 7.) 
“ The first symptoms of fever are such as indicate derange- 
ment of the nervous functions.” (P. 83.) “ There are not 
wanting practitioners who overlook, in a great measure, the 
collapse of the nervous system, (in passive congestions,) to 
search for the sources of danger in sanguineous engorgement.” 
(P. 83.) ... 11 Innumerable derangements in the 
secretory functions often depend exclusively upon disease of 
the nervous centres.” 
Then, as to mind: “Scarcely less essential to health than 
the due influence of external physical and moral causes, is that 
of the actions of the system regulated by the will.” (P. 129.) 
“ Mental influences are sometimes very powerful in superseding 
intermittent and other diseases.” (P.134.) . . . “Mental 
preoccupation is preservative, in a considerable degree, against 
some morbific effects.” The influence of depressing passions 
is often fatally felt at periods of public calamity, either in a 
greater tendency to low forms of disease, or a greater suscepti- 
bility to any prevailing epidemic.” (P. 65, vol. 1.) “Depress- 
ing mental emotion is often followed by a copious flow of 
aqueous urine.” (Jones, p. 18 of Braithwaite, No. 38.) 
“ It is not long since a case came under my notice, in which 
grief for the loss of a relative was followed in a few hours by 
intense jaundice.” (Carter.) 10 
THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
Dr. Carpenter mentions that “ it is an India custom to detect 
a thief among the servants of a household, by causing them all 
to chew uncooked rice, the offender being distinguished by the 
comparative dryness of his mouthful.” It is well known 
how fully this author recognizes the mind and nerves as 
pervading elements in disease. “A simple direction of the 
consciousness to a part independent of emotional excitement, 
but with the expectation that some change will take place in 
its organic activity,” says he, “ is often sufficient to induce such 
alteration, and probably would always do so, if the concentra- 
tion of the attention were sufficient.” By still more recent 
investigations, still more importance is to be attached to such 
views as these. M. Bernard, the Professor of General Physi- 
ology at the Academy of Sciences, ably presents the views ot 
those contending that the “ nervous system is not only the 
origin of all the phenomena of life, but is also that of all 
pathological action.” “It is easy,” says he, “to show that all 
the symptoms of disease to which different parts of the animal 
economy are liable, may be produced by direct irritation of 
their corresponding nerves. We can even give rise in this 
way to all the anatomical lesions by which they are charac 
terizedand in animals he has thus produced: Fever, Diar- 
rhea, Dysentery, Peritonitis, Albuminuria, and other diseases, 
both general and local, not accidentally, but by definite irri- 
tation. 
But this result is not only produced by material means. In 
man the mind and nervous states may so operate on the system 
as to bring about these results. “The series of motive and 
secretory phenomena, the results of mental emotion,” says 
Marshall Hall, Lancet, 1857, “ constitute a most interesting 
subject of new inquiry.” Did time or space permit, the views 
of many others might be adduced to corroborate those already 
mentioned. 
But we need but analyze our own knowledge and expe- 
rience to set us to reflecting earnestly upon the mind and the 
nerves as elements of disease. The blush upon the cheek at a 
shy remark, the pallor of fear, the diarrhea from intense ex- 
citement, the feeling of prostration often following high emo- 
tion, the feeling better from the cheerful visit of the physician, 
the power of confidence as an element in cure, the dash of water THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
11 
as reviving respiration in faintness, and multitudes of other 
familiar illustrations—what are these but index-fingers point- 
ing us to the power of nervous and mental impressions? A 
fit of Hysteria is often relieved by a shrewd coup d’ etat on the 
part of the physician ; often even in Colic the stomach is aided 
in retaining a medicine by the direct effort of the patient, 
assisted by the encouragement of his attendant; a pain is often 
controlled by persistent attention to the mento-nervous state 
of the sufferer, and real suffering sometimes ceases when an 
unexpected and welcome friend arrives. The truth is, we are 
none of us wanting in abundant facts illustrating the oft-con- 
trolling power of mental and nerve-force; but the fault 
is, that while mainly attracted by the Mechanics and Che- 
mistry of treatment, we have not in general classified the facts 
so as to derive from them much guide in practice ; they have 
been too much left to form the truthful basis upon which 
quackery has erected its foul superstructure. It will not do 
to pass all these off as imaginary and trifling ailments. The 
pain, the anguish, the phenomena, are real, and there is a real 
philosophy of treatment with which it is our duty to meet 
them. There is nothing in which we, as a profession, fail so 
much as in a practical management of this mento-nervous 
organism of man—regarding its manifestations in sickness too 
much as incidental complications, rather than as the starting- 
point of morbid action. But when such men as Marshall Hall, 
Sir Benjamin Brodie, Carter, Carpenter, M. Bernard, Brown- 
Sequard. Hanfield Jones, Winslow, and others among our most 
eminent Physi-, Psyco-, and Pathologists, have made specialties 
of this subject, and eminent practitioners are grasping at and 
applying the principle, we need not fear but that definite re- 
sults will be attained. 
ISTow let us briefly inquire, What are the theoretical conse- 
quences of these views of disease ? 
I. It vastly modifies the whole theory of treatment. It 
suggests ideas of practice behind and independent of the deple- 
tion of a congested organ, or the removal of a depraved secre- 
tion. If the disease has commenced in the nerves, our bleeding 
and cathartics, and all our Chemistry and Mechanics, are only 
removing results, not checking causes. It may be more worth 
our while to address remedies, such as sedatives or stimulants, 12 
THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
to the starting-point first, or, if too late for this, to value deple- 
tives and cathartics merely as preparing for these. It shows 
how at the early stage an opiate may cure a cold or an ague, 
and explains the value of that ten grains of Dover’s powder 
after a bleeding. It points us to sedatives, stimulants, and 
tonics, as chief remedies, because addressed to nerves; and the 
so-called promoters of secretion, and chemicals generally, as 
very secondary—valuable only as they remove the morbid 
results of morbid action. 
II. It starts us upon an accurate inquiry as to the opposite 
states of the nervous system causing similar symptoms. 
We may have, it is believed, irritation of the nervous sys- 
tem, and even spasmodic action, from two very different condi- 
tions—from a prostration of the general system, or from over- 
excitation, just as we have all the symptoms of Hydrocephalus 
from an inflammation of the brain, or from the state of anoemia 
following cholera infantum. In the one case sedatives, and in 
the other stimulants, will accomplish the desired result. It is 
often a nice point of Diagnosis, the importance of which is only 
to be estimated by the prevalence of nerve symptoms. It is 
claimed by some that what we call alteratives are really nerve 
or tissue sedatives, and what is known and is popular as 
Todd’s sustaining treatment in acute disease, claims that 
“ alcohol is valuable, not as a medicine, but as a nutritive ali- 
ment of the nervous system.” 
III. These nerve views magnify the value of external medi- 
cation. We affect the nervous organism powerfully through 
the skin. This cutaneous covering may not seem so hidden 
as the capsule of Glisson, or the Malpighian bodies, but with 
its no less wonderful mechanism, and its nearer proximity, we 
may address treatment to it full as certainly and wisely. Even 
the direct influence we may exert upon it is considerable, but 
when we take into the account all the phenomena of reflex 
action, we can scarcely overrate the importance of external 
appliances. 
Medically, with its secretion, exhalation, capillary circula- 
tion, and, most of all, its nerve net-work, it is more worth our 
study than any one internal organ. The power we have over 
the system through it has never been overrated. The start- 
ling effects of a small scald upon a child, the power of the cold THE MIND AND NEKVOUS SYSTEM. 
13 
douche, the connection of diseases with changes of temperature 
first impressing the skin, the quick relief often following a 
perspiration, or the free use of rubefacients as vesicants, plainly 
show this. 
Many an external application which I once regarded as the 
grannyism of an antiquated practitioner, or the placebo of an 
officious nurse, I have learned to value, and I doubt not this 
is the experience of many others. What we are at present 
learning of the nerve origin of disease, explains many astonish- 
ing and recognized results of topical applications; and impres- 
sions made upon these cutaneous nerves reach deeper down 
among the fimbriated roots of disease than we have been ac- 
customed to suppose. With the facts as to the important part, 
primary, secondary, direct and reflex, which the nervous 
system plays in disease, it is not difficult for us to see how ex- 
ternal appliances are not only safe, but very efficient remedies. 
IY. These views of the controlling power of the nerves, 
show us the importance of mental influences as a part of our 
treatment. Often, through the medium of the mind, we pro- 
duce powerful effect upon the nerves, and with these acting 
so prominently, the mind, for good or ill, is a powerful instru- 
ment. Here, again, we are not wanting in bundles of facts, 
but are deficient in that classification of them which results in 
definite laws of practice. Joy and sorrow, love and fear, and 
all the varied emotions, how often they show their traces in 
disease. The play of the Will controlling, or half-pleasurably 
submitting to, irregular action, the power of the mind to resist 
disease, the ill effects of discouragement, the power of endu- 
rance under intense excitement, and the multitude of mental 
facts which come under the cognizance of every practitioner, 
unite to declare that as Physicians we are not mere Artisans— 
not only workers among matter—not merely repairers and 
jobbers amid unruly organs and irregular machines—but 
regulators of thought, will, sensation and emotion. 
Take at random a case or two. 
It is related of a distinguished practitioner of London, that 
in an epidemic of continued fever, all his patients had a disposi- 
tion to jump out of a window upon the pavement. It was soon 
discovered that having had one patient do this, he afterward 
cautioned the nurse at each house he visited to guard against 14 
THE HIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
such an accident. The patient, in his half-dreamj mood, be- 
came possessed to do the very thing. 
Sir Humphry Davy, in his younger days, assisted Dr. 
Beddoes, who was trying to cure disease by the inhalation of 
gases. Before applying the inhaler, Davy was accustomed to 
ascertain the temperature by placing a thermometer under the 
tongue. "While thus employed on a countryman, who fancied 
this was the wonderful process he had heard of, the man ex- 
claimed that he already felt better. Davy took the hint, left 
the thermometer in its place some time, and reapplied it every 
morning. His patient improved in health, and ultimately got 
well, without any other treatment. 
“The cures,” says Dr. Beale, “effected by mesmerism, may 
be explained, in most instances, by the influence of the emo- 
tions, and a highly excited imagination.” 
It was once the fashion of regular practitioners, either to 
deny the cure, or else to assert that the disease was altogether 
imaginary. But too many facts have accumulated upon us in 
experience to enable us to sustain any such doctrine ; and the 
true state of the case is just this: Beal diseases may be cured 
by the intervention of imaginary remedies, the real cure being 
effected by the mind and will acting upon the nerves. The 
iniquity of the Charlatan is in deceiving others, and sometimes 
himself, by assigning some other cause. Many diseases are 
the result of a loss of will-power over what should be volun- 
tary motion, and the effort of the practitioner should be to 
restore this. I have known a person capable of having a real 
convulsion at will, and have seen a child relieved by the per- 
sistent will of the mother, and abundance of authenticated cases 
are on record where the strong mental power of a friend has 
aided another in the restoration of lost will-power. Even in 
diseases not technically nervous; this principle comes in, and 
the mind often performs a part in prevention or recovery. It 
is no less the business of the practitioner to surround his patient 
with circumstances favorable to mental comfort, than it is to 
address himself to more material functions. It is not the 
weak-minded only who in sickness may be affected by appa- 
rently trivial circumstances. I have known the details of a 
nervous case related by a kind neighbor to throw a convales- 
cent patient into an irritative fever, a report of a sudden death THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
15 
to cast a gloom over favorable symptoms, and the know- 
ledge of having taken a particular remedy to cause sensations 
corresponding to real results. These are but casual specimens 
of an experience which each practitioner can fully confirm, 
showing how the mind, through itself and the nerves, is an 
element in disease. 
Y. These considerations show what a small part it is of a 
good Physician’s duty to deal out internal medicines—true, a 
part not to be discarded or despised—at times a grand indica- 
tion; but we must put on and keep on the thinking-cap, and 
see how much we can do for a human sufferer by nutrients, 
by external appliances and surroundings, by mental preoccu- 
pation, or without, at least, plying the heavy machinery of 
rapid elimination. The surface impression, trembling along 
the lines of telegraphic net-work, will sometimes meet response 
as surely as the booming thunder of a cannon-shot. That 
Physician has a contracted view of the true glory of his profes- 
sion who looks to giving pills and powders as the main point 
of his medical life; as a rule, it is the “dernier” resort. The 
four methods by which we reach the nervous and the prevail- 
ing elements of disease, namely, by mental impresssions, by cor- 
rect Hygiene, by cutaneous impressions, and by internal reme- 
dies, each need a rigid surveillance. In the first we must need 
study the laws of emotions; in the second, physiology ; in the 
third, those of direct and reflex nerve-action; and fourth, the 
subtle action of medicines, especially of sedatives, stimulants 
and tonics. Many of these are powerful as poisons, and, while 
limiting former heroic remedies, we must still feel that amid 
Chloroform, Veratrum, Aconite and Strychnine, we are dealing 
with multum in parvo heroics. Here Physiology, Pathology, 
Chemistry, and Mechanics teach us little—we must draw con- 
clusions slowly, astutely, accurately, and then lean confidently 
on the arm of trustworthy Experience. It is thus this subject 
magnifies the value of rigid observation. 
2. a. How let us inquire what direct practical results we 
have from this mento-nervous view of disease. It is leading 
to changes in practice no less than to modifications of theory. 
Hanfield Jones, the able physician to St. Mary’s Hospital, 
represents the actual practice of numbers when he remarks 
that, “ Our great point in treatment is not to eliminate disease, 16 
THE MIND AND NEltVOUS SYSTEM. 
but rather to sustain the nervous system, and regulate its 
phenomena.” In a large class of maladies where no organic 
change has occurred, we do not feel called upon to adopt the 
same active measures as if the blood-vessels or immediate 
organs were in fault. Hence, those modes of treatment in 
fevers and sub-acute inflammations, and in chronic diseases, 
which, instead of concentrating attention upon the elimination 
of morbid material, strive so to invigorate and impart tone to 
the nerve energy, as to make it incompatible with perverted 
secretion—stopping the manufacture of bad material, rather 
than expending all our force in evacuation. It may, at first 
sight, seem very scientific to correct bad secretions or un- 
healthy fluids by a mechanical rule or chemical formula, but 
when we find Bernard and others, demonstrating that “albu- 
minuria, polyuria, and diabetes, are invariably produced by 
excitation of definite points of the medulla oblongata, the 
peculiar form being determined by the particular portion acted 
upon,” we see that a tonic state of the nerves often cures a 
disease which mere solvents can not reach. 
1). In cases of anaesthesia, or asphyxia, from any cause, we 
again have very practical results from these views of the ner- 
vous system. Kamsbotham remarks: “ That the primary effort 
of respiration is upon the principle of nervous excitability, 
and, as cutaneous nerves are supplied from the same source as 
the diaphragm, we may effect it by irritation of the surface.” 
This idea is applied to the resuscitation of infants, to cases of 
faintness, to checking hemorrhage; and thus in obstetrics we 
have a class of remedies more quickly responsive, and often 
more worthy of confidence, than those given internally. “ The 
cutaneous excitor nerves are the mediums,” says Marshall 
Hall, “through which we can excite respiration, and the glow- 
ing results of the adoption of a practice based upon such views 
by humane societies for rescuing the drowning, is an admirable 
practical illustration of results.” Ought we not to follow out 
the hint in rescuing from other perils? 
c. Still more glowing and encouraging is the light thrown 
upon direct diseases of the nervous system, as manifested by 
irregular action. Many affections, once regarded as organic, 
are shown to be eccentric, and of centripetal or cutaneous 
origin, and, as such, amenable to treatment. “The cases of 17 
THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
Epilepsy,” says Hall, “ which occur in private practice, are for 
the most part eccentric and curable, however, for many rea- 
sons, difficult to cure.” “ The sympathetic normal and mor- 
bid changes of nutrition, secretion, etc.,” says Sequard, “ are 
reflex phenomena, the study of which shows that many dis- 
eases are produced by reflex action, and how a rational mode 
of treatment may be arrived at. Much more frequently than 
has been imagined, all the following affections may be pro- 
duced by a peculiar kind of irritation starting from almost any 
centripetal part of the nervous system: chorea, catalepsy, hys- 
teria, tetanus, etc., etc.” That manifold nervous affection 
coexists with intestinal, uterine, and cutaneous irritation, is 
easily proven, and how they act and react on each other, as 
cause or effect, is a nice point for study. A large number of 
cases are on record where a single sensitive spot of skin has 
given rise to phenomena simulating disease of nervous centres, 
and Brown-Sequard’s experiment with the guinea-pig beauti- 
fully illustrates this. These discoveries as to peripheral ner- 
vous irritation, have already been applied in practice with 
encouraging success, as well as the more general facts as to the 
nerve-origin of disease. 
The bearing of these views upon Hygiene and dietetic mea- 
sures, is well illustrated by a single extract from Sir Benjamin 
Brodie. “Mr. Chadwick,” says he, “has shown that many are 
driven to drinking gin as affording a temporary relief to the feel- 
ing of depression and exhaustion produced by living in a 
noxious atmosphere,” and he gives instances of individuals who 
had spontaneously abandoned the habit when they were enabled 
to reside in a less crowded and more healthy locality. . . The 
Temperance Society “ can make few converts among those who 
live in crowded buildings, unventilated, and with imperfect 
drainage.” Here we Have, as it should be, depression of the 
nervous system, resulting from external causes, recognized as 
the source of both physical and moral evil. 
Next, as the mind is a powerful actor upon the nerves, we 
have learned to notice it in the treatment of disease. It is a 
high and legitimate part of our art to learn to use mental influ- 
ences in our charge of the ailing. We need, in cases, to 
study the minds of those who are sick, if we would secure their 
recovery. The phenomena of mental influences are so abun- 18 
THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
dant in the experience of every practitioner, that few now deny 
their power. One has a decided change of symptoms from 
misfortune ; another, knowing the action of a medicine he has 
taken, imagines all the ill consequences he has ever heard 
attributed to it; a third, terribly fearing a prevailing epidemic, 
is the first to be attacked ; and numberless facts show us the 
mind as a power in diseases, general as well as local. Prof. 
Clark, in enumerating anti-hemorrhagic remedies in bleeding 
of the lungs, adds, “and, not the least important, the quieting 
of the mind of the patient.” The success which in some cases 
has attended “ the movement-cure ” of Ling, as it is called, is not 
less dependent upon the mental than the muscular exercise 
it insures. It has been well remarked that paralysis often 
continues after the cause of it has been removed, “because it 
requires a special effort to reestablish the connection of brain 
and muscles. The nerves must be reeducated to perform their 
functions by gentle, well-directed efforts of the will on the 
affected muscles, until the latent power is developed into an 
efficient one.” 
Forbes Winslow, tracing the moral results of mind-power, 
makes this weighty remark : “ The power of self-control is in 
many instances weakened or altogether lost by a voluntary 
criminal indulgence in a train of thought which it was the duty 
of the individual in the first instance to withstand, control and 
subdue.” But fully to elucidate our subject, would require a 
book, rather than an essay. Our design has been to introduce, 
rather than exhaust, the theme, and to commend it to those 
more competent, in its significant and practical bearings on 
our professional success. We have desired, by glances at facts, 
to give prominence to the nerve origin of disease, and at least 
to show that nervous and mental states are to be under super- 
vision, and an effort in practice made to reach sources, rather 
than merely to remove morbid secretions resulting. There is 
no more fruitful field of inquiry now presenting itself in the 
whole range of our beautiful Science, and I shall be fully re- 
paid if these thoughts shall lead those present to collate their 
own experience, and to investigate, test and apply these prin- 
ciples in their own practice.