Civics and Health

Name: Civics and Health
Author: Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)

Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)

Hygiene; Public health

Quackery makes cures and makes money because of the undoubted influence
of mind in causing and in removing those ailments that originate in
fear, imagination, or morbid introspection. A few years ago a little
out-of-the-way town in southern Minnesota was visited by train loads of
the sick and crippled from miles around. Miraculous cures were heralded
broadcast. Life-long cripples left wagon loads of crutches and braces
to decorate the little church with the enchanted transom. People who
had not walked for years returned to their homes cured. The marvels of
famous shrines were fast being duplicated when the church authorities
at St. Paul issued an explanation of the alleged miraculous appearance
of biblical figures in the transom of the new church. The outlines of a
mother carrying a baby had been vaguely impressed in the transom glass
when molten. When the mystery was explained the excursions and the
cures stopped.

Nearly every physician and practically every medical charlatan can
count scores of cures of ailments that had previously defied the skill
of eminent physicians. A child's bumps actually stop aching after the
mother or nurse kisses the abused spot. Invalids forget their
limitations under stress of some great excitement or some intense
desire for pleasures incompatible with invalidism. Many a physician of
reputation owes his success in great part to the discriminating use of
the _placebo_,--a bread pill designed to supplant the patient's fear
with confidence. Hypnotism and "suggestion" have been successfully used
to cure alcoholism and to fill patients' minds with conviction stronger
than the fear that produced the sickness. A well-known writer and
preacher cures insomnia by auto-suggestion, telling himself he is
sleepy, is very sleepy, is going to sleep, is almost asleep, is fast
asleep. Treatment by osteopathy has been followed by disappearance of
diseases that cannot possibly be cured by osteopathy. Christian Science
has restored to health and happy usefulness hundreds of thousands of
chronic invalids. Verily is hygiene of the mind an important factor in
the civics of health.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)

Science

Civics and Health

Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)

Hygiene; Public health

Quackery makes cures and makes money because of the undoubted influence
of mind in causing and in removing those ailments that originate in
fear, imagination, or morbid introspection. A few years ago a little
out-of-the-way town in southern Minnesota was visited by train loads of
the sick and crippled from miles around. Miraculous cures were heralded
broadcast. Life-long cripples left wagon loads of crutches and braces
to decorate the little church with the enchanted transom. People who
had not walked for years returned to their homes cured. The marvels of
famous shrines were fast being duplicated when the church authorities
at St. Paul issued an explanation of the alleged miraculous appearance
of biblical figures in the transom of the new church. The outlines of a
mother carrying a baby had been vaguely impressed in the transom glass
when molten. When the mystery was explained the excursions and the
cures stopped.

Nearly every physician and practically every medical charlatan can
count scores of cures of ailments that had previously defied the skill
of eminent physicians. A child's bumps actually stop aching after the
mother or nurse kisses the abused spot. Invalids forget their
limitations under stress of some great excitement or some intense
desire for pleasures incompatible with invalidism. Many a physician of
reputation owes his success in great part to the discriminating use of
the _placebo_,--a bread pill designed to supplant the patient's fear
with confidence. Hypnotism and "suggestion" have been successfully used
to cure alcoholism and to fill patients' minds with conviction stronger
than the fear that produced the sickness. A well-known writer and
preacher cures insomnia by auto-suggestion, telling himself he is
sleepy, is very sleepy, is going to sleep, is almost asleep, is fast
asleep. Treatment by osteopathy has been followed by disappearance of
diseases that cannot possibly be cured by osteopathy. Christian Science
has restored to health and happy usefulness hundreds of thousands of
chronic invalids. Verily is hygiene of the mind an important factor in
the civics of health.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Civics and Health

Civics and Health

No reviews yet