Prof. R. P. Halleck says: "Were it not for this power of the imagination, the majority of quack nostrums would disappear. In most cases bread pills, properly labeled, with positive assurances of certain cures accompanying them, would answer the purpose far better than these nostrums, or even much better than a great deal of the medicine administered by regular physicians. Warts have been charmed away by medicines which could have had only a mental effect. Dr. Tuke gives many cases of patients cured of rheumatism by rubbing them with a certain substance declared to possess magic power. The material in some cases was metal; in others wood; in still others, wax. He also recites the case of a very intelligent officer who had vainly taken powerful remedies to cure cramp in the stomach. Then 'he was told that on the next attack he would be put under a medicine which was generally believed to be most effective, but which was rarely used.' When the cramps came on again, 'a powder containing four grains of ground biscuit was administered every seven minutes, while the greatest anxiety was expressed (within the hearing of the party) lest too much be given. Half-drachm doses of bismuth had never procured the same relief in less than three hours. For four successive times did the same kind of attack recur, and four times was it met by the same remedy, and with like success.' A house surgeon in a French hospital experimented with one hundred patients, giving them sugared water. Then, with a great show of fear, he pretended that he had made a mistake and given them an emetic instead of the proper medicine. Dr. Tuke says: 'The result may easily be anticipated by those who can estimate the influence of the imagination. No fewer than eighty--four-fifths--were unmistakably sick.' "We have a well authenticated case of a butcher, who, while trying to hang up a heavy piece of meat, slipped and was himself caught by the arm upon the hook. When he was taken to a surgeon, the butcher said he was suffering so much that he could not endure the removal of his coat; the sleeve must be cut off. When this was done, it was found that the hook had passed through his clothing close to the skin, but had not even scratched it. A man sentenced to be bled to death was blindfolded. A harmless incision was then made in his arm and tepid water fixed so as to run down it and drop with considerable noise into a basin. The attendants frequently commented on the flow of blood and the weakening pulse. The criminal's false idea of what was taking place was as powerful in its effects as the reality, and he soon died.... There is perhaps not a person living who would not at times be benefited by a bread pill, administered by some one in whom great confidence was reposed."