CHANGE OF DIET AND OF HABITS may be also classed amongst the _Ajuvantia_, but the young practitioner must be warned that he is not to exercise his _Caduceus_ as Sancho’s Doctor did his wand. I have seen a young disciple of Esculapius so vex his patient, that his food became more nauseous to him than his medicine, and I verily believe his Physician was more irksome than his disease. It was well observed by Dr. Percival that the prejudices of the sick should never be contemned with wantonness, or opposed with harshness; for, silenced by authority, they will operate secretly and forcibly on the mind, creating fear, anxiety, and watchfulness. And with regard to diet it may be here stated, that no function of the body is so materially influenced by mental impressions as that series of actions constituting what is termed _Digestion_—the unexpected communication of any distressing event destroys the keenest appetite,[257] and converts the sensation of hunger into one of disgust at the bare idea of food: a fact which did not escape the penetrating eye of our immortal Shakespeare, for he represents Henry dismissing Wolsey from his government with these words— —— Read o’er this; And after, this: and then to breakfast _with what appetite_ you have. If feelings of disgust are excited by the repast, the stomach will never act with healthy energy on the ingesta; and in cases of extreme aversion, they are either returned, or they pass through the alimentary canal almost unchanged: on the other hand, the gratification which attends a favourite meal is in itself a specific stimulus to the organs of digestion, especially in weak and debilitated habits. Dr. Merriman has lately communicated to me a case which affords a striking illustration of the powerful influence of the mind upon these organs: a lady of rank labouring under menorrhagia, suffered with that irritable and unrelenting state of stomach which so commonly attends that disease, and to such a degree that every kind of aliment and medicine was alike rejected: after the total failure of the usual expedients to appease the stomach and procure relief, she applied to Miss Prescott, and was _magnetised_, when she immediately, to the astonishment of all her friends, ate a beef steak, and continued to repeat the meal every day for six weeks, without the least inconvenience! but the disease itself, notwithstanding this treacherous amnesty of the stomach, continued with unabated violence, and shortly afterwards terminated her life.