Death and the Mind.--The extent to which the mind can be made to influence the body is apparently without limit. While the doctor is frequently disturbed by the fact that death occurs when there is no adequate physical reason for it, just because the patient has looked forward to it with complete preoccupation of mind, there is no doubt that occasionally death may be put off in the same way. We talk about people living on their wills. This is a literal expression of what actually occurs in certain cases. On the other hand, without the will to live, it is sometimes extremely difficult to keep alive patients who are in a run down condition. If one of an old married couple dies when the other is ill, we conceal the sad news very carefully from the survivor. This is done not alone to put off the shock and sorrow for a time, but because often, under such circumstances, there will be no will to live. When the vital forces have run down to such a degree that it seems impossible, so far as ordinary medical reason goes, to look for anything but dissolution, patients still cling to life if there is some reason why they want to live until a definite time. It does not happen so much with the acute diseases but is quite common in chronic cases. Patients will live on expectant of seeing a friend who is known to be hurrying to them, or for some other purpose on which they very strongly set their minds. In the life of Professor William Stokes, the Irish physician, to whom we owe the introduction of the stethoscope to the English medical world, and many other important contributions to medicine, there is a striking story that illustrates this power of the will to maintain life until a definite moment.