reassures him, his discomfort will probably continue for some time. Pathological Suggestion.--In a word, suggestions of disease are much easier to take than is usually imagined, and if people read or hear much about diseases they are likely to jump to the conclusion that they are sufferers. Under present conditions there are many more such sinister suggestions put before people than used to be the case. The newspapers are constantly reporting curious cases and rare diseases, and usually those of absolutely unfavorable prognosis and inevitably fatal termination are particularly dilated on. Pathology has become a source of many sensations, until the community {94} generally has come to eke out the thrills of the day's news by reading about fatal diseases and fatal injuries, whenever murder and suicide sensations fail. As a consequence, many become persuaded that they are suffering from forms of disease of which they have not a symptom, and, not infrequently, the wonderful cures that are reported in the newspapers consist of nothing more than recoveries from these imaginary ills into which people have suggested themselves as the result of reading about morbid states. A typical illustration of the power of the mind to influence the body unfavorably is recognized in many of the comic stories that have had a vogue in recent years. Their underlying thought is that if a man is only told often enough, and by a number of different people, that he does not look well, or if he is even asked a little solicitously as to whether he feels well or not, he will almost invariably begin to persuade himself that there must be something the matter with him. After a time, under the influence of this unfavorable suggestion, he begins to feel tired and is likely to think that he cannot go on with his work. When meal time comes his appetite fails him. A victim has been even known to go home and send for the doctor, persuaded that there is something the matter, simply because a series of friends, for a joke, or sometimes through a mistake, have insisted on asking him questions that called attention to his state of health. Few men are strong enough to stand the influence of unfavorable suggestion of this kind, if it is frequently repeated. More direct forms of suggestion of disease have, of course, even greater effects. Many a man goes to a quack only feeling a little out of sorts and wanting to reassure himself, but easily becomes persuaded that there is something serious the matter with him.