DETERRENT THERAPEUTICS In the history of therapy a peculiar phase was the use of all sorts of materials, intensely repugnant to human nature and deterrent to all the finer feelings, but which, nevertheless, proved curative of many ills. We know now that there was absolutely nothing remedial in these substances or methods of treatment, but only the effect produced upon the patient's mind. If the patient makes sufficient effort to overcome the intense repugnance, that enables him to release hitherto latent vital energies, or to correct hampering inhibitions which have prevented curative reactions. The more the patient had to conquer himself, or herself, the more surely did the remedy produce a good effect. It was effective, however, not only among the poor and the uneducated, but often also among the better informed, provided the patients became persuaded of its efficiency. Persuasion in these matters is usually best secured by the reports of cured cases. It is easy to obtain "cures" from almost anything. They are set up as confident proofs of the remedial virtue of methods of treatment. They have been, in the history of medicine, more often the indexes of action upon mind than upon body. Real remedies help patients to get better. Supposed remedies, that afterwards prove quite inert, _cure_. Portions of Corpses.--One of the ingredients of the famous Unguentum Armarium (see chapter on Nostrums) was, as has been said, moss scraped from the skull of a man who had been hanged. It was declared to be particularly efficacious against so-called dead members, such as the blanched fingers of Raynaud's disease, or the hysterical palsies, and other functional paralytic conditions of the limbs. The real therapeutic factor was not the gruesome material itself, but the potent suggestions awakened by it. It is probable that the quacks and witch doctors who gave out the formula of their remedies as containing such material often did not take the trouble to collect them, and that their salves and ointments were really quite inoffensive preparations. {64}