St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical StudentBerdoe, Edward
General
St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student
Berdoe, Edward
Medical students -- Fiction
fever in the midst of one of his campaigns. The malady soon turned to
typhus, and he was given over by his physicians. Lying at Lerino at the
point of death, he heard the wild shout—“The Austrians!” The enemy had
suddenly come down upon the little town, and the slaughter of his
followers had begun. Springing from his bed with an infusion of new
life in his veins, he buckled on his sword, and led his troops,
inspired by his own wonderful personality, to conflict and victory.
What was the influence of the mind in effecting this cure? Ah! that is
no part of a medical curriculum. Mesmerists, spiritualists, theologians
may deal with that as best they may—it is beneath the notice of the
colleges.
A fact like this is surprising only to those medical men who have never
studied psychological medicine.
The miracles of Lourdes and of hundreds of other Catholic shrines need
not be denied altogether as unworthy of credence. There is abundant
evidence that some cases of cure do really occur in connection with
faith healing. Those who have made a study of mesmerism have adduced
instances of healing by its means which it would be foolish to deny. So
much charlatanism and fraud have always been mixed up with these things
that it is not perhaps matter of much surprise that they are held in
low esteem by men of science. Still, as there are undoubted phenomena
in connection with them worthy of patient examination, it is surprising
that so prominent a field of inquiry should be so completely neglected
by our doctors, while it is considered necessary to know precisely how
long a dog covered with varnish would live, and how many degrees of
heat a rabbit can tolerate before succumbing to its agony. A young lady
of hysterical temperament, who had been humoured to the top of her bent
by her medical man, had, after a few months of gynæcological treatment,
become so enfeebled in mind that she imagined she had lost the use of
her lower extremities, and even succeeded in inducing her doctor to
believe that she really was unable to walk. She was advised to consult
a well-known hospital physician, who was chiefly celebrated as a true
mind doctor. When he took his seat by the couch of the invalid he soon
diagnosed her malady, and, finding she was of high intellectual
culture, asked permission to read to her. The doctor was an admirable
reader, and his rendering of a long and soul-stirring passage from one
of the great poets _made_ the girl forget her ailment so completely
that she sprang from her couch with energy as he paced the room
declaiming the poem, and exclaimed, “Is not that magnificent?” At that
moment the deluded woman found the complete use of her limbs, and a few
more readings cured her without other medicine. They don’t teach this
sort of things in hospitals,—not the curative part, at least.
Examiners at the colleges would “plough” the man who ventured to
propose readings from Shakespeare three times a week with dramatic
action as a remedy for hysteria.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account