Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/776

 756 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

are quite uninformed upon this subject, and who are unable in consequence to understand much that is being revealed by modern research respecting the causation of disease ; and, true to the instincts of mankind, they oppose what they cannot com- prehend, and so advance is impeded.

Again, it is well known today to students of the matter that the mind exerts a profound influence upon all vital function, and it seems that no one should be permitted to meddle with a man's health until he has been made thoroughly acquainted with what- ever is well established regarding the relationships existing between mind and body. One of the old Roman philosophers had some sort of conception of the function of the physician treating the mind as well as the body. " Medicus nihil aliud est quam animi consolatio," he says "A physician does nothing more than console the mind." Cicero says frequently that when the mind is in a disturbed condition, health cannot exist. But what proportion of the physicians now in service have any exact knowledge, so that they can use it advantageously, of the constitution of the human mind, and how it affects vital pro- cesses in its varied states and functionings ? If a law could be enacted requiring that every youth before he would be decorated with the badge of physician should, in addition to what is now commonly required of him, first master all that is known respecting the evolution of the human body and the influence of thought and feeling upon vital function, who can estimate to what extent society would be benefited by this one act ?

And then the physician must be more than a physician in the strict and narrow sense ; he cannot confine himself solely to treating the bodies of men ; as a great force in the social organ- ism, he ought to understand how society is constructed, and what conditions are essential for its health and prosperity. And especially ought he to have developed in him strong ethical and social impulses, so that he will give himself graciously and unstintedly to the service of his fellows a matter which Plato made most prominent in his ideal republic. A highly trained man charged with the conduct of such momentous affairs, but whose motives and incentives are all self-centered, is likely often