Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/79

 of infectious diseases may be produced by fear acting on idiosyncrasy demands very serious investigation; for as it is now generally conceded that morbid micro-organisms do not exist ab ætero, it is essential to know by what unhealthy conditions the micro-organisms, or living particles that always surround us, become disease germs.

One of our most distinguished London physicians has full records of the following noteworthy case, which is given not as scientifically proved, but as indicating a line of research which it is folly to ignore or refuse to investigate.

This gentleman attended a patient some years ago in an attack of confluent small-pox under these remarkable circumstances: This patient had always exhibited a morbid horror of the disease, refusing to hear anything about it, or to allow it to be referred to in his presence. A friend on one occasion brought a very fine collection of anatomical plates to show him, sent over from France. Amongst them was a representation of confluent small-pox in a woman. No sooner had this gentleman beheld it than he cried, 'Take it away. I cannot look at it; it makes me ill!' The next day his son sent for the doctor to