Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/89

 determining the current of thought, than as showing how prone the thoughts are to run in undesirable currents when the body is out of health: "During an epidemic of fever, in which an active delirium had been a common symptom, it was observed that many of the patients of one particular physician were possessed by a strong tendency to throw themselves out of the window, while no such tendency presented itself in unusual frequency in the practice of others. The author's informant, Dr. C, himself a distinguished professor in the university, explained the tendency of what had occurred within his own knowledge; he having been himself attacked by the fever, and having been under the care of this physician, his friend and colleague, Dr. A. Another of Dr. A.'s patients, whom we shall call Mr. B., seems to have been the first to make the attempt in question; and, impressed with the necessity of taking due precautions, Dr. A. then visited Dr. C., in whose hearing he gave directions to have the windows properly secured, as Mr. B. had attempted to throw himself out. Now, Dr. C. distinctly remembers that, although he had not previously experienced any such desire, it came upon him with great urgency as soon as ever the idea was thus suggested to him; his mind being just in that state of incipient delirium which is marked by the temporary dominance of some one idea, and by the want of volitional power to withdraw the attention from it. And he deemed it probable that, as Dr. A. went on to Mr. D., Mr. E., etc., and gave similar directions, a like desire would be excited in the minds of all those who might happen to be in the same impressible condition." The case is not only interesting as showing how the mind in disease receives certain impressions more strongly than in health, and, in a sense, may thus be said to possess for the time an abnormal power, but it affords a useful hint to doctors and nurses, who do not always (the latter indeed scarcely ever) consider the necessity of extreme caution when speaking about their patients and in their presence. It is probable that a considerable proportion of the accidents, fatal and otherwise, which have befallen delirious patients might be traced to incautious remarks made in their hearing by foolish nurses or forgetful doctors.

In some cases doctors have had to excite a strong antagonistic feeling against tendencies of this kind. Thus Zerffi relates that an English physician was once consulted by the mistress of a ladies' school where many girls had become liable to fits of hysterics. He tried several remedies, but in vain. At last, justly regarding the epidemic as arising from the influence of imagination on the weaker girls (one hysterical girl having infected the others), he determined to exert a stronger antagonistic influence on the weak minds of his patients. He therefore remarked casually to the mistress of the school, in the hearing of the girls, that he had now tried all methods but one, which he would try, as a last resource, when next he called—"the application of a red-hot iron to the spine of the patients so as to quiet their nervously excited