Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/133

 109

UPON THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE

OF

THE MIND AND BODY OF MAN,

IN HEALTH AND DISEASE.

BY JONAS MALDEN, M. D.

Senior Physician to the Worcester General Infirmary.

1 o how great an extent the preservation of health and the cure of disease may depend upon the proper management of the mind, has not, I think, been sufficiently insisted upon by medical writers. The consideration of the reciprocal influence of the mind and body of man, both in health and disease, and an induction of particulars relating to this subject, so as to establish some general laws, and to lead to some practical results, would, I think, be a labour of great utility.

The physiology of the human mind, studied and elucidated by a practical physician, would be inquired into, and treated, very differently, to the manner in which the same subject has been discussed by purely metaphysical writers.

Abstract meta physicians, in treating of the intellectual powers, disjoin, in a manner, the laws of body and mind, as if they were not, in nature, in-