The Important Part always played in Medicine by Suggestion—Sir Henry Holland’s Researches—Increased Secretion of Milk, and Cure of Long-standing Hysterical Paralysis, as the Result of Suggestion—Alleged Action of Drugs in Sealed Tubes— Homeopathy and Suggestion—The Apparent Effects of Electromagnets really due to Suggestion—Suggestion in Ordinary Medical Practice—Hack Take on Sir Andrew Clark—Quack Medicines—Christian Science criticised.
Suggestion has ever played an important part in medicine. In earlier and more superstitious times the priest or saint was the physician; suggestion was administered in concrete form, through the medium of saintly relics or holy wells, and the cure ascribed to Divine agency. As superstition decreased, belief in the power of saintly relics diminished, and the cures said to be wrought by them were looked upon as idle tales. Still later, science pointed out how every function of the human body could be influenced by fear, hope, etc.; then, some of the cures were admitted to be possible, while the relics were regarded simply as the means by which the emotional states were evoked.
In 1839, as the result of Sir Henry Holland’s researches (“Medical Notes and Reflections”), the action of mind upon body was still further realised. The influence of the emotions upon physical conditions had, he said, long been recognised, but the effects of the consciousness, directed by voluntary effort to particular parts of the organism, had been overlooked. In his opinion, many of the functions and all the sensations of the body could be influenced by voluntarily fixing the attention upon some function or organ, even when this was unattended by emotion.
According to Braid, it had long been known that various anomalous sensations followed the prolonged direction of the attention to any part of the body; but, although remarkable cures had sometimes followed mental excitement, and severe illness and even death had resulted from fear, it was usually supposed that these sensations were unaccompanied by physical change. Braid said that, with the exception of Sir Henry Holland, no one believed that definite physical changes could be excited, regulated and controlled by the voluntary mental efforts of a healthy individual, or that the same results might be produced by the direct or indirect suggestions of another person.
Braid cited, amongst other alterations in function resulting from suggestion: (1) increased secretion of milk. Of this the following are examples: —
Braid hypnotised a patient who was nursing a child fourteen months old, and suggested an increase of milk in one breast; at that time the secretion had almost disappeared. The breast rapidly became distended, and Braid again hypnotised her and successfully repeated the experiment with the other breast. The patient suckled her child for six months longer, the supply of milk being more abundant than it had been at any time since her confinement.
Esdaile’s sister-in-law, when weaning a child, suffered from painful and swollen breasts. Esdaile mesmerised her, and in half an hour she was free from pain; next morning the breasts were soft and comfortable, and there was no further secretion of milk.
An interesting case is reported by Grossmann. B—, aged 20, primipara, suckled her child for a fortnight, and then ceased to do so, as she had to leave home. Three weeks later she returned, and wished to nurse her child again; but the secretion of milk had ceased, in the right breast, and almost entirely in the left. The patient was hypnotised, and the sensations associated with the flow of milk suggested. In three minutes the veins of the left breast became enormously congested and milk began to flow from it. At first, repeated pressure failed to produce a single drop from the right breast, but, when suggestions were again made, milk was freely secreted. These observations have been confirmed by others, and I have had several successful cases in my own practice.
Cure of long-standing hysterical paralysis without organic lesion. Braid quotes cases in illustration of this, and his observations have been confirmed by myself and others.
The action of drugs in sealed tubes. It was asserted in America that certain drugs acted through glass, i.e. if the patient held the bottle of medicine it produced the same effect as if he had swallowed the drug. To those who laughed, Braid retorted that imagination, attention and expectation could produce the effects attributed to the medicine, and proceeded to prove it. He told a friend about “this wonderful American emetic,” and placed a bottle of coloured water in her hand. She was immediately sick, but the vomiting stopped when she was given another bottle, which she was told was the antidote.
More recently, Luys has asserted that drugs in sealed tubes influenced not only bodily functions, but also moral states; thus, when a tube of laurel-flower water was brought near a Jewish prostitute, she adored the Virgin Mary!
Braid insisted that the effects attributed to “odylic force” were entirely due to suggestion. The following experiment illustrated this, and also showed how, despite supposed rapport, a subject responded to suggestions, even when these were not given by the original operator. A physician told Braid that he had obtained wonderful results from magnets, and claimed to demonstrate this on a mesmeric subject. He showed how, when he touched her limbs with the magnet, catalepsy was produced. Braid then said that he had an equally powerful instrument, and told the physician, in the subject’s presence, that when he put it into her hands it would produce catalepsy; and it promptly did so. After terminating this by passes accompanied by suggestions, Braid placed the instrument in another position, and said it would now have the reverse effect—the subject would not be able to hold it, owing to muscular paralysis. This, as well as many other experiments, was successful. Braid then explained to the physician the real nature of his magical instrument: it was simply his portmanteau-key and ring; and its powers were the result of the predictions which the subject had heard. This illustrated the action of suggestion during hypnosis: neither magnet nor portmanteau-key played any real part in the performance.
In 1843, Braid referred to Elliotson’s belief in the mesmeric powers of certain metals, and to Wakley’s test-experiments. The latter, using a non-mesmerising metal, made the subject believe it was a mesmerising one, and she fell asleep. While Wakley concluded that the subjects were impostors, Braid asserted that the condition was genuine, and due to suggestion: the metals were neither mesmeric nor non-mesmeric. In the same way, Braid explained the action of the “wooden tractors” which Dr. Haygarth successfully substituted for the metallic ones used by Dr. Perkins for the relief of headache. They were applied by drawing them lightly over the part affected, and this method of treatment—very fashionable at one time— was termed “Perkinism,” in honour of its inventor.
Braid believed that these and similar facts explained how hypnotism cured or relieved disease. Suggestion, either verbal or indirect, aroused certain ideas in the mind of the patient. These acted as stimulants or sedatives, and either directed attention to, or withdrew it from, particular organs or functions. In ordinary practice, similar results were produced by prescribing medicines, which acted as
general or local stimulants or sedatives. If blushing a phenomenon due to altered capillary circulation, appeared immediately as the result of a mental impression, dominant ideas might equally well produce powerful effects on other parts of the body.
According to Braid, homeopathy, as well as hypnotism, illustrated the action of suggestion. Sir J. Y. Simpson had proved that one homeopathic dilution was so weak that a patient would have to take a dose every second, night and day, for thirty thousand years, before he consumed one grain of the drug; while another dose would require a mass of the dilution equal to sixty-six times the bulk of the earth, to contain a single grain of medicine.
Further, Braid held that the mental element associated with the administration of drugs in general had been ignored, and that it was worth finding out how much was due to medicines, bow much to suggestion. A mental impression was produced whenever a drug was consciously taken; this might account for the changes of opinion as to the value of particular medicines. At one time a favourite drug appeared to possess every valuable quality, then was discarded as worthless, while later it regained its former position. All this arose naturally: a sanguine doctor prescribed it with confidence, his patients caught the inspiration, and each success increased their faith: Thus the medicine acquired curative powers in excess of its physical properties. Later, when the drug was prescribed doubtfully, the mental influence was unfavourable, and the remedy was robbed of some of its natural value. .
Professor Benedikt’s theory that magnets possess extraordinary therapeutic powers is an interesting modern example of the unconscious use of suggestion in medicine. The magnet, he says, is of more value in certain forms of hysteria than electricity, hydropathy or drugs. When it is applied to the sensitive vertebrae, the irritable patient soon becomes quiet, or even quasi-paralysed. The muscles gradually relax, the respiration becomes sighing, consciousness slowly disappears, and resistance to conduction in motor nerves-may easily become absolute. The two poles have different effects, and the magnet must be applied with caution, as patients may be injured by it.
These statements were tested in America. Electromagnets of enormous power were used (2,000 to 5,000 C.G.S. units to the square centimetre), and experiments were made on human subjects and lower animals. A young dog was subjected to magnetic influence for five hours (apparently an absolutely painless experiment); but, instead of being paralysed from the increased resistance to conduction in motor nerves, on being liberated it was more lively than before. The experimenters concluded that the human organism is not appreciably affected by the most powerful magnet known to modern science, that neither direct nor reversed magnetism exerts any perceptible influence upon the iron contained in the blood, upon the circulation, ciliary or protoplasmic movements, sensory or motor -nerves, or the brain. The ordinary magnets used in medicine, they held, have a purely suggestive effect, and would be just as useful if made of wood.
Some modern authorities now believe that suggestion is largely intermixed with ordinary medical practice, and often forms the most important factor in its success. Of this an interesting example is afforded by Sir Samuel Wilks in his address entitled “Stray Thoughts on some Medical Subjects,” delivered before the Oxford Medical Society on November 9th, 1891. Sir Samuel said: “To sit down in one’s chair daily, and write on a piece of paper the name of some drug for every ailment without exception which comes under our observation, is, in the present state of medicine, an absurdity, and is simply a pandering to human weakness. I do not say that drugs are not useful in a moral sense” - (that is to say their influence, in certain cases, is purely suggestive)—“I am merely contending that the method is not scientific, as we usually apply this term. I know of no more successful practitioner than the late Sir William Gull, and his treatment was rational, but he did not credit any particular drug with the properties ascribed to it by the patient. His prescriptions very often consisted of nothing but coloured water.”
Sir Samuel described a “sixpenny doctor” at a cheap dispensary*, who saw on an average seventy patients each evening, and whose almost universal remedy was a mixture composed of sulphate of magnesia, burnt sugar and infusion of quassia. The following were his directions for successful practice: “Always give medicines which produce appreciable effects; then, also, the mixture must taste like medicine, and if it have a bad smell the patient will be better satisfied.” *[[Footnote: This, as regards cheapness, was not quite equal to a dispensary which advertised: “Advice and Medicine, 2d. Superior Ditto, 4d.” The latter, in its turn, was surpassed by a medical man, of whom I knew, some twenty-five years ago. He employed an agent to tout for members for his Children’s Club: fees, one halfpenny per week, drugs and bottles included!]]
Sir Samuel states that “changes in the pathological views of disease have caused the whole method of its treatment to be altered again and again,” and that “further chemical knowledge frequently shows that the drugs we employ do not possess the qualities we have been in the habit of attributing to them.”
Hack Tuke, in speaking of Sir Andrew Clark, said: “His favourite drugs were bicarbonate of potash and a vegetable bitter, but neither drugs nor diet formed the central factor of his treatment, or explained his success.”
Suggestion lay at the root of it all. The term, however, is too mild unless understood in the technical sense in which it has been employed in recent times. In short, Sir Andrew out-Bernheimed Bernheim; he was, in a word, the most successful hypnotist of his day.” This is specially interesting when one remembers that Sir Andrew publicly stated that, although he had seen nothing of hypnotic practice and was unacquainted with its literature, he unhesitatingly condemned it!
We find Hack Take and Sir Samuel Wilks practically reproducing the views of Braid and Elliotson to the effect that, in many instances, drugs owe their supposed therapeutic value to the faith of the patient. In typical cases, the alleged curative agent is stated to be either nonexistent or inert, as, for example, in the “coloured water “of Sir William Gull and the magnets of Benedikt. The latter, as we have seen, holds that magnets possess extraordinary therapeutic powers, despite the fact that scientific investigation has shown them to be devoid of the properties he attributes to them. His method of treatment is, in fact, a reproduction of “Perkinism,” already referred to.
I do not believe that most medical treatment merits Sir Samuel Wilks’s description, but, apparently, some of it does, thus resembling “faith-healing,” as the curative effects are due to a belief in what does not exist. Such methods have their drawbacks, as advancing knowledge is likely to rob them of their power. The electropathic belts, so freely advertised a few years ago, sometimes caused functional nervous disturbances to disappear; but, to my personal knowledge, these cases relapsed after the exposure. Would Benedikt’s magnets be still efficacious if all his patients knew they were really powerless? Would it not be better either to substitute “suggestion” alone for “coloured water” and magnets, or to employ instead remedial agents of undoubted value? Further, the temperament of the physician has a powerful influence upon his patients, and, other things being equal, their chance of recovery may turn upon the question whether he is an optimist or a pessimist. Again, as we have seen, in a case of neurasthenic dyspepsia, the medical treatment perpetuated the condition by arousing morbid self suggestions in the patient, Babinski has recently asserted that many of the symptoms which were regarded as most characteristic of hysteria are entirely due to the methods of examination of the doctor, and to his unconscious suggestions. According to Babinski, hemialaesthesia, retraction of the visual field and the like are never found in hysteria unless the patients have been medically examined, or have seen other patients examined, or heard these symptoms described. Amongst his own hysterical patients, when these conditions have not existed, and when he has taken proper precautions to prevent them from arising, the symptoms referred to have never been present.
The British Medical Journal has recently published the analyses of various quack medicines; in most of them the drugs were valueless. On the other hand, patients must sometimes have derived benefit, as thousands of people do not go on taking a particular drug if no effect is produced. When, however, cure has resulted, this must have been due to suggestion alone.
Amongst the forms of quackery now rampant, the most prevalent and most dangerous is so-called “Christian Science.” It claims to possess over a thousand churches and tens of thousands of followers, and the harm that is being done in its name is incalculable. One good thing, however, is likely to arise out of evil: medical men in America, alarmed at their loss of practice through Christian Scientists, are beginning to study treatment by “suggestion.” A number of American doctors have already visited me and then gone on to Nancy, while others propose doing so.
What is claimed to be an inspired book, entitled “Science and Health, with a Key to the Scriptures,” has been published by Mary Baker G. Eddy, President of Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and the edition I read was the 149th, but this, I believe, is not the last. On the fig-leaf of the book the following verse gives a key to the situation, and illustrates the lack of humour characteristic of Mrs: Eddy and other self-styled prophetesses:
“I, I, I, itself, I;
The inside and outside, the what and the why,
The when and the where, the low and the high,
All I, I, I, I, itself I.”
The bulk of the book consists of quotations from the Bible and the author’s interpretation of them, and it is difficult, out of the mass of confused verbiage, to choose passages that would give a clear idea of Mrs. Eddy’s theories and practice. I have, however, selected, and will now reproduce without alteration, certain definite statements she makes, and will afterwards attempt to examine them.
Mrs. Eddy says:—“Sickness has been fought for centuries by doctors using material remedies; but the question arises: Is there less sickness because of these practitioners? A vigorous No is the response. . . .The hosts of Esculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mind and body are one. . . . The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient he is sick and treating the case according to his diagnosis, would, by this course, have induced that very disease, even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. He thus commits an unconscious offence against happiness and health, and ensures a good job for himself, if not a fatal one for his patient. . . . Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has not checked sickness . . . . When there are fewer doctors, and less thought is given to sanitary subjects; there will be better constitutions and less disease. Ignorant of the fact that a man’s belief produces disease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician must of necessity increase disease with his own mind. . . . The idols of civilisation are far more fatal to health and longevity than the idols of barbarism. The Esquimaux restore health by incantation as effectually as civilised practitioners by their more studied methods. Is civilisation only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air? . . .All disease is the result of education, and can carry its ill-effects no further than mortal mind maps out the way. . . . The sick are never really healed by drugs, hygiene, or any material methods. . . . The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day and covering it with dirt in order to make it thrive more vigorously in its native element [The italics are mine.—J. M. B.]. . . . When the sick recover by the use of drugs it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which heals, and according to this faith will the effect be. . . . Matter will be finally proven to be nothing but a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect man through its supposed organic action or existence.”
Mrs. Eddy also states that our forefathers were free from disease because they were ignorant of the existence of disease. “You say,” she continues, “a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply manifests your belief in pain, through inflammation and swelling; and you call this belief a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth on this subject, and it will soon cure the boi l. . . Matter cannot be inflamed. Inflammation is an excited stage of mortal mind that is not normal. . . . Christian Science heals organic disease as well as functional . . . It handles the most malignant contagion with perfect assurance . . . Working out the rules of science in practice the author (Mrs. Eddy) has restored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease, and in their severest form. The structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been elongated . . . Carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions, what is called the lost substance of lungs has been restored. . . . If the lungs are disappearing, this is but one of the beliefs of mortal mind. . . . Mortal man will be less mortal when he learns that lungs never sustained existence. Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be structural. . . The treatment of insanity is especially interesting. However obstinate a case, it yields more naturally than most diseases to the salutary action of Truth, which counteracts error. . . What is termed disease does not exist. It is not mind nor matter. . . The dream of disease is like the dreams we have in sleep.” According to Mrs. Eddy, “Christian Science can heal the sick who are absent from their healer, as well as the present, since space is no obstacle to Mind. Immortal Mind heals what eye bath not seen. . . The perusal of the author’s publications heals sickness constantly.”
First, let us admit that there is in Christian Science, as in all forms of successful quackery, a substratum of truth. In this case, the truth, though highly “attenuated,” to use Mrs. Eddy’s own term, is undoubtedly “suggestion.” Mrs. Eddy denies this, and asserts that the attempt to improve or control the organism by will-power, or self-suggestion, is to be condemned.
In her opinion, modern medical science, cleanliness, air and light are all evil, and bar the progress of the human race towards health and happiness. Mrs. Eddy asserts that sin, pain, sickness and death have no real existence; they are only the dreams of mortal mind. On the other hand, although non-existent, they require to be cured, and this she claims to be able to do in every instance; the remedial agent being her “metaphysical mind.” Much of Mrs. Eddy’s book naturally moves to laughter, and she might be forgiven if she stopped short at theory. What must we think, however, of a practice which would deny the help of medicine and surgery not only to grown-up people, but also to children, and which condemns not only general sanitation, but also personal cleanliness, even in infants!
Filth and Mrs. Eddy’s “metaphysical mind are poor substitutes for all the priceless possessions we owe to modern science. Given faith in Mrs. Eddy, I can easily believe that she may have cured cases of purely functional nervous disorder by means of “suggestion.” I have, however, never seen anyone who has been cured by Christian Scientists. On the other band, I have met a good many of their failures. Some of these patients told me that they had received benefit for a time, but later, when the emotional element passed off; they relapsed into their former condition. Other cases, where death has occurred during Christian Science treatment, are investigated from time to time in the Coroner’s Court.
According to Mrs. Eddy, the “metaphysical mind” acts more powerfully in silence than in expressed thought, but best of all at a distance, when operator and patient are both asleep. Thus, Hudson, as we have seen (“The Law of Psychic Phenomena”), talks of telepathy as a recognised commonplace, and describes it as the basis of the most successful branch of Christian Science, namely, “the absence treatment.” When patients know that they are receiving “absence treatment,” and believe in its efficacy, they may receive benefit through their own self-suggestions, but, further than that, no other force is involved.
The idea that one can be influenced from a distance, against one’s will, and without one’s knowledge, is startling enough, even when, the supposed influence is asserted to be for one’s good. What must one think, however, of the mystic who was an anti-vivisectionist as well as a telepathist, and who claimed to have killed Pasteur by malign telepathic influences? The so-called telepathy of Mrs. Eddy is simply an attempt to revive the superstitions and practices of the dark ages. . The occultist who claims to kill telepathically differs little, if at all, from the witch who was willing to do an enemy to death by the slow melting of his waxen counterfeit, and the like. Despite all this, to be able to make patients believe in, and pay for, “absence treatment” shows genius, and must arouse envy in the breast of the hard-working orthodox practitioner. Instead of performing surgical operations, or combating disease by drugs or suggestions, how sweet life would be if one could turn over all this drudgery to the “subconscious mind,” and have the work done successfully while we and our patients slept! In the daytime we could give ourselves up to scientific pursuits, or follow our personal hobbies. Further, as in this form of treatment distance is immaterial, we might stay where we liked, or travel at will, climb to where the dun deer lie, or walk to where the brown trout rise!
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