The following instance came under my observation in India. An officer of the Government was compelled to send native messengers out into a district infected with cholera. As he sent them out they took the disease and died; and it came to such a pass among the Government peons under his charge that a man thought himself doomed when selected for that duty. A German doctor in that region had put forth the theory that inoculation with a preparation of quassia was a specific for cholera—a simon-pure humbug. But this gentleman seized the idea; he cut the skin of the messenger's arm with a lancet so as to draw some blood, and then rubbed in the quassia, telling them what the doctor had said about it. Not a man thus treated died.
The surprising strength and endurance exhibited by lunatics and delirious persons often show that the amount of power which can be commanded by the will under an ordinary stimulant by no means equals the latent strength. Equally true is it that mental and emotional excitement often renders the subject of it unconscious of pain, which otherwise would be unendurable. Even without such excitement, a sudden shock may cause a disease to disappear.
The following was narrated to me by an eminent physician:
