go down-stairs to meet your mother in the parlor!" The young lady automatically arose and obeyed him. The next day she took a walk with her mother, and soon entirely recovered. Dr. Krackowitzer stated that he recognized in her an obstinate case of hysteria, which needed the stimulus of sudden command from a stronger will than her own. I received this narrative from the young lady's father; she has never had a relapse, and is still living in excellent health. Had she been cured by a faith-healer believed in by the family, the mistaken diagnosis of the eminent surgeon would have been heralded far and wide, and the cure considered a miracle.
(k) The cure of obstinate constipation when all medicine had lost its effect, by a medical man who required the patient to uncover the abdomen and direct his thoughts entirely to the sensations experienced in that region, is vouched for by Dr. Carpenter.
(l) The cure of a case of paralysis by Sir Humphrey Davy is a scientific fact of the first importance. He placed a thermometer under the tongue of the patient simply to ascertain the temperature; the patient at once claimed to experience relief, so the same treatment was continued for two weeks, and by that time the patient was well. In this case the imagination of the patient was not assisted by an application to the affected part.
In all the foregoing cases the cure or relief was a natural result of mental or emotional states. As long ago as the time of John Hunter, it was established by a variety of experiments and by his own experience that the concentration of attention upon any part of the human system affects first the sensations, next produces a change in the circulation, then a modification of the nutrition, and finally an alteration in structure.
