MEDICAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

CONTROL OF DISEASES.

MIND AND BODY.

HOW TO KILL FADS

(By PERITUS.)

Faith and mental healers and psychologists run upon parallel lines, both believing in the control of diseases by will, faith, and suggestion. The former, however, include physical ills in their schemes, the latter only disease of ner-

| vous or mental origin. You are going a J journey. There is packing to be done, and you must arise earlier than usual. You have no alarm clock, so you say to your inner self, "Wake me at live, wake liie at five," as you get into bed; and lo! at five next morning you awake at that hour. Or you forget the name of a person or a place, and you put the worry aside and leave your inner self to remember it for you when you are not consciously thinking. Soon —it may be in the niglit—the name will be given you. The mind has worked the little miracle for you, as it will the answer to a problem. "The psycho-pathologist uses this inner self to quell symptoms, to rectify defective functions and disperse depression, to create courage (ind cheerfulness, and develop characteristics of good quality. If there is physical disease or injury he advises physical means of relief, biit if the ill is directly or indirectly mental, lie says the inner self, the self which controls the heart, the lungs and involuntary functions, which comes to your instant aid in danger, which puts love and grief beyond your conscious control, will correct ninetenths of common ailments. Power of Suggestion. Some faith healers go further, and hope by thought to remove a thorn, or command an aching tooth. Mind and matter are related, but apart in function, and when the faith healer can will away a thorn he can stop an explosion or wash out the results of a railway accident. The control of suggestion as directed towards others is often successful, and towards oneself (auto-sug-gestion) it will work wonders, but it i<* not a general gift of equal power in all of us. Some have the trick of tricking themselves, and it is better to will away a pain or discomfort than to will its continuance in the form of a habit. Oncevou realise that your mind controls your bodv, if only in -part, there is a road to health and comfort which advice, treatment and drugs may help you to travel, but which can be travelled without them. It is true that the foundation of the power of self-control is best laid in very early youth, when it is possible to teach children to "make licrht" of ailments of mental or nervous origin, but a determined effort often repeated will finally destroy the habit of encouraging a mental weakness due to the lack of self-knowledge.

Influence of Will. The "first thing to kill is the "fad." It is imagination which convinces one that a certain food "disagrees" with one. If a nourishing and a normal reason-ably-used food is, or has been, put aside as indigestible, its use" should be persisted in until proved harmless, and not provocative of discomfort. The body, not physically injured, will readily accommodate itself to unaccustomed diet and unusual circumstances if commanded by the* will. "I cannot" must be replaced by "I will." The will is master and the body must obey. , , , Fatigue is one of the misunderstood indications given by the body. Exactly as the athlete gets his "second wind, and after gasping point, discovers a further supply of concealed energy upon which ho can draw for a great length ol time, so the ordinary person when "tired out" can, if pushed by circumstance, or bv effort of will, continue working or playing for a. further period, and without harm. Overwork is exceptional. Even when insufficiently fed the body will accomplish-extraordinary tasks—as witness the experience of trampers lost ill the bush. Insomnia, the bogy, the fearful fiend of the neurotic, may be driven away by suggestion, not necessarily by a suggestion of sleep, but the calm acceptance of an unpleasant condition, outdoor physical exercise to fatigue limits, and the order to the inner self to produce sleep. The mind, which calls you at any hour by command, will quite as readily send you to sleep. An American doctor has said, "We can cut out almost anything from the body, but we cannot cut out an instinct," nor the results of an instinct, repressed, nor any symptom based on nervous misfunction.

A thoughtful conversation with a wise professional man or woman often renders an operation quite unnecessary. In spite of many medical writers' warnings the public (particularly women) continue to demand from the surgeon what he so often attempts to give, relief from pain. When, after the surgeon has done hi* best, the pain recurs, he is most unjustly blamed, because in an enormous number of cases the pain is of nervous origin, the operation not really necessary, and, although the organ removed cannot ache when gone, pain occurs elsewhere or at the -site of the operation. The psvchopathologist has done much to rcduee the operation rate, and gradually young people are being instructed in self-con-trol, not of the old repressive character, but to understand the relationship between body and mind, the de'eeptiveneiss of "ghost pains" and the delight in life created by the freedom which belongs alike to the wholly uncivilised and to those with advanced knowledge. The former, guided by instinct only, the latter by instinct recognised, guided, and understood.