June 12.
Newsparers recently arrived from London give much prominence to the visit of the French savant, M. Coue, to London and his demonstrations of the thera-pontic value of psycho-analysis as a curative agent in sickness. Accustomed as we are to the; vagaries of charlatans who profess to heal the sick by occult formule we are apt to be sceptical of the professions of even an eminent scientist, when his methods of treatment seem to approximate to those practised by Cagliostro. But while we all admire the boy who defined ''faith'' as ''believing what you know is not so'' and have a sub-conscious feeling that only imaginary diseases can be cured by the imagination, yet it is certain that the investigations of eminent mind-specialists are opening up a new avenue of approach in the treattment of physical ills which have their root in some disorder of the nervous system. The many cases of shell-shock treated during the great, gave physicians an insight into the Protean forms which these maladies may assume and demonstrated in the most striking manner the tremendous power that the mind exerts on the body. It was a commonplace occurrence in war time to find a man whose vocal organs were in; perfect condition and-who yet had; lost the power of speech. There was no physical reason why he should not be able to speak or why the shock to his system should have affected the vocal chords rather than any other organ, but so it was. Or sometimes it was the memory that was affected. The patient's mind became a.total blank so far as the past was concerned.
He was perfectly well but had no idea of anything that had happened previous to the moment when the thread that connected consciousness with memory snapped. These were very real. and distressing symptoms and physicians are still only feeling their way towards! their cure.
Tf peace hath her victories no less renowned than- war she has also her defeats and the wounded who fall in fortune's strife are scarcely more to be pitied than those whose nerves were deranged in the inferno.of the battlefield. Té has become plain to the medi eases met "with by the ordinary practitioner on his daily round are largely complicated by "some underlying mental worry and must be treated as were the symptoms exhibited by shell-shocked soldiers. In the case of the soldier the cause of the derangement and the exact moment at which it occurred could be definitely ascertained. With the civilian the cause is often obscure and the onset insidious but the origin of the trouble being once Igcated in sub-conscious unrest, treatment can follow well marked lines. It was found in military hospitals that like cured like. A shock frequently cured shell-; shock. A man who had lost his jYoice was startled into an exclamation of surprise or delight and immediately recovered his former facility of utterance. The man whose mind was a blank unexpectedly let his eve fall on some familiar face or object and the curtain was pulled aside and the past was once more an open book. In other cases the recovery iwas more slowly accomplished but the mechanism of control was always intact. It was merely that the subtle connexion between the will to act and the power to compel the muscles to obey the mind) had, for the time being, been lost. The physician directed his efforts to convincing his patient that he had the power to do the thing he wished to do and one day he suddenly did it.
M. Coue proceeds along the same lines. He tells his patients, Your body is the servant of your mind. You have power over' it if you choose to exercise that power. Will to be well and you shall be well; determine to be happy and you shall be happy.'' Tt seems a simple enough gospel but demonstrably it works. A: cripple limps on to the platform and walks off with his crutches under his arm. ''Ah, but,'' say the sceptics,"'this has all been done before. There is nothing new in it. But will it last?"
"Yes,'' replies M. Coue, "'if your determination to be well will last. You are your own physician; you are the master of your fate. You decide for yourself whether you {will lead a happy, healthy life or puling and ailing one."' Wheither we accept all the implications of M. Coué's gospel of self-help or not it is evident that a new and attractive pathway to well-being is set before us. We}: all know people who possess the; Scottish farmer who,- when vou call his attention to the fine weather, replies, Ay, ay, but we will suffer for this yet.'' He can only see the black cloud behind the silver lining. There are too many people who anticipate the worst and have a morbid pleasure foreboding the disaster that never comes. The habit of pondering over real or fancied injuries and slights is another fruitful source of wretchedness. Tf we cannot accept the whole of the teaching of the French psychologist, it would be well for us, at least. to endorse that part which teaches us to reverse the process by which those unhappy mortals make themselves miserable. We need not imitate the ostrich, but the wise man who turned his dark clouds inside out wud wore the silver lining on the outside left an example that is worth following.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.