Innumerable are the diseases that arise from our busy fancy. We are all
subject to the tyrannic sway of imagination's empire. Under this mighty
influence man displays energies which lead him boldly to dare danger and
complicated sufferings, or he is reduced to the most degraded state of
miserable despondency. These diseases are the more fearful, since they
rarely yield to physical aid, and it is seldom that moral influence is
sufficiently persuasive to combat their inveteracy. It is idle to tell the
timid hypochondriac that he is not ill; the mere circumstance of his
believing himself sick, constitutes a serious disorder. His constant
apprehensions derange his functions until an organic affection arises. The
patient who fancies that he labours under an affection of the heart
disturbs the circulation, which is ever influenced by our moral emotions,
till at last this disturbance occasions the very malady which he dreaded.
These aberrations of the mind arise from various causes,--mental emotions,
constitution, climate, diet, hereditary disposition, education. Tertullian
called philosophy and medicine twin sisters; both may become powerful
agents in controlling our imagination.
The ancients have variously endeavoured to determine the seat of this
faculty. Aristotle placed it in the heart, which, from the sense of its
oppression observed in acute moral sufferings he considered the origin of
our nerves, or sensorium. Avicenus and other philosophers located
imagination in the anterior portion of the brain, which he called the
_prow_; memory in the posterior part, which he denominated the _poop_, and
judgment in the centre of the organ, or what mariners would term
_mid-ship_. The notions of Gall and Spurzheim had long since been
anticipated by philosophers and physicians, both in regard to the division
of the cerebral organ, and the external appearance of the cranium, which
denoted their preponderancy. That temperature exercises a powerful
influence over our mental faculties is evident. In warm climates we find a
greater exaltation of the mind, more enthusiasm and vivid emotion, than in
northern latitudes. The East is the land of fancy, illustrated by their
wondrous tales of fiction, and their vivid and fantastic imagery,
displayed in the chimeras and the arabesques of their palaces and temples.
In these regions all the passions are uncontrollable and wild. Love is
characterized by furious or dark jealousy, according to the rank and
power of the lover; and ambition is signalized by bloodthirsty and
promiscuous barbarity. No opposition can be brooked: man is either a
ferocious tyrant, or an abject slave; subjection alone preventing the
oppressed from being as sanguinary as the oppressor. Government is
despotism, and religion fatality and fanaticism. In northern climes, on
the contrary, every thing is cold and calculating. The almighty passion of
love may prevail; but its demonstrations are morose, concentrated,
although not less ferocious than under a southern sky. In the one country,
man seeks the dark shelter of the forest, and the solitude of the
mountain, to ponder over his grievances, or soliloquise on his sufferings;
in the other he courts the roseate bower and the orange grove, to lull him
into a soft repose which may calm his feelings by temporary oblivion, to
be roused again to action by the stimulus of opium, tobacco, and a burning
sun. The ancients were so fully convinced of this influence of the
amorphous constitution, that Lucianus tells us that the Abderites (a
people so remarkable for their stupidity and sluggishness that _Abderitica
mens_ was proverbial), having witnessed the performance of one of
Euripides's plays under the fierce solar rays, became fired with such
enthusiasm, that they ran about the streets in a wild phrensy, repeating
aloud his sublime verses, until the coolness of the evening restored them
to reason and to their native torpor. So predominant are these feelings,
which owe their character to climate, that they regulate our ideas of a
future state, as well as our conduct on earth. The paradise of the
Mohammedan is a blessed region of everlasting pleasure and sensual
enjoyments; beauteous houris await the soul, which is to luxuriate in
corporeal voluptuousness; and the purple wine, forbidden to the living, is
to flow in delectable streams, to delight the dead, who may, in the
seventh paradise inhabit a land where rivers of wine, and milk, and honey,
are ever flowing; where evergreen trees bend under luxurious fruits, whose
very pips are transformed into lovely maidens, so sweet--to use their own
metaphorical language--that the ocean would lose its bitterness if they
did but condescend to spit in its briny waters; and all these enjoyments
are secured to the true believer by hosts of guardian angels, who have
seventy thousand mouths, and seventy thousand tongues, to praise God
seventy thousand times each day in seventy thousand languages: and such is
their horror of earthly heat, that in the other world one of the greatest
rewards is the delight of being able to sleep under the cool shade of a
tree each leaf of which is of such an expanse that a man might travel
fifty thousand years under its benign protection. How different is the
paradise of Odin! There, it is true, the soul of the departed dwells in
magnificent palaces; but what are his enjoyments compared to those of the
sensual Asiatic! Instead of soft music, the din of war is constantly to
resound in his ear, while he luxuriates in drinking strong beer and
hydromel, poured by the fair Valknas, the houris of the Vahalla paradise,
into the skulls of his enemies. Their God is called the god of crows; and
two of these sable familiars, _Hugin_, who represents the mind, and
_Nunnin_, or memory, are constantly perched upon his shoulders, until they
take flight to seek information for their master.
To this day it is said that the Tartars fancy, that, in their future abode
of bliss, their reward will be a sort of Platonic affection, and a
perpetual and undisturbed state of meditation; in short, a celestial _far
niente_. So convinced were the ancients of this effect of peculiar
temperature, that the morose Heraclitus maintained that the power of the
mind arose from a _dry splendour_; that all things were created by solar
heat; and when ill himself, he sought health by endeavouring to dispel
watery accumulations by the heat of a dunghill. Ptolemy and Posidonius
assert, that southern climes engender genius and wit, and are better
calculated for the study of things divine; and Plato, Hippocrates, and
Galen, on the same principle, affirm that stupidity and forgetfulness are
produced by cold and humidity. The celebrated Descartes, in his younger
days, states that he felt his enthusiasm moderated by the damps and cold
of Holland; and that he ever experienced more facility in pursuing his
philosophic studies in winter than in summer. Poets, on the contrary,
court the glowing rays of an inspiring sun, and their Phoebus and their
Apollo is the conductor and the inspirer of the Muses:
Cynthius aurem vellit et admonuit.
That the energies of our intellectual faculties are under the influence of
our food, is a fact long since observed. The stupidity of the athletae, who
lived upon coarse bread (coliphium) and underdone meat, was proverbial;
even Hercules laboured under the imputation of a mind somewhat obtuse. Our
genius, our energies are all affected by our mode of living. The rule of
_Sanis omnia sana_, of Celsus, is applicable to very few individuals; and
all our faculties may be rendered more keen or less vivid by temperance or
excesses. As the nature of our _ingesta_ influences the functions of our
digestive organs, so do these organs in their turn influence our moral
powers when our physical energies are elevated or depressed. Our courage,
our strength of mind, our religious and our moral train of thinking, are
under the control of diet. Fasting has ever been considered as
predisposing to meditation and ascetic contemplation. Tertullian tells us,
that we should approach the altars fasting, or having eaten nothing but
dry substances. All the religious ceremonies of the Egyptians were
preceded by abstinence, and their sacrificators were allowed neither
animal food nor wine. Indeed, the Egyptian priesthood were remarkable for
their abstinence and self-denial, fearful, according to Plutarch, that
"the body should not sit light upon the soul." Similar precautions were
observed with animals, and the ox apis was not allowed to drink the waters
of the Nile, as they were considered of a gross and fattening nature; even
upon festive days they observed a similar moderation. It was customary, on
the 9th day of the month Thoth, for every one to eat fried fish at their
doors--the priests only conformed to the custom by burning theirs at the
appointed time. In general they abstained from most sorts of pulse,
especially beans and lentils, onions, garlic, leeks, mutton, pork; and on
certain days of purification, even salt was forbidden. Many of their fasts
lasted from seven to forty-two days, during which time they abstained
entirely from animal food, from herbs and vegetables, and the indulgence
of any passion. Similar privations were observed by all those who attended
the mysteries of Juno and Ceres. In Holy Writ we find that it was after
abstinence that Divine inspiration illumined the elect. The angel appeared
unto Daniel after he had been three weeks without tasting flesh, or wine,
or "pleasant bread." In the Acts, x., we find that the vision appeared to
Peter, "when he had become hungry and would have eaten." Moses fasted
forty days on Mount Sinai. We find in Jonah, that even cattle were
frequently subject to this mortification, when he proclaimed in Nineveh
that neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, should taste any thing; "let
them not feed nor drink water." Congius Ripensis tells us, that the same
restriction was imposed by the Lacedaemonians on their Helots and all
domestic animals. Fasting was considered by the early Christians as an
essential rite. St. Anthony prescribed to his disciples one meal of dry
bread, salt and water, in the day without any food on Wednesdays and
Fridays. In the monastery of Mocham, in Egypt, a monk of the name of Jonas
was beatified for having lived until the age of eighty-five, working hard
in the garden, and without any other food than raw herbs and grass steeped
in vinegar; this abstemious cenobite added to his claims to canonization
by always sleeping in his chair. St. Hilarius only ate fifteen figs and
six ounces of barley bread _per diem_. St. Julian Sabus retired to a
cavern, where he only luxuriated once in the week on millet-bread, with
salt and water; and St. Macarius resolved to outdo him by restraining his
sustenance to a few cabbage-leaves every Sunday. Not only did these
gastric martyrs attribute their holy visions to abstinence, but they
considered it as the source of their longevity. Thus, St. Anthony lived to
the age of one hundred and five; St. Paphinus to ninety on dry bread; and
St. Paul the Hermit thrived for one hundred and fifty-nine years upon
dates. It is not derogatory to their supposed divine mission to say that
all these men were as enthusiastic as the fakirs of the east.
So acceptable to the Deity was starvation considered, that at various
periods it was enforced by penal laws. Charlemagne denounces the
punishment of death on all those who transgressed in this respect; and, by
an old Polish edict, any sinner who ate on a fast-day was sentenced to
have all his teeth drawn. However, monkish ingenuity endeavoured to elude
these severe enactments, by interpreting the letter instead of the spirit;
and we find, in the regulations of a German monastery, the following
accommodation, "_Liquidum non frangit jejunium_," by which, on days of
penance, the monks only took rich soups and succulent broth. In latter
days, being permitted to eat fish in Lent, they saw no reason why fowl
should not be included, on the authority of Genesis, that the waters
brought forth every winged fowl after his kind. This relaxation in
culinary discipline called forth loud indignation from many prelates. St.
Ambrosius attributes the profligacy of the monks to these excesses; and
Tertullian considers the fall of the Israelites as the punishment of their
neglect in this respect. Our Shakspeare illustrates this belief in the
influence of fasting as preparatory to inspiration.
Last night the very gods shew'd me a vision--
I _fast_ and pray'd for their intelligence.
Not satisfied with this mystification in food, we find some austere monks
endeavouring to reduce carnal appetites by other means, such as by
blood-letting, _monialem minuere_; and claustral flesh was brought down by
phlebotomy and purging at regular periods. To this day we find that
well-behaved Turks, during the Ramasan, make it a godly point never to
swallow their saliva.
This digression on fasting was somewhat necessary, to show how much our
diet tends to modify our being. It is well known that troops will display
more activity and courage when fasting than after a meal; and an ingenious
physician of our day is perfectly correct when he attributes a daring
spirit or a pusillanimous feeling to the influence of our stomach.
Intellectual weakness, frequently brought on by excesses, has proved a
rich source to empiricism; hence the belief in mystic and supernatural
agencies, and the power of certain nostrums. Coloured fountain water and
bread pills have made the fortune of various quacks, when imaginary cures
have relieved imaginary diseases. In our days, numerous have been the
recoveries attributed to Hohenloe's prayers. Trusting to mystic numbers,
three, five, seven, or nine pills have produced effects, when other
numbers less fortunate would have failed. To this hour mankind, even in
enlightened nations, are fettered by these absurd trammels. Credulity, and
superstition her twin sister, have in all ages been the source whence
priestcraft, and quackery have derived their wealth. Next to these rich
mines we may rank fashion. The adoption of any particular medicine by
princes and nobles will endow it with as great a power as that which was
supposed to be vested in regal hands in the cure of scrofula, hence called
_king's evil_; and we have too many instances of such cures having been
effected by a monarch's touch to doubt the fact. The history of the potato
is a strong illustration of the influence of authority: for more than two
centuries the use of this invaluable plant was vehemently opposed; at
last, Louis XV. wore a bunch of its flowers in the midst of his courtiers,
and the consumption of the root became universal in France. The warm bath,
so highly valued by the Romans, once fell into disrepute, because the
Emperor Augustus had been cured by a cold one, which for a time was
invariably resorted to. Thus Horace exclaims,
----Caput ac stomachum supponere fontibus audent
Clusinis, Gabiosque petunt et frigida rura.
Unfortunately, the means which had relieved Augustus killed his nephew
Marcellus; and the _Laconicum_ and the _Tepidarium_ were again crowded
with the "fashion."
Persecution and its prohibitions have also been most powerful in working
upon our imagination. Rare and forbidden fruits will always be considered
more desirable than those we can easily obtain. The history of tobacco is
a striking instance of this influence of difficulty upon the mind of man.
Pope Urban VIII. prohibited its use in any shape, under the penalty of
excommunication. It was afterwards forbidden in Russia, under the pain of
having the offender's nose cut off. In some cantons of Switzerland the
prohibition was introduced in the decalogue, next to the commandment
against adultery. Amurath IV. ordered all persons taken in _flagranti
delicto_ smoking tobacco, to be impaled, on the principle that its use
checked the progress of population. The denunciation of our James I. may
be considered as a masterpiece of the imaginary horrors attributed to this
obnoxious weed. "It is," he says, "a custome loathsome to the eye,
hatefull to the nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and
in the black stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible Stygian
smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse." During the reign of this monarch
such a restriction might have been necessary, unless the consumption of
tobacco enriched the exchequer: for it appears that some _amateurs_
consumed no less than L500 per annum in smoke. Surely we should reap some
flourishing revenue from fashion and credulity, when we find our
government awarding L5000 to a _certain_ Johanna Stephens for her
discovery of _certain_ medicines for the cure of _calculi_! The same
imaginary hope induced many a credulous creature to minister to the
necessities of another Johanna, for _certain_ expectations. Alas! how this
indefinite _sense_ exhibits the infinite folly of poor humanity!
A morbid imagination, although frequently the source of much misery, will
prove in many cases the fountain-head of many noble qualities; its
exaltation constitutes genius, which is, in fact, a natural disposition of
individual organization sometimes bordering upon insanity. "_Non est
magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae_," says Seneca; and Montaigne
observes, "De quoi se fait la plus subtile folie que de la plus subtile
sagesse? il n'y a qu'un demi-tour a passer de l'une a l'autre." Aristotle
asserts that all the great men of his time were melancholy and
hypochondriac. The ancient and eastern nations entertained a singular idea
regarding men of innate genius, and possessed of more than common
attributes; they fancied that they were the first-born, and the offsprings
of illicit love: Zoroaster, Confucius, Mahomet, Vishnou, were born of
virgins; and Theseus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Romulus, were all
illegitimate.
So prone is a lively imagination to a derangement of the intellectual
harmony, that the greatest care should be taken during the youthful
development to resort to a sound and proper exercise. The constant
tendency to wild and supernatural visions, the disregard of every daily
and vulgar matter of fact consideration, soaring in regions of fiction,
should engage our incessant vigilance, such a state of mind, as
Abercrombie justly observes, "tends in a most material manner to prevent
the due exercise of those nobler powers which are directed towards the
cultivation both of science and of virtue," and Foster has thus
beautifully illustrated this subject in his essays.
"The influence of this habit of dwelling on the beautiful fallacious forms
of imagination, will accompany the mind into the most serious speculations
or rather musings, on the real world, and what is to be done in it and
expected; as the image which the eye acquires from looking at any dazzling
object, still appears before it wherever it turns. The vulgar materials,
that constitute the actual economy of the world, will rise up to its sight
in fictitious forms, which it cannot disenchant into plain reality, nor
will ever suspect to be deceptive. It cannot go about with sober, rational
inspection and ascertain the nature and value of all things around it--in
that paradise it walks delighted, till some imperious circumstance of real
life call it thence, and gladly escapes thither again when the avocation
is past. If a tenth part of the felicities that have been enjoyed, the
great actions that have been performed, the beneficial institutions that
have been established, and the beautiful objects that have been seen in
that happy region, could have been imported into this terrestial
place!--what a delightful thing the world would have been to awake each
morning to see such a world once more!"
Of the miseries the hypochondriacs experience the following extract of a
letter to a physician will afford a specimen: "My poor body is a burning
furnace, my nerves red-hot coals, my blood is boiling oil; all sleep has
fled, and I am suffering martyrdom. I am in agony when I lie on my back; I
cannot lie on either side; and I endure excruciating torture when I seek
relief by lying on my stomach; and, to add to my misery, I can neither
sit, stand, nor walk." The fancies of hypochondriacs are frequently of the
most extraordinary nature: one patient imagines that he is in such a state
of obesity as to prevent his passing through the door of his chamber or
his house; another impressed with the idea that he is made of glass, will
not sit down for fear of cracking; a third seems convinced that his head
is empty; and an intelligent American, holding a high judicial seat in our
West Indian colonies, could not divest himself of the occasional
conviction of his being transformed into a turtle.
The most melancholy record of the miseries of hypochondriacism is to be
found in the diary of Dr. Walderstein of Gottingen. He was a man much
deformed in person, and his mind seemed as distorted as his body. Although
of deep learning and research, and convinced of the absurdity of his
impressions, yet he was unable to resist their baneful influence. "My
misfortune," says the doctor, "is, that I never exist in this world, but
rather in possible combinations created by my imagination to my
conscience. They occupy a large portion of my time, and my reason has not
the power to banish them. My malady, in fact, is the faculty of extracting
poison from every circumstance in life; so much so that I often felt the
most wretched being because I had not been able to sneeze three times
together. One night when I was in bed I felt a sudden fear of fire, and
gradually became as much oppressed by imaginary heat as though my room
were in flames. While in this situation, a fire-bell in the neighbourhood
sounded, and added to my intense sufferings. I do not blush at what might
be called my superstition any more than I should blush in acknowledging
that my senses inform me that the earth does not move. My error forms the
_body_ of my judgment, and I thank God that he has given it a _soul_
capable of correcting it. When I have been perfectly free from pain, as is
not unfrequently the case when I am in bed, my sense of this happiness has
brought tears of gratitude in my eyes. I once dreamt," adds Walderstein,
"that I was condemned to be burnt alive. I was very calm, and reasoned
coolly during the execution of my sentence. 'Now,' I said to myself, 'I am
burning, but not yet burnt; and by-and-by I shall be reduced to a cinder.'
This was all I thought, and I did nothing but think. When, upon awaking, I
reflected upon my dream, I was by no means pleased with it, for I was
afraid I should become _all thought and no feeling_." It is strange that
this fear of thought, assuming a corporeal form in deep affliction, had
occurred to our poet Rowe, when he exclaims in the Fair Penitent, "_Turn
not to thought my brain_." "What is very distressing," continues the
unfortunate narrator, "is, that when I am ill I can think nothing, feel
nothing, without bringing it home to myself. It seems to me that the whole
world is a mere machine, expressly formed to make me feel my sufferings in
every possible manner." What a fearful avowal from a reflecting and
intelligent man! Does it not illustrate Rousseau's definition of
reason--_the knowledge of our folly_.
Dr. Rush mentions a man who imagined that he had a Caffre in his stomach
who had got into it at the Cape of Good Hope, and tormented him ever
since. Pinel relates the case of an unfortunate man who believed that he
had been guillotined, but his innocence having been made complete after
his execution, his judges decided that his head should be restored to him,
but the person intrusted with this operation had made a mistake, and put
on a wrong head. Dr. Conolly knew a man who really believed that he had
been hanged, but had been brought to life by galvanism, but he maintained
that this operation had not restored the whole of his vitality.
Jacobi relates the case of a man confined in the lunatic asylum at
Wurtzburg, in other respects rational, of quiet, discreet habits, so that
he was employed in the domestic business of the house, but who laboured
under the impression that there was a person concealed in his stomach,
with whom he held frequent conversations. He often perceived the absurdity
of this idea, and grieved in acknowledging and reflecting that he was
under the influence of so groundless a persuasion, but he never could get
rid of it. "It was very curious to observe," adds our intelligent author,
"how, when he had but an instant before cried what nonsense!--is it not
intolerable to be thus deluded? and while the tears which accompanied
these exclamations were yet in his eyes, he again began to talk,
apparently with entire conviction about the person in his belly who told
him that he was to marry a great princess. An attempt was made to cure
him, by putting a large blister on his abdomen, and the instant that it
was dressed, moving from behind him a dressed-up figure, as if just
extracted from his body. The experiment so far succeeded that the patient
believed in the performance, and his joy was at first boundless in the
full persuasion that he was cured; but some morbid feeling about the
bowels, which he had associated with the insane impression, still
continuing, or being again experienced, he took up the idea that another
person similar to the first was still left within him, and under that
persuasion he still continues to labour."
A nobleman of the court of Louis XIV., fancied himself a dog, and would
invariably put his head out of window to bark aloud. Don Calmet relates
the case of some nuns in a convent in Germany, who imagined that they were
transformed into cats, and wandered about the building loudly mewing and
spitting at and scratching each other.
One of the strangest aberrations of a disordered state of mind was
exhibited by some impudent fellows who fancied themselves virtuous and
modest females. Esquirol relates the case of a young man of 26 years of
age, handsome and of a good figure, who had been in the habit of
occasionally putting on woman's attire to perform female parts in private
theatricals, and who had actually fancied himself a woman. In his
paryoxysms he would put off his male clothes, and equip himself like a
nymph,--the greater part of his day was spent before his looking-glass,
decorating his person and dressing his hair--he was incurable!