FEAR AND DISEASE
If we examine closely the symptoms of fear, we invariably find
the symptoms of functional psychosis or neurosis. Fear affects
the muscular and sensory systems, the vasomotor system, the
respiratory system, the sudorific glands, the viscera, the heart,
the intestines, all organs and functions of the organism.
Bain, in describing the emotions of fear or terror, says, “Terror
on the physical side shows both a loss and a transfer of nervous
energy. The appearances may be distributed between the effects
of relaxation and effects of tension. The relaxation is seen, as
regards the muscles, in the dropping of the jaw, in the collapse
overtaking all organs not specially excited, in trembling of the
lips and other parts, and in the loosening of the sphincters. Next,
as regards the organic processes and viscera. The digestion is
everywhere weakened; the flow of saliva is checked, the gastric
secretion arrested (appetite failing), the bowels deranged; the
respiration is enfeebled. The heart and circulation are disturbed;
there is either a flushing of the face or a deadly pallor. The
skin shows symptoms--the cold sweat, the altered odor of the
perspiration, the creeping action that lifts the hair. The kidneys
are directly or indirectly affected. The sexual organs feel the
depressing influence. The secretion of milk in the mother’s breast
is vitiated.”
Darwin gives the following description of fear:--
“The frightened man at first stands like a statue, motionless and
breathless, or crouches down as if to escape observation. The heart
beats quickly and violently, but it is very doubtful if it then
works more efficiently than usual so as to send a greater supply
of blood to the body; for the skin instantly becomes pale, as
during incipient faintness. The paleness of the surface, however,
is probably in large part or is exclusively due to the vasomotor
center being affected in such a manner as to cause the contraction
of the small arteries of the skin. That the skin is much affected
under the sense of great fear we see in the marvelous manner in
which the perspiration immediately exudes from it. This exudation
is all the more remarkable as the surface is then cold, and hence
the term, a cold sweat; whereas the sudorofic glands are properly
excited into action when the surface is heated. The hairs also
on the skin stand erect, and the superficial muscles shiver. In
connection with the disturbed action of the heart the breathing is
hurried. The salivary glands act imperfectly; the mouth becomes
dry and is often opened and shut. I have also noticed that under
slight fear there is a slight tendency to yawn. One of the best
symptoms is the trembling of all the muscles of the body. From this
cause and from the dryness of the mouth, the voice becomes husky or
indistinct, or may altogether fail.”
If we turn now to the manifestations of psychopathic maladies, we
meet with the same fear symptoms:--
(a) The attacks may be muscular, involving symptoms such as
trembling, shaking, paresis, paralysis, or rigidity; there may be
affection of locomotion or of muscular co-ordination.
(b) There may be sensory disturbances,--anesthesia, paresthesia,
analgesia, or hyperalgesia as well as affection of muscular sense
and kinesthesia.
(c) There may be skin disturbances, such as arrest of perspiration
or profuse perspiration, especially under the influence of
emotions, worry, and fatigue; such perspiration may also occur at
night, and in some cases the fear of tuberculosis may be associated
with such conditions.
(d) The lungs may become affected functionally, and there may occur
respiratory disturbances; coughing, hawking, apnea, dyspnea, and
asthmatic troubles.
(e) The heart becomes affected, bringing about precordial pain;
palpitation of the heart, bradycardia, tachycardia, and cardiac
arrhythmia.
(f) The stomach and intestines become affected, indigestion and
vague fugitive soreness and pain may be experienced all over or in
special regions of the abdomen; constipation or diarrhea may ensue.
(g) The renal apparatus may become affected and its activity
arrested, or, as is more often the case in the milder forms of
psychopathic troubles, there may be present an alteration in
the amount or frequency of micturition, such as is found in the
conditions of anuria and polyuria.
(h) Menstruation becomes disturbed, and we may meet with conditions
of dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, menorrhagia, and other disturbances of
the tubes, ovaries, and uterus.
(i) There are disturbances of the nervous system, such as headache
and a general dull sensation of fatigue and paresis of all mental
functions, with dizziness and vertigo.
On the mental side we find in the psychopathies the following
disturbances:--
(a) Affections of perceptual activity,--illusions and
hallucinations.
(b) Affections of intellectual activity,--argumentativeness in
regard to insignificant things.
(c) Affections of the moral sense,--scrupulousness,
over-conscientiousness, not living up to ideal states.
(d) Affections of religious life,--fear of commission of sins and
terror of punishment.
(e) Affections of social life,--timidity, blushing, etc.
(f) Affections in regard to objects, such as astrophobia,
acmephobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, etc.
(g) Affections of conceptual life,--insistent ideas.
(h) Affections of the attention,--aprosexia.
(i) Affections of the will,--states of aboulia, indecision,
discord, conflicts, and uncontrollable impulses.
(j) Affections of the memory,--amnesic and paramnesic states.
(k) General mental fatigue.
(l) Affections of sexual life,--impotence, perversion, and
inversion.
(m) Affections in regard to marital relations.
(n) Affections in regard to personal life,--diffidence,
self-condemnation, self-depreciation.
(o) Affections of apparent loss of personality,--feeling of self
gone.
(p) Formation of new personalities,--dual and multiple personality.
In connection with all such neurotic affections we find invariably
present a feeling of unrest, hesitation, doubt, conflict, discord,
uneasiness, a feeling of anxiety, _conscious or subconscious_,
feeling of some impending evil. In all such affections we find the
brooding spirit of the most powerful of all animal instincts,--the
fear instinct. _Neurosis is a disease of self-preservation and
fear._