WHAT THE WILL CAN DO
"I can with ease translate it to my will."
_King John_.
It should be well understood from the beginning just what the will can
do in the matter of the cure or, to use a much better word, the relief
of disease, not forgetting that disease means etymologically and also
literally discomfort rather than anything else. The will cannot cure
organic disease in the ordinary sense of that term. It is just as
absurd to say that the will can bring about the cure of Bright's
disease as it is to suggest that one can by will power replace a
finger that has been lost. When definite changes have taken place in
tissues, above all when connective tissue cells have by inflammatory
processes come to take the place of organic tissue cells, then it is
idle to talk of bringing about a cure, though sometimes relief of
symptoms may be secured; above all the compensatory powers of the body
{103} may be called upon and will often bring relief, for a time, at
least. What is true of kidney changes applies also to corresponding
changes in other organs, and there can be no question of any amount of
will power bringing about the redintegration of organs that have been
seriously damaged by disease or replacing cells that have been
destroyed.
There are however a great many organic diseases in which the will may
serve an extremely useful purpose in the relief of symptoms and
sometimes in producing such a release of vital energy previously
hampered by discouragement as will enable the patient to react
properly against the disease. This is typically exemplified in
tuberculosis of the lungs. Nothing is so important in this disease, as
we shall see, as the patient's attitude of mind and his will to get
well. Without that there is very little hope. With that strongly
aroused, all sorts of remedies, many of them even harmful in
themselves, have enabled patients to get better merely because the
taking of them adds suggestion after suggestion of assurance of cure.
The cells of the lungs that have been destroyed by the disease are not
reborn, much less recreated, but nature walls off the diseased parts,
and the rest of {104} the lungs learn to do their work in spite of the
hampering effect of the diseased tissues. When fresh air and good food
are readily available for the patient, then the will power is the one
other thing absolutely necessary to bring about not only relief from
symptoms, but such a betterment in the tissues as will prevent further
development of the disease and enable the lungs to do their work. The
disease is not cured, but, as physicians say, it is arrested, and the
patient may and often does live for many years to do extremely useful
work.
In a disease like pneumonia the will to get well, coupled with the
confidence that should accompany this, will do more than anything else
to carry the patient over the critical stage of the affection.
Discouragement, which is after all by etymology only disheartenment,
represents a serious effect upon the heart through depression. The
fullest power of the heart is needed in pneumonia and discouragement
puts a brake on it. As we shall see it is probably because whiskey
took off this brake and lifted the scare that it acquired a reputation
as a remedy in pneumonia and also in tuberculosis. In spite of what
was probably an unfavorable physical effect, whiskey {105} actually
benefited the patient by its production of a sense of well being and
absence of regard for consequences. Hence its former reputation. This
extended also to its use in a continued fever where the same
disheartenment was likely to occur with unfortunate consequences on
the general condition and above all with disturbance of appetite and
of sleep. Worry often made the patients much more restless than they
would otherwise have been and they thus wasted vital energy needed to
bring about the cure of the affection under which they were laboring.
In all of these cases solicitude led to surveillance of processes
within the body and interfered with their proper performance. It is
perfectly possible to hamper the lungs by watching their action, and
the same thing may be done for the heart. Whenever involuntary
activities in the body are watched, their proper functioning is almost
sure to be disturbed. We have emphasized that in the chapter on
"Avoidance of Conscious Use of the Will," and so it need not be dwelt
on further here.
Even apart from over-consciousness there occur some natural dreads
that may disturb nature's vital reactions, and these can be {106}
overcome through the will. There is a whole series of inhibitions
consequent upon fears of various kinds that sadly interfere with
nature's reaction against disease. To secure the neutralization of
these the will must be brought into action, and this is probably
better secured by suggestion, that is, by placing some special motive
before the individual, than by any direct appeal. Particularly is this
true if patients have not been accustomed before this to use their
wills strenuously, for they will probably be disturbed by such an
appeal.
What will power when properly released can do above all is to bring
the relief of discomfort. In a great many cases the greater part of
the discomfort is due to over-sensitization and over-attention. Even
in such severe organic diseases as cancer, the awakening of the will
may accomplish very much to bring decided relief. This is why we have
had so many "cancer cures" that have failed. They made the patient
feel better at first, and they relieved pain to some extent and
therefore were thought to be direct remedial agents for the cancer
itself. The malignant condition however has progressed without
remission, though sometimes, possibly as the result of the new courage
given flowing as surplus vitality into {107} the tissues, perhaps the
progress of the lesion has been retarded. The patient sometimes has
felt so much better as to proclaim himself cured. What is thus true of
cancer will be found to occur in any very serious organic condition,
such as severe injury, chronic disease involving important organs, and
even such nutritional diseases as anemia or diabetes. The awakening in
the patient of the feeling that there is hope and the maintenance of
that hope in any way will always bring relief and usually some
considerable remission in the disease.
It is in convalescence above all, however, that the will power
manifests its greatest helpfulness. When patients are hopeful and
anxious to get well they are tempted to eat properly, to get out into
the air; they thus sleep better and recovery is rapid. Whenever they
are disheartened, as for instance when husband and wife have been
together in an injury, or both have contracted a disease and one of
them dies, the survivor is likely to have a slow and lingering
convalescence. The reason is obvious: there is literal lack of will
power or at least unwillingness to face the new conditions of life,
and vitality is spent in vain regret for the companionship that has
been {108} lost. This depression can only be lifted by motives that
appeal to the inner self and by such an awakening of the will for
further interests in life as will set vital energies flowing freely
again.
In convalescence from injuries received after middle life or from
affections that have been accompanied by incapacity to use muscles
there is particular need of the will. A great many older people refuse
to go through the pain and discomfort, soreness and tenderness as the
younger folk who are training their muscles call them, which must be
borne in order to bring about redevelopment of muscles, after they
have once become atrophic from disuse. The refusal to push through a
period of what is often rather serious discomfort leads many people to
foster disabilities and use their muscles in wrong ways sometimes even
for years. Something occurs then to arouse their wills and they get
better. Anything that will do this will cure them. Sometimes it is a
new liniment, sometimes a new mode of manipulation or massage,
sometimes some supposed electrical or magnetic discovery and sometimes
the touch of a presumed healer. Anything at all will be effective
provided it wakens their wills into such activity {109} as will enable
them to persist in the use of their muscles through the period of
soreness and tenderness necessary to restore proper muscular
functions.
It is quite surprising to see what can be accomplished in this way,
and the quacks and charlatans of the world have made their fortunes
out of such patients always, while their cure has been the greatest
possible advertisement and has attracted ever so many other patients
to these so-called healers. Nothing that can be done for these
patients will have any good results unless their own wills are
aroused, new hope given them and they themselves made to tap the
layers of energy in them that can restore them to health. To tell them
that they were to be cured by their own will, however, would probably
inhibit utterly this energy that is needed, so that somehow they have
to be brought to the state of mind in which they will accomplish the
purpose demanded of them by indirection.
The will is particularly capable of removing obstacles to nutrition
that have often hampered the activities and sometimes seriously
impaired the health of patients. Many people are not eating enough for
one reason or another and need to have their diet regulated, not in
{110} the direction of a limitation or selection of food, though this
appeals to so many people under the term dieting, but so that they
shall eat enough and of the proper variety to maintain their health
and bodily functions. A great many nervous diseases are dependent on
lack of sufficient food. Eating in those who lead sedentary lives much
indoors is ever so much more a matter of will than of appetite. When
people say that they eat all they want to, what they mean, as a rule,
is that they eat all that they have formed the habit of eating. Other
habits can readily be formed and will often do them good. For a great
many of the less serious symptoms which make people valetudinarians,
nervous indigestion, insomnia, tendencies to headache, queer feelings
in the head, constipation, the proper habit secured by will power, of
eating so as to secure sufficient food, is the most important single
factor. This the will must be trained to accomplish.
Now that disease prevention has become even more important than cure,
the will is an extremely efficient element. Air, food, exercise are
important factors for healthy living. A great many people are
neglecting them and then seem surprised that they should suffer from
various symptoms of impaired {111} functioning of bodily organs. Many
men and a still greater number of women are staying in the house so
much that their oxidation within the body is at a low ebb, and it is
no wonder that vital processes are not carried on to the best
advantage. Our generation has eliminated exercise from life to a great
extent, and now that the auto and the trolley car limit walking, not
only the feet of mankind suffer severely, but all the organs in the
body work at a disadvantage for lack of the exercise that they should
have. No wonder that under the circumstances appetite is impaired and
other functions of the body suffer. Instead of simple foods various
artificial stimulants are employed--such as alcohol, spices, and the
like--to provoke appetite, often with serious consequences for the
digestive organs. The will to be well includes the willing of the
means proper to that purpose, and particularly regular exercise,
several hours a day in the air, good simple food taken in sufficient
quantity at three regular intervals and the avoidance of such sources
of worry as will disturb physical functions.
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