Humane Science Lectures

Humane Science Lectures

Humane Science Lectures. By Various Authors [: E. Carpenter, J.A. Thomson, W.D. Morrison A.o.].

Humane Science Lectures

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ... IN MEDICINE AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. Suggestion has ever played an important part in medicine. In earlier and more superstitious times the priest or saint was the physician; suggestion was administered in concrete form through the medium of saintly relics, or holy wells, and the cure was ascribed to Divine agency. As superstition decreased, belief in the curative power of saintly relics diminished, and the cures which were said to have been wrought by their means were usually looked upon as idle tales. Still later, science pointed out how every function in the human body could be influenced by fear, hope, and other emotional slates; then the cures we are referring to were admitted to be possible, while the saintly relics were regarded simply as the means by which the emotional states were evoked. H-In 1839, as the result of the researches of Sir Henry Holland, the action of the mind upon the body was still further realised. He drew attention to the fact that, though the influence of the emotions upon physical conditions had long been the subject of study, the effects of the consciousness, directed by distinct voluntary effort to particular parts of the organism, had been almost entirely overlooked. In his opinion many of the functions, and all the sensations of the human body, could be influenced by voluntarily fixing the attention upon some function or organ, even when this was unattended by emotion or anxiety. Sir Henry Holland's theory was quickly seized upon by Braid, who thought he had found in it, not only an explanation of the action of certain drugs, but also of the phenomena of hypnotism. According to Braid, the action of homoeopathic remedies, when these were given in attenuated solutions, was a purely subjective one; he also...