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Dr J C Barker  MD, MRCP, DPM – Scared to Death – An examination of fear, its cause and effects

… Several cases have been reported in the British Medical Journal, the first related here stimulating the thesis of this book.  In 1965 the B.M.I. published the case of a woman of forty-three who died at the time that she had forecast in Labrador. The mother of five children, she was admitted to hospital a week after her 43rd birthday for a relatively minor gynaecological operation to relieve stress incontinence. The operation was successful and she regained consciousness.

One hour later, however, she became shocked and developed a quite unforeseen rare type of abdominal haemorrhage from which she died a day later, despite all attempts to resuscitate her. There was nothing significant in her previous medical history, although she had complained of some anxiety during the past three years, the nature of which was not disclosed.

Subsequently, the doctors learned that she had been to a fortune-teller when she was only five years old, who had informed her that she would die when she was forty-three.

She had told her daughter for many years that she would die at this age. On the evening before the operation she told her sister, who was the only one with knowledge of the prophecy, that she did not expect to awake from the anaesthetic, and on the morning of the operation the patient informed a nurse that she was certain she was going to die.

Unfortunately these fears were not known to any of the three doctors at the time of the operation. If they had been it is possible that the operation might have been prevented or postponed, and that this person might still be alive today.

Persistent fear expressed by a patient about the outcome of an operation is a reason why some surgeons may sometimes refuse to operate. In this case it seems the powerful forces of suggestion, combined with those of auto-suggestion, may well have contributed to bring about her death.