Observations placeholder

As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,

PART II. THE EMOTIONS.
CHAPTER VII. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON SENSATION.

Shakespeare :

" I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
As I am sick with working of my thoughts."

Hen. VI, Act IV, Scene V.

The effect produced upon the abdominal region by the emotions is recognized in the interchangeableness of the terms employed in all languages to signify the physical and the mental state. In the oldest historical work extant, we read that " Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother ; and he sought where to weep."

The Heb. D'om is literally rendered in the authorized version; the association of the two ideas is therefore met with, as might be expected from its foundation in nature, in the language of the early, no less than in the later, ages of the human race ; popular language being largely justified by, though needing qualification from, the anatomical and physiological teachings of the present day.

The Greeks made use of the same metaphor. In the above passage, for example, the word employed in the Septuagint 1 is eyy.ara or (as in the Oxford MS.) .... the intestines or bowels, the word which frequently occurs in the writings of St. Paul, as in the expression rendered by our translators "bowels of mercies" ........and "straitened in your own bowels."

Hence, by a curious interchange of ideas, along with verbal identity, the tenderest emotions are represented in the same language as that which is employed to describe the physical circumstances attending the death of Judas Iscariot.