Observations placeholder
Hack Tuke, Daniel – Healing - Imperviousness to cold induced by powerful emotions
Identifier
026065
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
It is possible that the friendship and camaraderie inherent in war had a role to play. The feeling of not being alone.
A description of the experience
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.
Another observation of Dr. Rush is …, that soldiers favoured by the fortune of war would remain comparatively insensible to cold. During the American war the Philadelphia militia, accustomed to the comforts of city life, slept after the battle of Trenton in tents and barns, or in the open air, in the coldest months of the year ; yet in the course of six weeks only two were ill, and there was but one death. Dr. Rush says he can only account for the healthiness of so large a number of men under such circumstances, by the vigour infused into the human body by the victory of Trenton having produced insensibility to all the usual remote causes of diseases. The reverse of this picture must be added to render it complete, although not directly referring to the influence of a certain state of mind in resisting cold.
"Militia officers and soldiers, who enjoyed good health during a campaign, were often affected by fevers and other diseases, as soon as they returned to their respective homes. I knew an instance of a militia captain, who was seized with convulsions the first night he lay on a feather bed, after sleeping several months upon a mattress or upon the ground. These affections of the body appeared to be produced only by the sudden abstraction of that tone in the system, which was excited by a sense of danger and the other invigorating objects of a military life."