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 XI. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON THE ORGANIC OR VEGETATIVE FUNCTIONS (CONTINUED).

Among the remote causes of this malady Dr. Rush enumerates " public and domestic vexation, the violent or long-continued exercise of the understanding, imagination, and passions, in study, business, or pleasure ;" and among the exciting causes, " a sudden paroxysm of joy, anger, or terror" (Medical Inquiries and Observations. By Benjamin Bush, M D., Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine, and of Clinical Practice, in the University of Pennsylvania. 4 vols, in two. 4th Edit. Philadelphia, 1815., II, p. 149).

Dr. Badeley says, "A friend of mine had a fit of gout brought on by fretting, and cured suddenly by the alarm of a house being on fire."

In speaking of the causes of gout, Sydenham, himself a martyr to it, observes that the disease follows the over-application of the mind to serious matters, and deep study.

" Melancholy, so-called, is pre-eminently the inseparable companion of gout. Hence, those who are liable to it are so wont to tire and overwhelm the animal spirits by long and deep thought, that excessive exertion of this sort, even without the artificial aid of reading, makes the proper preservation of the economy of the body an impossibility ; for which reason (as seems to me) gout rarely attacks fools. Those who choose may except the present writer"

(Works, Syd. Soc, vol. ii, p. 148).