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 X. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON THE ORGANIC OR VEGETATIVE FUNCTIONS.

Mr. Hutchinson informs me, in connection with his experience at the London Skin Hospital, that patients frequently attribute the affections of the skin under which they labour to fright and other moral causes ; but I have not been able to obtain any statistics. The relation between some cutaneous diseases and the distribution of nerves bears upon this subject. The instance of shingles has [can be] referred to ….. When severe neuralgia is followed by herpes in the course of the affected nerve, we can see how possible it is for distress of mind to occasion this cutaneous disorder.

Cazenave, when enumerating the causes of skin-diseases, remarks that " strong mental emotions, and Grief in particular, exercise a remarkable influence." Speaking of impetigo, he says that Grief and Fear sometimes produce the disease. Bateman mentions two cases in which great alarm and agitation of mind caused this affection.

In his lectures, M. Biett used to relate to his pupils several cases which showed this influence. In particular he referred to a striking example exhibited in a very severe form of lichen agrius, occurring within twelve hours of the receipt of unwelcome intelligence. In the "Medical Times and Gazette," July 13, 1867, the case is reported of an engineer who, treated for syphilis, from which he remained free for six years, became, a week after hearing of the fall of a bridge he had built, the subject of "syphilitic impetigo of the scalp and beard."

Gratiolet observes that Melancholy dries up the skin and induces a number of herpetic affections.

Guislain mentions two cases bearing on this subject ; one in which a woman, who had seen her daughter violently beaten, and was much frightened, suffered in consequence from gangrenous erysipelas of the right breast ; the other in which a woman, set. 24, saw her brother die, and was greatly affected. A wen which she had on the head became gangrenous in a few days. "L'odeur qui s'en degageait le d^celait suffisamment" ("Lecons Orales," p. 166).