Observations placeholder

Karezza – Ethics of Marriage 1903 second edition – Dr Alice B Stockham

All physiological functions and vital processes can be modified by a conscious action of the intellect, a voluntary mental effort. This is true of the liver, the kidneys, the skin and the processes of digestion, circulation, excretion and secretion.

They are not automatic and fixed beyond our control as has been taught.

Darwin mentions the case of a person who could suspend the pulsations of the heart at pleasure, and of another who could move his bowels at will - accelerating their peristaltic action by thought alone.

Thinking of fruit, sour or luscious, affects the salivary glands and causes the mouth to water. The thought of some stimulant or medicinal preparation has an effect similar to that of the thing itself, even if less in degree.

Many years since I had a patient to whom I had given a preparation of podophyllum for a torpid liver.

Two or three powders produced the desired result.

Several months afterwards he laughingly told me that he had carried one of those powders in his pocket, and whenever he thought he needed to stimulate the action of the liver, he imagined the taste and peculiar properties of the remedy, and soon was happy in having the desired result although he still preserved the powder. This was at least a more economical procedure for the patient than for the doctor.

Medical science is coming to recognize the power of thought over all bodily functions, and it is possible that the laws of the mind will become so universally understood, that desired action of special functions can be obtained without even carrying the remedy in the pocket.

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The body, which has been coddled and babied through the centuries, is not the living
man and must not dominate him. Man is a living, spiritual being. Recognition and acknowledgement of the power of the spirit, not only frees him from limitation of the senses, but gives him dominion over every faculty and function of the body.
"It is the glory of man to control himself," and the best use to make of his life is to develop and demonstrate the supremacy of the spiritual over the physical.