Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...and in the same manner the German of forty years since was tortured with atrabiliary follies, to which he was led by diligent contemplation and study of the delineations contained in Kempf's book. But the imagination does not deal exclusively with the hypochondria; the thoracic organs are also visited in a similar manner. The sensation of anxiety and dyspnoea is one which the hypochondriac most frequently induces spontaneously and augments. The motor action at the same time participates; the heart beats and pulsates irregularly. A suspicion of a disease of the heart seizes the patient, until an accidental catarrh directs his attention to the lungs. The distress and palpitation cease, and phthisis becomes the nightmare that absorbs every consideration, and in the same ratio the patient complains of pains in the chest; the cough becomes more and more urgent; and the sputa are carefully preserved and carefully examined. Not alone, however, in the abdomen and chest are the phenomena excited; they are also produced by imagination and reflection in the sensory relations of the head; hyperaesthesiae of the nerves of sense, pains in the cranium and face supervene, there is weight and tension, vertigo, and oppression; an approaching attack of apoplexy tortures the patient; when he suddenly hears of cholera, his head is set at liberty, and the precursors of the mortal malady seize upon his devoted intestines. 1 The influence of the will and the direction of the mind in producing and fixing sensations, has not as yet been properly applied to therapeutics. There are some indications on the subject in Dr. Lebenheim's Essay, Ueber die psychische Behandiung somatischer Krankheiten, in Wochenschr. fur die gesammte Heilkunde, 1838, p. 489. We will now...
