Article May 2, 1901 Issue

The Power of the Imagination

The following clipping from an exchange. well illustrates how a mere belief may affect bodily conditions. Faith is surely "everything where medicine is concerned."

"The power of imagination," said a New York druggist, "is past comprehension. Not long since a domestic in the employ of a prominent family came into the store in great haste with a prescription which called for two grains of morphine in two ounces of aqua pura—that is, distilled water—the accompanying direction reading, 'A teaspoonful every hour until the pain is allayed.' The patient for whom it was intended was the head of the family, who was suffering from a severe attack of nervous neuralgia.

"Now it so happened that the family physician who had written the prescription was behind the counter when the messenger arrived, having dropped in, as was his wont, on the way to his office. While I was putting up the prescription we chatted and laughed and joked and passed the time of day as only professional men are capable of doing. I filled the bottle, corked it carefully and labeled it properly, and when the retreating form of the domestic had disappeared out of the store door returned to my companionable physician visitor. As I did so I saw to my amazement the two grains of morphine reposing upon the prescription scales.

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