Article May 29, 1902 Issue

Man may Think himself to Death

with contributions from J. A. Froude

The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Herald

Thousands of people actually think themselves to death every day by allowing their minds to dwell on morbid subjects.

As a rule the thought that kills relates to something the individual dreads more than anything else in the world. There is the germ of fatal thought in ninety-nine persons in every hundred, and the exception is only proof against the thought disease by having been inoculated with the lymph of profound optimism or philosophy.

The idea that one has some incipient disease in one's system, the thought of financial ruin, that one is getting on in life without improving prospects—any of them, or a thousand similar thoughts, may carry a healthy man to a premature grave. A melancholy thought that fixes itself upon one's mind needs as much "doctoring" as physical disease; it needs to be eradicated from the mind, or it will have just the same result as a neglected disease would have. The thought-disease sometimes cures itself after running its course; so does smallpox. But who would settle down to suffer from smallpox and chance recovery, as thousands of foolish persons settle down to let the thought-disease which has attacked them, do its worst?

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