Article December 28, 1918 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Clarence True Wilson

[From The Bulletin, San Francisco, Cal.]

For, perhaps, the first time in history, the public is officially warned by the medical staff of a municipal hospital that fear of a disease is a serious pathological agent, capable in itself of producing sickness—even death. "Beware of fear of influenza as you would of the disease itself," is the dictum sent forth by physicians of the Central Emergency Hospital, who declare that "influenza hysteria" is a violent phase of hypochondria with which they have daily to deal. The information is added that "hydrophobia hysteria," a similarly mythical terror, is reported to have caused many deaths—post-mortem examinations revealing no trace of rabies.

Hitherto we have been told by our medical advisers that the theory of mental influence upon "matter" was all bosh. Whether professional ethics or conviction lay behind such advice it might often have puzzled the adviser himself to determine. Yet, despite the treatment of hypochondria as a recognized malady, imagination as a serious factor in the production of human distempers has hitherto been poohpoohed. Therefore the warning of the Central Emergency medical staff is important and in a manner epochal. The statement that people may frighten themselves not only into bed, but actually into their graves, is too important to overlook.

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