The cholera, considered psychologically / [Forbes Winslow].

  • Winslow, Forbes, 1810-1874
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cholera, considered psychologically / [Forbes Winslow]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Amidst much wailing and distress, the question asked almost simultaneously by a thousand voices is, “ Can nothing else be done to stay the progress of the epidemic? Are we to sit with our arms folded, cry¬ ing, c Peace, peace, where there is no peace?’ ” Without desiring for a moment to depreciate the necessity and importance of carefully examining those physical causes which obviously engender the malady and accelerate its advance, I may be allowed to ob¬ serve that there is a higher, and perhaps more phi¬ losophical altitude, from which the subject may be viewed. The question of disease generally is to be considered in a double aspect—1, physically; 2, psychologically, or morally. At present, the subject of cholera has been investigated principally in rela¬ tion to its physical aspect. I propose to view it through another medium, and to consider whether the moral or psychological bearings of the question are not entitled to grave and serious consideration. Accustomed as I am almost daily, in the exercise of my professional avocations, to witness the fearful inroad made upon the material organization through the agency of mind, I am perhaps disposed to overrate the importance of examining, in all its relations, the influence of mental emotion, either in causing the disease or in readily predisposing the body to the action of these occult agents, which are believed, under given circumstances, to develop the epidemic