It is quite likely that in no other area of medicine is the layman more confused than in the area of "psychosomatic" illnesses.

A fairly young career woman, owner of a small chain of stores, angrily crushed out a cigarette and stared at her doc­tor with snapping eyes.

"If I have an ulcer, it is not of psychosomatic origin!" she said. "I'm a normal woman. Not neurotic. I don't particularly like your suggesting that I am!"

The doctor held up a placating hand. They were friends of several years' standing. "Take it easy, Amanda. Virtually all medical authorities recognize that peptic ulcers, high blood pressure, ulcerative colitis, asthma—some other conditions— can be caused by emotional conflicts. Just as, in some cases, physical discomforts influence a patient's emotions."

"But I haven't—"

"Oh, but you have, Amanda," he protested with a smile. "I'm your friend. Remember? We know about each other. I know that you've been having business problems. You told me yourself. I know that you and Bill have been quarreling, almost to the point of your breaking your engagement. You told me that, too—last week. Remember?"

"But psychosomatic. That sounds as if I'm imagining this ulcer."

The doctor sighed wearily. "Sometimes," he said, "I wish they never had coined the word. You're not imagining that you have an ulcer. You have one."

"All right, then. Will you explain what you mean by psychosomatic?"

"Psycho means mind. Soma, body. From there on it gets to be a little too complex to explain fully, Amanda. But in virtually all illness there is an interaction of emotional and physical conflicts."

The doctor went on to explain his interpretation of the word to Amanda, as other doctors undoubtedly have tried to do with patients who shy away from the psychosomatic tag.

Dr. Paul Kuhn has explained some of the meaning in these word: "Every organ of the body, and the interplay between the various organs, are dependent on the brain, without which they could not function properly. For this reason mental changes can usually be detected in all internal illnesses."

He then points out that certain psychosomatic illnesses— enumerating disorders of the thyroid gland, some heart ail­ments, stomach ulcers, and asthma as examples—"are, in the last resort, mental disorders, in which, unlike hysteria, psy-choneurosis (illnesses caused by mental inhibitions) and the more serious mental illnesses, physical suffering takes the place of mental suffering."

Dr. William C. Menninger says: "Today, all diseases are psychosomatic. I wish we could use the term not as a 'spe­cialty' but as a point of view in all medicine. Any kind of symptom—a headache, or a fear, or hypochondria—is a part of the total patient. Psychosomatic still means body and mind, but in a broader sense it includes all the inner and outer forces that animate his personality—we have to treat the whole person, not pieces and parts."

While Amanda represented one victim whose psycho­somatic illness was manifested in a peptic ulcer—which was eventually cured through proper treatment—by far the largest number of patients classed as psychosomatic are the hypo­chondriacs, the many thousands of physically sound persons who, to use a familiar term, "enjoy poor health"—or "imagine they're ill."

Marguerite Clark neatly elucidates in Medicine Today: "The psychosomatic patient whose illness takes the form of a real physical ailment, such as ulcer or high blood pressure, usually can, with proper treatment, be persuaded to believe that his troubles are of emotional origin. The hypochondriac, who suffers from a persistent and unfounded worry about the state of his physical health, does not believe that anything is wrong with him emotionally. He is sure that the trouble is an obscure physical disease which no doctor is able to detect."

Some doctors prefer to use the word psychophysiologic rather than psychosomatic, feeling that is gives a more precise meaning to the conditions involved. Dr. David Abrahamsen, New York psychiatrist, prefers the term psychobiotic: "a disturbance of bodily function related to emotional conflict, often unconscious."

Psychosomatic disorders may be caused by a great many things.

A mother, who had fond hopes of a son becoming a con­cert pianist (he actually became a first-rate accountant), con­tinually warned the boy throughout his childhood to protect his hands. Later, when he was a man, he complained fre­quently of "aching hands," especially when he may have been emotionally disturbed by his home life.

Dr. Edward Weiss of Philadelphia suggests that many adults experience an "anniversary reaction" on the death of a "key person," such as a parent. A man, reaching the age that his father had attained when he died of a heart attack, may also become ill at that age and suffer imaginary heart pains.

A woman goes into the forties and begins to worry about her fading good looks and a slight trend toward heaviness. She develops a series of symptoms which she enumerates to her doctors, certain that she is suffering from some grave illness, which she does not really have.

The office manager of an insurance agency checks his tem­perature as soon as he arrives at work. He checks his pulse. He takes two aspirin and scrutinizes his tongue for a coating. He blanches with fear when he has a slight gas pain, hardly believing that it has gone away a few seconds later. May be my heart—he thinks.

Psychosomatic medicine has become so significant that a section has been set up at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, to conduct research in the field.

THE MYSTERY OF FAITH—THE FAITH IN MYSTERY

—Not only does the Ebers papyrus give us much information about the medicines used by the Egyptians before 1552 B.C., but it also tells us that an important part of treatment was the laying on of hands, combined with extensive formulary and ceremonial rites performed by the physicians who were priests.

Not long ago, in modern New York, several persons, in­cluding some nationally known personages, knelt at the altar of the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in the city's upper East Side. Dr. John Ellis Large, a highly respected clergyman in the nation, dipped a thumb in olive oil and on each forehead he made the sign of the cross, saying, "I anoint thee with oil, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; beseeching the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all thy pain and sickness of body being put to flight, the blessing of health may be restored unto thee."

The National Council of Churches reported last year that 142 of 460 distinguished Protestant ministers make regular use of prayer for healing. Furthermore, they are convinced that in many cases the prayers have been importantly instru­mental in recovery from illness.

Throughout all the centuries, between the early Egyptian laying on of hands (and possibly before that time) to the present day in America, there has been an unbroken history of faith healing.

The Biblical references to healing are common knowledge. The relics and shrines that have been accorded healing powers are well known in history. Accounts of miracle healings are legion.

Nor has the ability to heal by the laying on of hands, the power of faith, been solely restricted to the Christian people. Parallel instances and beliefs have existed in many, many cultures, from the most primitive to the most civilized.

In addition to the religious healers there are lay persons who, according to contemporary investigators and researchers, apparently have gifts of healing that they themselves cannot explain or control.

Jhan and June Robbins, writing for Redbook Magazine, July, 1960, tell of an interview with one layman healer who seemed to be worried and bewildered: "I don't know what to make of this healing power. I don't know how to turn it on or off. When I try to describe it, I'm embarrassed by the char­latan-like sound of my words. So mostly I keep quiet."

Another layman—an engineer—about whom they wrote, described healing his sister's paralysis. Later he was said to have healed a teen-ager paralyzed in an auto accident.

While some doctors and scientists—and others—reflect the position taken by the American Medical Association, that reported cures are the result of suggestion, spontaneous re­mission, or improper diagnosis, other doctors and equally discerning authorities do not agree.

The Robbinses report the director of a large Chicago hos­pital as stating: "As a doctor, I have seen recoveries after prayer and healing services that defy all present scientific knowledge."

Dr. Robert Laidlow, chief of psychiatry at New York City's Roosevelt Hospital, is reported to have answered the question: "Does a healing power exist?" with a positive answer: "I believe we can answer with an unconditional yes."

A study of spiritual healing that extended over five years, instituted by business and professional men of the Laymen's Movement for a Christian World, brought out some conclu­sions.

Although they failed to find a medically certifiable case where healing of fatal or serious organic ailment was made by purely spiritual means, they were convinced that they had "near misses."

They concluded that a healing power exists; that a sense of friendship, of knowing that someone cares, greatly helps in achieving spiritual healing; that certain personalities have this healing gift; but that it is highly arguable whether these personalities draw on some power within themselves or some outside power, or a combination of the two.

This is not the full story of spiritual healing, by any means. Even objective scientists such as Dr. Alexis Carrel, who was awarded a Nobel prize for his extraordinary research as Medi­cal Director of the Rockefeller Institute, have visited and observed at the famed shrine in Lourdes, France and acknowl­edged undeniable evidences of healing.

Lourdes is the scene where 14-year-old Bernadette Sou-birous saw her first "vision" of the "Beautiful Lady" in a grotto on February 11, 1858.

Zsolt Aradi reports in The Book of Miracles (Monarch Books, Inc., Derby, Conn., 1961): "This was the first of eighteen appearances of Our Lady to Bernadette. But an un­believing world greeted her first appearance with shouts of denial and derision. The resurrection of superstition and hysteria in the modern age of science was at once denounced and deplored, forcing the closing of the grotto, until it was reopened later by order of Napoleon III, Emperor of France."

Ten years later the visions seen by Bernadette were con­firmed by the Church as true apparitions of the Blessed Virgin.

Aradi goes on to observe: "No greater or more eloquent confirmation of the authenticity of the apparitions could be offered than the fact that Bernadette has been elevated to sainthood—not only because she saw the Virgin; she was beatified and canonized because her life was a saintly one."

The first reported cure at Lourdes was that of four-year-old Justin Bouhohors. He was apparently dying of tuberculosis and was brought to the well and immersed in icy waters on February 28, 1858. He is reported to have been completely cured and died an old man in 1935.

The Annales de Lourdes recorded 6000 healings or remark­able improvements from 1858 to 1914. The medical interest in the shrine is evidenced by the fact that since establishment of the Lourdes Medical Bureau and International Study Center 30,000 physicians have registered as visitors. As Aradi explains in his book, "These two medical institutions are not ecclesiastical or religious bodies. Any doctor of any race, any country, any faith or ideology, has the right to examine the records and raise questions."

From 800 to 1500 physicians participate annually in con­sultation work in relation to establishing the facts about the healing at Lourdes.

Medical examinations of some of the ill who come to Lourdes for help are as scientifically objective as is possible. Some of the results are recorded by Aradi:

"In 1946 the Medical Bureau examined thirty-six cases. From these, only fourteen were resubmitted for new examina­tion one year later, and in the second year there remained only four ... In 1947, the Medical Bureau examined seventy-five alleged cures and immediately rejected sixty-four of them. After one year, eleven cases passed the test, but at the end of the second year only six were admitted for final examination. In 1948, 15,000 sick people came to Lourdes. A total of eighty-three cures was claimed but only nine arrived at the final verdict.

"In 1947, 750 doctors participated in actual examinations; in 1948, 999; in 1950, 1200; in 1952, 1300; and in 1953 and 1955, 1500."

Aradi reports that from 1914 to 1955, the Medical Bureau attested, and the ecclesiastical authorities approved, a total of 262 miraculous cures.

Millions have visited Lourdes from all over the world. In 1954, four million pilgrims came to the shrine.

One evening, at the shrine, after Dr. Carrel had observed the evident recovery of a woman who appeared to be dying from peritonitis of tubercular origin, he stopped before the basilica, knowing that he must draw a conclusion from his observations. He entered the basilica and sat beside a peasant, covering his face. Suddenly, it is said, a prayer came to his lips: "Oh, Dearest Virgin, You who help all the miserable, who humbly pray to you, please defend me. I believe in you. You apparently wanted to answer my doubting with a miracle. I do not yet see, I still doubt, but it is my desire and the main goal of all my efforts that I should believe blindly, without arguments and without criticism. My intellectual pride is deep and hard, and the dream, the most enchanting dream of dreams, is still buried beneath my pride. This dream is that I should believe in you, that I should love you the way those of pure heart love you."

It is reported that by the time he arrived at his room it seemed to him that he had arrived at the certainty and that he was suddenly able to clear his soul from recurring doubts; and, reports Aradi, "he was filled with peaceful joy."

Obviously, spiritual healing is not to be lightly dismissed by skeptics nor the "completely objective, scientific mind" in which "intellectual pride is deep and hard." There are the "miracles" of Lourdes.

Belief in faith healing has a long history of its own and goes back to the earliest recorded times.

Back in the last century when Jeremiah Gorman's wife, Elizabeth, fell ill with "the fever" he put her to bed and laboriously set the following on a piece of paper:

ABRACADABRA

ABRACADAB

A B R A C A D

A B R A C

A B R

A

He wrapped the paper in common plantain leaves. He then felt of Elizabeth's forehead.

"The fever's bad," he said. "Real bad, Liz. I'll do this for it now."

Carefully he placed the magic paper upon her stomach.

"I learned it in the Pennsylvania-Dutch country," he ex­plained.

Others, long before the Pennsylvania-Dutch, had used the letters to cure or ward off illnesses. Almost 2000 years ago the formula was used to ward off ague in Rome.

In the 17th century a highly touted cure for the ague con­sisted of chips from a gallows put into a bag and worn around the neck. Carrying some hair from a goat's chin also was supposed to be effective.

Elias Asmole, in his diary, dated April 11, 1681, wrote the following:

"I took early in the morning a good dose of Elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my Ague away. Deo Gratias!"

In England, as recently as May 24, 1851, the following remedy for goitre was published in Notes and Queries accord­ing to George B. Cutten in his study Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing:

"A common snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly drawn across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for a while. Afterwards the snake is put alive in a bottle, which is corked tightly, and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the snake decays, the swelling vanishes."

The Pennsylvania-Dutch powwowing concentrated on sor­cery to cure disease or to repel it. Amulets were used exten­sively, as they were in the Middle-Ages. Among them, one, for cramps, specified a bone ring worn on the thumb, or a strong thread tied below the thigh.

Part of the instructions for preparing an elder tree amulet, popular for use in epilepsy, went as follows: "In the month of October, a little before the full moon, you pluck a twig of the elder, and cut the cane that is betwixt two of its knees, or knots, in nine pieces, and these pieces being bound in a piece of linen, be in a thread, so hung about the neck, that they touch the spoon of the heart, or the sword-formed carti­lage . . ."

Warts were favorite objects of charms, amulets, and magic cures. Some already have been mentioned. Others are oddities, to say the least, such as one prescribing the use of coffin water. A number of methods of transferring warts were favored. Some persons believed in having a vagrant count them and mark the number of the warts inside his hat. Supposedly, when the vagrant left the neighborhood, he took the warts with him. Another method of transferring warts was to touch each with a pebble, then to place the pebbles in a bag to be lost on the way to church. It was believed that the unfortunate person who found the bag would acquire the warts.

Magical curative powers were thought to be in the "royal touch," at one time. An instance was newsworthy less than 100 years ago, in 1865, when Naples was beset by cholera.

During the siege King Victor Emmanuel went from hos­pital to hospital to bring courage to the hearts of his people.

The story goes that he lingered at the bedside of a man who was already marked for death. The king stepped to his side and pressed the dying man's hand saying, "Take courage, poor man, and try to recover soon." That evening the physi­cian is said to have reported that the man marked for death was out of danger; the king unconsciously had worked a miracle.

Some of the English kings were credited with having healing powers in their royal touch. Henry VII established a partic­ular ceremony to be observed at the healings.

Amulets and charms always have been popular among most primitive peoples. They still are worn frequently in con­temporary civilized society as, for instance, "good luck" pieces and religious medals.

From time to time, healing cults have sprung up around the world. Some have been short-lived. Some have become established.

The transition, among "lay" people, from the shadow of mystery, folk medicines and limited understanding, to the much more concrete, researched medical knowledge of today, has been comparatively swift and almost astounding.

Some "healing cults" that might have attracted hundreds of thousands a few years ago, now would receive little attention. With each new generation the influence of health education and improved medical care are becoming more and more evident.

And even if a businessman in his fifties may be experi­menting, almost nostalgically, with an old-time, folk-medicine philosophy, possibly involving vinegar and honey that may currently be popular, the same man may be scrupulously and intelligently checking the cholesterol intake of his diet in rela­tion to a heart condition he may have. Furthermore, very often, he can carry on an intelligent conversation about some of the latest medical findings, in any number of fields, that are routinely covered in the business magazines the businessman reads.

All of us are most interested in our health, and it is para­doxical that a person can, in one breath, praise the "old-time remedies" and, in the next, extol the virtues of a new young doctor in the community: ". . . he knows all the latest methods and treatments!"

Meanwhile, if the warts still remain, there is the cure that was offered by Sir Kenelm Digby who suggested washing the hands in a well-polished silver basin "wherein there is not a drop of water, yet this may be done by the reflection of moon-beans only, which will afford it a competent humidity to do it." This, said Sir Digby, ". . . is an infallible way to take away warts from the hands, if it be often used."

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