adder connect with the same segment
of the spinal cord, she had unconsciously chosen to mix her messages,
and to cling to the substitute sensation without being in the least
Conscious of the cause. As soon as she had described the scene to me
and had discerned its connection with her symptoms, the bladder
trouble disappeared.
=Afraid of the Cold.= Patients who are sensitive to cold are very
numerous. Mr. G.--he of the prunes and bran biscuits--was so afraid of
a draft that he could detect the air current if a window was opened a
few inches anywhere in a two-story house. He always wore two suits of
underwear, but despite his precautions he had a swollen red throat
much of the time. His prescription was a cold bath every morning, a
source of delight to the other men patients, who made him stay in the
water while they counted five. He was required to dress and live like
other folks and of course his sensitiveness and his sore throat
disappeared.
Dr. B----, when he came to me, was the most wrapped-up man I had ever
met. He had on two suits of underwear, a sweater, a vest and suit
coat, an overcoat, a bear-skin coat and a Jaeger scarf--all in
Pasadena in May!
Besides this fear of cold, he was suffering from a hypersensitiveness
of several other varieties. So sensitive was his skin that he had his
clothes all made several sizes too big for him so that they would not
make pressure. He was so aware of the muscles of the neck that he
believed himself unable to hold up his head, and either propped it
with his hands or leaned it against the back of a chair.
He had been working on the eighth edition of his book, a scientific
treatise of nation-wide importance, but his eyes were so sensitive
that he could not possibly use them and had to keep them shaded from
the glare. He was so conscious of the messages of fatigue that he was
unable to walk at all, and he suffered from the usual trouble with
constipation. All these symptoms of course belonged together and were
the direct result of a wrong state of mind. When he had changed his
mind, he took off his extra clothes, walked a mile and a half at the
first try, gave up his constipation, and went back to work. Later on I
had a letter from him saying that his favorite seat was an overturned
nail-keg in the garden and that he was thinking of sawing the backs
off his chairs.
Miss Y---- had worn cotton in her ears for a year or two because she
had once had an inflammation of the
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