Le Cholera

   It must be apparent to those who have been at all familiar with cholera, and other epidemic diseases, that the imagination has a large share in producing individual cases. It is a well-known fact that excess of joy will affect the circulation, sorrow will disturb the digestion, passion will inflame the system, and fright will chill; and it is equally true that not only are these transient effects produced through the influence of the mind, but special and positive diseases are, under certain circumstances, the result of mental impressions.

     This fact, illustrated in the history of the epidemics succeeding the fourteenth century, should be borne in mind in treating the great pestilence of the present age. Those who may doubt the truth of the statement that cholera is frequently engendered through fear, will here see the evidence of positive disease produced by no other cause than mental excitement.^[1]

1. Collins, G.T. The Cholera: A familiar treatise on its history, causes, symptoms and treatment, with the most effective remedies, and Proper mode of their administration, without the aid of a physician, the whole in language free from medical terms, especially adapted for the use of the public generally. Also containing a history of the epidemics of the Middle Ages. J.R. Hawley & Company: Cincinnati. 1866.