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Show Calmness and Its Bodily Relations When as a youngster I heard about someone dying of a broken heart I had in mind an actual break in the heart. When I became older I thought of a broken heart as just a figure of speech; that it meant that the heart, the spirit, was greatly bowed down by grief. And as a medical med-ical student I "knew" that the heart eould not be broken by grief. How wrong I was has been shown by the work of Prof. W. P. Cannon, who has shown that an individual who worries about his heart not only causes a functional, disturbance of the heart, but can cause true or organic disease of the heart. There' is no doubt that infection can upset the mind teeth, tonsils, gall bladder as dramatically shown in the reports of a large mental hospital. hos-pital. Diseases of the heart, liver and kidneys can cause mental symptoms. symp-toms. That emotional disturbances can upset the mind and upset other organs and processes of the body is not so well known. The Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago, has issued a booklet, "Psychoanalysis "Psy-choanalysis in Medicine," by Dr. Alfred E. Conn, member of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. Re-search. Dr. Cohn states that while physicians physi-cians recognize the effects of infection infec-tion and disease on the mind and body, they do not so readily recognize recog-nize that emotional disturbance, of long standing or short, is the main or real cause of the symptoms present pres-ent in many cases. Into this class or category are individuals in-dividuals who through shock or continued con-tinued strain develop sugar in the urine, perhaps diabetes, paroxysmal tacchycardia (sudden rapid beating of the heart) or irregular beating of the heart. "Cases of asthma in which attacks are clearly brought on by profound emotional disturbances seem to belong to this group." What you and I must do is to try to acquire calmness of mind satisfaction satis-faction with life through religion or philosophy so that emotional disturbances dis-turbances will not so greatly upset our mind and body processes. QUESTION BOX Q. What causes a constant ringing ring-ing in the ears? A. Ringing in the ears may be due to an ear condition, to cerumen (wax) in outer ears, and sometimes just the position of lying down as It affects the blood pressure. Q. What would cause my little finger to pain whenever I try to use It? A. The nerve has likely been aamaged by infection teeth, tonsils, ton-sils, etc. or by some pressure. |