It is probable that the mere pressure of part upon part in the body, even the ordinary activity of its organs, would give rise to sensations if we encouraged them. Given an anomalous sensation, or even a pain, for which the physician finds no physical basis, and which, after a term of years, has produced no further appreciable effect than to make one nervous, it is always in place to ask one's self whether the sensation or the pain may not be of this nature.
Medical instructors are continually consulted by students who fear that they have the diseases they are studying. The knowledge that pneumonia produces pain in a certain spot leads to a concentration of attention upon that region which causes any sensation there to give alarm. The mere knowledge of the location of the appendix transforms the most harmless sensations in that region into symptoms of serious menace. The sensible student learns to quiet these fears, but the victim of "hypos" returns again and again for examination, and perhaps finally reaches the point of imparting, instead of obtaining, information, like the patient in a recent anecdote from the _Youth's Companion_:
It seems that a man who was constantly changing physicians at last called in a young doctor who was just beginning his practice.
"I lose my breath when I climb a hill or a steep flight of stairs," said the patient. "If I hurry, I often get a sharp pain in my side. Those are the symptoms of a serious heart trouble."
"Not necessarily, sir," began the physician, but he was interrupted.
"I beg your pardon!" said the patient irritably. "It isn't for a young physician like you to disagree with an old and experienced invalid like me, sir!"
There is no absolute standard for the proper degree of solicitude regarding one's health, but if the habitual invalid possess a physique which would not preclude the average normal individual from being out and about, even at the expense of a pain, a stomach ache, or a cold, there is probably a hypochondriacal element in the case. It is a question of adjustment of effect to cause.
The term "imaginary" is too loosely applied to the sensations of the hypochondriac. This designation is unjustified, and only irritates the sufferer, rouses his antagonism, and undermines his confidence in the judgment of his adviser. He knows that the sensations are there. To call them imaginary is like telling one who inspects an insect through a microscope that the claws do not look enormous; they _do_ look enormous--through the microscope--but this does not make them so. The worrier must learn to realize that he is looking at his sensations, as he does everything else, _through a microscope_.