The young physician, just beginning to practise, is astonished at the remarkable things which his patients tell him with the utmost confidence and in all good faith. Nearly all relate the story of their illness, beginning with that circumstance which, in their opinion, originated it. It is an innate tendency which spurs the human mind to find an explanation for everything; and the reason of phenomena, which is the foundation of science, is yet the cause of prejudices and the most abundant source of error. If I were to mention the names of all the maladies which are thought to be produced by fear, I should be obliged to copy nearly the whole index of a pathological text-book, and with small advantage to the reader, for the authors, after exhausting their scientific matter, state empirically everything their patients tell them, provided their affirmations bear an appearance of truth. I shall only mention facts beyond doubt, or those least controversial, supporting them by examples taken from the most reputed authors.
Chomel relates that a physician, after having performed the autopsy of a man who had died from hydrophobia, was so overcome by the fear of having infected himself, that he lost both appetite and sleep, felt a horror of all liquids and a choking sensation in the throat when he forced himself to drink. For three days he wandered through the streets like one desperate. His colleagues and friends, believing it to be the effect of imagination, made every effort to convince him of the fact, and by keeping him with them, they succeeded in ridding him of the ill-omened thought, and he recovered.
It is an incomprehensible phenomenon, but yet admitted by all medical writers, that fear may of itself give rise to phenomena exactly resembling those of hydrophobic infection. A celebrated physician, Bosquillon, believed that fear alone was the cause of hydrophobia and not the bite or the saliva of the dog.
Dubois tells of two brothers who were bitten by a mad dog. One had to leave at once for America, and thought no more about it. When he returned twenty years afterwards, he heard through some thoughtless person that his brother had died of hydrophobia, and was so agitated by the news that he fell ill and died, showing all the symptoms of rabies. Medical works are full of instances of persons bitten by dogs, who only developed hydrophobic symptoms after being incautiously told that the dog was mad. It is often impossible even for the physician to distinguish hypochondriac hydrophobia from true rabies; even the manner of death is no guide, for tetanic contractions of the respiratory organs appear also in hypochondriac hydrophobia.