Chapter 7 of 7 · 761 words · ~4 min read

Part II of this volume.

Footnote 14:

A simple, practical example of what is meant by obtaining the position of mechanical advantage may be given. Let the subject sit as far back in a chair as possible. The teacher, having decided upon the orders necessary for the elongation of the spine, the freedom of the neck (i.e., requisite natural laxness), and other conditions desirable for the particular case in hand, will then ask the pupil to rehearse those orders mentally, at the same time that he himself renders assistance by the skilful use of his hands. Then holding with one hand one or two books against the inner back of the chair, he will rely upon the pupil mentally rehearsing the orders necessary to maintain and improve the conditions present, while he, with the other hand placed upon the pupil’s shoulder, causes the body gradually to incline backwards until its weight is taken by the back of the chair. The shoulder-blades will, of course, be resting against the books. The position thus secured is one of a number which I employ and which for want of a better name I refer to as a position of “mechanical advantage.”

Footnote 15:

A very notable though trivial instance of mental “rigidity” was brought to me by a pupil while writing these pages. A fireman on duty at a theatre had neglected to unbolt the escape doors. When severely reprimanded he pleaded that he had been instructed by an assistant manager to do duty in another part of the theatre at the time he usually opened the escapes. The following night the assistant manager instructed him to make the same change in his routine on which the man pleaded, “Don’t ask me to do that, sir. I forgot the escapes last night and I am sure to forget ’em again if you make me go that way round. You see, sir, I’ve gone round the other way so long that if I make a change I seem to lose my memory.”

Footnote 16:

“This experimental observation is so far to our interest that it has proved that hypnotic suggestion is by far surpassed in the duration of its effects by suggestion in the waking state, and this again by regular teaching and practice. But this is physiologically explicable: Hypnotic suggestion obtains its results solely through the intensity of the isolated stimulus and through the brain-track it leaves behind, which has an abnormally slight connexion with the whole associative mechanism of the brain. Regular instruction, on the contrary, is based on the strong associative implanting of the stimulus and the brain-track it leaves behind, with the normal activity of the brain, i.e., on the many-sidedness of the nervous connections and their reproductive effect; whilst, in the first case, the trace is more or less easily effaced, in the second the accompanying reproductive, sympathetic stimulus increases and preserves the result obtained, as well as effecting the other bodily functions dependent on it.”—_The Psychic Treatment of Disease_, Berthold Kern.

Footnote 17:

A simple experiment will serve to prove this shortening by the increase of, say, the lumbar curve. Take a piece of cardboard of six inches in length and place it flat on a table or against the wall. With a pencil draw lines on the table or wall as close to the upper and lower ends of the cardboard as possible. Remove the cardboard and curve it slightly across the lower portion about an inch from the end which touched the lowest line. Replace it on the lower line without interfering with the curve and you will find that it does not reach the upper line any longer. A similar condition occurring in the human being means a shortening in stature.

Footnote 18:

As I have already explained in Part I, inspiration is not a sucking of air into the lungs but an inevitable instantaneous rush of air into the partial vacuum caused by the automatic expansion of the thorax.

Footnote 19:

It is worthy of note in this connexion that during the past two years the English hospitals have been crowded with cases of men who, formerly accustomed to sedentary occupations, have “broken down” with army training.

Footnote 20: