9 AUGUST 1879, Page 15

THE "CORNHILL" ON MENTAL CURES OF DISEASE.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")

Sin,—In your article on "Mental Cures of Physical Disease," you comment on a case of a man bitten by a rabid cat, who three months afterwards had all the symptoms of hydrophobia, and by taking violent exercise for a whole afternoon cured him- self. Instead of assuming, as his doctor did, that tetanus had been controlled by the violent effort of the patient's will, it would have been much more rational to have concluded that the poison absorbed into the system had been carried off by violent perspiration, consequent upon the prolonged violent exercise taken. Years age, I heard of a ease in which a woodcutter in South America was bitten by a cobra, when more than ten miles from his cabin. In his fright, he ran the whole distance home at full speed, arrived thoroughly exhausted in profuse per- spiration, and never suffered. the slightest ill-effects from the 'bite of the most poisonous snake in existence. I presume tho two cases were analogous.—I am, Sir, &c., COMMON-SENSE.