Week 42—Monday Psalm 31:9-10
Week 42—MONDAY
SIXTY TO EIGHTY PERCENT OF PATIENTS
HAVE PSYCHOSOMATIC COMPLAINTS
We mentioned yesterday the effects of mind and emotion on the body. Dr. Blaine E. McLaughlin, director of psychiatry at Women’s Medical College, Philadelphia, says that 60 to 85 percent of all patients in doctors’ offices have psychosomatic complaints. He says that 99 percent of all headaches, 75 percent of all gastric upsets, 75 percent of all skin diseases, and 85 percent of all asthma are psychosomatic in nature.
A doctor in our Hiroshima, Japan, Ashram said, “I was taught in the medical college that all diseases were rooted in the body, but my practice has made me see differently. A farmer was a drunkard and felt guilty over it. Then his son in Tokyo began to behave badly, and he felt guilty over this too. His heart began to act badly. But he has a perfectly good heart structurally.” A heart specialist in Fredericksburg, Virginia, said to me, “Eighty-five percent of people with heart conditions have nothing structurally wrong with them—the disturbance is functional. Fear is the great trouble. I have to spend most of my time telling people they have nothing structurally wrong with them.”
A minister told me he lost his personal experience of God in the Seminary. “I went to Mayo Clinic. They could find nothing wrong with me physically. The psychiatrist to whom I went had more problems than I had. He sucked on candy all the time. He said ‘If you want to do it, why don’t you do it.’ I found myself reading your book on conversion while riding on a bus. There it happened—on the bus! I was converted! I have had a wonderful year—no problems.”
A doctor who attended to the medical needs of a General Motors plant in a certain city said, “Seventy-five percent of the executives of this plant have gastric ulcers due to the pressure upon them to succeed or be replaced. I have had no training to deal with these mental and spiritual needs, so I am helpless.”
O Jesus Lord and Savior, you are not helpless. You lose no cases surrendered into your hands and wholly obedient to you. Help me to be one of those—surrendered and obedient. For your will is health and healing. I would live in it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My resolution: No homegrown ills.