University of Virginia Library

Latent fear diagnosed

Consumptive patients always show great hopeful- ness and courage, even when they are supposed to be in hopeless danger. This state of mind seems anomalous except to the expert in Christian Science. This mental state is not understood, simply because it is a stage of fear so excessive that it amounts to fortitude. The belief in consumption presents to mor-

tal thought a hopeless state, an image more terrifying than that of most other diseases. The patient turns involun- tarily from the contemplation of it, but though unacknowl- edged, the latent fear and the despair of recovery remain in thought.