Psychologist Gordon Allport once told about a patient who was dying in a hospital. The attending physicians told him quite frankly that he could not expect to be cured since the diagnosis was unknown. The only hope they offered him was that a distinguished diagnostician had been called in and was soon to give his expert opinion. The specialist arrived but needed only a little time to reach his conclusion. To the physicians in attendance and almost out of the patient's earshot he pronounced: "Moribundus." After some years, our patient, who did not die, called on the specialist to report on his good health and to thank the physician for saving his life. The ex-patient explained how the medical staff had told him that he could be cured only if the disease could be diagnosed. Therefore, he explained, he knew that he would recover as soon as he heard the consultant's diagnosis of "moribundus."

Such is the power of positive thinking.