Laughter - the best medicine

I was fascinated by a sentence that comes in a social history of Britain between the wars (Martin Pugh; ‘We Danced All Night’). It is about the early films of Charlie Chaplin: ‘During wartime miracles were freely attributed to his films by wounded soldiers who laughed so much at his screen antics that they got up and walked without using their crutches.’ I do not doubt that this was the case, though whether the soldiers continued without their crutches might be a moot point. However, this is so similar to the sort of thing that happened in healing services where, if not laughter, there was great emotion, that I think the explanation must be the same. But I’m not going to pursue the subject further.