The Modern Malady

Part I. Gives a Brief History of Nervous Exhaustion and the Modes of

treatment which have at various times been thought suitable to this most painful and trying disease.

A friend, to whom I read the Introduction, criticised the quotation with which I have concluded it. She objected that I thereby gave too high a place to mere knowledge. I replied that I referred to the highest kind of knowledge. This argument, however, fails to satisfy those who persistently remind one of Eve’s transgression. In my humble opinion, the point of that great and instructive history has always been missed. Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden for eating of the tree of knowledge, but if they had not been cast out of Eden, how could they have been received into heaven? It was necessary to eat of the tree of knowledge in order to desire to eat of the tree of life.

Again, before we can even desire to eat of the tree of knowledge, we must be ignorant; and thus we see our ignorance itself to be a needed stage in our upward evolution. We see in a glass darkly; we must become fools that we may be wise. In our imperfect condition we do but catch brief glimpses and fleeting shadows of the one mighty Truth. Just as our nervous system must waste that it may be nourished, as the pendulum must fall on the one side that it may rise on the other, so must our ignorance precede our half-knowledge, and our half-knowledge precede the fuller revelation.

It is almost needless to add that I am oppressed with a sense of my own incapacity for the task which I have here undertaken. But the most ignorant may teach something to the most learned, if he go through life by a different path. My only hope is that, in dealing with a subject about which so little is known, even my observations--conscientious as they are, however faulty--may be of some slight use to the community to which I owe so much.

In preparing this work for the press, I have had the advantage of Mr. Horace Hutchinson’s kind and generous assistance.

C. B.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

Our Nerves and their Ill-Treatment.

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION 23

II. A THIEF IN THE NIGHT 37

III. INEFFECTUAL TREATMENT 47

IV. ERRONEOUS NOTIONS 70

V. OBSERVATION 85

PART II.

The Causes of Neurasthenia.

VI. INTRODUCTION 101

VII. HEREDITY 104

VIII. IMPERFECTIONS OF OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM 121

IX. AN IMPERFECT SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 142

X. SECONDARY CAUSES OF NERVE-DETERIORATION 161

PART I.

Our Nerves and their Ill-Treatment.

“None shall rule but the humble.”--EMERSON.

Dedicated

TO THE

MEDICAL MEN, NURSES, AND OTHERS,

WHO, BY THEIR GENEROUS ASSISTANCE,

HAVE SO LARGELY CONDUCED TO THE SUCCESS OF THE AUTHOR’S LABOURS

AMONGST OUR EPILEPTIC AND NEURASTHENIC POOR.

CHAPTER I.. _introductory._

INTRODUCTORY.

Once there lived a race of men blest with very strong eyesight--so strong that they were unconscious of possessing sight at all, but accepted their marvellous endowment as a matter of course. These men were hunters, who lived on the birds and beasts they shot with their bows and arrows.

After a time our hunters learnt other arts besides that of the chase; various implements were invented; industries such as spinning and weaving were established; the primitive huts and sheds were discarded, and commodious dwellings rose in their place. But their progress was not unattended by serious disadvantages. For instance, the weavers, who passed a great deal of their time indoors, began to lose the strength and keenness of eyesight enjoyed by those who followed the chase.

At first little attention was paid to this calamity, but when some of the weavers went blind and became a burden on the rest of the community, a meeting was convened in the council-chamber called Public Opinion, the most influential members of the tribe were consulted, and certain conclusions were arrived at.

To be brief, it was decided that the malady in question was nothing more nor less than a special manifestation of the Evil One, and that the prompt execution of the sufferers was the only sure means of preventing the spread of his power. It was therefore decreed that these uncanny and mischievous weavers should at once be put to death. To ensure the conviction of all suspected parties, a mode of trial was ordered which had the advantage of being as efficacious as it was painful. So everything seemed to be made quite safe and comfortable, and the spirits of the tribe improved.

In spite of these excellent arrangements, however, some of the invalids contrived to escape the doom thus thoughtfully prepared for them. It so happened that certain of the community, who had not been invited to vote at the meeting, held firmly to the belief that, so far from being possessed by the Evil One, these dreaded weavers were divinely inspired. Just because those whose sight was impaired could not see to do the work which was close to their eyes, their advocates credited them with the ability to discern things which were beyond the range of the most powerful vision. They therefore protected the sufferers from trial and honoured them with superstitious awe.

The disabled weavers had themselves done much to promote the conflicting beliefs concerning them. When forced by growing blindness to abandon their trade, they had been glad enough to make a livelihood by seemingly exercising their supposed supernatural vision, and thus to escape from reproach on the score of idleness; not anticipating that they would but lay themselves open to suspicion of demon-fostering. In fact, they were often self-deceived, for the disease exercised a peculiar effect on the optic nerve, causing them, when they closed their eyes, to see before them a variety of colours and forms which had no objective existence, but which they frequently mistook for Divine revelation.

Time passed on. Notwithstanding the extreme measures taken to extirpate the malady, it spread widely and increased in severity. Again the matter was investigated, and again a meeting was convened.

This august assembly took a different view of the state of affairs from that which had decreed the death of the sufferers. The former enactments were repealed. Indeed, they were declared to be barbarous and unworthy of the community which had so long tolerated them. With singular unanimity it was agreed that the sufferers were really afflicted with some incapacitating disease, the nature of which it was impossible to discover, and for which it was vain to seek a cure. It was supposed to originate in obscure injuries to the arms and legs, but on this point there was difference of opinion. It never occurred to anybody that the malady could have anything to do with impairment of the sight.

The ultimate decision of the court was to the effect that the suffering weavers were to be relieved from the necessity of working for their bread; that they should be permitted to remain a burden on the community; that they should be kept within doors and tended as cripples, and that surgeons should visit them and bandage their legs and arms.

These changes met with universal approval. The more humane members of the tribe, who had shuddered at the former barbarities, were convinced that the millennium had arrived, while the sufferers themselves accepted their fate willingly enough. For though it was dull work to be kept indoors with bandaged limbs, it was infinitely preferable to the hatred and scorn of those around them, to say nothing of a violent and painful death; and though many of them at first wished to use their limbs and to take exercise in the open air on the days when there was no glare to hurt their weak eyes, inactivity was less irksome than constant and futile efforts to fulfil their tasks.

So, at first, every one was contented with the new decisions. True, all the sufferers died sooner or later in a crippled condition, after a more or less miserable and monotonous existence; but this unhappy result was regarded as inevitable, and no further cure was sought for. Even the invalids themselves came to attribute their bodily helplessness to their original complaint, and not to the total disuse and tight bandaging prescribed by the court.

Years went by, and brought no relief either to the disabled weavers or to those who maintained them. On the contrary, the disease continued to increase with frightful rapidity. All classes of the community--which had, for the most part, abandoned its outdoor pursuits--were attacked in turn. Further investigations were made as to the cause of the calamity; a third meeting was convened, and definite conclusions were arrived at.

These, in some respects, showed more knowledge than the conclusions of the second meeting. At the same time they showed less humanity. It seemed as though the pendulum of human feeling had swung violently in the direction of intolerance, then in the direction of tolerance, returning once more, not quite to its former position, but to one far beyond the mean of wisdom and moderation. Possibly the pendulum, in its oscillations, would repeatedly pass and repass this mean point, till its range should grow more and more limited, and it should at length find repose.

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