The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1825-08-17
Mg0tCal.
From the Boston Medical lntelligencer.]
LOW SPIRITS.

human nature, IMAM the C0nneXl0n De-
tween matter aud mind. We are we'll
aware there is nothing of novel char
acter in this expression; but still, the
operations of mind upon the body, un-
der the influence of different feelings,
excited by certain associations, depend
ing upon our relation to society, the
pursuits of business, domestic employ
ments, or individual friendships, must not
be neglected by physician, although
he may never be able 30 prescribe a
remedy. Such, indeed, is the constitu-
lion of man, and such, too, is his misfor-
tune, that, in possessing the highest H.
tellectual attributes, he is liable to be-
come the subject of care, anxiety, and
even of despair, and health is melted out
to him in proportion TO the develop
ment of sensorial power, and the trials
which these faculties have 10 encoun-
fer, by the greater perfection to which
they may have been carried by disci-
pline and education.
1t is only among the rudest members
of common society, that impressions are
ever so vivid as TO produce death from
excessive joy. The father who died by
immoderate laughter, when bis three
sons won the prize at the Olympic
games, and the door-keeper Of the
American Congress, who expired on
hearing the glorious news of peace,
were men of inferior powers: but, on
the other hand, men who have given
the most convincing testimony of superb
or attanments-men, whose genius has
given them niche in the temple of
fame-who have culled the flowers of
literature, and strewed them with lib
eral hand-men of noble souls and eX-
allied characters, whose hearts were as
feeling as they were good, have often
become prey to all those keen annoy
ances of depressed spirit, which gnaw
away the vitals, and make that life
which ought to have been happy one
"a cold and cherries waste.
A majority of the maladies for which
the physician is consulted, in persons of
delicate temperaments, have direct
origin in some labor of the mind, which
extends its influence TO the animal system,
and thus the discriminating pathologisl
may detect, by carefully weighing a
train Of circumstances, which are all
referable to the social state, the origin
of nervous debility, local pains, fatal af-
fections of the lungs, and even organic
diseases of the heart. Women are by
no means exempted from these peculiar
suferings: indeed, the most refined and
lovely females are the most frequent
subjects of these fatal diseases, which
are depending on some hidden secret in
the mind; and every rolling year car
ries with IFS seasons many hundreds of
interesting females, the pale victims of
a broken heart. There is no sight TO a
professional man more melancholy,
than to witness the daily progress of
these fatal symptoms upon the care
worn cheek of an innocent, but discon-
ISOLATE youth, whose only i'll is truly in
the mind and there is nothing better
calculated to induce him to mourn over
the imperfection of the healing art,
which cannot cure wounded spirit.
Intellectual refinement, when proper
ly encouraged, and when the sun shines
mildly through the little day of life, and
all the springs of youthful vigor are
kept in balance by an elastic spirit,
bounding to the clouds, insures both
length of days and happiness but when
the world has lost its charms, and the
flowers no longer yield rich perfume,
when friends are dropping to The grave,
g. the azure sky is darker each returning
day; the slender tenement which held
so rich gem--the rational, immortal
soul--withers in the blast Of sorrow,
and all that could have charmed the eye
in symmetry and form dissolves in death
forever.
Where there is great muscular
strength, it is in most instances the chief
trait of character and we look in vain
for those peculiar sensibilities which are
distinguishing marks of intellectual ex-
cellence. Such people are never liza
BILE to mental alienation or desponden-
cy; strong in themselves, they only yield
to those acute febrile or intiamDatory
diseases which overpower the tension
of the animal fibre, and bring them sud-
denly on the beduf sickness. 10 health,
they eat and drink, and sweetly sleep
away their grief Two thirds of man
kind, in civilized nations, are of this hap
| Ply temperament; the class of crying phi
losophers, therefore, bears no adequate
proportion TO those who laugh away all
care.
Every station in society is attended
with certain responsibilities for which
the personal character of the individual
is held in public pledge and the never
ending Perplexities arising out Of an ex-