American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-11-22
2.
NERVOUSNESS.


., Jo,cnioeucey is worthy of place IN
everv newspaper asd magazine IN the
countrv. We commend it especially 10
the notice of those papers whose columns
are filed with disgusting and frauouien'
advertisements and quack nostrums
"ERAsMus-FRoM THE COUNTRY
n.Nervousness is getting to be fright
fully common in this country. In 'ola
t;nss, this affection was confined chiefly
70 old men and to passc females; to con-
vt;tutions of the poetic type, to impressl-
hla and exalted natures, like fine writer's,
musicians, orators, great actors and rter-
airy people are commonly endowed win,
Tn .old times the old nervous people kept
the house, or rode out moderately ana
quietly; they took nervines, they were
waited on and soothed ana treated as IN
yalids. and 50 they passed innocently ana
harmlessly out of the world, without
numbering any body or even breaking
any bodys head or limbs And the Or
.-tors, artists, poets and writer's OF that
day found vent for this infrmity in :he
rostrum. through their art, in their verses
and glowing periods. But nowadays
there is flock of young people who are
80 very nervossr The male nervous
youth (of course We except from what
we are about to say crazy gea'rseS, VINO
are always at times, more or less ma")-
the male nervous youth of this day, per-
haps, has drank too much poisoned WINS
ky, and smoked too many cigars or pipes
OF he has kept late hours in forbidden
places, or the fountain OF his life is dry
ing up from disease; perhaps he is an idle
fellow, Jlase, empty headed, gone to seed,
half-gamestcr and prohigatc who verges
near dclcrtum hcnleas; or an over-lndulS-
ed, imperious pet, pampercd by his SER
uants, dreaded by his dependents, tawned
on by parositical expectants, mortalIy fear
ed by his mother, sister or wife; in fine,
lord of himselt--that heritage OF VOC
fine gentleman, in a small way, who
never has thought about Divine grace,
and who is only approached with impuni-
~ by the very Devil himself a charac-
ter of this sort may be nervous when he
is crossed even by an atom ora hair
The nervous fcrale' may possibly be
over excited upon the subject of her be
ing lady as she styles it-that is, a
person who can do nothing to help her
self, and who glories in such hclplessnoss;
.onc who has petty income, and yet 'cho
1souM hare servants, jewels, gorgeous
apparel, one who would give rich and
frequent ntertainments-if she only had
the money of somebody above her; and
all this for the reason that she was put
TO a fashionable boarding school, when
one in her circumstances ought to have
been trained for the practical duties and
labors of life. And so she becomes 'ner-
vous' often. While thousands of others
of her sex, too bashful or prudish to read
the physiological truths that every woman
should know, fall into an abuse of their
nature, through Ignorance and neglect
and the number of these is legion nova
days and in this way live diseased and
tormcntcd lives, at period of existence
.4shen every pulse should gild their fea-
lures as sunlight glitters on the dancing
wave. Now, this evil is great moral.
social, physiological evil of the day, and
on this evil fatten swarms of quacks-
medical quacks-of patent medicine ma
kers, of sellers of disguised rum in a
spsand medical forms; hosts of 'speci-
for what they call female diseases
II here are born (only medical man
Ee think, can tell how many) the sly
Hcmale devoted to stimulants 'to relieve
nervousness, who eventually become, to
all intcnts and purposes, opium eaters,
passing from inordiuate a!o drinkers,
through other degrees of stimulants, fin
ally to opium. [Of course, good IN oral
and healthy society will understand that
'BRasMus' speaks of the morbij-o? the
weeds, the poisous, and not of the heal
thy-of the flowers, aud of the true and
rightly-directed of his fellows.1 And
here it is that moral insanity, as the doc
tors call it, finds its origin, in nine cases
odr0f>tep: Temper is confaRnded with
nervousness; unbridfed passion aud un-
tanned impulse are mistaken for such
helpless cases as are driven into guilt and
excess, because the rudder, the will, the
senses are destroyed and chaotic.
"How much of this evil. that does,aot,
strictly belong to physical causes, can be
traced to foolish education, and to disap.-
pointed affections or fanciea, alike in the
single aud in the welded! In the ,frst
place, the mere worldly fashionable no
.tiou of religion resolves the earnest and