The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-02-26
The Skeleton in our House.

Familiar as is the saying that Gin the midst
of life we are in DEATH" it is an axiom which
never loses its force, but seems to be more
and more applicable with every recurring
year. The results of modern science, espec-
tally in matters of locomotion, have increas-
ed perceptibly the average peril of human
life. Though fearful scourges which existed
in long past ages have become extinct
though the plague which the prayer of pious
Phineas alone could stay, and the pestilences
of biblical times and even of the middle ages
seem to have disappeared, the aggregate of
mortal maladies is probably greater than
ever. We all know how, at intervals, steal
ing from its miasmatic home amid the jun
giles of the far East, the Asiatic cholera starts
on its death-dealing march around the globe.
We have at this very day unhappy proofs of
the prevalence of one Of the most nosome
and fearful diseases which has ever existed.
Consumption, as ever, maintains its fearful
prominence, and the roads to the tomb are
nearly as numerous as the myriads of travel
lers who are fastening to that inevitable des-
tiny.
In certain countries there are local diseases
which have given an unenviable celebrity to
particular places. Our own land has boasted
an immunity from such infections; but the
words seem to be but idle bravado. Over the
best, the proudest, the most cultivated of our
people there is ever hanging the dread shadow
of an awful doom. On the keenest intellect
it is the most apt to fall. For the busiest, the
most prominent and useful of our public men
its deadly blight is most surely intended
Against the prowling murderer we can at
least take measures of defence; from the
burning of fever we can seek cooling relief;
from the taint of other diseases we can ask
the protection of science; but when paralysis
seizes the frame it is as though the icy finger
of death itself had touched us, and hollow
voice were heard to say, "Yet little time,
and all is over"
Coming upon a man suddenly and in the
fullness of life and vigor, the dread disease
presents horror to which the grave itself
is stranger. 1t allows of no time for prepa-
ration, it sends forth no friendly scouts to
warn us of its coming. When the moment
has arrived, the merchant leaves his leger,
the lawyer drops his briefs, the legislator for
gets the measures so dear to him, the literary
man turns from his books, the journalists
pen falls neryeless from his grasp, and all
these thinkers and workers become helpless
objects of pity; if conscious themselves, una
BILE to communicate with those about them I;
living corpses, souls bound, in the apostles
language, "to the body of this DEATH"
The Greek word from which our term par
alysis is derived means relaxation, in the
sense not of recreation, but of letting 60 of
the function Of motion or sensation, "arising
from an interruption or destruction of the
nervous influence necessary to those acts.
OF the technical features of this disease, or
rather this symptom of other diseases, we do
not propose here to speak; but we would d-
rect the attention of the medical profession to
the prevalence of the malady in our country
a prevalence which might permit one to call
paralysis a national American complaint
No one can have read the papers lately
with even ordinary attention without nav
ing noticed the vast number OF cases
The senator at Washington, the cler-
gyman in the West, merchants in the marts
Of business, men of apparent leisure in their
quiet homes-all have lately fallen before this
forerunner of death. Scientific men attribute
these cases and almost all other paralytic
strokes, to the keen. restless activity of the
American mind, which admits of no recrea-
tion or repose. The reason may be just, but
it is unsatisfactory. Is this eclipse of all ply
sical and mental faculties tolclose, without
opposition, the bright careers of our leading
public men, of our most brilliant intellects
Surely, ifscience cannot cure the malady, it
should give timely warning of its awful in
crease, and devise some prevention. The
tomb comes soon enough, the grave opens too
readily for all but let not living death dar-
ken the pathway that leads to its gloomy por-
tails, II science can do aught TO ward away that
fearful visitant. N. Y. Evening Post