New-York tribune., 1874-08-12
THE BURSTING SICKNESS.

II seems to be a queer complaint. ihey are
having il extensively away down In llaie-
mango, in Mexico. They say it arises from 700
much nerve force in the brain. First, you are
sick at the stomach. or would be if you were
bursting sick. Then you feel az II an extra
blunt knife were rasping up and down your
spine. Then pain makes you lunatlc. Iheh
you are sure that your head Is about to split
open Then it does split open, with noise
which can be heard ten feet Oft. lnen, OF
course, the funeral Ii must be admitted that
this is an extremely unpleasant kind ot epi-
demic. When told by some sufferer, as we
frequently are, that he has splitting" head
ache, we pity him, but we fully comprehend
that his brain is in no danger of going
off like bomb. Otherwise, the instinct
of self-preservation would lead Us to give
him reasonably wide berth. But If the
Bursting Sickness should become common,
two very bad consequences must follow. In
the first place, how could necessary quiet be
! maintained in the hospital with such gen
eral explosion always going ONT TO tend the
sick would be more dangerous than to assist
at a siege There would be constant carry
ing out of killed and wounded doctors and
nurses Certain very hard heads might make
holes in the walls and patients with more
quiet complaints, and with a reasonable pros
pect of recovery, be swept down by the flying
bones of the exploders We say nothing OF
the moral effect upon the sick of so many
sufferers reduced to an acephaous state. 1t
would be as bad az the most decapitatlng
days of the French Revolution.
The worst of it all, however, would DO the
awful disclosures. BY the blessing OF good
luck, and because they have an elegant talent
for holding their tongues, many men and
women wheedle the world into a belief that
they have brains galore; and school ma'ams
have been known to increase the deluslon by
shaving the northern regions OF their fore
heads When we see particularly bulglng
brow we yield to the fancies of the phrenol-
Ogists, and believe in great invoices of wisdom
slowed away in the cOmmodous cranlum.
Gazing upon what may be termed the Dome
of Mind, we feel ourselves in the presence OF
a Superior Being, and possibly are swindled
out of deal of first-rate admira-
ton. We fear if the Bursting Sick
ness should become common that it would be
the overthrow of nulnberless brilliant reputa-
tions for though the sutures might part with
no little noise, the consequent display Of
brains might be lamentably small one. The
Intellectual impostors would be absolutely
detected. The dreadful disclosures in Wash
ington alone would be dismally disheartening.
Think of certain Senators with the tops of
their heads OIL Think of Representatives,
who have done a thriving business upon the
brains of other men, compelled to make an
axh;h;tiou of their own meager assortment
of the big bumps-Causality, Comparison, FIRM
ness, Reyerence-each as empty as worm
eaten chestnut! The new epidemic would
be indeed the ruin OF scores upon
scores OF magnificent reputatlons-anu
therefore we trust that the Mexican Doctors
who have found out the disease have also
found out what is good for it-some herb or
oil, or other pharmaceutical succedaneum. we
are not surgically scientific ourselves, but so
fearful are we of general skull explosion
that we venture to suggest something IN the
way of a safety valve. Trephining, for instance.
Even if the diagnosis were wrong, and the
Honorable Member did not prove sick with
the Bursting Sickness, think what quantity
of notions and nonsense might find vent-non-
sense which now slowly escapes through the
mouth to lodge in the ears OF innocent SUI
ferers! Trephining by all means! 1t might
kill and it might cure and, in either case, we