Litchfield enquirer., 1877-01-11

and oftentimes with the highest success, in literature, on the platform, in the pull pit. in philanthropy and reform, and 1n the practice of the medical art.
 The offspring of those whose brains are thus kept in constant activity must be affected for better or for worse, sometimes in both ways. If the brain of the average American is ten-fold more active than the brain of the average Athenian, the contrast in the cerebral activity of the women must be even greater. But walv- ing all attempts to bring the subject un- der mathmitical law, these contrasts make clear, and bring into strong relief the fact that in every direction the modern brain is more heavily taxed than the an- cient. In accordance with all analogies, ] therefore, nervous sensitiveness and ner- 1 vous diseases ought to increase with the progress of modern civilization; and ine- | btiety being 8 nervous disease would nat | nrally be more abundant i'll the present 1 than in the last century. ...- It might, theoretically be objected to this reasoning that the capacity of the I brain for asork, and of the nerves for endurance, would grow with the growth l of culture. Thls consideration is surely one of great force. Up to certain point l work develops capacity for work; through endurance is evolved the power of great CT endurance; force becomes the parent of force. But here, as in all animate na- ture, there are limitations of develop ment which cannot be passed. The ca- pacity of the nervous system for sustain ed work and worry has not increased in proportion to the demands for work and worry that are made upon 1t. Particularly during the past quarter of century, un- der the press and stimulus of the tele- graph and railway, the methods and in- | eltemonts of brain-work have multiplied far in excess of average cerebral develop ment It is during this period that ine- briety has been forced on the attention ot philantbropists. It is during this pe- riod that various functional nervous, dis orders have multiplied with a rapidity for which history gives us no analogy.
 Leaving deductive and coming down to inductive reasoning, we find that the question whether nervous disorders, in- cluding inebriety, have increased with the advance of civilization can be answered iD several ways
 l I. By comparing the higher and lower classes of the present day.
 The race does not advance with uni form step, and those that are in the rear are very far in the rear. A great city like New York covers about an equal amount of civilization and semi-barbar- 1 ism. The so-called lower classes in this country, and in England, are in much the same state as the higher classes century or more ago. We have therefore right at our very doors, materials for study of the effect of modern civilization on the nervous system; it is as though the eigh- teenth and nineteenth centuries were side by side. In the city of New York there are at least quarter of million of the lower classes, without education, without money or social standing, and without ambition, and they are all lmuscle-workers, living from hour to hour by manual toll or charity. They are exposed to all sorts of evil influences, physical and moral; they have almost all sorts of diseases, ex- cept functional nervous diseases. In the dispensaries that are patronized mostly by patients of this class. one rarely finds. fOr example, case of sick headache, which Is one of the best representatives of func- tional nervous disorders, and cases ot neuralgia are mostly confined to the wo. men. At one time was engaged with others in the effort to organize a depart ment of nervous diseases in one of our largest dispensaries. There was at first great difficulty in getting sufficient num- Der of cases; and even after the depart ment was established, it was filled largely with cases of rehumatism, and the ner- vous cases were chiefly of structural and not of @ functional character. All similar attempts to found hospitals or wards for the exclusive treatment of nervous mala- dies, are apt to meet the same difficulties and must be patronized mainly by cases of paralysis, epilepsy, and other grave dis orders. On the other hand, hospitals for diseases of the eye, and for all febrile, infammatory, and surgical disorders are easily established, and are crowded by patients from the number walks of life.
 Among the higher classes-those who live indoors, and live by brain alone sick headache, and neuralgia, and allied symptoms appear almost in every family; and in this country there are thousands of families, all of whose members suffer from some of these afiictions. Hay-fever which, as have shown in my work on that subject, is a neurosis, seems to be almost unknown among the abjectly poor and ignorant classes. Though not exclu- sively an aristocratic malady, as some of it's victims would believe, and by no means restricted to persons of great in- tellect or culture, 1t is yet; 1t must be al- lowed, disease of ladies and gentlemen, those who inherit mental, or mostly men, tai occupations. and highly sensitive or ganizations; 1t is frequently found among those who have, or are liable to have, sick headache. There are probably a thousand cases of hay-fever in New York city, and scarcely any of these are, so l for ;,, kho houses.
 From this one we may learn of all Among the lower grades of social life the vice of drunkenness abounds in it's most revolting aspects, but not to the same ex- tent the disease inebriety.
 | 2. By comparison of the present time with quarter or half a century ago.
 A comparison of this sort can only be made by physicians pretty we'll advanced those who have been in practice, and have been accustomed to study symp- toms and diseases during long profes- sional career. Specialists aside, many of the best men of this class agree in the general view that these functional nervous maladies have increased greatly during this period: Certain affections, now com mon and popular, as functional neuralgia, and hay-fever, may be said to be new dis eases, peculiar to the nineteenth century, unknown. by name or symptom seventy five years ago.
 A comparison of this kind embraces, not only positive and special diseases, but nervous sensitiveness in general. Thus our fathers could sit in cold churches, through long sermons, go all day with wet feet, wear fannels or leave them of, as might be convenient, without getting cold. Fifty years ago the average Amer ican was comfortable in room where the thermometer stood at 600, it is now necessarysto keep it at TOO. Even more suggestive is the increasing sensitiveness in regard to certain articles of food Our fathers lived largely on pork, and could digest it without difficulty; but in our days, among our brain-wofking classes, this form of food is becoming historic. In fact pork. like the Indian, fees before civilization The modern methods of