The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1879-11-19
BEST AS A MEDICINE.
Some Valuable Hints for Persons WI
Overwork Themselves.

| Some t0luaOI6 WAN
| Overwork Themselves.
Livery intelligent medical man Of the
present day recognizes the very. great
value of rest in the treatment of disease.
Rest and activity might be aptly com.
pared to two sentinels, who have between
them the duty to perform of guarding q
camp or fortress. They must take it in
turns-when the one goes off, the other
comes on. Were Activity to remain too
long on duty, the heart would futter and
fail, the brain would reel, and the senti-
mel drop dead of fatigue. On the other
hand, Rest might remain long enough on
guard to drop asleep. You see that rest
may be overdone; it conduces to sloth,
and ennali, and atony of brain. To my
thinking, there is no more miserable man
than he who has nothing to do.
My old friend, DR.. K, that erst
was professor of medicine in certain
university, labored hard all his life till
nearly sixty years Of age; then he said
he needed rest, and would retire. So,
being wealthy man, he built himself a
beautiful house on breezy clif-top near
the sea, laid out pleasant gardens, and
paid attention to every known principle
of hygiene. Six months retirement
killed him. He remembered not the
lines in Cowper's poem:
"Absence of occupation is not rest;
A mind quite vacant is mind distressed" :"
People who have been long in business
of any kind often make the same error as
DR.. k. They think they need COM
plete change and rest, and they seek it
as he sought it, and too often find it as
he found it-in the grave.
1t is the sudden breaking off of old
ties, the uprooting OF all old associa-
tions, the giving up all at once the GUS
toms and habits of years, that work the
change for the worse. People should
never forget that old trees don't bear
transpianting well. Do nothing too
rashly. Reverse the proverb, "It's
best to be off with the old love before
you are on with the new" Rather
stick, partially at least, to the old life,
till you are firmly rooted to the new.
Many people suffer from chronic in
digestion, from the mere fact Of having
first and foremost produced the dyspep-
sia by overlooking the stomach, or by
other errors in diet, they give it no rest;
they keep on worrying it to get well the
very medicines they keep pouring into
it keep up the irritation in probably five
cases out of ten. In these cases nm con-
vinced that two or three hours COM
plete rest to the stomach every day from
both meat and medicine would soon in
duce healthy hunger. Those who
have this organ in good working order
would do well to remember that the
time when every particle of food has
left the stomach is not the time to put
more in. An hours rest at least is
needed, and if you give it this before
each meal, it will be q willing servant,
and will never think of suggesting the
propriety Of Il sherry and bitters before
you sit down to dinner; and remember,
a willing servant makes good master,
and good-tempered one to boot.
The kidneys are extremely hard
working, and, as rule, healthy organs,
but are often out of order when we lit
tie wot of it They are long-sufering
organs, and are not like the liver Of
stomach-they don't call out when first
hurts. But they too need their periods
of rest, and undue stimulation is some.
times productive of the most dire and
fatal results. Beer and alcohol might
be called direct stimulants to the kid
ney; abstinence from these in people
who have been used to them will often
give this organ rest, and time to get over
ailments trihing in themselves, but
which if not cured might lead slowly
onward to death. "Oh, but I must
have my beer" I heard Mr.. c. say
last summer-he was suffering from q
very slight attack of diabetes. He had
his beer, and never recovered.
The liver is another organ which
often has to complain for want of rest.
1t is greatly over-stimulated by over
loading the stomach with more food
than can be easily digested, by irregu-
larity in eiet, but above al by the
abuse of fermented drinks. These alone
are capable of procuring illness which,
if not Immediately fatal, make life a
burden weary chain that the patient
has to drag out. Like every other organ
of the body, the liver must have rest,
and you can give it that rest by culti-
waiting habits of abstemiousness and
temperance-rest, but rest with periods
of activity regularly intervening. Some
people have naturally sluggish livcrs,
and must take medicine occasionally,
such rs a blue pill at night and seidlitz
in the morning; but for those whose
livers are ordinarily pretty active, there
is no fillip to the liver equal to q good
brisk walk-not q mere saunter along,
but walk that shall quicken the
breathing, and cause the diaphragm to
gently compress the organ between 1t
and the abdominal vescera.
A liver that does not get regular rest,
gets in time changed in structure, to
the great detriment of the health of its
owner; it is also rendered more liable to
diseases of more active and fatal kind,
for the simple reason that it is weak
ened organ.
The same may be said about the heart.
How many times and oft does the dis
sectors knife reveal changes of struc-
ture in this organ, which regular rest
alternating with periods of activity dur
ing life might have prevented! Too
much hard bodily work, too much
athletic exercise, constant worry Of
mind, grief and care and sorrow-all
these act detrimentally upon the heart,
and shorten, if they do not speedily take
life. The cure is obvious; avoidance OF
the cause, if you can, and rest whenever
possible. Unrequited love, or loss OF
the loved one from whatever cause,
some will tell you never kills, but I
could adduce more than one case to
prove!it may lead to death. A grief like
this is hard to bear; there is but one
cure-change of scene and work, the
work being in this case actual rest for
the strained heart.
The brain is frequently the hardest
worked organ in the body, and fre-
quently, too, it is just the one to which
rest is denied. Brain-workers form a
very large portion of the community, il
we include in the list, rs I think we
ought to, not only writers, students, and
deep thinkers, but business men rs well
men in city life, whose minds are on
the rack from morning till night, and
probably nearly every day all the year
round. It is absurd for such rs these to
think that theycan keep on forever with,
out some regularly,recurring periods oi
rest and relaxation; but some men dc
think so. They are mad on the point,
or strangely obtuse. Others, again, think
they can keep till they are just within
step or two of the inevitable breakup.
They may, however, 60 just q step fur.
ther than they intended, and either &c
out like the stuff Of candle, or walk
this earth, till they die. with ruined
constitutions. But there is another class
of brain workers who make q far moro
grave error, namely, those who use