Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-03-07
Tren,mcr, on Ncrvouspess.

DR.. Felix L. Oswald, continuing his papers
on the "Romedies Of Nature" published in
the Popular Science Monthly, gives a sover-
eign remedy for the cure Of all nervous NAL
adies-asthenia, neurosis, chlorosis, hysteria,
nervous debility, and the like. The course
mapped out by him. he asserts, will be found
an efficient preventive as well as a cure IL is
vigorous outdoor-oxercise, not alono on
bright and balmy days but in the face Of .
stiff nor'wester, or even on a damp aud driz-
zly day. To those compelled by necessity 10
limit their out door exercise to half-hour's
ramble between home and shop he commends
sleeping in dry weather in the draught Of a
wide-open window. He declares that only
during a first experiment viii one feel the ne
oessity Of adding a nightcap to the ordin-
ary bed-clothing. As an instance of the Gu
rative agency of outdoor exercise he cites a
story of 'splenetic student who composed
his own funeral dirge, with a lugubrious list
Of the sorrows from which he anticipated de-
mise would liberate his soul. On discover
ing the lyric his father ordered him TO oxcs-
vate a gravel bank for family vault as none
Of his relatives could be expected to survive
his untimely fate. The prescription proved
success, and few weeks later Heractus
Junior was caught writing sonnets to the
hired girl" Our Darwinian relatives keep
moving while the sun is in sight, and the saw
ages alternate their wigwam holiday with pc
RODS Of prodigious exertion. The occasional
mountain tour will atone for some time of
city life, but hardly for months of sedentary
labor. The remedy must be taken as one
goes along. DIR. Oswald commends garden
ing, boat-rowing and amateur carpentering
as. a sort of exercise calculated to beguile
people into a greater amount Of hard work
than the drillmRster Of a gymnasium could
possibly get them to undergo The diet
should be sparing and non-stimulating. The
| cup Of "good, strong tea" as a relief for
nervous headache is placed under the ban,
along with the glass of medicated whisky SO
often taken to arouse torpid liver.
For nervous children the first prescription
is the open woods and a merry playmate for
| their elder comrades fresh air and some di-
verting but withal fatiguing employment ;
for aged or enfeebled invalids a glass rooted
soldrium, where, stripped to the waist, they
may bask for hours in the sunshine without
fear of catching cold. No drugs, no stimu-
lRnts, no dinners and suppers prepared in a
frying pan, the largest possible amount of
fresh air by day and by night, no getting up
in the morning until nature admits that the
gain of the night has quite equslized the ex-
penses of the foregoing day; sunshine, out
door exercise and healthy food are, in short,
the remedies which DIR. Oswald declares will
| gradually overcome the most obstinate nervous
disorders. The advice given is, at all events,
cheap enough to be within reach of the most
impecunious, ard is much more worthy tri-
al than those quack remedies to which nerv-
Gus people are tempted to resort to rid them
selves of the ills which render life burden,
but which often only add to their woes.