The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1884-01-02
Twenty Cigars a Day.

'Yes," said the old physician, Il
was in an insane asylum for many
years"
"As a patient?"
"Well, hardly, though | confess
constant association with insane
people nearly set me crazy. / really
believe / should have lost my bal I
apce If I had remained there. l
should either have become insane or
turned out a poet"
Il have a patient now who was
on the verge of tabacce insanity, as
II is sometimes called, few weeks
ago. He came to me about the mid
die of October, and said he feared he /
was becoming insane; that he had 4
some of the most frightful and horrl- I
BILE thoughts and impressions, and
felt sure he would sometime do some 1
thing terrible if he were not cured
of them. He was a pale, nervous
man with large, round eyes, and al
together a very intellectual looking
face. He looked ike a close student.
| asked him if he had not studied
too hard. and he said he had once
thought so and had quit all study
for several weeks, but found himself
growing worse each day. He said he
could not get rid of an awful feeling
that something terrible was going to
happen it followed him wherever
he went, no matter what he did.
why, said be, my room Is on the
fourth floor, and | dare not sit by
the window nor look out at it, for
fear that / will yield to the awful
impulse to Jump out. And the hor-
rible things that come to my mind
oh, they will surely drive me
crazv and | shall do some awful
thing one of these days.
Then he told me how he saw
things double, and sometimes saw
himself coming toward himself with
big knife Why said he, 1 was
walking home the other night, and,
although ! could see no one, | felt a
man coming toward me. | thought
him away of, several miles, but that
he was coming toward me rapidly.
All this time | knew nobody was
coming, vet | could feel him, and
was as sure in my imagination that
! ! soon should see him. as 7 was in
my reason that / should not. The
feeling grew in spite Of me. | tried
to fight it of with my reason, but
the imagination was the stronger,
and with the never ceasing impress
sion that something terrible was
about to happen, | stopped under
street lamp, and sure enough right
there before me stood an exact coun-
terpart Of myself | knew | couldn't
run away from it. Indeed, / knew
there was nothing there to run away
from, vet | could see it, and feel Its
presence. Finally | shut my eyes
for a moment, and when | opened
them again the apparition was gone,
and | walked on home.
"Oh. he told ne a long rigmarole
of this sort: and he often walked in
the night and saw himself lying
dead in bed beside himself; that he
had, no less than a hundred times,
been almost tempted to kill his little
sister Just for the sake of seeing how
she would look, that he had wonder
ed how it would feel to be stabbed
through the heart, and had. one
night, gotten out Of bed and threw
his pocket knife out Of the window
for fear he could not resist the temp
tation to use it.
what did you do fo- him, doc
tor?'
well, to tell the truth, | never
thought Of tobacco until he took
out a cigar and lit it. He seemed
very nervous before that, but the
cigar seemed to calm him, and he
was quite Jolly for a time. Then !
thought of tobacco insanity, and
made up my mind that he was about
to have delerium tremens. Carefully
| questioned him and found that he
smoked from a dozen to twenty ci-
gars a day, and, as he put it, they
are about the only thing that do me
any good
The cure was very simple. /
shut him up and took tabacco away
from him gradually until he got
through a day with three cigars and
felt so much better that he was con-
vinced his whole trouble was all due
to smoking, and, of his own accord
he resolved to quit it entirely. OF
course | gave him some nerve tonic
and built up his general health
which helped him in his good reso'
luton"