The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1884-05-28
A REMARKABLE AFFECTION
THE STRANGE FANC1Es THAT DIS
TIUauIsH NEURoPHoB1A.
Persons with a Dislike for Certain
Streets, PIaces or Objects-Others
Hylo Dread LetterN or COlOrS.

who Dread Letters OF COlOrs.
In the afternoon of one of the %sunniest
days last week two men got on a Madi-
son avenue car going down town at the
corner of Fifty-fourth street. One was q
thin, pallid, rather emaciatcd gentleman,
possibly forty years of age, with rather q
peculiar transparency of the temples,
restless eyes, and a singular nervousness
of manner; the other large, well nour-
ished, massive and rather corpulent, with
the placid, self satisfied countenance OF
the man who has succeeded in the world,
and feels on good terms with it. The
pair might readily have been mistaken
for a mailman and his keeper, only the
fcebler of the two was evidently not past
the verge of sanity, while the placid COM
panion was n trihe less vigilant than the
custodian Of a maniac ought to be, and
moreover was recognized by at least one
passenger as a famous physician.
The thin gentleman shifted his posi-
ton uncasily, gazcd out of the car win
dow a moment, then studied the faces Of
his three or four fellow passengers with
the rapid intensity of a physiognomist,
and glanced furtively at the open door,
in which the figure of the conductor was
framed like q full-lcngth photograph.
"Fares, gents" grumblcd that func-
%tionary, stalking into the car. The thin
gentleman paid for two, and again
glanced in the direction of the open
door. His hand shook as he replaced his
pockctbook, and a shivcr passed over
him. His portly companion turned and
spoke to him in a low tone. The words
were inaudiLle, and the intonations were
soft, soothing, and evidently cxpostula-
tory. Suddenly the pale passenger sprang
to his feet, pulled the bell violently, and
rushed out of the car, which was now
midway between Forty-eighth and Forty
ninth streets. The portly physician rose
from his seat in a lcisurely, comfortable
sort of way. and alighted at the corner
of Forty-eighth street, where the car
came to a full stop. The thin gentleman.
excited, nervous, out of breath, and
trembling all over like a leaf in the wind,
Joined the doctor and began to speak
apologetically: "No use, you see. i
can't stand it. You really must excuse
me, doctor"
"Pooh! pooh" laughed the portly
physician. "You'll conquer. the thing
BY and bye. Try again, my dear boy"
"Ill step across an, take the elevated
downtown, with your permission, doc
tor" said the thin gentleman, making no
direct reply to his friends cxhortation:
He lifted his neat Derby hat, with a hand
that was almost pellucid in its dclicacy
and whitencss, and was gone.
sThat man," said the doctor, sis one
of a hundred cases that have come under
nv notice in the last few years-a strange
case of nervous impression. lie is not in
the least timid; will ride downtown in
q Third avenue car, q Broadway stage, or
an elevated train, with perfect composure,
but he has q morbid, uncomfortable ner-
vous terror of the Fourth avenue, and
would suffer any inconvenience or incur
any expense rather than ride in a Fourth
avenue car. I can't trace this impression
to any tangible cause, nor can he. He
has never met with an accident on the
Fourth avenue, 80 far as he remembers.
1t is simply one of those incxplicable,
unreasoning. spontaneous impressions of
the nervous system that no science can
explain. The man is not a crank, nor in
the least given to eccentricitics of opinion
or manners. On the contrary. his name
is familiar rs that of a shrewd banker.
AS to courage, he is as brave as a lion, as
have occasion to know, and would fight
odds of ten to one, if his blood was up.
Only, the moment he finds himself On a
Fourth avenue car he is seized with q
of nervous terror which he cam
not control; and that is the end OF it."
The doctor unused a moment. walk
across with me to my Office" he said,
"and I'll talk with you by the way.
Such cases arc by no means uncommon,
though no paper has ever been written
on the subject, and there is no nam for
the malady in the medical books. The
late DR.. George NJ. Beard-as able and
acute as he was cccentric-invcntcd the
term ncurophobia to describe the condi-
ton existing in such cases, and the
singular thing about this neurophobia is
that it seldom occurs with women, given
as they are supposed to be, to nervous
impressions and hysterical fancies."
In one of the doctors office journals
there were notes of this case: A aticnt,
a man of tolerably robust and we'll
nourished physique, forty-six years old,
lawyer by profession-cannot bear to
cross Broadway at the Astor house. lie
will walk down to Fulton street or up to
Park place, but cross under the shadow
of the Astor house never. There is no
assignable cause for the terror; it simply
exists and that is all. 1t came upon him
suddenly one afternoon two years ago,
after q hard days work in court. He
started for the Astor house to get a cup
of coffee and his regular half a dozen raw
oysters. TO his wonder, as lie was about
to step from the curbstone at the corner
of the postoficc he was seized with a
fit of trembling and terror, and since
then he has never been able to command
himself to cross at that point, though he
has often tested his self-control by try
ing it.
Another patient had the same terror of
the Jersey City ferry at the foot of Cort-
landt street. The Brooklyn ferries have
no terrors for him, the Desbrosses street
ferry is not Objectionable, but if his life
depended upon crossing to Jersey City
at Cortlandt street he could not COM
mand his nerves to accomplish it. As in
the other two, there is no assignable
II for the morbid impression in this
case. 1t came suddenly, and has been
in existence for four years.
"Sometimes." continued the doctor.
"thc victim has a terror of a certain
street, avenue, o. public square; and one
man I know cannot pass the statue OF
Lincoln at Union square without expe-
riencing a nervous tremor. But, with
regard to some of our outdoor %statuary,
nervous dread is natural enough"
Zone of my patients" he went on,
ga literary man of some reputation, has
q nervous terror of words ending in or
containing the d%iphthong CHI This man
will take any trouble to avoid the >rem-
tive pronoun which He his not for
years written any n of the words tcrmi-
mating in tch-such as catch, fetch,
scratch, batch hitch or patch. For
match he always writes lucifer or Nesu-
Wan; for fetch either bring or obtain;
for catch, he uses. capture or some other
proyimatc. He has often ,ricd to over
come the prejudice; but some how his
hand begins 70 tremble, his breath comes
short. and ne cannot form the letters.