The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-10-24
AFRAID OF LIGHTNING.
A Peculiar Nervous Fear, and Not
a Want Of Courage.

a Want Of Courage.
The victims of hay fever are not more
in number or more to be pitied than
those who suffer from nervous dread of
Lightning. Probably more people than
usual have learned to sympathize
with this terror during the August thun-
der-storms which made such panic at
summer hotels. Only persons of very
strong nerve can 90 through hard
electric storm without uncasiness. But
there is class whom electricity affects
with such peculiar force that, as one of
them said, each storm is like being led
ont tor execution, uncertain whether
one is to be shot this time or next. As
one who knows this species of bliss pref
ty thoroughly, for over twenty years.
permit me to offer the deepest svmpa-
thy to such unfortunateS. and mention
such alterations as a lifetime of acute
misery on this account has found for
itself
The dread is neither fanciful nor
durable by any effort of will Usually
it comes from a violent shock early in
life, and lightning does not more clearly
print the image of veins and branches
on the skin in some cases than it leaves
its possession upon the entire nervous
system in others. Hours before the
storm comes on the electric changes in
the air are felt by the person, either in
nervous eXcitability and restlessness like
that of birds and animals before storm,
or intense depression and sense of i'm
pending doom. No Tartarus has cur
tains of more awful gloom, or such
shapes of uniformed dread as inhabit
these hours of oppression. L do not
doubt that many of the apparently
causeless suicides we hear of are com
mitted under the influence of such dis
treSSng moods. They are beyond all
Wis tations of the mind most agonizing
and unbearable till one learns to recOg-
nize them as purely physical, the effect
of Indigestion. of OverwOrk, bodily
weakness or the subtle electric changes
which bring them on with especial
trouble. In some cases, while vet the
sky is brilliant and not a threatening
cloud shows sign. the effect of coming
storm is felt in drastic purging, or the
eyesight is affected while neuralgia per-
sons have a double portion of suffering
melted to them. AS the barometer sinks
with the coming storm, the vitality
sinks with it, breathing is hard, and the
heart alternately beats 50 low it can
hardly be detected, or with a sharp con
traction that seems the precursor of the
pang Of death The danger may be
entirely fancied, but the distress is be-
yOnd description real. l have known
the first flash of lightning in a summer
storm to send strong person into an
attack like cholera in three minutes
and strike one buoyant and blooming
the moment before colorless, shrunker
and unable to stand.
My own memory of storms for nearly
thirty years has been one of wretched.
ness that turns me sick to think of Al
best, endurance; at other times, palsy
ing sensation that the next bolt was tC
come down my spine, tension of ever,
nerve to its highest. that felt every f1asl
of lightning like the lash of a whip, anC
when it could bear no more went off il
the darkening, ringing swimming
stages of swooning, but never its mer
ciful uncOnsc BUSINESS. 1t has left mi
unable to stand or sit up for an hou
after all was over, and made wrecl
of me for days. If any man suffers
more horrors of distracted brain anC
nerves the morning after a debaucl
than do days after thunder storm,
can not imagine how he ever drink
twice in his life. A body of unstrung
nerves with unsteady fingers, heart anC
brain each rapping independent dis
cord head with an alarm spring Jus
running down in it, and separate ach,
for each 10 Mt in my frame, are the Sc
quel for two or three days after
storm. In such dog-days as we hav,
had this year, with three storms a day
coming up to stir the murky air, hav
endured incpient delirium tremens, anC
may be believed without difficulty il
saving Ihate lightning like a malignan
spirit. Only one thing can add to tn,
aflliction Of such lot and that is t,
have dense people say: you should eX
erciso your reason and control thi
dread" As well undertake to reason
with st. Vitus' dance, or erysipelas
The misery of the dread is that it is 81
wholly reasonable, and consists in
lively Apprehension of what may tax
place at any moment True, as thes
excellent creatures assure you, there j
only one chance in fifty thousand o
your being struck by lightning tina
one chance is enough to destroy tn
happiness of life for those who hav
seen its visitation. The only way &
reduce the fear is to make that chanc
inn,tesmal by every precaution Io
can never get RI of the horrible i'm
preston lightning gives, but there i