St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1885-11-28
AFRAID OF LIGHTNING.
A Peculiar Nervous Fear, and Not
a Want of Courage.

L ne VlcClIuS Ol nay lever dIc uOl IuOIc
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 60 through hard
electric storm without uneasiness. But
there is a class whom electricity affects
with such peculiar force that, as one of
them said, each storm is like being led
out 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 sympa-
thy to such unfortunates, and mention
such alleviations as lifetime of acute
misery on this account has found for
itself.
The dread is neither fanc;ful nor
durable by any effort of will. Usually
it comes from q 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 inn
pending doom. No Tartarus has cur
tains of more awful gloom, or such
shapes of uniformed dread as inhabit
these hours of oppression. do not
doubt that many of the apparently
causeless suicides we hear of are COM
mitted under the influence of such dis
tressing moods. They are beyond all
visitations 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 yet the
sky is brilliant and not q threatening
cloud shows sign. the effect of coming
storm is felt in drastic purging. or the
eyesight is affected, while neuralgia per-
sons have double portion of suffering
meted to them. As the barometer sinks
with the coming storm, the vitality
sinks with it, breathing is hard, and the
heart alternately beats so 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. i have known
the first flash of lightning in q summer
storm to send a strong person into an
attack like cholera in three minutes.
the moment before. colorless, shrunken
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. At
best endurance; at other times, palsy
ing sensation that the next bolt was to
come down my spine, tension OF every
nerve to its highest, that felt every fash
of lightning like the lash of whip. and
when it could bear no more went off in
the darkening, ringing. swimming
stages of swooning, but never its mer-
ciful unconsc BUSINESS. 1t has left me
unable to stand or sit up for an hour
after all was over, and made wreck
OF me for days. Ii any man suffers
more horrors of distracted brain and
nerves the morning after a debauch
than do days after thunder storm. I
can not imagine how he ever drinks
twice in his life. A body of unstrung
nerves with unsteady fingers. heart and
brain each rapping Independent dis
cord. head with an alarm spring Just
running down in it, and separate ache
for each joint in my frame, are the Sc
quel for two or three days after a
storm. In such dog-days as we have
had this year, with three storms day
coming up to stir the murky air, have
endured incipient delirium tremens. and
may be believed without difficulty in
saving Ihate lightning like q malignant
spirit Only one thing can add to the
atfiction of such q lot. and that is to
have dense people say: You should ex-
ercise your reason and control this
dread" As well undertake to reason
with st. Vitus' dance, or erysipelas.
The misery of the dread is that it il 20
wholly reasonable, and consists in q
lively apprehension of what may take
place at any moment True, as these