Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-01-09
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
EXPERIENCE OF A MAN AS HE ERAWS
 NIGH TO MIDDLE AGE.

A Case of Consumption Changes to Cam cer-Rheumatism and Heart Disease. Haunted by Every Form of Physical Disaster-The Whole List.
 A man reaches the age of 40 or whereabouts without having experienced any serious in terruption in the current of his life. Some night he is sleepless; the next day he is tired. He has overworked, or overdrank, or over smoked, or overworried. There is an extra weight attached to his forehead, his legs are weak and he is possessed by lassitude. He recalls at once the death of man who fell suddenly in the street, smitten by apoplexy. The weakness in his legs, is not that sympto- matic of paralysis?
 He has passed his prime, and does not know it. He is ignorant of the fact that he cannot labor as hard. drink as much and employ his energies as before. Nature be- gins to slacken in her efforts at recuperation. Night, with it's rest and slumber, does not bring him morning with all its old time buoyancy and exhilaration. Noticing these things, he commences to examine his condi- tion. The moment he begins this process of self inspection he enters on the condition of the hypochondriac.
 He catches little cold and has cough. It is consumption. The advertising pages of the newspapers catch his eye, and he sees Consumption Cured" He reads it with avidity. Symptoms are described, and with a pang he feels that each one of them applies exactly to his case. He hunts over the rec ord of his ancestors to find if there be weak lungs in the descent. Alas, yesl His grand mother, he recalls, with painful shrinking of the heart, died of consumption at the age of 93I And there were tno second cousins, both of whom, while quite young, fell vic tim to this frightful malady. He is doomed.
 A CANCER, SURE
 The cough disappears. There is a sore on his tongue, and almost instantly there comes into the horrible vision cancer! He reads up the encyclopedia on cancer; he takes furtive glances into the books of medical friends, and everywhere he finds corroboration of his be- lief. It is cancer, sure! His broken slumber is filled with images of the hideous tumor, and he listens with intense and painful inter est to the narrations of those whose experi- ence includes the ulcer, the treatment of the patient by the knife of the surgeon, and the fearful death at last of the unfortunate vic tim. Finally he goes to the physician who, if he be honest, assures him that his fears are groundless, and then for brief season he is ct ease.
 There comes pain in his ankle or knees. Rheumatism. And now it moves to another point. Migratory, is it? An, it is moving toward his heart! It may leap there to- night, tomorrow, any moment; and again he suffers the agony of dissolution, as he an- ticipates each moment feeling the pang of the thrust of the deadly dart
 He rushes hastily up stairway, and he feels an increased action in his heart At ! once the dread vision of heart disease flashes | into his line of vision. For months he broods over the calamity which has overtaken him. l He moves about carefully; he avoids every l thing which will produce excitement; he is | born babe.
 He has stufiness in his nose or throat, and at once he has catarrh, combined with bronchitis. There are prickling neuralgia pains in his muscles, and he at once reads up | on the matter and finds that they are pre- monitory symptoms of paralysis. This self inflicted invalid reads the news papers. Every case of death from paresis affrights him. He learns with fresh accesions of horror of hemiplegia and paraplegia, and is certain that he is menaced with one of these forms of disaster. The age of every man whose death is reported excites in him a painful interest. If the deceased be younger than himself he experiences a poignant pang:
 
 end is not yet imminent.
 1 CHOLERA SYMPTOMS.
 He reads that there is cholera in Nice o1 Sicily, or in the interior of Spain. Instant ly, in his mind, he sees the horrible pesti lence creeping across the continent, over the | channel and Great Britain, thence in infect ed vessels to the American shores. On emi grant trains it crawls along the railway line: and appears in Chicago He will be one o | the very first victims. Already he feels the symptoms of the disease He anticipates the worst. He already feels in imagination tn, | agonies of the pain and sees himself cold breathless, moribund in the final state of col lapse.
 He complains to his sympathizing friends and they proffer him illimitable advice ant remedies. "A cold bath every morning, says one; "A hot bath every night" says an other; "Drink glass of hot water when yo, rise in the morning." or ''Drink glass O cold water when you go to bed," is the sug gestion of another. One friend mentions cathartic another lotion, a third bitters fourth an alternative. There is no human being of either sex that is not ready to pre- scribe for any ailment of @ friend at mo ments notice
 He reads the scientific physiological pa pers. He sees it demonstrated that alcoho 1 their use, and then reads that both are bene ficial if used in moderation, and he resume his cigar and his beer. Elaborate essays ar presented that oatmeal at breakfast is an in dispensable auxiliary of health, whereupo he eats it regularly until time when he see another scientific authority which pro nounces the diet as sure producer of dys pepsia. He takes his food with abundan water for time, and then abjures it whe another medical expert pronounces it inju rious.
 He is vegetarian a meat eater by turns he patronizes the allopathic, then the hydro pathic, then homeopathic, then the eclectic and the metaphysical schools; and trie drugs, herbs, mind tranference, old women prescriptions, inhalations, mustard plasters tonics, diuretics, sarsaparillas, health re storers, and thus runs through the entir
 pharmacopoeia without benefit, and the gives up all medicine with disgust , "Poiuto" in Chicago Times.
 Testing the Lads Honesty. A lawyer engaged new boy recently , and, as he had suffered to some extent fror the depredations of his former lad, he deter , mined to try the new boys honesty at once
 He therefore placed 95 note under a weigh