The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-11-30
EFFECTS OF LAUGHTER.
II Pro1ongs Life by Conveying n stimulus
to the vital Forces.

II ProIongs Life by Conveying n stimulus
to the vital Forces.
It is said that there is not a remote
corner or little inlet of the minute blood
vessels of the human body that does not
feel some wavelet from the great con-
vulsion caused by hearty laughter shak-
ing the central man. Not only does the
blood move more quickly than 1t Is
won't, but its chemical or electric con-
dition is distinctly modified, and it con-
veys different impression to the Or
gans of the body, as 1t visits them on
that particular mystic journey when the
man laughs, from what 1t does at other
times. A genial, hearty laugh, there
fore, prolongs life, by conveying dis
tinct and additional stimulus to the
vital forces. Best of all, it has no ro-
morse in it. 1t leaves no sting, except
in the sides, and that goes off. Cicero
thought so highly of it that he COM
planned bitterly at one time that his
fellow-citizens had all forgotten to
laugh. Ctcem mehercuIe non puto esse qu'
his temporiJus rtdere poSsit. Titus, the
Roman Emperor, thought he had lost
day if he had passed it without laugh
ing. What world would this be with
out laughter! To what dreary, dismal
complexion should we all come at last,
were all fun and cachinnation eXpurged
from our solemn and scientific planet!
Care would soon overwhelm us; the
heart would corrode; the River of Life
would be like the Lake of the Dismal
Swamp; we should begin our career with
u sigh, and end it with a groan: while
cadaverous faces, and words to the tune
of "The Dead March in Saul" would
make up the whole interlude of our eX-
istence. Hume the historian, in exam
ining French manuscript containing
accounts of some private disbursements
of King Edward ii. of England, found,
among others, one item of crown paid
to somebody for making the king laugh.
Could one conceive of wiser invest
ment? Perhaps by paying one crown
Edward saved another. ''The most ut
terly lost of all days" says Chamfort,
lis that on which you have not once
laughed" Even that grimmest and
most saturnine of men, who, though he
| made others roar with merriment, was
never known to smile, and who died sin
rage, like poisoned rat in a hole"-
Dean Swift-has called laughter ''the
most innocent of all diuretics.'' Yet the
philosopher of Concord, r. w. Emerson
is reported as having said in lecture
Laughter is to be avoided. Lord
Chesterfield said that after he had
come to the years of understand,
ing he never laughed" Lord Chester
field would have had far more in
flueuce if, instead of repressing every
inclination to laugh, he had now and
then given his ribs a holiday-nay, if he
had even roared outright; for 1t would
have disabused the public of the notion
that he never obeyed a natural impulse,
but that every thing he said and did was
pre-studied-done by square, rule and
compass. As it was though he was con-
fessedly the politest, best-bred, most in,
sinuating man at court yet he was reg
ularly and invariably out-fanked and
out-man9uvred by. Sir Robert Wal
pole, who had the heartiest laugh in rhe
kingdom, and by the Duke of Newcas-
tie. who had the worst manners in the
world. In commencing laughter we
mean genuine laughter; not make-be-
lieve: not the artificial or falsetto laugh
of society, nor. again, the mere smile of
acquiescent politeness, or the cracking
of thorns under a pot or the curl of the
| lips that indicates in the laughter a be-
lief in his fancied superiority. Still less
do we mean the hollow, mocking laugh
of the cynic. The laughter which we
would commend as healthful is not bit
ter, but kindly, genial and sympathetic.
William Matthews, in Home Magazine.