, 1890-03-08
NINETEENTH CENTURY MALAoIgs.
New Diseases That Follow in the Train of
Progressing Civilization.

Now Diseases mat FOLLOW IN the TRAIN OF
Progressing Civilization.
AS every pleasure in life brings its
corresponding pain or bitterness, so it
may be said that every civilized aid to
existence devised for human kind de-
velops an agency for introducing new
ills to torment alike suffering flesh
and the Hsculapian brain. The in
vention of steam locomotion, tele-
graph and telephone instruments,
electric lighting and various time and
labor saving machines, while adding
so much to public comfort and con-
venience, have also brought into ex-
istence curious diseases, which form
interesting contributions to medical
science, although less interesting and
more expensiveto the suffering victim.
Railroad spine or railroad shock, an
affection unknown before travel by
rail became so common, has been a
familiar malady for some time; but
m more recent is railroad kidney, a
disease not unlike Bright's disease, but
of nervous origin, due to conclusions
received on railroads. There is a dis
turbance of the general system, espe-
cially of the functions of the kidneys,
the symptoms disappearing when the
sufferer leaves his regular work. The
yer use of n telephone produces a
curious disease, IN some respects a
form of asemasia, n volitional over
straining of certain powers, by which
we perceive spoken words when we
cannot see the speaker or perceive GEES
lures or the movement of his lips,
thus creating COLLISION of ideas, gener-
al nervousness and lack of self control.
Certain of the sense are developed
at the expense of others, the natural
equilibrium being unbalanced. Tele-
phone tinnitus, aural overpressure, is
caused by the constant strain of the
auditory apparatus in persons who use
the telephone continually, the ear be-
coming i~ntolerant of the tinkle of the
bell. The symptoms are buzzing
noises in the ear, dizziness, neuralgia
pains and in some instances a sub-in-
tlammatory condition of the mem
Drama tympani.
The ~telegraphers' cramp and the
professional akinesia are of the same
order of affections as the writers
cramp or the violinists' cramp. Elec-
trical sunstroke is an affection that
attacks those who are exposed to the
intense rays of the electric arc used in
fusing or welding metals, protection
aSalLoJ ILLS pCluS dlIOIuGu ny wearing
a mask of gray taffeta and gray eye
glasses.
Opthalmia photo-electrica is an in
hammation of the eye in persons en-
ployed about electric lights, and is
caused by looking at these brilliant
lights a short distance away. A sue
cession of bright spots rapidly follow
one another over the visual field, and
at night there is inability to look at
light without pain and a profuse flow
Of tears; the eyelids are swollen and
movements of the eye painful. This
lasts a few hours, and is succeeded by
a feeling of painful WEAKNESS.
The ordinary telescope vision is a
disease by which the visual field is
limited concentrically, and the suffer
er can finally see nothing except that
which is directly in front of his eye,
this condition being due to lack of nu-
triton of the retina or to some disease
of the periphery. An affection of
vision similar TO the telescope eye may
also be produced by the action of qui-
nine.
The telescope eye peculiar to light
house keepers is a thickening and en-
larging of the bony walls of the orbit,
caused by the persistent and repeated
pressure at the end of the telescope
upon the surroundings Of the eye, in
ducing a chronic form of periostitis or
%ostitis, the eye gradually protruding,
but not becoming myopic or astig-
matte. The divers bends is a new
form of caisS3n disease, which attacks
the victim OH his return to open air,
with nervous prostration. The cavities
connected with the nasal passages are
INSTRUCTED in some cases complete
ly, while the men are at work, and in
some cases extreme deafness has been
induced.
The sufferers often reel and stagger
like drunkards, and sometimes are af-
fected with partial paralysis. Elec-
tricity has been used with success for
the treatment of this disease. Civil
lied indulgences and vanities have
also contributed their share of diseases
that affiict the modern world. Tight
shoes by COMPRISING the nerves of
the foot, have created "Morton's toe"
Then the tennis elbow and baseball.
shoulder tell their own story, while
chronic catarrh is in a large number of
cases said to be due to cigarette throat,
the result of smoking the much CON
demned but still favorite cigarette. In
ventive genius is still at work improv-
ing the arts and sciences, and so the
demon of disease, ever on the alert,
will doubtless swoop down with his
attendant ills to the end of time, keep
ing time with the march of civiliza-
tion.-Cor. Times and Register.