Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1895-03-23
NERVOUSNESS INCREASES
The Causes Leading to It-Too
Much Hurry.
Rushing from Change to Change Seems to
Be the Only Alternat,ve-Work
and Women of To-Day
Restless Lot.

Under this rather startling title,
Prof. w. Erb, at Heidelberg, gave an
address some time ago which demands
more than passing notice. Prof. Erb
takes it for granted that there is
marked increase of functional nervous
disorders, and he believes that the
events of the present century have
naturally led to this result. The
nineteenth century. says the British
Medical Journal, began in disorder
and commotion. France had passed
through bloody revolution which
was to be followed by the excite
ment and exhaustion of Napoleonie
adventures; restlessness, political and
social, was followed by period
of calm, but, with the advanc
ing years, labor-saving inventions
rapidly replaced man and increased
wealth, and rendered communication
easy-as our author says, time and
space seemed to be annihilated. In
science, in literature, all were develop
ing, and with it there appeared in
capacity for restful pleasure; rushing
from change to change seeming to be
the only alternative work. With over
work there was overcrowding and
overstimulation; alcohol and tobacco
were used in greatly increased quanti-
ties; railway travelling and its nerve
Earring motion still further tended to
nervousness; and, SO Prof. Erb con-
vinces himself, with all this there has
been a clear loss of nerve tone to the
whole of the highly civilized nations.
Nothing could have been more bril-
iantly put than the contrast between
the normal reaction to work and worry
and the neurasthenic and abnormal re-
action to the same conditions, and it
will be for us to see whether we agree
with all that Prof. Erb says. Accord
ing to him, all this rapid, restless move
ment has left an irritable and slow-re-
covering nervous system, which must
be considered as neurasthenic. The
essentials of this disorder, which has
not been recognized twenty years, are
increased sensitiveness, with weakness,
WEAKNESS, lack of power of endurance,
and defective recuperative power. This
disorder is a refinement of hysteria and
hypochondriasis, and it is the outcome
of the conditions of life He thinks it
ought to be found in all periods of ex-
element and of luxury, but owns that
there is no evidence of its existence in
Greece or in Rome.
The disorder is to be recognized and
to be met by changing conditions, and
nerve hygiene is to be considered as
much as sanitation. From school days
to professional life the human being is
to be tended and brought up, his men
tai, moral and physical education is to
be regulated, his holidays are to be
methodized, his business is to be con-
Quoted in healthy surroundings and
his cities are to be made healthy and
beautiful, with fresh air and beautiful
surroundings. Thus, the professor is a
preacher of hygienic socialism. AS we
said before. we have been charmed with
the address, but not convinced.
The old question reappears in another
form. Is increased insanity and nervous
disorder in necessary correlation to de-
veloping completely of society? 1t must
be recognized that the more complex
the rules of society the more frequent
will be breaches of these rules; at all
events, for time In developing civ
ilization, too, we have a very perplex
ing factor added in the survival and the
propagation of the nonfittest, and this
doubtless adds to the increasing mum
Der of the nervous. We are inclined
to believe that there is some slight in
crease of nervousness, but that there
is a much greater knowledge of the
subject, and with knowledge come:
subdivision and classification. We re
member the time when hysteria, in it:
present connotation, was looked upOr
as new and increasing danger to so
ciety. This disorder is now recognized
as no longer defect of will for which
the patient is to be blamed, and ha
been subdivided. Hypochondriasis il
the same way is no longer considered
to be a maladie imaginaire, but is rec
ognized as having some organic basis
and with this progress the so-callet
functional disorders have to be studied
apart and are now placed under tb,
head neurasthenia. We do not believ
more women, at all events in England
have NERVES" now than they had fit,
years ago. With the increase of ex
element there has been a still create
tendency to more freedom OF exercise
more freedom from conventionalisr
and much healthier home surroundings