Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1896-09-25
How People are Driven Mad.

| sOnabie doubt that the increase OF rtcheS
has been contributed at the expense of
the decadence of mental and physical
health Indeed, it is the serious concern
of medical experts how we are to avoid
wholesale mental destruction should the
I pace at which we are now living become
more rapid in the near future. The
fight for wealth has become so bitter,
the gold fever so infectious. the struggle
for existence so keen, that there Is little
occasion for wonder in the fact that the
number of unatics is being augmented
to an alarming extent in this country.
It is impossible to arrive at any r@lia-
able statistics in the question of lunacy.
The census avails US in discovering
about how many lunatics are under con-
troll, but. owing to very natural diff
dence on the part of relatives to adver-
tise the presence of any person of I'M
sound mind within the family circle, it
affords no indication of the number of
eccentricities who live in their homes.
Most of the leading brain specialists
are one in the opinion that insanity is
on the increase. We live at such high
pressure that the present state of things
is merely the natural outcome of ex-
citement and an artificial mode of liv-
ing.
Doctors are agreed that for man or
woman to apply themselves closely to
work during the time he or she feels
"run down" is one of the surest ways of
becoming demented Almost the first
symptoms with a person who is run
down" is loss of memory. Efforts are
made to jog the memory, thereby in
fiicting a strain on the brain, the fire.
quent outcome of which is an impaired
mind.
The form of disease in many cases of
this kind is melancholia, a most serious
and disastrous complaint. Melancholia.
which is very common among women,
may develop into almost anything. A
victim to melancholia has been known
to be kleptomaniac one year and
homicidaI lunatic the next. Yet despite
his fact-known to every one with a
knowledge of medicine If not to others
there are hundreds of persons suffer
ing from this dangerous disease who are
under no sort of control whatever. The
brain is allowed to remain in a state of
disorder for years, until the victim hor-
rifles his friends by committing some
desperate deed
There is no doubt whatever that the
stra'ning of the memory in early life is
fruitful source of lunacy; but to define
precisely the miscellaneous causes of
insanity would require more space than
is at present at our disposal Irrational
and excited preachers have wrought
arrangement of the mind of more than
one member of the congregation. A
clergy man with less discretion than i'm
agination pictured the torments of he'll |
and the everlasting agony of sinners in
such brutal and hideous colors that
man in the body of the church became
so paralyzed with fear that he instantly
went out of his mind
The increase of insanity among the
women is probably greater than it is
among men. Women who have little or
nothing to occupy their minds become
depressed and melancholia intervenes,
to succeed in turn by suicidal mania
It hiss become the fashion to suffer from
nerves, and what is worse,
some doctors aid and abet the fashion by
themselves of lengthy dis
courses on the nervous system.
The habit of cOnversing on the sub
ect of insanity, has been proved to be a
lirect incentive to insanity. An extra
ordinary number of more or less fash
enable women are long on their beds at
he present time as if they were sick of
he palsy, when, as a matter of truth.
hey are possessed of no ailment beyond
heir own inherent foolishness. They
ave taken to their beds owing to a
raving for attention to any sympathy,
craving which is fostered by irrespon ;.
ble though we'll meaning friends, IN
! it develops into a mania most difficult I,
{ eradication.
A woman in this position is prone to u
nagine herselfa martyr to all manner u
distressing complaints; in fact, her n
Imagination runs riot to such an extent !
lat she develops into a lunatic There I
ave been cases of rich women who
ave lain on their beds for whole year =,
lder the impression that they could 9
1t move without intense pain. In