The aegis & intelligencer., 1899-03-03
THEY BREED LUNACY
DANGEROUS HABITS THAT MAY DRIVE
ONE INSANE.

Incurahic - The Morbid Feur of
Madncss and Its Result.
1t was IIoIagc, the old Latin poet, who
proclaimed the really happy man to be ho
who understood the causes of thincs
AID if this br true Of anything it is true
Of insanity We are ali of Us liable. by
u?s;i.in:g {, rt:..n lines uf conduct, to be
,umc r:::.I. ANA il is important that people
should knuN; exactly what those lines of
conduct are.
There is Il fHr too prevalent notion that
il TCCt,; an overwhelming disaster to
throw Il sound man OFF his mental lril-
ancH. and that, s.ivcn health and brains,
one can aiiulN To be very careless with
them. As IL matter of actual fact. how
ever. man $ mental health may DC upset,
us can his physical, by an accumulation
of little things, trilling in themselves, but
in tn" aggregate sufficient to make him q
positive danger to society.
And aLIong these little things" are
habits. 1t seems really dreadful to reflect
that there are some two dozen of these
which. perfectly innocent, will nevcrthc
less, ii adopted, render one insane, but it
is 80.
First of all there is the reckoning
mania. Its effects are far worse than the
nar!c implies, though its beginnings are
Of the slightest.
In the first stage the person is seized
with a desire to count something. Ii
may even commence with his Checking
the number of PAGES he is taking or by his
adding up too r:any columns of figures
Then, as the habit grows, his state gets
worse and worse. He can do nothing
say nothing, think nothing without this
terrible desire to count coming over him.
1t is impossible for him to follow any
occupation, and his conversation is con-
stantly interrupted by his attempting to
add sonnet ming UP, no matter what, If ii
is only the pieces of furniture in the room.
Very frequently it IS not till the last
ard most acute stage that the patient
| goes to see the doctor. Then, as q rule,
something very extraordinary happens.
| The patient commences to state his COM
| plaint and then breaks OF hurricdly.
Excuse nc 1; moment" ho says, and
then when the physician notices that the
number of buttons on his waistcoat are
being counted he knows he has II ''rcck-
! oncr'' to deal with.
The fact that the reckoning mania is
} almost incurablc and that its beginnings
| are so exceedingly slight should make one
douhly cautious of contracting it. The
patient will &C unit everything, from chin
ncy pots to raindrors and his mind is
always in fcrlnent Of reckoning.
Another habit manila, and one a great
man contractt d--to wit, DR.. J0hnson-is
! tho tapping mania With him it took the
form Of tapping every post lie passed with
his walking stick, just us with the great
| i,n Etr ;i.
him to count the houses in the streets he
drove through two by two.
Unfortunately, however, we have rot
all the energy Of will and Robustness of
mind Of these two Titans, and the result is
| that with ordinary EICrtaiS the tapping
| mania is apt to have cIriblc results.
The lengths to which it will carry d
man it is positively awful to- contemplate.
Should it happen that he omits 10 tap or
! touch the object us he passes by it he will
return to do so, and lie ends by tapping
every object Of that kind that he socS.
The fact that once Il man : mind gets in
the habit of dwelling on one idea or be-
GENES obscsscd by it lie is extremely liable
20 40 mad is illustrated by an cxtra0rdi-
nary rnSc that, were it not vnuchCd for on
unimpcachablc scientific uathority, one
would reject lis incredible.
\ we'll to do retired man of business
! made habit of noticing the face and
! features of almost every woman he came
in cont ct with to see if she were pretty
or not So far did this mania go with
! him that on one occasion, when he had to
take q railway journey from London to
Manchester, the fact that he forgot to dis
cover what the London station barnpid
was like so annoyed him that ho actually
| ,l,l l,,, t,,t tnNt f,A1 1isanN-nn
Is the clcarcst ease on record Of Il man 60
ing mad from habit.
There Is n we'll substartntcd case of u
man who, imbucd with the notion that
13 was an unltscky number, could not
keep it out of his calculations. Every
thing he saw, everything he was engaged
in, seemed to him to suggest the fatal
! number until ut last mclanchOlia of the
most pronounced kind rendered him unit
to be ut large.
If you have ever visited II lunGtic aSy-
Ium, you will have fourd at least one
luratic who persists in walking lourd and
round more or less accurate circle.
And if you had been able to trace out the
cause of his insanity you WCuid have
found ont l3cst probably that hc went
uind originally through his seeing s1nle
circular motion ard feeling in,rcllcii to
initiate 1t.
1t might have even been that Il hum-
ming top caused him to got up ard r,:n
round and round the room or that Ec
started To do 81 when playing with IL littie
child Too much waltzi:g has even been
known to produce tine same maria in Il
mild form, and the habit of running.
walking or even writing in circles. IL for:i
which has all extraordinary attraction 70.
roInc people, is invariably attended with
disastrous results.
But quite the most dangerous habit-ot
miEd, that is--und one against which
readers of this article should DC warned Is
the fear Of insanity, which, strangely
enough, frequently induces it.-Englisl
Magazine. ---------