The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-07-16
MESICKNESS.
Disease That in Intense Form AHicts
Other Races Than AngIO-Saxon.
From the Lancet.


There is a malady which boasts of a
learned appellation compounded of two
Greek words. but which is better known
by homelier and far more expressive
name in the varnacular, and vet although
this binomial disorder is described in the
dictionaries as "A vehement desire 80
affecting the physical health" it has not
been assigned place in the Nomencla-
ture of Diseases for which the Royal Col
lege of Physicians of London IS responsible
The fact, too that honesic kness. if i'm
perviou5 to drugs is nevertheless in the
highest degree amenable to trea tment
might crediby seem to still further iusti-
fly its inclusion in the official glossary of
the l,053 natural shocks that flesh is heir
10. With regard to the GEOLOGY of this
unqualified complaint there still remain
several points requiring calculation, albeit
in its genesis no bacillus is concerned, nor
for its adequate diagnosis is there any
need of either miScrOsCope or test tube.
Shortly stated the essential factor in the
production OF nostalgia is an environment
differing from that amidst which the
affected person passed his or her early
days When this is the case some in
tangible Influence is generated which re-
acts upon the victim, but just as hap
pens in many official maladies there must
first be innate receptivity or pre- pared
who succumbs. This receptive state is
favored by at least three separate things
race, education and temperament-but
of these predisposing causes the last pos
sesses less power than either
of the others. Caeteris pari-
bus. phlegmatic subjects are more
likely to experience inconsistencies
than their sanguine compeers. A tendency
to despond without SUFFICIENT cause I'M
doubtedly subserves toward nostalgia,
but ardent, enthusiastic people who con-
tinually look forward-who never are,
but always to behave the advantage,
if advantage il be, of remaining immune.
Education or rather the want of it, is
more potent than temperament, the trend
of civilization, which is equivalent to edu-
cation, being distinctly in the direction of
cosmopOlt anism. The deeper the ignorance
the ruder the conditions of life under which
a human being exists tire greater the
probability when exposed TO its influence
of his acquiring nostalgia. If an islander
from Tierra del F'uego, for instance, were
to he transported 10 the comparative par
adise of the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific
ocean which have been described as "a
cluster of pearls hung upon the equator
he would very likely bewaH his hard lot
and pine for his own inclement and in
hospitabfe wilderness, and if in like man
ner a Pacific Gilbertian We're to be pro-
NOTED to. say, Pail Mal-which, with
out wishing to speak disrespectfully of the
equator, We maintan to be the more de-
srabe abode of the two-he also would no
doubt soon break his heart longing for
the delights of his sWlertering hut in Mi
cronesia.
But of the three predisponents race it is
which is the strangcst and most incense
ouentiaI. Anglo-Saxons and their Celtic
brethren vary their manners and customs
while abroad to a less extent probably