The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1899-02-20
THEY BREED LUNACY
DANGEROUS HABITS THAT MAY DRIVE
ONE INSANE.

Little Tricks That Are Liable TO De
veloD Into Mania and Then BecOme
IncurnbIe The Morbid Fear of
Madness and It's Result.
1t was Horace, the old Latin poet, who
proclaimed the really happy man to be he
who understood the causes of things
And If this be true of anything 1t is true
of insanity. We are all Of us liable, by
pursuing certain lines of conduct, TO be-
come mad, and it is important that people
should know exactly what those lines of
conduct are.
There is a far too prevalent notion that
It needs an overwhelming disaster to
throw q sound man off his mental bal
ance, and that, given health and brains,
one can afford to be very careless with
them As matter of actual fact. how
ever, mans mental health may be upset,
as can his physical by an accumulation
Of little things, trifling in themselves, but
in the aggregate sufficient to make him
positive danger TO society.
And among these "little things" are
habits, 1t seems really dreadful to reflect
that there are some two dozen of these
which, perfectly innocent, will neverthe-
less, if adopted, render one insane, but it
is So
First Of all there is the reckoning
mania. Its effects are far worse than the
name implies, though its beginnings are
of the slightest.
In the first stage the person is seized
with a desire to count something 1t
may even commence with his checking
the number Of PAGES he is taking or by his
adding up too many 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 something up, no matter what, if it
is only the pieces of furniture in the room.
Very frequently it is not till the last
and most acute stage that the patient
goes to see the doctor. Then, as a rule,
something very extraordinary happens.
The patient commences to state his COM
plaint and then breaks off hurriedly
Excuse me moment" he says and
then when the physician notices that the
number of buttons on his waistcoat are
being counted he knows he has "reck-
oner' TO deal with
The fact that the reckoning mania is
almost incurable and that its beginnings
are so exceedingly slight should make one
doubly cautious of contracting it. The
patient win count everything, from chin
ney pots to raindrops, and his mind is
always in ferment of reckoning.
Another habit mania, and one a great
man contracted-to wit, DIR. Johnson-is
the tapping mania. With him it took the
form of tapping every post he passed with
his walking stick, just as with the great
Napoleon the reckoning mania caused
him to count the houses in the streets he
drove through, two by two.
Unfortunately, however, we have not
all the energy of will and robustness of
mind of these two Titans, and the result is
that with ordinary mortals the tapping
mania is apt TO have terrible results.
The lengths to which it will carry a
man it is positively awful to contemplate.
Should it happen that he omits TO tap or
touch the object as he passes by it he win
return to do so, and he ends by tapping
every object of that kind that he sees.
The fact that once man mind gets in
the habit of dwelling on one idea or be-
comes obsessed by it he is extremely liable
to go mad is illustrated by an extraordi-
nary case that, We're it not vouched for ON
unimpeachable scientific authority, one
would reject as incredible
A well to do retired man of business
made habit of noticing the face and
features of almost every woman he came
in contI 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 railway journey from London to
Manchester, the fact that he forgot to dis
| cover what the London station barmaid
was like so annoyed him that he actually
travelled back to town TO discover. This
is the clearest case on record of "A man 90.
! ing mad from habit.
There is a well substantiated case of a
man who imbued with the notion that
l3 was an unlucky 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 at last melancholia of the
most pronounced kind rendered him unfit
! TO be at large
If you have ever visited a lunatic asy-
lum you will have found at least one
lunatic who persists ilfwalking round and
round q more or less accurate circle
! And if you had been able TO trace out the
cause of his insanity you would have
found out most probably that he went
mad originally through his seeing some
circular motion and feeling impelled to
initiate it,
1t might have even been that hum
ming top caused him to get up and run
round and round the room or that he
started to do so when playing with little
child Too much waltzing has even been
known to produce the same mania in q
mild form, and the habit of running,
walking or even writing in circles, form
which has an extraordinary attraction for
some people, is invariably attended with
| disastrous results.
But quite the most dangerous habit-of
mind, that is-and one against which
readers Of this article should be warned is
the fear Of insanity, which, strangely
enough, frequently induces it.-English
Magazine.