The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-07-28
HOW 10 AVOID INSANITY.

The following hints on the safe
guarding of ones sanity are given in
the July Century by the Rev. James
M. Buckley, editor of the Christian
AdSO0ate, and author of Christian
Science, and Other Superstitions.'
Anxiety should be Systematically
antagonized by philosophy, religion,
or change of subjects of thought.
The effect of worry and suspense in
driving men wild is constantly seen
in the business world, directly and by
comparative mental repose. Hence
authorities affirm that uncertainty
and anxiety are far more liable to lead
to mental arrangement than the as
surance of disaster.
Gas anxiety is foe to clear think
ing, it is better for one approaching
a crisis to resort to indirect methods
of dissipating it, such as conversa-
ton, the reading of an absorbing
book, violent physical exercise, or the
use of tools with which one would
cut himself if he did not give his en-
tire attention to their use. Similar
means also contribute to sound sleep.
Subjects of thought should be
frequently changed. Neither fanat-
icisln or insanity from mental causes
will be liable to develop when the
mind is not constantly held upon one
problem, probability, possibility, or
perglexity. =,
fear, so from time to time the scene
should be changed. Those who post
pone travel for several years often
find that they have lost the capacity
of enjoyment ; care is their courier,
and they return unrefreshed. A fire.
quent vacation of two or three days in
a month would in many cases be more
beneficial than thirty-six days ofleis-
ure or change consecutively each
year.
1.-THE observance of one day in sew
en- by complete change in subjects
of thought, and the suspension of
modes of activity required for six
days, would be philosophical even
though it had no basis in religion. In
the first French Revolution the at
tempt was made to have a holiday
once in five days, and again once in
ten. The intervals were too frequent
under the first plan, and did not re-
cur often enough under the second.
Hence those who hated the system
which enforced the Sabbath were fain
to return to it.
"The superintendent of one of the
largest hospitals for the insane de-
clares that nineteen out of twenty of
the business and professional men
who come under his care have been in
the habit of carrying business on their
minds for seven days in each and
every week.
Exaggerated sensitiveness is a foe
to happiness and the direct source of
melancholy. In its earliest stages it is
amenab1e to self-treatment. Many a
restoration to happiness has occurred
by the revelation to ones self that by
undue sensitiveness he has been max
ing life intolerable to himself and to
his friends.
"Never, except in an emergency,
should any one stake all he has upon
one thing. Cesar aut miItif is usual
" nihil, and if Caesar, it is often only
another form of nihil. In great emer-
gencies men are often not content to
wait. Because they know not what
to do, they do not know not what.
'Many become insane for want OF
occupation; they inherit wealth, and
with it strait jacket of conventional
tiles in which they are compelled tc
spend their lives. This is especially
the case with women, who generally,
unlike men similarly situated, cannot
travel by sea or land, or employ theii
energies in hunting, fishing, or ath-
letics. Men who retire from business
voluntarily or because of advancing
years, without modes Of mental occu-
patton, are prone to melancholy. Some
fear poverty while in the midst Of
riches; others are out of joint with
the times others develop strange &C.
centricities, illustrating the proverb,
Give an old mill nothing else to GRIND
and it will grind flint A habit oi
reading, an interest in science, active
connection with some systematizec
philanthropy, profound and practi
cal sympathy with some religion:
cult, will postpone the date of the ad
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