The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-10-06
WOMAN AND Her NERVES.
CAUSES IND CURES OF THE POPU-
LAR DISEASE OF THE DAY.
Too Many Details One of TIN. Things
Leading to Nervous Prostrntton--Ner-
vOusness of ChiIt1ren-Women Who
Exercise Too Much.

AC"UAHSS tp 49,
vousness of ChiIdren-Women Wht
Exercise Too Much.
Nervous prostration is the popular
disease of the day. For a while, ap.
pendicitis pushed it hard for first place
in public favor; but there was a def
mite quality about appendicitis that
limited Its scope. One either had APP
pendlcitis, or one didn't have it, and a
doctor speedily settled the question:; but
no doctor can prove that man or a
woman hasn't nervous proStration, If
the patient Is firm and sticks to the
malady. Neurasthenia is a posi-
tive boon to a tired world There's
more glory in it than In merely being
dead tired, and it affords full and ra-
tional excuse for an unreserved and
thorough flop. No woman could have
the hardihood to abandon duties and
responsibilities, cut herself off from
work and play and give as an excuse
that she was tired and needed a rest,
but she can have nervous prostration,
and every one alphabetically accepts
the situation.
Real neurasthenia is common enough,
but hypochrondriaca neurasthenia is
rampant, and the souls of conscientious
physicians are nightly plagued by the
insistence with which their patients de-
mand the distinction of nervous pros
tration. There Is no denying the fact
that the proportion of functional nerve
diseases has increased within late years,
ic ,ot Ar,oa ne
as a race, are peculiarly susceptible to
these diseases. Medical men have adj
vanced various theories to account for
this race constituencies; and, for long
time climatic conditions were made the
scapegoat, with diet and hygiene as
side issues; but later authorities have
tumbled those traditions from their
inches.
In the first place. as prominent
New York physician pointed out, in a
paper read before the American Social
Science association America covers so
vast an area and includes so many va
rieties of climate, that no general race
characteristic could be attributed to
climatic influence. AS for American
cookery and diet, any traveller who has
lived on sour bread in Switzerland and
sausage in Germany and grease-soaked
food In southern Europe ought not to
complain of American cookery or muir
muir even against the much-maligned
pie.
1t is not American cooking, but habits
of mental worry and irregular eating
that make Americans a nation of dys-
peptics and social and governmental
81 ~
of Americans than climate
or diet. All nations are more nervous
as they increase in civilization, but the
very democracy of America Is the men
ace to the nervous systems of her peo-
pie. There is practically no limit to
the fortune or prominence man may
obtain here, if he has ability and pluck
and fairly good luck. AS a result, com
petition Is frantic, and life is feverish
to a degree unknown In a country
where class lines are more heavily
drawn and possibilities of advancement
smaller. If an American hasn't mon
ey, social standing or education for
himself he wants his children to have
all three; and, with that purpose in
view, he works irrationally, against
competition, and depletes
his nerve force until he is easy prey to
functional disorders of all kinds.
The tradition of American nervous
ness itself works against the American,
Tor he accepts lack of nerve control as
IN Inevitable evil and makes very little
effort to conquer It, Even the children
are brought up to believe that they are
and parents, nurses, even |
physicians who should know better,
talk to the youngsters about their being
nervous from study or play, until the |
small men and women analyze their !
feelings as earnestly and bother about |
heir nerves as absurdly as the grown |
ups, instead Of being blissfully oblivi- !
,us to the fact that they have nervous |
systems. American children are more |
than the children of other ma
ions, but 1t isn't a question of heredity. |
Their training is as a rule, unhealth-
ul. They are forced and pushed for
ward and brought in contact with the
vhir1 of life. They are INDUCED and
pooled until their wills are warped,
heir nerve control lost, and they de-
'elop into self-analyzing, patent-medi-
inc taking hypoehondriacs, like too
many Of their elders
Nervous prostration is much more
Common among women than among
men, and opponents Of higher educa-
lon for women are fond of saying that
modern education is making nervous
wrecks of young women, that mental
culture is leaving them physi-
ally defective. Careful observation of
typical class in any one of our wo-
mems colleges ought to explode that
heory. A well-known physician who
as made particular study of this
uestion states as result of investiga-
pom the physical condition of women
lore often by far than mental culture
oes, and that the best hope for large
roportion of the women suffering from
erve depletion Is in the possibility of
them to a keen interest in
ome intellectual pursuit.
DR.. Grace Peckham Murray, who
nows something about American wo-
len and their nerves, talked to a Sun |
sporter the other day about feminine
ervousness.
why do more women than men have |
ervous prostration?' asked the repor- !
n. {
Because they have more time for it," !
answered the doctor promptly. Then /
ne laughed. 81 don't mean that all [
eir nervous diseases are imaginary"
lie continued, ''but the nervous system t