The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1900-01-28
/ PHYSICIAN on NAGG|Ns.
apwIsHNEss ATTRInUTED 70
NERVOUS SYSTEM.
5SIady IL Not New, nat u : RAysical
= Inarnity Literature Pictures
1tahy Husbands ~ victims Of IT'S
\ slinx-,Jeb Candle Ii . Type.

-...,N interesting article appeared in a
4 s late number o. tia Journal OF the
American Medical Association OH
NJ ..Nagging Wives and Nervous
Husbands" health officer OF
lew York city aroused storm of pro-
&st among the self-constituted representa-
ives OF the new woman by his remarks on
~ production OF nervous prostration in
husbands caused by the nagging Of their
wives.
2. II Is the fashion to waste much sympathy
oyer. the eelf-sacrificlng OF the wife to the
kylochondriacal husband but the reverse
a the picture Is too well known TO physi-
clans The hysteric. nagging wife OF TIN
Insane or neurosthenic husband is a ia
miliar acquaintance.
suSh women are usually regarded as fin
~ steele products, but the Puritan matron
Was frequently a hysteric. The eighteenth
century statutes appertaining to the use
81 the duciihy stool survive In Delaware,
demonstrating the recognition of nagging
Is an anti-social vice by the fathers Of the
republic.
IN ne late sixteenth and in the carly
seventeenth century Mysteries were far
more frequent than is usually supposed.
and the minor form Of hysteria which
&akes the direction Of motor restlessness
vas peculiarly apt to voice itself In nag
ring. Indeed, in the Comedy Of Errors"
which appeared In 1893, Shakespeare indi-
Gates that. according to popular opinion at
that time, husband nagging produced not
only nervous prostration but even insanity.
In act w., scene L.. after the abbess* has
drawn from Adriana the self-confessed
cause OF the malady of Antipholue. she
says
.The venom clamors of jealous woman.
Poison more deadly than a mad dogs
Il seems his sleeps were hindered by thy
And thereof comes 1t that his head is light,
Thou say'st his meat was sauced ty the
unouiet meals make Ill digestions;
Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
And what's fever but At of madnessT'
Hen Jonson's "silent woman"
Ben johnson indicates the popular be-
lief In the Notwithstanding effects OF
nas9fng in 1.-THE Silent Woman" Moross
is an old paranoiac who has horror
Of noise, but loves to speak. He inhabits
street so narrow that the carriage can
not enter II. He drives on with his stick
the bear leaders and sword players who
venture to pass under his windows. He
sends away his servant whose shoes
creak. The new one wears slippers with
Moruse forbids the whisper and makes
him reply by signs.
His nephew, whom he Ill treats, finds
for him a supposed silent woman for
wife. vMorose, enchanted by her brief
replies and her voice, which he can hard
Is married she speaks, scolds. argues as
loud and as long as a dozen women. She
orders .the valet to speak louder, and
opens the doors wider to her friends, who
arrive In crowds. overwhelming Morose
by their noisy congratulations Morose
Artx, =. <,.sk oe1, r. nd
looking dreadfully. Afterward physi-
clans who are called pronounce him mad,
and discuss his insanity before. him In
learned pathologic terms.
The word .-shrew" applied to scoldfng
womxn hap different derivation, accord
inS to.the dictionaries, from the name
of the, little insect-hunting animal. But
It is no libel ON the animal to give his
name to a vixen even of a more ungov-
ernahIe sort than himself.
y Henry Giles speaks of Kate the
Curst," the 'Elizabethan New Woman"
I've. as she is only sulky; not sarcastic,
but scurrilous: the shrew of blood, not
of brains: the shrew of will and not of
fancy; of will without reason, obstinate
Without purpose, whimsical without play
fulness, quarresome without ainl-that
mixture of fool and fighter which makes
the fretful she-tormentor talking ter
magant. She has no sport In herself;
size serves only to make sport for others,
and this is merely in play. Elsewhere
she could simply be a misery; only in a
play was such a tigress ever tanned; only
in play such an incarnate virulence ever
had existence"
While the play was intended to depict
a suspicious paranoiac, 1t also illustrates
the influence which medical and popular
opinions ascribe to nagging as factor
in nervous disorders The Elizabethan
n ttvfax rNP
&c illusions from current medical science,
especially as relates to psychiatry.
Is a Physical Infirmity.
Shrewishness Is in part physical in
trinity, the springs of which are in the
animal side of ones nature--a disease Of
morbid .rritability and headstrong passion.
The most ludicrous appearance of the nag
cling wife Is found in the literature Of the
first half Of the present century, in the
case of Mrs Caudle, portrayed in the Sour
tain Lectures by Douglass Jerrold. Mr..
Caudle had an indomitable constitution.
One fact will prove the truth of this. He
lived with Mrs. Caudle thirty years, sur
yiving her.
The nagging. however, had one serious
result. When Mr.. Job Caudle was left
without this daily guide and nocturnal
monitress he was in the ripe fullness of 81
years. For three hours at least after he
went to bed--such slaves are we In habit
he could not close an eye. His wife still
talked at his side. True 1t was, she was
dead and decently inferred; his mind could
not wander on this point. This he knew,
nevertheless-his wife was with him.
The ghost of her tongue still talked as
in the life, and again and again DID Job
Caudle hear the monitions of bygone years.
At times so loud. so lively. SO real were
the sounds that Job, with a cold chill,
doubted II he were really widowed. Then.
with movement Of hand, he would as
sure himself that he was alone. Never
theless. the talk continued. 1t was terri
BILE to be thus haunted by a voice, to have
advice, commands, remonstrance, all sorts
OF saws and adages still poured upon him
and no uiaihla wife Nnxy did fha ,ynica