The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-05-29

pfoctalHled IT 70 De Sucn over 10 CEN
turtles ago, and modern London is IN
clined to take the Same view of the
matter. For modern London, owing to
the fertile brain of an advertising agent
for halfpenny newspaper. is engaged
in a heated diicussion OF the question.
Letters from the scene of this wordy
warfare state that all known authorities
on the subject of tile divine passion
have been dragged into print.
According TO one weil-known doctor,
Galen, IN his voluminous medical writ
ings, cites the first case on record where
love was treated by a physician as a
recognized form OF illness. This treat
ment was given by Galen himself in the
second century to naughty Roman lady,
wife of the patrician Menippus. All the
learned medical men Of the then fashion
able world failed to alleviate her ailment
and gave up her case as incurable. Nine
Menippus then, as a last resort, sum
moned Galen. who had recently arrived
with glowing reputation from the
schools of Asia Minor. and he promptly
diagnosed the complaint as an attack of
'.lovesickness. Pylades, a handsome
young knight. whom the woman had
seen once or twice, but did not know,
was declared TO be the cause of the dis
ease. The beating OF the patients pulse
is given by Galea as the only means he
had of Judging the nature of her Attic
ton. He fails to state, however, what
remedies he recommended other than
to say that by his professional discre-
ton he was able TO restore her to a
better state of mind. He follows this
recital with statement that Cleopatra
had used ole OF his cosmetics and found
it excellent. thus furnishing the first
voluntary patent medicine testimonial
known TO history
The theory that love is disease has
the sanction of venerable antiquity says
the grave London Lancet, which was f.
nally drawn into the discussion Apart
from the Greek and Roman classics, it is
q COlii1IOllpidCc OI the seventeenth Cell
tury. The learned German Gregorius
Horstitus published a long thesis in favor
OF the contention in 1911, and in 1914
Lamandus supported him in neatly en-
titled Latira essay on The Nature of
Love and the Cures for Love Madness
Ten years later Ferrarid in Paris printed
a book on The Maiady of Love; or,
Erotic Melancholy.
<s-Tfe T1t5fcf7 and Efa.,.sSf, x,at~74a~a 81
the last half of the same century found
in lovesiclkness' a favorite subject. Some.
of the paintings of women suffering from
this disease are scientifically accurate
portrayals of the anaeraie condition. Of
course, none of these writers and paint
ers had as yet suspected that there is a
bacillus of love, though Cupid's arrow,
which IS as old as mythology. IS certain
ly its antitype. /.
At Gissen, in Germany, in the sixteenth
century, as one English disputant pointed
out. Horstias and the savants of Europe
engaged in long dispute upon the ma
ture Of love before large audience of
the nobility and gentry. Both sides to
the discussion admitted that the affection
was certainly disease, the only ques-
ton at issue being the form it assumed.
Horstius maintained that it was purely
mental disorder, while one of his OPP
poner1ts showed that magic was not yet
a dead art by stotitly asserting that it
was the result of poisoning by love phil
tiers and charms" Still another learned
doctor was sure that love was an illness
that greatly resembled Indigestion and
could be diagnosed by the irregular and
heightened beat Of the pulse.
Before the Russian Japanese war broke
out to turn public attention TO some
other subject a British officer in India
added fresh fuel to the present discussion
BY writing home list of symptoms of |
.IovesicknessD agreed upon by the an
cient Hindoo writers. These signs were
said to be: a peculiar sidelong stare,
a languid gait, difficult breathing, stop
pages Of the hearts action, whitening OF
limbs, cold sEivers up and down the
back, fever and swoons. Ale the In
dian poets consider the appearance of
drops of perspiration upon the cheeks
and other parts of the body as one OF |
the most dangerous indications of the
presence Of the nlalady.
In one of the old dramas, writes the |
officer, "a royal lover is afraid TO take |
birchbark message in his hand lest the |
perspiration from his palms wash away |
the message there all the cures tried |
by lovesick patients proved ineffective. |
In the drama The BhavabhutT the hero,
MadIlava, tries snow, moonlight, cam
phor, lotos roots. pearls and sandal oil |
as remedies. but without effect. The
Eiindus were so sure that love was a |
practically incurable sickness that they
permitted q sufferer to do almost any |
hing to prevent himself from dying of
It.
Few English physicians were found /
who believed that love was a sickness,
although one Londoner said:
IF it be disease it Is as modern as
in spite of what the ancients |
have to say upon the subject"
In support of this claim he brings for
ward the customs OF the less developed
races OF the world to prove that love in
} . . . . . .
leld in place by springs. and the shock |
Of his fall disengaged the cards. Think |
ing him a or1e-handed man, We see, we /