Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-01-02
The Water Spray as a Cure
for Neurasthenia.
A POPULAR AIlMENT
WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT NOW IS
CURED.
It's All Very Simple When You I'm
derstand It-Getting Rid
Of the Blues.

Special Correspondence OF The Evening star.
PARIS. December 20, 1908.
When ladies' get the blues in Paris we
know what to do with them.
When they go of their feed.
When they say: II feel 50 strange!'
When they think that they are going to
die some day.
When they cannot sleep.
When they are scared without cause.
When they have headaches.
When tears come unbidden.
We know what 1t is. Tears, idle tears.
they know not what they are, tears from
the depths of some divine despair-but
their husbands, fathers and brothers and
the family doctors say:
This lady is a bit neurasthenic; send her
TO an Establishment Neutrality-suspicious.
1t is the fashionable malady. Life is very
complex. Intense civilization and strenu-
osity show their effects Stomachs get out
of order. Beautiful bodies fill up with
toXines And furthermore. and very much
so, causes like these-very real-may be
effects of other causes, in their turn. The
lady may have begun. by being merely bored
or unhappy.
OF course, you must not say this to a
husband a father or a brother. How
can his wife, his daughter or his sister
be unhaDpy-when he is there. I mean
when he comes home each night for dinner?
Look the difficulty in the face and pass on
to things merely physical.
l am writing these lines from the swell
curing place of Paris sitting far back be-
hind its park of century-old trees in the
charming suburb of Neully, all Parisians
know the name, and 1t is no use to tell 1t
10 you, so far away. Titled ladies and tt
tied men, a great deal of money and regu-
larly getting their moneys worth All
young, that is, under thirty-five; for neu-
rasthenia comes less to those beyond that
age. And regularly pretty, rather, let
20 10 ,s-LA h.,
pretty; but, then, most women might be
pretty
They come blue and off their feed and
feeling strange and saying they will die,
headachy and seepless. There are those
who get terrible terrible weeping fits. Who
grip the doctor and the nurse and moan.
Don't leave mer' Who cannot walk IN
the street alone. Who are terrified a large
open spaces. Who are afraid of microbes
in their feed. Who feel as if they had
string tied round their head. technically
called the casque Who have little shivers.
WI no feel like jumping out of their skins.
Are Very Simple.
Let US speak of neurasthenia. What is it.
doctor? 1t Is ptose Qoosening) of vein
arterial tuniques envelopes like the outer
parts of telephone cabes). Now you know.
Indeed, when you know this you know al
most more than the doctor. Everything
must have a name.
NOW, II you really want to Know, /, who
have been in and out of Establishments hy-
drotherapiques enormously, recently asked
DIR. Auguste Mattin whom / met years
hgo at Auteuil, and later in Paris, and here
again at Neuilly. 1t Is his personal the
DRY. and has not been printed anywhere
Suppose that you are in the act Of sitting
down to lunch. A telegram is brought to
you with the worst kind of news In 1t. 1t
cuts your appetite You are all wrong.
Suppose as you are sitting down to din
Ter the same day the same thing reproduces
itself. You digest badly-and sleep badly.
Suppose by a suite of extraordinary cir
Cumstances it happens again the next day
You continue to eat badly. digest badly,
sleep badly And the next day, and the
next-and so on Your organism takes bad
habits; the stomach digests badly: the
brain does not reposs in sleep; the intes
tines do not function right-and even If.
after time the cause ceases the bad hab-
heurasthenic
TT is true, now" says Mattin, that these
bad habits have, above all, as consequence
n fFGm which gon
COMMA and general asthenie (not neuras-
3henie. which relates only to the nerves."
What is asthenie?'
General lack of force" said Mattin.
'Now come back to the bad news in the
Telegram at lunch and dinner. I often say
that 1 am neurasthenic today, because l
am. CYet Mattin is a robust giant) If
am temporarily bored, checked troubled or
annoyed the story OF the telegram repeats
itself in me, and as annoyances last day
pr so. 1t continues day or so. am neur-
Ssthenic for the time. And so Is every one.
Happily 1t does not last long enough for
the organism to make bad habits
While with those who become frankly
tteurarsthenic the annoying cause has last
ed long enough to make the habits?" I
interrupted, to show that understood.
Exactly" he answered.
On Delicate Ground.
Here we get on delicate ground: and 1
sshaH no longer quote my specialist-it Is
bad enough to make public the outlines of
part of his private theory in the general
interest Certainly I shall not make DR..
SIattin insinuate that your daughter or
your sister or your wife is not as bright
and gay a little singing canary in spite
of the happiness of having you come home
each night to dinner before you go out to
splay poker
But women are often unreasonable and to
be a good husband is. as they say here, tout
Gn meter. a business by itself. There are
other causes, Of course, enormously more
frequent, you can readily believe, such as
great and general boredom great and spe-
cial boredom, little boredoms which added
together make one all-sufficient boredom
what they call In Paris peines de occur, love
dsappointments, MISUNDERSTANDING and
Exceptions, money losses and too great
business preOccupatfons, bringing their
train Of daily emotions which repeat the
coup of the telegram at lunch and dinner.
Next to knowing the cause of a malady
the next best thing-in the medical VIEWS
60 learn how to cure 1t. A cultivated and
learned Philadelphia specialist. Dr.. Weii
Mitchell (author of Hugh Wynn. Quaker
hit upon the rest cure. He puts the patient
jn bed; and then you must do nothing. II
sou want drink of water the trair 81 nurse
glides for 1t on her pneumatic slippers. and
you drink II through a straw without budg
tng. If you want TO turn over in bed the
frained nurse turns you. They even taks
Sour clock out Of the room
The rest cure Is well known that t.
Ernention IL will be sufficient. What 1 have
&c tell about is something different.
1t is the way they do in Paris.
The Cure.
Rule Take the neurasthenic lady Co
gentleman absolutely away from her (ol
shis) habtual life and surroundings. At on'
Partisan establishment they go so far as t.
not only refuse to allow the nearest kint
of relatives to accompany the patient, blu
also forbid visits, even short calls.
You will say this is terribly hard on the
patient. My reply Is that it would astonisi
you how well they often lear 1t. Some
ktimes 1t makes a cure all by itself.
Rule 2. Douche the patient.
Little drops of water.
But great many OF them.