The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1904-04-30
LONDON ASKS ''Is
LOVE A DISEASED

IL II N4NNdA ALs
LONDON ASKS 'Is
LOVE A DISEASED"
rs love a disease?"
The great Cfalen. one of the fathers
Of medicine boldly proclaimed it to be
such over eighteen centuries ago, and
modern London is inclined to take the
same view Of the matter. For modern
London owing to the fertile brain of an
advertising agent for a halfpenny
newspaper. is engaged in a heated dis
cussion Of the question. Letters from
the scene of this wordy warfare state
that all known authorities on the sub
ject of the divine passion have been
dragged into print.
According to one we'll 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
treatment was given by Galen himself
in the second century to a naughty
Roman lady, wife of the patrician Me-
nippus. All the learned medical men
OF the then fashionable world failed to
alleviate her ailment and gave up her
case as inCurable. Nine. Menippus
then, as a last resort. summoned Ca
len. who had recently arrived with a
~
Asia Minor. and he promptly diagnosed
the complaint as an attack of ''love
sickness 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 disease.
The beating of the patients pulse is
given by Galen as the only means he
had of judging the nature Of her af-
lection. He fails to state. however,
l., al 70
say that by his professional discretion
he was able TO restore her to a better
state of mind He follows this recital
with a statement that Cleopatra had
used one of his cosmetics and found it
excellent, thus furnishing the first
voluntary patent medicine testimo-
nial'' known in history.
Antiquity Sanctions Theory.
The theory that love is a disease has
the sanction of venerable antiquity"
says the grave London Lancet, which
was finally drawn into the discussion.
Apart from the Greek and Roman
classics, it is a commonplace Of the
seventeenth century. The learned Ger
man, Gregorius Horstius, published a
long thesis in favor of the contention
in 1911, and in 1914 Lamandus support
cd him in a neatly entitled Latin essay
On the HdluIt VI 1--WE anu lAlC 1hA %
for love Madness Ten years later
Ferrand in Paris printed a book on
The Malady of Love; or, Erotic Melan-
choly'
The Dutch and Flemish painters of
the last half of the same century found
in love sickness a favorite subject.
Some Of the paintings of women suffer-
ing from this disease are scientifically
accurate portrayals of the anaemlc
condition. OF course none of these
writer's and painters had as yet sus-
pected that there is a bacillus of love,
though Cupid's arrow. which is as old
as mythology, is certainly its anti
type"
At Gissen. in Germany, in the six
teenth century. as one English disput-
ant pointed out, Horstius and the sa--
wants of Europe engaged in a long dis
pute upon the nature of love before a
large audience of the nobility and
gentry. Both sides of the discussion
admitted that the affiiction was GER
tainIv a disease. the only question at
issue being the form it assumed. Hors-
thus maintained that il was purely a
mental disorder. while one of his OPP
pcnents showed that magic was not
vet a dead art by st0utly asserting that
ii was the result of poisoning by love
philtres and charms" Still another
learned doctor was sure that love was
an illness that greatly resembled in |
digestion and could be diagnosed by /
the irregular and heightened beat of
the pulse.
Hindus Agree on Symptoms.
Before the Russian-Japanes 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 1
symptoms of love sickness" agreed /
upon by the ancient Hindu writer's. |
These signs were said TO be: "A pc |
culiar sidelong stare, a laHguid gait, |
difficult breathing, stoppage of the
hearts action. whitening of limbs. cold
shivers up and down the back, fever,
and swOons." An the Indian poets con-
slider the appearance of drops Of per-
sniration upon the cheeks and other
parts Of the body as one of the most
dangerous indications of the presence
Of The malady.
IN one OF the old dramas, writes
the officer "a royal lover is AFRAID 10
take a birchbark message in his hand,
lest the perspiration from his palms
wash away the message there. All the
cures tried by love sick patients proved
ineffective. In the drama The Bha-
Va Dnulls lllt iFtus lidhiio. a.
snow, moonlight. camphor. lotos roots,
pearls. and sandal oil as remedies, but
without effect. The Hindus were so
sure that love was a practically incur
2 bic sickness that they permitted a
sufferer to do almost anything TO pre-
vent himself from dying of it,
Disease One of Civilization.
Few English physicians were found
who believed that love was a sickness,
although one Londoner said. IF it be
a disease it is as modern as appendi-
citis, in spite Of what the ancients have
to say upon the subject" In support
OF this claim he brings forward the
customs of the less developed races of
the world to prove that love in its high
er sense is really unknown TO them.
He points out that anoiig the savage !
tribes Of Australia ono girl is as good