Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1905-1906, 1906-02-06
NERVOUS DISEASE
NO LONGER FAD.
BREAKDOWNS OCCUR FIRE.
QUENTLY IN ALL CLASSES
OF SOCIETY.
SCIENTIST CITES CAUSES
London Physician Declares Rich and
Poor Alike Go Pace That
Kills.
SCIENTIST CITES CAUSES

London, Feb. 3.-"The breakdown
of the nervous system is no mere So
ciety craze, from which it is fashion
able to suffer, but is becoming ma
tional calamity which bids fair to rob
our descendants Of many Of those
qualities which have done so much to
make this empire what it isl This
representation forms a striking pas
sage In an article in a review by DR..
Guthrie Rankin, London physician.
This article is interesting to Amer
lean readers from the fact that neu-
rasthenia or nervous breakdown first
was completely described by Beard
of New York in 1879. In reviewing
the causes of the malady DR.. Rankin
observes that the old order of life is
changed in dietic usages by the keen
er and fiercer competition. Towns
and cities are becoming more crowd
ed and there is a demand for more
energetic and exciting life.
At the same time the spirit of rest
lessness has impaired to all vocations
a more active character than former
ly they possessed. A holiday to
many people is no longer the day Of
rest it once was.
Up to the present time large pro-
portion Of patients who suffered from
functional disorders of the nervous
system sprang from among the opu-
lent classes, but now they are met
with in all grades of society, women
being the sufferers more frequently
than men. Evidently wear and tear
plus luxury, is telling its story more
rapidly than does wear and tear plus
unsuitable food and insufficient rest.
"The day rapidly is coming,' says
Rankin, "when every class will suf
fertile rich, because they are too
easily circumstanced and too self-in-
dulgent; the poor, because they are
insufficiently fed and regardless Of
every rudimentary law of health;
and the great middle class, because
they break themselves down in their
unceasing endeavors to outstrip their
neighbors and to amass money!
Mr.. Rankin declares that it is
among the women who allow them
selves to become neurasthenic from
causes within their own control that
nervous debility is rampant.
"Those who belong to the cultured
and leisure classes Of society,"" he
says, care the greatest sinners. They
become especially so in the earlier
half of their womanhood when swept
into the whirl of social ambition.
Many sacrifice not only their health
but their duty to the remorseless de-
| mands of the wooden image at whose
shrine they worship. They have
neither time nor desire for the ordi-
nary affairs of life. Domestic obi
cations have little claim upon their
attention, and they find no opportu-
nifty for the practice of the old fash
Toned homely virtues.
"Their lives become a dreary wor-
ship Of mammon and a restless
search after a social novelty and
physical excitement.
"Children seriously interfere with
the numerous engagements Of such
women and are regarded as undesira-
BILE accidents, which at all hazards
are to be avoided"
Several changes of custom and
habit are mentioned by the writer in
an examination of the means of pre-
vention-namely: a more rigid ad-
herence to simplicity of life and pro-
nounced social disapproval of the
immoderate use of alcohol and tobac-
co and the forbidding of both to
those too young. Another sugges-
ton is some form of compulsory mil
itary service exacted from every
healthy young man.
Apropos of this last suggestion,
speaking at Manchester the other
night, Sir Frederick Treves said the
present conditions of life make ex-
traordinary attacks on the nervous
system, and the best remedy was the
open air exercise. He could imag-
inc no better open air exercise than
military training, which encouraged
promptness, alertness, capacity to act
in common, and above all discipline.