The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-20
What Medicine Knows Today


that tits a legacy from our simian an
cestors, who sought safety from their
foes in the dense tops of trees. These
primeval anthropoid apes were at dis
advantage on the ground, and they
knew it. They associated the idea of
the earth's surface with ideas of sud
den assaults by leopards and lions.
This ancient race impression has come
down to us. In the great majority of
human beings later impressions have
wiped it out. When, by atavism, 1t re-
appears, we call it agoraphobia.
The converse of agoraphobia is
claustrophobia, the fear of closed
places. 1t is comparatively common,
and is usually revealed as dread of
entering crowded street cars or of pass
ing through narrow passages. The
man who feels ill at east indoors
who likes to go rowing across the open
fields and to sleep under the blue vault
OF heavens claustrophobe.
According to the English scientist
before mentioned, olaustrophobia dates
from the early days of the human
race. At that time man was ceasing
TO live in the trees and learning to live
on the ground. He felt the need of
shelter and so sought it in caves and
| in hollow tree-trunks; but experience
i soon taught him that these places
were often harbors for snakes, wild
beasts and other fearsome enemies.
Therefore, he began to associate small,
confined shelters with ideas of fear,
and it took him a long while to drive
! this fear out of his mind. Even today
| savages. children and the ignorant are
afraid of caves and dark rooms.
| The fear of darkness itself, which
is common to nine-tenths of the hui
man race. probably had its rise In the
same manner, though now and then it
! Is JUSTIFIED by some small Or grea- risk
| or actual injury. A great many intel
| ltgent an deducated persons are utter
! ly unable to r'6 themselves of this
fear. They know the absurdity of it
and they battle against it, but in vain
1t is, in fact, pathological. and fire.
quently 1t is accompanied by other and
better-marked symptoms of neuras-
thenfa or hysteria; but this is by no
means true invariably. On the contra
| ry many persons in whom il is strong
are eonspicuously sound in mind other
wise
Hematophobfa- the dread OF blood,
and necrophobia the fear of dead
| bodies, are common. The former is
| essentially a malady of civilization
Savages seldom exhibit it. even slight
| ly, and they are never moved to nausea
| by the sight Of blood. In some civil
| lied persons II is so strong that the
| sight of bleeding wound causes viO-
| lent sickness and Inconsistencies, fol-
| lowed by dangerous exhaustion end
even by collapse. Every medical school
has records of students who had to
abandon their studies because they
| could not overcome their hematopho-
bia. AS a rule, however, the weakness
soon yields to familiarity. The med
ical student who grows sick at his first
operation later may become the vet
! eran surgeon TO whom blood seems 10
more horrible than so much water
Necrophobia is widespread among all
human beings: but very naturally it
aches its most violent and remark
able forms among savages. There are
! tribes in Africa whose members fee
from the dead as from q pestilence
They put the care and burial of corpses
into the hands of slaves and distant
tribes. No doubt this fear of the dead
had it's origin not so much in religion
and superstition as in a very real dan
ger. In the days of the great plaques
contact with the dead was exceedingly
ha zardous.
A trio of queer fear-maladies are
| aichmophobia, Re fear of sharp in
struments; asfSophobia. the fear Of
lightning, and mysophobia, the fear of
dirt. The first is more common than
is generally supposed. King James
of England was one of it's most nota-
bic victims. The sight of a drawn
sword. it is said, would make him
shudder and grow pale, and he en-
ployed the knife at table only by a
strong exercise of the will King
George III suffered from the same fear
He had the spear tops of a row of iron
fence rails cut off because they made
him tremble whenever he glanced at
them. 1t is not unusual to find men
who are unable to shave themselves
because the razor terrifies them. When
it is in the hands of a barber it does
not disturb them so much; but they
are utterly unable to touch the handle
themselves.
Astrophobia is so familiar that it
scarcely needs description. Every per-
son has within his acquaintance a wo-
man who grows faint with terror
whenever there is a thunderstorm.
Some of these unfortunates lock them
selves in a dark room. or go to bed,
with the sheet pulled over their heads
at the first flash of lightning. If a
storm comes up at night, when, of
course, the lightning is much more
vivid than during the day, their alarm
is pitiable.
Mysophobia is a malady that af-
ficts a great many housewives, though
In them, it may be admitted: it is Of
ten more a virtue than a disease. But
in other persons it has ludicrous mani
festations sometimes. There is on rec
ord the case of man who so
feared dirt that he washed his hands
fifty times a day and changed collars
every hour. He spent thousands every
year on Turkish baths, shampooing
and manicuring. He could never bring
himself to wear the same suit of
clothes two days in succession. For
Iunateiy, this man was rich; so his
r1ysophobia was looked upon by his
friends as a mere eccentricity. Had he |
been poor it might have landed him in
a lunatic asylum.
Acrophobia, the fear of high places, |
often is complicated or caused by |
physical malady such as vertigo; but |
now and then il appears alone. Its |
victims have an intoierabie dread OF
high attitudes. They cannot be in |
duced nv any means of persuasion. to |