The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1907-03-14
HALF THE PEOPLE "OFF."
Doctor Tells Entertainment Club
Nerves Are Goinq to Rack.

Nerves Are Going to Rack.
Affirming that the strenuous life of
the age is making such eXtravagant
! demands on the nerve stores CT Ameri-
cans that half the nations population
suffers in certain degree from hallu-
cinations, Dr.. John D. Quackenbos,
addressing the Entertainment Club in
the Waldorf-Astoria voiced warning
against overtaXing the physical body
in fashionable and business life.
while in the last 10 years demands
on nervous vitality have markedly in
creased said the speaker, the Gle
ments of nerve nutrition in the ma
chine-made food stuffs and substitutes
the mass of the people live on have
conspicuously diminished. Nerve
work has been doubled, while nerve
nourishment has been halved, and this
is the worst of all the infractions of
the poor mans rights by the soulless
corporations.
Dr. Quackenbos said that persons,
otherwise intellectual beyond the av-
erage of mankind, through various
kind of eXcesses which poisoned or
tagged the nervous system, have most
absurd hallucinations in certain direc-
tions. When these hallucinations be-
come permanent the patient becomes
insane, he said, but if friends Of such
sufferers before they reached the in
sane state used kindly persuasion to
convince them the ills were only imag-
mary, tie insane asyluns today would
be comparatively deserted.
Enumerating the various activities
that tend to wreck the nervous system
the speaker said that gambling,
whether at bridge or poker, the races,
lotteries or stocks, was to be reck-
oned with. Americans speed their au-
tomobiles along every conceivable life
way" he continued, "exhausting their
energies as they go, and inviting pre-
mature nervous and mental impair
ment."
Citing many instances of nervous
hallucinations that had come under his
observation, DR.. Quackenbos said that
once the wife of representative, 9TH
erwise perfectly sound, imagined that
fishing worms crawled continually on
her body. When she went to bed at
night the delusion was so marked
that she believed her couch was a
lake and the fish were constantly
swimming about her in quest of the
bait. When the suggestive method
of treatment was resorted to she was
persuaded that all the worms except
one had gone.
There is s'just one left. It's under
my garter she told DR.. Quackenbos.
Wont you take that one. too?" The
physician said he pretended to COM
rly with the request and the hallucin-
alton disappeared permanently. "The
suggestive method of treatment said
the physician. lin an advanced form,
is hypnotism." He. read several let
tiers that came to him from persons
having exaggerated ideas of his hyp-
motto powers, and they sounded like
testimonials from a patent medicine
almanac.
Dear Doctor" read one from Bos-
ton, there is man named T. Lawson
living in this city who is buying oil
paintings. l have two that l would
like to sell him. Please hypnotic
him, so he will buy them and pay me
a liberal price,
A Wall street broker once wrote:
Dear Doctor: Every time meet
corpulent woman in the street, have
an impulse to throw myself into her
arms. Can you cure ne Of it," The
physician laughed with the others at
several of these letters.--New York
Press