The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-03
BEWARE OF THE DANGEROUS CROUCH Causes Murder Suicide and Bankruptcy FIGHTS AT BREAKFAST
 s Is Fatal Disease that Causes all Kinds of Trouble According to PhIoso- phizlng Police Sergeant
 of Chicago.


 by name. was brought before a police ser geant in Chicago. charged with murder. It was stated that Harbaugh enraged because Charles Kelly cooked two eggs instead of three in filling a restaurant order, plunged a knife into his heart.
 You want to know the cause of the killing" said the police sergeant, who knew human nature. Tt was the grouch. This waiter had the grouch; it made him murder; it makes many men murder. The grouch is worse than ton of dynamite" Did you know this? Did you ever real ize its danger when you suffered from grouch? Apropos of what the police ser- geant said, it is interesting to learn what medical authorities think.
 'The grouch," added the Chicago police sergeant, "has caused most of the separa- tions in families. It causes fights at the breakfast table It makes partners fight, and often ends in bankruptcy. It has started as many men on the road to ruin as whisky. Most men have groucfes. Some call the trouble dsordered nerves"
 You get up in the morning. You feel life isn't worth a hang Business has been bad. The babies have been crying all night. Your wife wants new hat. The servant has left You are bilious. There is brown taste in your mouth. You kick things right and left.
 You go down to the breakfast table with a scowl on your face; you refuse to an- swer the greetings of your wife; impa- tiently wipe your lips after you have per- mitted the children to kiss you, and then take up the morning paper. You just feel mean. At the office you raise row. You berate the stenographer fire the office boy, and so on the entire day.
 But do you know the danger of the grouch, of what menaces you when you permit yourself to fall a victim? asks the Philadelphia North American.
 In a medical paper recently read no less an authority than Dr. D. Nevin Stump, d well-known scientific investigator, said: There is no doubt that men in a temper suffer from a toxic poisoning of the blood. There is a secretion in the vital fluids of poisonous matter which produces a Sort of intoxication.
 There is an analogy between bilious ness and the grouch, as it is called. A disarranged system will produce bad tem- per; indigestion will predispose one to Ill moods, so will poisonous matter absorbed from the intestines. And just as bad tenn per may be produced by these physiologi- cal causes. 1t in turn is likely to dis- arrange the system, which may have far reaching and disastrous results
 Never saw this before did you? Never knew a grouch might prove fatal; that it might disrupt happy family relations, bring about a divorce, cause failure in business, result in your losing friends? "There is specific and decided change in the blood after a man succumbs to an attack of bad temper declares Dr. Stump. Naturally, the grouch discolors ones physical outlook; 1t naturally affects the physical system. I should not hesr tate to say that a man Is more liable to take cold when he is angry; that, in fact man in a bad temper is susceptible to any disease.
 f"Theosophsts claim that it changes the color of ones soul If we were to accept abstract theories this seems plausible. One can imagine the physical being of an individual becoming clouded and red tinted during an attack of bad temper. Take the man himself.
 "If the attack of bad temper is long lasting, the unhappy man may become victim of distorted fancies. He imag ines everybody is his enemy. He feels that he is persecuted, imagnes his rela- lives have come too often to his house for dinner; that his wife has been buy
 
 over-charged him and that his coal man has given him underweight supply.
 He begins to suspect his bookkeeper of speculatlng and his stenographer of sup plying secrets to rivals firms He begins to imagine, possibly, that his wife is car rying on a clandestine correspondence with some one, may even accuse and in- suit her. There is no limit to the perni- cious and wrong things the man may imagine
 Naturally, there are bad results. Peo- pie resent the inlaginings of a man in q temper They should realize, however, that he is a victim of practically a dis ease. And 1t Is one of the most fatal dls- eases.
 As I said, bad temper is likely to bring on physical Ills. It may cause nervous collapse, weaken the resistive power Q. the system. It undoubtedly has been the cause of hundreds of suicides. It has been the first step in a degeneration to mental disease and insanity It has un- doubtedly inspired men to brutal mur- ders"
 From a scientific standpoint cheerful temper is better than medicine or gold. It tones the system. It gives one sane outlook on life But the srouch, physiol-