Year: 1875

In an interesting article upon this sub
ject, in the Popular Science Monthly for
November, DIR. b, w. Richardson says
that the passions which act most severely
on the physical life are anger, fear, hatred
and grief. The other passions are COM
paratively innocent. Love is not injurious
until it lapses into grief or anxiety; what
is called ambition is of itself harmless,
except when debased by its meaner ally,
pride, or when leading to the performance
of excessive mental or physical labor
Avarice, according to the Doctors expe-
rience, tends rather to the preservation of
the body than to its deterioration. The
avaricious man by his economy saves him
self from all the worry incident to penury;
his caution screens him from the risks Incl.
dent to speculation; his regularity enables
him to work and rest in periods entirely
according with the periodicity of nature,
and by his abstemiousness he takes just
enough to live, which is precisely the
right thing to do according to the rigid
natural law.


do not held up this picture as an en-
couragement TO avarice, for an avaricious
world would truly be sad one. but
there is soul OF goodness in things evil,
would men observingly distill it out" and
certainly much goodness might be OBJ
| served even III the perverted passion of
avarice. if reckless and nvnr-gonornns IaaOn
would condescend to the distillatiOn.


Some of the most extreme instances, at
all events, nay, the most typical instances,
of longevity with perfect physical health
that have met with have been in those
who are tinctured practically with the
passion under consideration. 1t is true
some have not been happy, and none emf
nently useful; but to the physiological
mind they present a remarkable picture of
the endurance of health and life under
what are nearest to the natural conditions
necessary for both. They suggest that if
with this physical standard a higher and
nobler mental development could be at
tanned, with art and science and benevo-
lent labors as the pleasures added to the
life, the approach to perfection of exist
ence would be closely realized, and the
age, not of the man only, but Of the world
Of life TO which he belongs, would be more
thoughtfully conserved


OF the passions detrimental to life anger
stands first. He is man very rich indeed
in physical power who can afford to be
angry. What is still worse ofthis passion
is that the very disease it engenders feeds it;
so that ii the impulse go many times un-
checked it becomes the master of the man.
What is termed red rage means partial
paralysis of minute blood vessels; white
rage, temporary suspension of the circula-
tiOn itself. Such disturbances cannot
often be produced without the occurrence
of permanent organic evils of the vital
organs, especially of the heart and brain.


The effect of rage upon the heart is to
induce permanently perverted motion,
and particularly that perverted motion
called intermit,2ncY. The effect of anger
upon the brain is to produce first paral-
| xysi OF arI Anr
congestion of vessels of that organ; for, if
life continues, reactive congestion follows
paralysis as certainly as day follows night.
Many die in the moment of white rage,
when the cerebral vessels of the heart are
paralyZed. Then we say they die of faint
ness after excitement Or they die more
slowly when the rage has passed and the
cOngestiSn of reaction has led to engorge-
ment of the vessels of the brain.


Hatred, when it is greatly intensified,
acts much like anger in the effect it pro-
duces. The phenomena differ in that
that they are less suddenly developed and
more closely concealed. Suppressed
anger with morose determination keep the
sufferer from rest. He is led to neglect
the necessities of his own existence; ren.
dered feverish and feeble; and at last
either sinks into chronic dependency
and irritability, or rushes hastily to the
r. . : 4 --------A --i;al. f---i;~-.-
disordered mind.


The effects of fear are all but identical
with those of rage, and like rage grow i'll
force with repetition. The organs upon
which fear eXerts its injurious influence
are again the organic nervous chain, the
heart, the brain. Permanent intermit-
tency of the heart is one of the leading
phenomena incident to sudden and eX-
treme terror. The effect of fear on the
brain may be to the extent of that whichIis
produced by the extremity OF rage, so that
even sudden death from syncope may
ensue. From a sudden terror deeply felt
the young mind rarely RECEIVERS, never, 1
believe, If hereditary tendency to insanity
be part of its nature.


The effect of grief varies somewhat ac-
cording to the suddenness or slowness
with which it is expressed. Sudden grief
tells chiefly upon the heart, leading to ir-
regular action and to various changes in
the extreme parts of the circulation Incl
dental 10 such irregularity.


From the eirregularity ofthe circulation of
the blood induced by prolonged griefvaried
central phenomena in the nervous system
follow, and in persons who have passed
middle life these phenomena are usually
permanent, if notpTogressive. They con-
sist of organic feebleness, extending to all
: the organs of the body, and affecting
speedily the mental organism. A con-
slant desire Tor rest, for avoidance of
cares, for seclusion, mark this stage of
the disease, if so it may be called. The
worst that happens in these cases is the
gradual, but premature, encroachment OF
dementia previous TO death.


In games of chance where money is at
stake we see the play Of the worst passions
in all their mischievous intensity. Fear
and anger, hope and eXultation, stand
forth one after the other, keeping the
trepidant heart in constant state of excite
ment and under tremulous strain, until at
last its natural steadiness of motion Is
transformed into unnatural irregularity,
which, if il do not remain permanent, is
called up by the slightest incitation. The
man who, after being engaged in business
all day, sits down regularly at night TO
play his rubbers on rubbers 10 stake
heavily on his games, to bet on his odd
tricks, never, believe, escapes the effects
of organic nervous shock. Some of the
worst forms of such shock l have seen
have sprung from this cause.


Political eXcitements call forth readily
the!reel of the passions with dangerous
energy. A few specially-constructed men,
who have no passions, pass through active
political excitement and, maybe, take
part in il, without suffering injury; but
The majority are injured. As they pour
forth their eloquent or rude speeches, as
they extOl or condemn, as they cheer or
hiss, as they threaten or caiole, they are
taking out Of themselves force they will
never regain.


In a sentence, whenever, from undue
excitement of any kind, the passions are
permitted TO Overrule the reason, theresult
Is disease; the heart empties itself into the
brain; the brain is stricken, the heart Is