Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/455

Rh of less porous constitutions, and easily explaining the disastrous results which in many instances follow, sooner or later, as respects disturbances of the nervous system, in one form or other. In fact, by the time dinner is due, the stomach is in despair, and its owner finds it necessary to goad a lost appetite by strong pickles and spirits, ending with black coffee and some liqueur. When either dyspepsia or over-business work is set down as the cause of the insanity of such individuals, it should be considered what influence the amount of alcohol imbibed has exerted upon the final catastrophe as well as the assigned cause. But whatever may be the relative amount of insanity produced among the affluent and the poor, of this there can be no doubt, that certain mental causes of lunacy, as over-study and business worry, produce more insanity among the upper than the lower classes. We have examined the statistics of six asylums in England for private patients only, and have found this to be the case. At one such institution, Ticehurst, Sussex, we find, from statistics kindly furnished us by Dr. Newington, that out of 266 admissions 29 were referred to over-study, and 18 to over-business work. Only 28 were referred to intemperance. Allowing a liberal margin for the tendency of friends to refer the disease to the former rather than the latter class, the figures remain striking, as pointing to the influence of so-called overwork. We say "so-called" because there is an apparent and fictitious as well as a real overwork. Both, however, may terminate in nervous disorder. Overwork is often confounded with the opposite condition—want of occupation. Civilization and mental strain are regarded by many as identical, and in consequence much confusion is caused in the discussion of the present question. It is forgotten that an idle life, leading to hysteria and to actual insanity, is much more likely to be the product of civilization than of savagery or barbarism. This is quite consistent with the other truth, that without civilization we do not see evolved a certain high pressure, also injurious to mental health. A London physician, Dr. Wilks, when speaking of a common class of cases, young women without either useful occupation or amusements, in whom the moral nature becomes perverted, in addition to the derangement of the bodily health, observes that the mother's sympathies too often only foster her daughter's morbid proclivities, by insisting on her delicacy and the necessity of various artificial methods for her restoration. It is obvious that such a case as this is the very child of a highly-organized society, that is, of a high state of civilization, and yet that such a young lady is not the victim of high pressure or mental strain in her own person, although it is certainly possible that she may inherit a susceptible brain from an overworked parent. However, the remedy is work, not rest; occupation, not idleness. We certainly do not want to make her more refined or artificial, but more natural, and to occupy herself with some really useful work. A luxurious, idle life is