FROM A FAMOUS PHYSICIAN'S NOTE-BOOK
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell says:
All classes of men who use the brain severely, and who have also—and this is important—seasons of excessive anxiety or grave responsibility, are subject to the same form of disease; and this is why, I presume, that I, as well as others who are accustomed to encounter nervous disorders, have met with numerous instances of nervous exhaustion among merchants and manufacturers.
My note-books seem to show that manufacturers and certain classes of railway officials are the most liable to suffer from neural exhaustion. Next to these come merchants in general, brokers, etc.; then, less frequently, clergymen; still less often, lawyers; and, more rarely, doctors; while distressing cases are apt to occur among the overschooled young of both sexes.
Here is a day's list:
Charles Page Bryan, former ambassador to Japan, died in Washington of heart failure at the age of sixty-one.
Judge Arthur E. Burr, Judge of Probate for Suffolk County, dropped dead in the court-house at the age of forty-eight.
Hiram Merrick Kirk, Municipal Court Justice, New York, died in the forty-seventh year of his age.
Lieut. William T. Gleason dropped dead in the railroad station, Salt Lake City, as he stepped from a railroad train, at the age of forty.
Indeed, it is not only the men of military age who drop off under this strain, but the very vital strong men behind the lines.