Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

The medicinal treatment must be directed by the physician, but a perfectly safe prescription, and one which may be kept on hand, is the following: Take of sodium bromid, 15 grains; of essence of peppermint, 10 drops; and of water a sufficient quantity to make 1 dram. Mix well. The dose may be repeated in three hours if necessary. This prescription should be put up by a good druggist, in a three-ounce quantity. Sometimes relief is afforded by 1 teaspoonful of the aromatic spirits of ammonia, taken in four tablespoonfuls of water, and this is about the right quantity of water to take any liquid medicine in. At night 2 grains of calomel should be taken, so that the patient shall not be disturbed through the night, and it is not so apt to cause nausea as when taken through the day.

Neurasthenia or Nervous Prostration.—This disease first saw light in the United States, and was christened by Beard as an American disease that was absent from no household in which the inhabitants used their brains. It is certainly much more prevalent in this than in any other country. Americans scarcely treat their bodies with more consideration than their automobiles; they put on high pressure and speed them to the utmost. Add to the high pressure under which we live that other fact of heredity, that many persons are born with unstable nerve-cells, and may be nervously bankrupt, and it is not difficult to understand that 50 per cent. of Americans are suffering in some degree from lowered nerve tone.

Causes of Neurasthenia.—All classes of men and women who use their brains severely, and who have seasons of excessive anxiety and responsibility, are subject to neurasthenia. We have seen that fatigue was caused by the accumulations of toxins in the body, due to muscular activity, but these toxins may also be caused by intellectual overwork or anxiety over domestic or business affairs.

Other causes are the intemperate amount of intellectual work which is forced on the brain, and the excessive indulgence of the emotions and the passions. Combined with the strenuousness of life is the large element of uncertainty, the intense anxiety, and the restless energy which is the price of success. Added to these may be lack of suitable and sufficient recreation and short hours of restless sleep; the restrictions of a narrow lot, loneliness, and isolation, the frequent repetitions of uninteresting tasks, added to the burdens of maternity, domestic cares, and worries.

In cities the ear-strain caused by the incessant noises of the street, the amount of work done by insufficient and improper lighting, the unsanitary mode of life, the improper diet, the monotonous and infertile work, the unhappiness and discontent bred of a life of idleness, or one given to society and gambling, whether bridge, whist or poker, the senseless bolstering of shattered nerves with alcoholic stimulants and beverages, patent medicines, and hypnotics, all add their quota to the breaking down of the nervous system.

A man can do a prodigious amount of work if he only varies it with play which really amuses him, or if he substitutes for mental occupation those which involve bodily exercises.

In so-called latent gout insomnia is a frequent symptom, or insomnia may develop as the result of bad nervous habits. Insomnia from whatever cause is followed by the impairment of nerve substance and an overloading of the body with toxins. This continued nerve exhaustion leads to oxaluria, uric acid, gout, anemia, gastric and intestinal dyspepsia, muscular insufficiency, and precordial distress.

Whatever enfeebles the body by overtaxing the nervous system the waste is in excess of the repair, in all overwork the destructive metamorphosis is greater than the reparative processes, and so there is an accumulation of toxic products and a more or less severe and permanent injury is done the nervous system.

Other causes of neurasthenia, not so generally recognized as overwork, are to be found in the pathologic conditions of the intestinal canal, which becomes a veritable culture tube, and absorption from this into the blood constantly takes place. And this condition of putrefaction has to be overcome before relief can be afforded, and in many cases this condition is associated with an insufficiency of the elimination of urine.

The large intestine is the seat of an enormous bacteriologic flora; they are not there by millions, but by billions. Some of them are harmless, but not all of them, and if these pathogenic bacteria are present in sufficient quantity, they, too, may produce symptoms of mild poisoning. So, too, may mere indigestion, or the malfunction of any other organ, torpidity of the liver, a deficiency of the excretion of bile, which is generally accompanied by constipation.