It is a matter of fact that the intellectually weak are readily wrought upon by those about them. In like manner, those who are suffering from nervous prostration are often mere reflectors of their companions, and their strength of character on recovery is a surprise to persons who have only known them during illness. Our powers of will and judgment depend not only on the number and correctness of the impressions collected and combined in the storehouse of the nervous system, but on the physical strength we have at command with which to put our machinery in motion. Nervous weakness cannot but impair the needful connection between its highly specialised parts.

So the patient is entered in the doctor’s book as cured, and goes home to lead an ordinary life. The supposed success causes other ladies to be treated in a similar manner. If the doctor refrains from telling them how fanciful Miss So-and-so was, the nurse repairs the omission. In the meantime Miss So-and-so, little suspecting that she is being held up as a warning and an example,—perhaps even by name,—finds that her small stock of strength has not been sufficiently increased to enable her to bear the strain of an active existence. Perhaps she will break down under some well-known disease, in which case her friends will say, “How very unfortunate, just as Dr. —— had cured her of her nervousness!” Perhaps she will give in and take to her bed again, and then the nurses will say to their patients, “She was all right as long as we had her, but after she went home she took to her messy ways again, and now you see what she’s come to.”

If I have heard this sort of thing said once, I have heard it a hundred times. In the days when I was even more ignorant than I am now, I used to argue with these worthy, misguided folks; but I have since realised the futility of trying to reason with people whose sieves have not pared and shaped them into a capability for reasoning correctly.

Now you and I, and all cultured men and women in our community, have a voice in the meetings at the council-chamber of Public Opinion, and have power to modify the sieves through which these nurses pass. In fact, we are always modifying them in one way or another, whether we recognise the fact or not. And if we so far shirk our responsibilities as to allow the sieves to be formed badly, then we are very selfish, and that is infinitely worse than being ignorant and stupid. We shall not advance matters a single stage by throwing mud at individuals who have conscientiously done their best in very difficult circumstances.

Here is another case of failure which ought to commend itself to our sense of humour.

I recently met a young lady who showed the ordinary symptoms of nervous exhaustion. She had not collapsed entirely, but was forcing herself by sheer strength of will to undergo the painful dragging-about process. She informed me that she had just been consulting a physician who had labelled her “hysteria.”[2] How delighted we all are when we get hold of a label! I am, for one. Now this particular label is the concise and technical mode of saying, “Disease unknown;” and in these days of hurry, it is a great advantage to be concise.

But excellent as the label is in this respect, edifying as it is as an example of candour, it is, unfortunately, peculiarly discouraging to the patient, and therefore encouraging to the disease. So we are glad to learn that it has at length been respectfully put to its long, last sleep by our kind friend Dr. Tibbits; and, though we are willing to admit that refuges for our half-knowledge are necessary landing-places in our upward evolutionary climb, we must also regard this service rendered by Dr. Tibbits as by no means the least with which he has benefited humanity.

In “Massage and its Applications,” pp. 20-21, we read as follows:—

“I would ask you to allow me to enter my protest against that refuge of destitute physicians and surgeons—the word ‘Hysteria!’ What does it mean? What do you understand by it? I have looked up many definitions of it from all writers of repute, and I will not give you any one of them. The thing is non-existent. The word is, as I have said, a refuge for destitute medical practitioners, who, having to do with dreadfully harassing cases of functional nervous disorder, take ‘Hysteria’ as their motto and their shield, and retire—or do not retire—from the case under its shelter.”[3]

To go on with the story. The young lady was shut up and treated for fussiness, though the wrong party would seem to have been under treatment. And when the fuss was over, and the lady—with lightened purse—was mercifully let loose again, she stoutly maintained that she was no better than before. Her doctor, however, declared her to be cured, and attributed her want of recognition of the fact to “hysteria.” But then hysteria was the supposed disease for which the lady had been treated!