But while upon this subject of massage, I would enter my earnest protest against what is called “isolation,” and especially against any attempt to “manage” a patient. As Cyril Bennett wrote in a former work, when a doctor and a nurse think they are “managing” an invalid, nervous, suffering woman, you may depend upon it that in nine cases out of ten they are mis-managing her. The best physicians of the day are remarkable, not more for their medical knowledge and skill, than for their charm of manner, their human kindness, their warm sympathy with suffering. The wise physician is the family friend, the trusted adviser, the counsellor and comforter in many a trouble and anxiety: and so also with the nurse. She should possess the sensitive rather than the strong hand, and refinement, patience, tact, and sympathy.
In certain cases of nervous disease, great benefit is derived from the use alone, and without massage, of the variety of electricity called “Franklinism,” after the illustrious philosopher and statesman who so carefully studied it. We have all heard the story of the thunder-cloud, the kite, the key tied to the kite-string; Franklin’s disappointment that he obtained no electricity; its coming on to rain, and by wetting the string making it a conductor; and his delight at being able to draw sparks—real miniature flashes of lightning—from the key with his knuckles. This form of electricity has been little used until a short time since, owing to certain inconveniences in its application; but recent improvements in the manufacture of instruments have largely removed these inconveniences, and placed at our service a remedy of great promise, and in some cases of unequalled value.
The thanks of the medical profession are due to “Cyril Bennett” for a sagacious, though not unkindly, criticism upon the more common methods of treatment of that distressing affection, the “Modern Malady;” and in indicating from a medical standpoint the opinions of a neurologist, I venture to hope that the views of the author, who has so skilfully sketched its salient features, may have received some support.
Finally, I would say that the day for the routine treatment of disease has gone by, and progress of the most important character is being made in the study of diet, exercise, sleep, rest, the application of water, cold and hot, and many other agencies; and it has been well said that if in the future, as in the past, nervous diseases are to be the measure of our civilisation; if every increase in the illuminating power of the mind is but an increase of surface to be eclipsed; if all new modes of action of nerve-force are to be so many added pathways to sorrow; if each fresh discovery or invention is to be matched by some new malady of the nerves; we yet have this assurance, that science, with keen eyes and steps that are not slow, is seeking and is finding means of prevention and relief.
HERBERT TIBBITS.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
IN the first part of this work I have dwelt on the errors in our mode of treating Neurasthenia, consequent on the wide ignorance of the subject which still prevails; in the second part, I have drawn attention to the principal causes of the malady. The allegory forming the Introduction to Part I. gives a brief history of nervous exhaustion and the modes of treatment which have at various times been thought suitable to this most painful and trying disease.
A friend, to whom I read the Introduction, criticised the quotation with which I have concluded it. She objected that I thereby gave too high a place to mere knowledge. I replied that I referred to the highest kind of knowledge. This argument, however, fails to satisfy those who persistently remind one of Eve’s transgression. In my humble opinion, the point of that great and instructive history has always been missed. Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden for eating of the tree of knowledge, but if they had not been cast out of Eden, how could they have been received into heaven? It was necessary to eat of the tree of knowledge in order to desire to eat of the tree of life.
Again, before we can even desire to eat of the tree of knowledge, we must be ignorant; and thus we see our ignorance itself to be a needed stage in our upward evolution. We see in a glass darkly; we must become fools that we may be wise. In our imperfect condition we do but catch brief glimpses and fleeting shadows of the one mighty Truth. Just as our nervous system must waste that it may be nourished, as the pendulum must fall on the one side that it may rise on the other,[1] so must our ignorance precede our half-knowledge, and our half-knowledge precede the fuller revelation.