The modern malady

by Cyril Bennett

MANY minor causes of nervous exhaustion have been so often cited, and such serious warnings have been uttered against them, that it is scarcely worth while to draw attention to them here. It may suffice to enumerate those which are more frequently ignored.

Of the infectiousness of nervous disease it seems almost useless at present to speak, for few will listen. Probably the malady will, for some time to come, continue to be spread abroad by those who suffer from it, as certainly as leprosy is spread by the leper. The early symptoms not being readily observed and recognised by the uninitiated, great mischief can be wrought while all around remain unconscious of the impending disaster. To young persons, and to those who inherit a predisposition to nerve-weakness, the danger of infection is specially great. Moreover, the predisposed often aid one another in the development of the malady, a fact which is sufficiently proved by observation of families exhibiting neurotic tendencies.

It has been fully recognised that imperfect recovery from some attack of illness is a frequent cause of neurasthenia. It is not fully recognised that the cause is usually a preventible one. A very common blunder is generally at the root of the mischief. It is thought necessary to hurry on the convalescent lest she should “drift into chronic invalidism,” as the saying goes. The result is that the patient recovers to a certain extent, only to fall a victim later to chronic nervous weakness. Patients who are making a natural and healthy recovery are over-eager to exert themselves, and require to be kept back. Should this eagerness not be manifested, it is a mistake to say that the patient must be roused in order to preserve her from neurasthenia. Neurasthenia is already there, and unless the building up of the nervous system go hand in hand with the patient’s exertions, those exertions will assuredly be productive of harm. Unfortunately the patient is frequently removed from the watchful care of the doctor and the nurse just as watchful care is most urgently needed.

It does not occur to many of us, but it is nevertheless true, that whenever we foster wrong theories of life, we render ourselves liable to nerve-trouble. If we make mistakes in our drawing of the chart by the guidance of which we mean to steer our bark,—if we omit to note down the most dangerous rocks, and imagine obstacles in a course which we might follow with safety,—small wonder that we suffer shipwreck. Mr. Laurence Oliphant has pointed out how foolishly we encourage erroneous notions in the children in our schools; how persistently we teach them that the road to happiness is to be found in selfishness, and award honour and approbation to those who have succeeded in getting the better of their fellows. In the wider school of the world the same principle is adhered to. The man who amasses a fortune, however selfishly, is the man to whom the peerage is offered, and for whom we manifest admiration. Nemesis follows. Those who are plunged into conditions for which they have not been gradually fitted necessarily suffer in the change. Unaccustomed luxury brings its own deterioration, while the excessively unequal distribution of wealth thus encouraged brings inevitable misery on the whole community. To the Shakespeare and the Newton no peerage is offered and scant admiration is accorded, though by their individual genius the whole race be raised. Consequently, the Shakespeare and the Newton are rare birds; not because it matters to themselves whether they are rewarded or no; not because the heaven-sent genius requires any earthly inducement to do his heavenly work; but because we create, for that which we admire and reward, an atmosphere in which it can arise and flourish.

There is one very serious result of our refusal to honour those to whom honour is due. The task of raising and training healthy and capable people to the work of the world and the service of God, and—as the orthodox believe—in the very likeness of God, is surely not the least noble task to which human beings can devote themselves. And this, though in a degree men’s work, is, in a greater degree and in a more special manner, the work of women. What honour is awarded to women who guard their health, develop their faculties and enlarge and enrich their minds, that they may be fitted to perform the community’s highest work? Absolutely none. True, it is not their only work; it does not fall to the lot of all to perform it; but every good and well educated woman, knowing herself to be a potential mother, tries conscientiously to fit herself for the part she may be called upon to play, and in so doing becomes aware of her own value. That so few women thus prove themselves to be good and well educated is scarcely the fault of women in particular. It is the fault of the whole community. Just as a Shakespeare and a Newton may rise superior to inadequate appreciation, so do some great women. But these women are, and must be, exceptions. The majority of women, no less than men, depend in large measure on the sympathy, approbation, and esteem of others.

Perhaps women need these incentives even more than men need them, because for centuries their love of approbation has been developed abnormally by their dependence on men, and by the need they have experienced of securing their approval. Natural feelings, denied egress by the front door, find their way out at the back door. By reprehensible means, and greatly to the detriment of both sexes, women have continually forced themselves into notice, while fulsome flattery and exemption from work demanding the healthy employment of their faculties, have taken the place of legitimate and inspiring honour.

A fresh result of the determined withholding from women of the distinction and approbation which has been honestly earned, is manifesting itself in a curious manner in these modern times. Women too noble by nature to indulge in ignoble ways the faculties within them that cried out for exercise, stung by taunts of inferiority, chafed by the deprivation of means for obtaining the rational education and the experience of the world which were to them as the very breath of life, conscious of talents no whit inferior to those of the men about them, have flung themselves into the whirl of public affairs, and, with truly admirable perseverance and indomitable pluck, have won for themselves the only honours open to them.

Some good has thereby been wrought. Employments suited to women, and hitherto closed to them, have now been thrown open; book-learning—too often a miserable system of cram, but perhaps better than nothing at all—has been placed within their reach. Public attention has been attracted to long-standing injustice; and considering the immense importance to the whole race of the full development of all the faculties of women, it was, and still is, to the interest of the public to give the fullest attention to the subject which it can manage to spare.

Unfortunately the affair has another aspect which here closely concerns us. The over-eagerness with which some women have thrown themselves into the struggle for existence has in some quarters earned for the sex as a whole the reputation of possessing more self-feeling, less disinterestedness, and more sordidness of aim than men. It has been rashly assumed that because the pioneers of a movement have acted foolishly, because they have been injured in fighting a battle harder than any that will have to be fought by those for whom they prepare the way, all women are necessarily unfit for active life in the world. Alarm on the one side generates deleterious irritation on the other side. Faculties which might be devoted to the creditable performance of valuable work are dissipated in fighting for the privilege of doing the work at all. It should be remembered that those who have been starved always devour food with injurious avidity when it is at last brought within their reach, unless they are mercifully restrained by wise well-wishers.

It cannot be doubted, however, that women who conscientiously perform their own special work in the world must have less strength at their disposal for other work than the majority of men. So far from this being to their discredit, the extreme importance of their own special functions ought to be more generally recognised. At the present time, the women who neglect their duties are apparently held in as much esteem as the women who render the State the highest possible service.