Disease, like any other adversary, finds out the most vulnerable part. The most vulnerable part of our machinery is that about which we are most ignorant. We are lamentably ignorant about our nervous systems; our adversary, repulsed in other quarters, effects an entrance there. It is far more difficult to expel him when once he has made his abode with us, than to fortify the stronghold against him. Prevalent as this particular form of disease is at the present moment, that is not the worst of the evil. It is alarming and disheartening to be told that it is still on the increase; but such is nevertheless the fact.
Professor Huxley very wisely says, that Nature gives us a blow and leaves us to find out its meaning. More than that, she never stops giving us blows until we have succeeded in doing so. It must be candidly admitted that we are inexpressibly dull and require many very hard knocks, and that when some one else is knocked and not ourselves, we are apt to be extremely heartless.
It is only lately that the majority of non-medical people have become conscious of possessing a nervous system at all. We still hear even educated persons talk of their nerves as though they were something spiritual—as though nervous disorder were not a physical disease. Such inexcusable ignorance leads to shadowy, pernicious ideas about the impossibility of curing the malady, or, supposing it to be regarded as curable, to the adoption of cruel and fantastic methods of treatment. If only we were forced to have all our remedies tried on ourselves before trying them on others, patients would henceforth have a better time of it. Unfortunately, many supposed remedies which are not unpleasant to the healthy are torture to the diseased.
I regret to say, that I still come across people who regard nervous prostration as sheer wickedness and obstinacy on the part of the sufferer. Indeed, I have even heard the grace of God and a change of heart talked about by excellent women as the only cure for cases that had come under their notice. Far be it from me to underrate the power of any good influence; but you have only to suggest that asthma shall be treated by spiritual influence, and you will find that the good folks regard you as a lunatic or as a profane person. Asthma being undoubtedly a nervous disease, these distinctions are a little puzzling. I have even heard of church-going being suggested as a remedy for nervous excitability, regardless of the ventilation of the building, the length of the sermon, and the tunefulness of the singing. Now, with all due respect for church-going, I sometimes cannot help regretting that the friends and advisers of the nervous do not believe in charms, like the Neapolitans. If charms do no good, at all events they do no harm; and if ignorant superstition must find vent, it is well if we can, at least, render it innocuous.
The spiritual treatment of the diseased is nothing new; on the contrary, it is hallowed by ancient custom. Anna of Saxony, the insane wife of William the Silent, was shut up by her father in a miserable room, and by his orders preached to daily, through a hole in the door, by a minister of religion. But perhaps the poor lady suffered from insomnia! Unfortunately the preaching proved ineffectual, for she died raving mad.
An intelligent Italian gentleman, interested in the case of an English friend suffering from nervous prostration, once endeavoured to console him by saying that, in his opinion, it was only clever people who suffered from nerves. Stupid people had the same things the matter with them, he said, but they were too stupid to find it out. An original notion, certainly. Unhappily, however true it may be that we lack the wits to diagnose our ills, I know of many persons belonging to the labouring classes who could scarcely be considered clever even by their best friends, yet who are not only afflicted with the universal malady, but are painfully conscious of the fact. Indeed, no rank or occupation secures immunity from the visitations of our modern foe. In these days of ready communication and rapid rise and fall of families, influences affecting one part of the community quickly affect the whole. True, certain conditions may be more fatal to fine organisations—to the noblest and the best, to the most useful and the most intelligent—than to the ill-developed; but of this more hereafter.
When I see people dropping out of the ranks one after another, each probably having been confident that to him, at any rate, the disease would never come, I am reminded of De Quincey’s “Klosterheim,” where citizen after citizen was stolen away by the unseen foe. We understand so little of the causes of these break-downs, that we will not be warned in time; our partial but growing weakness is so gradual, that we become accustomed to it, and think that nothing worse will befall us; and yet the final collapse is often so sudden, that it at last comes upon us unawares, and our total prostration is a surprise to ourselves. Perhaps some shock or accident is blamed for the disaster, the long period of weakness preceding it being ignored; or we fall a victim to some well-known illness, and regard it as the judgment of Heaven, which we were powerless to avoid, instead of telling ourselves that we might have avoided it, and ought to have avoided it, by acting wisely in the first instance, and fortifying ourselves against its inroads.
CHAPTER III.
INEFFECTUAL TREATMENT.
WE are most of us so far enlightened concerning our nervous systems as to regard our nerves as a very useful means of communication between the various parts of our machinery. The network of telegraph wires in this country, with their chief offices, have frequently been compared to our network of nerves with their chief offices, the brain and the spinal centres. Yet this comparison gives a totally inadequate conception of the functions of the nervous system. Many of us fail to realise that not only do the nerves bear messages from one part of the machinery to another, but that, without their co-operation, we can receive no impressions from the outside world at all, and can perform no function whatever. Without their aid, the eyes and ears are valueless, the muscles refuse to do their work, the digestive and respiratory processes cannot be carried on. If the nerve-centres are seriously injured, we become paralysed or die. If they be impaired, the whole body is enfeebled, and disease or incapacity of some particular organ may be occasioned.
But, we may ask, how does it come about that, without external injury of any kind, the nervous systems of good people, leading good lives and given to good works, become impaired wholesale, and often remain impaired in spite of all efforts to restore them?