How to Eat: A Cure for "Nerves"

by Thomas C. Hinkle

And I am just as positive about my cure of "nerves" as you could be that fire burned your finger. That brings me to what I want to say about the so-called "rest cures" at the sanitariums. It is a well-known fact that if a case of "nerves" is pronounced cured at a sanitarium the cure is only temporary. Sooner or later every one of these patients goes down hill again.

And remember I am talking about people who have nervous breakdowns THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. I have no time to spare for the person who has brought on his own trouble. I am chiefly concerned with that host of children in America—and there is a host, I am sorry to say—born of what I choose to call "pre-nervous" parents. The girls of such parents frequently break down in high school. And many of the finest boys that I know have this dreadful "thing" fastened firmly upon them just at the very beginning of their lifework.

You may think I am a little vehement, but to me one of the most damnable and disgusting things in the world is that the medical profession remains so ignorant concerning the real cure for such cases. I believe the late Sir William Osler was the greatest physician of his generation. He was not only a man of talent, he was a genius, and his knowledge of medicine almost passes understanding. Yet Osler himself was as much in the dark concerning the real cure for so-called neurasthenia as the physicians who read his works on practice. If one wants to find out how ignorant the whole profession is on the subject of a permanent cure, let the thing get hold of him, and then let him make the rounds of the physicians, follow out their advice, and see where he comes out!

I have said that even the sanitariums of this country—and for that matter I might have said of any other country—do not permanently cure these people. I have ample proof of this statement. I have met these people everywhere and no doubt you have, too. Quite recently the subject was brought up anew to me. I had written an article on the subject for one of the magazines, a magazine having a large circulation. In a very short time my mail was literally flooded with letters. Every incoming mail brought great numbers of them. They came from physicians of the regular school, and from physicians of many other schools, too. I won't mention any of them, for this is a treatise on a dreadful affliction and how one may get rid of it; it is not intended as a criticism of anyone. I have no desire to criticize and I haven't time. I am stating facts interwoven with my own life. If the cure is real, the people will find it out after they have tried it; if it is not, they will also find that out. In fact, it's exactly as Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, said to the men of Israel when they would have slain the apostles for teaching Christ's sayings, "Refrain from these men and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it." And it's exactly the same way with this healing art. The very fact that physicians of all schools of medicine—physicians who were sufferers from "nerves"—wrote me, shows plainly that they could not heal themselves. I have many letters from people who have been in sanitariums for years and who still have "nerves." The sanitariums do some people a lot of good, but they cannot remove the cause of nervousness. I am certain that the very best rest cure for women is the one Dr. Weir Mitchell first used. But such women are sure to go down again and again and still again if that is all that is done for them.

Now frankly, if Christian Science could cure such cases and make them stay cured I should want a practitioner of this cult to treat them. But Christian Science simply cannot cure them because the underlying cause of this trouble is physical, not mental. In other words, the mind becomes ill because the body is made ill by certain poisons, and the nature of the disease is so peculiar that most of these miserable sufferers will not even try a thing unless some one brings them overwhelming evidence of its having wrought a cure. Or, if they do try it, they usually quit the treatment before nature has had time to do her work and set their bodies right.

I have the most profound sympathy for such people. I want to speak directly to them. That is the task that I have set myself in this work. I want to talk directly to those of you who are sufferers from "nerves." I see you in every state, in every city, in every village, and throughout the farming districts of this country. I have received letters from many farmers who are suffering with this "thing." To them let me say, I know just how you feel, and from the very bottom of my heart I pity you. I know the horrible suffering of each one of you. I don't care what your ambition has been or is. I don't care what your situation in life may be. I don't care how rich or how poor you are. I don't care how much trouble you have had, or the nature of it. I want you to know these words are being written by one who knows more about your sufferings than you can imagine. I want you to believe this, because it is true. If you have longed and prayed for death, remember that the one who is writing these words also has longed and prayed for death. But one thing you must be sure to remember: while you are waiting and trying to get well you must have patience.

I recollect one beautiful day in early spring when traveling in Nebraska I passed a little cemetery. How sweet and restful the place seemed, and as I looked out over those little white stones I prayed silently that the great God who made me would not hold me much longer on earth, that He would soon grant me the rest and peace which I believed was to be found only in death and the grave. But remember this: In those dark days never for a moment did I think of taking my own life! These words may reach some one who has had such a thought. If so, I say to you that to take one's life is the most cowardly thing a human being can do. This is the only place where I feel like being severe with you people. Shame on the man or woman who will not go on to the end fighting honorably! And now if you have ever given thought to such a thing, blot it from your mind forever. I can see how these miserable people might long for death, as I did. But no matter how we may long for release through death, the God of nature must be the judge of our time of going.

Now this brings me to what I want to say about such sufferers going insane. Believe me, they never do! Remember this always. You won't become insane. You couldn't if you tried! In letter after letter among the flood of them I have had from all over this country and Canada, I read how the poor sufferer feared he or she might be going insane. I know, poor souls, just how you feel. That feeling is, I think, the most dreadful of all things connected with "nerves." I suffered from it for years. It is a dreadful feeling, but there is not the least bit of danger of such a thing happening to you. You will not go insane. Such persons can't. Do you really get me? Such persons cannot go insane. This disease is nothing but what we call a functional nervous trouble. And so forget about the danger of insanity for all time. You can be cured, but you will make your return to health just that much slower by harboring this fear. And it would be simply foolish for you to go on thinking it possible after I—let me say it again—after I have told you that it cannot happen. For the value of this treatise lies in the "I." Its value is just like that of the treatise by Cornaro. He lived it. And so likewise have I lived it. I have been laid low with this malady. I have staggered in black despair with staring eyes and bleeding feet and crying soul along this road strewn with thorns and stones. I know what it is to lie awake all night and cry like a baby, with none to know and none to tell me what to do. I know what it is to be tremendously ambitious. Ambition! Ambition! Ah, God of Heaven! How a poor soul suffers who beyond everything else, craves to be able to do something big in this world because he knows he should, yet is held down by this dreadful thing, "nerves!" And how little, how unspeakably little, do physicians, even the greatest of them, know, actually know, how we suffer, unless indeed there be one in whose own body the fiend has sunk deep its talons.

After I had my first breakdown I made up my mind to study medicine because something told me that I was one of those "peculiar" people who just think there is something the matter with them. Is it not strange that with all the advance that has been made in general medicine, little or nothing has been done for the relief of the people born with this curse hanging over them?

I wish this book could be put into the hands of every nervous parent for, think as you may, all nervous parents beget nervous children. But does it follow that such children should have a nervous breakdown almost before they are out of their teens? No, decidedly not; and what is more, they never should and never would break down, if they had proper food.