If you would have good health, go out in the sunshine. Sickness is worse than freckles.
HYPOCHONDRIA.
The Mysterious Element in the Mind that Arouses Vague Apprehensions—What Actually Causes It.
The narrative below, by a prominent scientist, touches a subject of universal importance. Few people are free from the distressing evils which hypochondria brings. They come at all times and are fed by the very flame which they themselves start. They are a dread of coming derangement caused by present disorder and bring about more suicides than any other one thing. Their first approach should be carefully guarded.
Editors Herald:
It is seldom I appear in print and I should not do so now did I not believe myself in possession of truths, the revelation of which will prove of inestimable value to many who may see these lines. Mine has been a trying experience. For many years I was conscious of a want of nerve tone. My mind seemed sluggish and I felt a certain falling off in my natural condition of intellectual acuteness, activity, and vigor. I presume this is the same way in which an innumerable number of other people feel, who, like myself, are physically below par, but like thousands of others I paid no attention to these annoying troubles, attributing them to overwork, and resorting to a glass of beer or a milk punch, which would for the time invigorate and relieve my weariness.
After awhile the stimulants commenced to disagree with my stomach, my weariness increased, and I was compelled to resort to other means to find relief. If a physician is suffering he invariably calls another physician to prescribe for him, as he cannot see himself as he sees others; so I called a physician, and he advised me to try a little chemical food, or a bottle of hypophosphates. I took two or three bottles of the chemical food with no apparent benefit. My lassitude and indisposition seemed to increase, my food distressed me. I suffered from neuralgic pains in different parts of my body, my muscles became sore, my bowels were constipated, and my prospects for recovery were not very flattering. I stated my case to another physician, and he advised me to take five to ten drops of Magende's solution of morphine, two or three times a day, for the weakness and distress in my stomach, and a blue pill every other night to relieve the constipation. The morphine produced such a deathly nausea that I could not take it, and the blue pill failed to relieve my constipation.