Few things tend more to strengthen the nervous system than cold bathing. This practice, if duly persisted in, will produce very extraordinary effects; but when the liver or other viscera are obstructed, or otherwise unsound, the cold bath is improper. It is therefore to be used with very great caution. The most proper seasons for it are summer and autumn. It will be sufficient, especially for persons of a spare habit, to go into the cold bath three or four times a-week. If the patient be weakened by it, or feels chilly for a long time after coming out, it is improper.
In patients afflicted with wind, I have always observed the greatest benefit from the elixir of vitriol. It may be taken in the quantity of fifteen, twenty, or thirty drops, twice or thrice a-day in a glass of water. This both expels wind, strengthens the stomach, and promotes digestion.
Opiates are generally extolled in these maladies; but as they only palliate the symptoms, and generally afterwards increase the disease, we would advise people to be extremely sparing in the use of them, lest habit render them at last absolutely necessary.
It would be an easy matter to enumerate many medicines which have been extolled for relieving nervous disorders; but whoever wishes for a thorough cure must expect it from regimen alone; we shall therefore omit mentioning more medicines, and again recommend the strictest attention to DIET, AIR, EXERCISE, and AMUSEMENTS.
OF MELANCHOLY.
Melancholy is that state of alienation or weakness of mind which renders people incapable of enjoying the pleasures, or performing the duties of life. It is a degree of insanity, and often terminates in absolute madness.
CAUSES.——It may proceed from an hereditary disposition; intense thinking, especially where the mind is long occupied about one object; violent passions or affections of the mind, as love, fear, joy, grief, over-weening pride, and such like. It may also be occasioned by excessive venery; narcotic or stupefactive poisons; a sedentary life; solitude; the suppression of customary evacuations; acute fevers, or other diseases. Violent anger will change melancholy into madness; and excessive cold, especially of the lower extremities, will force the blood into the brain, and produce all the symptoms of madness. It may likewise proceed from the use of aliment that is hard of digestion, or which cannot be easily assimilated; from a callous state of the integuments of the brain, or a dryness of the brain itself. To all which we may add gloomy or mistaken notions of religion.
SYMPTOMS.——When persons begin to be melancholy, they are timorous; watchful; fond of solitude; fretful; fickle; captious and inquisitive; solicitous about trifles; sometimes niggardly, and at other times prodigal. The body is generally bound; the urine thin, and in small quantity; the stomach and bowels inflated with wind; the complexion pale; the pulse slow and weak. The functions of the mind are also greatly perverted, in so much that the patient often imagines himself dead, or changed into some other animal. Some have imagined their bodies were made of glass, or other brittle substances, and were afraid to move, lest they should be broken to pieces. The unhappy patient, in this case, unless carefully watched, is apt to put an end to his own miserable life.
When the disease is owing to an obstruction of customary evacuations, or any bodily disorder, it is easier cured than when it proceeds from affections of the mind, or an hereditary taint. A discharge of blood from the nose, looseness, scabby eruptions, the bleeding piles, or the menses, sometimes carry off this disease.
REGIMEN.——The diet should consist chiefly of vegetables of a cooling and opening quality. Animal food, especially salted or smoke-dried fish or flesh, ought to be avoided. All kinds of shell-fish are bad. Aliments prepared with onions, garlic, or any thing that generates thick blood, are likewise improper. All kind of fruits that are wholesome may be eaten with advantage. Boerhaave gives an instance of a patient who, by a long use of whey, water, and garden-fruit, recovered, after having evacuated a great quantity of black-coloured matter.