NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

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NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS
AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

All rights reserved

Nervous Breakdowns and
How to Avoid Them

BY

CHARLES D. MUSGROVE

M.D.

NEW YORK

FUNK AND WAGNALLS COMPANY

1913

Bristol, Eng.: J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd., Quay Street.

CONTENTS.

Nervous Breakdowns and
How to Avoid Them.

CHAPTER I.
BREAKDOWNS IN GENERAL.

An express train was on its way from London to Edinburgh. It was running at sixty miles an hour, and the passengers, as comfortable as if they had been sitting in easy chairs by their own firesides, were engaged in reading, sleeping, talking or looking out of the windows. Not a thought of any impending trouble crossed their minds.

Suddenly they felt a jar, followed by a jerk; the train slowed down, and within ten seconds had come to a standstill. Then there was general commotion, and heads appeared at every window, to see or inquire what was the matter. There was no station in sight, and no signal against them. Yet that train, which a few moments earlier had been speeding along in all its power and pride, had come to a dead stop.

And when those passengers alighted from their compartments and began to investigate matters, they were no nearer a solution of the mystery. The train had not left the rails, the carriage wheels were intact, the engine was undamaged, the fires burning and the steam up. Yet something had happened, and whatever it was, it had rendered that train a useless mass of timber and steel for the time being. It was still a fine thing to look at, but as a means of locomotion it was of no more use than a child’s toy would have been.

The shock.

Yet, great as was the trepidation of those passengers, it was nothing to the shock experienced by the man who in the prime of life, and perhaps just when he bids fair to reach the heights towards which he has been striving with all his might for long years, suddenly finds that he is incapable of the very work of which he had prided himself he was master.

It may be that he has toiled since youth in order to attain a certain position, and just when it comes within his reach his nerve fails him, and he cannot put out his hand to take it. The energy and ability which have carried him so far along the road fail him at the critical moment.

Or it may be that he has struggled through laborious days and nights and amid many disappointments for fame. Just as he is about to realise his ambitions he breaks down, and becomes an embittered misanthrope. The genius which has enabled him to climb so many rungs of the ladder becomes inert, and he cannot mount the last step.

Another spends his life in a good cause—philanthropy, religion, public work of any sort. At the very time when, by the experience he has gained, his years of greatest usefulness stretch before him, he is cut off, incapacitated by nervous debility.

And it is not only men who go through this experience; the same may befall women. Often has it happened that a woman has devoted herself so assiduously to the care of her family, regardless of her own disturbed meals and broken rest, that just when her children needed her most of all—and that is when they were growing up—her strength has failed her and she has become an invalid.

The lamentable part about breakdowns is the fact that they attack those who can least be spared. It is not the clodhopper, the navvy or the labourer, the careless or the incompetent, who suffer from them. On the contrary, we meet with them among skilled workmen, business men of the greatest ability, professional men of the highest acumen and experience. The former can be replaced, whilst these others have carved a niche for themselves which no one else can fill.

It is the natures of finest fibre which accomplish the most, and it is they who are most liable to give way beneath the strain. A common mug may fall to the ground unharmed, where a piece of costly china would be smashed to atoms. When a masterpiece of art is lost or stolen, the whole nation grieves after it. How much more so when a man of repute, either in great ways or small, is invalided and his services lost to the world.

The problem of the day.

There is no doubt that breakdowns constitute one of the most momentous problems of the day. We hear of them on all hands, in different guises and under various terms. Go into any company you like, and it is safe to say that before many minutes have passed matters of health will be under discussion, and oftentimes they are nerves or breakdowns in some form or other.

It is only natural, perhaps, that this should be so. Yet too frequently the only result of these aimless conversations is to accentuate suffering, instead of leading to the acquisition of any useful information which might help to relieve it. Unfortunately, the general public seems to have made up its mind that nervous disorders are an inevitable concomitant of modern life. They fear them just as they fear influenza, wondering who will be the next to be attacked.

Yet there is no comparison between the two complaints. For the one is due to a germ which pounces upon the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish, the thoughtful and the careless, with absolute impartiality; whilst the other is brought about by a number of conditions, all associated with our mode of life, for which we are responsible, and over which we have a vast amount of control.

Influenza comes like a bolt from the blue, attacking its victims with disconcerting suddenness. To be sure, breakdowns may appear, in many cases at least, to come in a fell swoop; but what seems so abrupt and unlooked for is usually the climax to a long-continued process of undermining, like the collapse of a house, which has succumbed to the ravages of time. Yet the events which have led up to it may have been spread over a large number of years.

The nature of a breakdown.

Occasionally we hear of someone who has been disabled all of a sudden by some definite form of ailment, paralysis, cancer or heart disease, it may be. Such cases are, however, the exception, and they are not the breakdowns with which we are now concerned. In the great majority of instances “breaking down” is the final stage of a long process of “running down.” There is as much difference between the two classes of cases as between an engine which has come to a stop because a wheel has come off or a connecting-rod broken, and one that has become useless owing to neglect or prolonged wear and tear.

The period of running down may last for months or years, and it is characterised by various symptoms, physical and nervous. It is the former which are at the root of the matter, but the others predominate more and more, until, when the final breakdown occurs, they overwhelm the bodily symptoms altogether. On this account it is usually designated by terms expressing this nervous element: nervous exhaustion or debility, neurasthenia or simply nerves. Yet all these are only different phases or stages of the same complaint.

What, then, is the nature of this complaint? It is one that has suffered from much misapprehension, chiefly through the use of the term “nervous exhaustion.” This phrase has given rise to an impression in the lay mind that there is a limit to the nervous force with which human beings are endowed, as though each one started with a certain quantity which must come to an end sooner or later.

This idea is a fallacy, for nervous energy is in process of being manufactured every hour we live. And Nature stores up out of this supply a reserve from which we may draw in any emergency that may demand a special output.

This reserve fund is constantly varying. It is replenished during the hours of sleep, it is called upon during the period of wakefulness. Sometimes an extra call has to be made upon it. A woman may have her night’s rest broken, or she may even lose her sleep altogether for several nights in succession. Or a man may have a sudden stress of work which cannot be avoided. Then the reserve may be depleted, but that does not constitute a breakdown. If care is taken to ensure sufficient rest afterwards, the surplus is regained. It is only when a constant drain is put upon it that serious damage results.

The two types.

And in many cases of breakdown the question of exhaustion plays no part. For most neurasthenics show no loss of energy; in fact, many of them exhibit an increased output. The crux of the whole matter is not exhaustion, but a loss of control over the nervous forces. This loss may show itself in two distinct ways. It may either prevent the energy from manifesting itself, or it may discharge it in a spasmodic manner.

One market-day, in a country town, there were two horses, both of which, so far as their utility was concerned, were equally inefficient. Yet neither were lacking in energy. The one was excitable, plunging about to the danger of the public, and in any direction except the right one. The other was, on the contrary, perfectly quiet, standing harnessed to a vehicle, but unable to move it. This animal had strength and nerve force in plenty, yet it was incapable of making use of it. For a drunken ostler had harnessed it the wrong way round, with its head towards the cart.

The same types can often be recognised in those who suffer from nervous breakdown. Some patients become fidgety and restless, rushing about from pillar to post, worrying their employees or their fellow-workers, and fussing around in the home until the rest of the household dreads the sight of them.

Others are precisely the opposite of this. They become moody and taciturn, or disinclined to meet their friends or take part in a conversation. A woman will sit by herself most of the time, not caring even to have her children about her. A man will have a difficulty in making up his mind not only on important points of business, but it may be on the most trivial matters. He begins to look at his work as stupidly as the aforesaid horse stared helplessly at the cart he was supposed to pull.

Where does the fault lie? Not in too much energy or too little, but in some derangement of the system, whereby the patient’s faculties either go astray or are rendered inert. And in order to discover the real source of the mischief, it is necessary to look, not at the climax, but farther back, through a long sequence of events which have been leading up to it.

CHAPTER II.
THE DANGER SIGNAL.

It will naturally be asked by what sign is a man or woman to know when they are threatened with a breakdown.

By no one sign in particular. One cloud does not make a wet day. It is only when other clouds begin to gather and we feel a certain change in the atmosphere that we surmise that rain is coming. The signs which warn us of the approach of a storm are almost too indefinite for words.

Signs of a breakdown.

The symptoms by which a man is led to think he is on the verge of a breakdown are equally vague. That is what makes them all the harder to locate and to bear. If he has sciatica, pleurisy or a gumboil, he can speak of his ailments and tell people what is the matter with him. The neurasthenic has not even this consolation. His symptoms are so indefinite that he can scarcely find words in which to express them; if he could do so, he would shrink from mentioning them for fear that his friends would laugh at him.

For it must be understood that neurasthenia is a very different matter from hysteria or hypochondriasis. The hysterical subject craves for sympathy, and will imitate all sorts of ailments in order to secure it. The hypochondriacal imagines he has all manner of diseases and loves to talk about them to anyone who has the patience to listen to his tale of woe.

The neurasthenics are the very opposite of this. They are usually people of refined susceptibilities, sensitive about themselves and their feelings. They have, therefore, to bear their burden alone. They see the clouds gathering on their mental horizon and their sky getting darker and darker. The future becomes laden with foreboding, and all around there is the presentiment of a storm that is about to break. Often they keep their feelings to themselves, until at last these become of such intensity that they can no longer be hidden. Such persons often welcome a definite illness, if only because it gives them something unmistakable to speak about, affording them the opportunity of calling in the medical aid of which—quite wrongly, be it observed—they had previously been ashamed to avail themselves.

We are sometimes told that headache, giddiness, pains in the region of the spine, weak digestion and a host of similar complaints are preliminary signs of oncoming breakdown. Yet, whilst they often accompany the latter condition, they are also significant of many other ailments, which have nothing to do with it. Sciatica may be the result of a chill, spinal pains of an influenza cold, whilst headache may be due to biliousness, faulty eyesight or a variety of other conditions. The fact that we suffer from any one of them does not imply that we are threatened with a breakdown. For all that, it is not well to neglect these complaints, for it is certain that if we have any tendency to nervous trouble they will hasten it on.

To suggest, however, that such symptoms are preliminary to a nervous collapse would be to inspire, in the minds of many people, a sense of terror which would precipitate the very disaster we are anxious to avoid.

One thing, however, it is necessary to emphasise. If any symptom of this sort—and the remark applies especially to headaches—is found consistently to come on during the hours of work, alleviating after the work is over for the day, it should be taken as a danger signal. For when anyone’s occupation brings on a headache, the complaint is much more likely to be due to some weakness of the nervous system than to any fault in digestion or eyesight. And the same applies to many other symptoms also.

The phenomena I am about to describe are those suggestive of nervous weakness, and any man or woman who recognises themselves in the picture I shall attempt to draw had better take warning. They need not alarm themselves unduly, but they will be well advised to pull up short.

There is one point which must always be kept in mind. It does not follow that because a person is easily tired, or is irritable or depressed or dreads any ordeal awaiting him, or is nervous in any direction, that he or she is drifting towards a breakdown. It is when people who have previously been free from such weaknesses find that they are acquiring them that they must face the fact their nervous systems are on the down grade. Each individual must be taken as his or her own standard. What is natural for some would be unnatural for others. A person is ill when he falls below his own level of health, either of body or mind. The various signs of neurasthenia or breakdown depend, not on comparing a man with anyone else, but in measuring him by his former self.

Loss of strength.

One of the most constant symptoms is a gradual decline in strength, either of body or mind, without any organic disease to account for it. If a man whose heart, lungs and kidneys have been proved sound begins to suffer from fatigue after an amount of exercise such as he would not previously have noticed, everything points to the fact of its being the result of some impairment in his nervous system. More particularly so if the tiredness is of an unpleasant nature. There is a delightful form of fatigue and there is a painful one. There is nothing more enjoyable than the gentle aching which a healthy man feels as he stretches out his limbs in a comfortable chair after a good day’s walking, shooting, golf or whatever else it may have been. He feels, in mind and body alike, a delicious sense of half-sleepy lassitude, which affords to a higher degree than anything else a sense of repose and well-being.

That is very different from the weariness that dogs a man’s footsteps wherever he goes, or is even with him during his sleeping hours, so that he rises in the morning more tired than when he lay down. When that happens something in his organisation has gone wrong.

Equally significant is the langour that attacks people when they are following their daily avocations. Of course, it is natural that as people grow older they should find themselves less capable of exertion than they were in their younger days. Most persons over forty years of age have to take things somewhat more quietly than before. They are not so well able to run, and perhaps have to walk more deliberately, but that is very different from feeling fatigued when there has been no justification for it. Yet even that is not a matter of such gravity as when a man who has taken a keen interest in his daily work, of whatever sort it may be, discovers that it is becoming more and more of an effort. Or it may be a woman, who finds her household duties, which had hitherto been a pleasure to her, becoming a bugbear. And when anyone, either man or woman, begins to look forward habitually with dread to the work of the following day, their health is in sore need of attention.

Worry.

Yet in most cases all that they do is to reproach themselves for their indolence and apply themselves to their duties still more assiduously, with the usual result that they worry themselves and everybody else. And the harder they try the worse things get, until at last the work in which they had taken such a pride becomes a nightmare to them. They begin to shrink from the thought of it, yet it forces itself continually upon their notice. Perhaps even the evenings, which should bring a sense of refreshing and repose, are spoiled by fretting over the events of the day that is gone and worrying as to the work of the morrow; the housewife in trepidation as to her duties in the home, the workman to his job, the commercial man to his business, the parson to his next appearance in the pulpit.

The result is that in many cases the work suffers.

Worry and anxiety are the common lot of mankind, at any rate in this age of stress and competition. Yet it is not the common cares of life which have a detrimental effect on the human system, but this useless, exaggerated vexation of spirit. When a man has lost the power of leaving his worries behind him, it is time that he began to take heed, for sooner or later they will affect his work. If he allows himself to drift, wasting his energies by futile struggling against his own disabilities, his mental faculties will begin to show signs of wear and tear.

Memory.

It may be that his memory will play him tricks, words and facts failing him at the critical moments. There is no surer sign of neurasthenia than when a man who has always been a ready speaker, begins to hesitate for words in which to express himself. The worst symptom of all is when people noted for their firm, decisive characters find themselves unable to make up their minds, either on some subject of general interest or on points connected with their own pursuits.

Pleasures pall.

An even worse phase of fatigue is that which intrudes upon the hours of recreation. It is bad enough for people to become unduly tired at their work; it is worse when they become tired at their play. When amusements cease to afford any gratification, and people lose interest in their favourite hobbies and pursuits, their nervous systems are perilously near a breakdown. This weakness has passed into a further and a more serious stage.

Then social intercourse is apt to weary them. They find a difficulty in concentrating their attention on a conversation, especially if the subject under discussion happens to be one demanding close attention. Sometimes, however, even an ordinary chat will tire them out. It may be that they are unable to read the lightest literature, the effort to follow a story proves too much for them.

Change of disposition.

In consequence of all this, they fall into a sad plight. For not only are they deprived of the solace of amusing themselves, but their friends are apt to fight shy of them. When people get into this state they become ultra-sensitive, and see slights and insults where none were meant. They are liable to lose their sense of humour too, and can neither appreciate nor take a joke. After that, it is not long before they see their friends deserting them, which means that they are driven back upon themselves.

That, on the top of everything else, depresses them, and they worry still more over unnecessary trifles. Probably they become sleepless, and that will hasten on as nothing else can do the inevitable climax.

Irritability of temper is often one of the first signs of this malady, not of course in those who are naturally quarrelsome, but in those who have hitherto been of a genial, companionable disposition. In fact, change of disposition is one of the most significant features in nervous breakdowns. A man who has always taken the greatest pleasure in the society of his children will begin to snap at them without any cause. Their very presence seems to fidget him.

His companions find it out, too, for not uncommonly he begins to lose his temper when he is beaten at a game, a thing he has rarely before been known to do. But what is the clearest danger signal of all is when men or women see this irritability worming its way into the solitude of their own thoughts. In one case of neurasthenia the first sign consisted of the fact that the patient found, whenever he was alone, a tendency to have resentful and bitter thoughts even of his best friends. Once or twice he even cut his chin while shaving, simply because he was feeling so angry with a chum, who had not given him the slightest reason for animosity. Sometimes it happens that a man who has not been in the habit of swearing will find himself using bad language in the course of his soliloquies. Once he starts doing that, he may know, without any doubt whatsoever, that his nervous system has gone wrong.

Increased nervousness.

Increasing nervousness is a predominant feature of neurasthenia. It appears in various guises. A man who has never found any difficulty in holding his own in his dealings with others will suddenly find himself looking forward to an interview with fears and qualms. When the time comes he may be able to string himself up to the pitch, but it will only be by an effort such as he is quite unaccustomed to, and the nervous tension will perhaps leave him spent and exhausted.

Others, who have never known the meaning of the word nerves, will feel ashamed and angry with themselves when they start at the sound of a loud noise or a banging door, or are afraid to enter a dark room.

Not infrequently it happens that people who have been the first to welcome a friend in the street will commence to make a practice of crossing the road when they see anyone approaching.

Or their nervousness may take the form of a fear of the unknown. The future becomes full of dark spectres. Visions of poverty, even of the workhouse itself, will attack a man whose financial affairs are on a safe footing. A common sign of disordered nerves is a constant dread of illness. If an epidemic of influenza is prevalent, the neurasthenic will feel certain that he is to be the next victim, and his sensations, purely imaginary it may be, will confirm his forebodings.

Loss of zest.

In whatever way neurasthenia assails anyone, it has one certain effect. It deprives them of the joy and zest of life, and when once that has disappeared there is little left. People have their different temperaments. Some are of a sanguine type, and it is no effort for them to be blithe and gay. Others are cast in a more sombre mould; not that they are thereby miserable, for such people can enjoy themselves as much as anyone else, but in a quieter way. But when their nervous system shows signs of damage, they lose their sense of contentment just as the others lose their flow of vivacity.

All these are the premonitory signs of a breakdown, and if they are neglected the crash may come. The man finds that he cannot face his work, the woman is unable to carry out her duties in the home. Life becomes dark and void, and all that made it worth living seems to have gone.

Then too often they are assailed by the worst dread of all, the fear that they will lose their reason. For their comfort we may say that, tragic as a breakdown may be, there is a wide gulf between it and insanity.

And those who are in the preliminary stages, and have not arrived at that of a breakdown, may console themselves with the fact that the latter is one of the most preventable of conditions. It is the aim of this book to show the different ways in which it may be avoided.

CHAPTER III.
HEALTH.

It is surprising, in these days when everybody is an authority on matters of health, how few people there are who can tell you what it really is. The majority, if asked to describe it, would probably say that a man is healthy when he is not ill.

Health, not illness, the standard.

Now when you come to analyse this statement, it conclusively shows one thing, namely that people take illness as the standard. Most human beings, in civilised countries at any rate, have something the matter with them—a weak digestion, tendency to sore throats or colds, or a predisposition to ailments of one sort or another.

Yet the fact that most people suffer from illness is no reason for calling it a natural condition. It is health that is natural; illness is an anomaly. Medical men themselves are the first to recognise the truth of this statement. Animals as a rule are sound and vigorous so long as they are in a wild state. It is only when they are in captivity that they become delicate. Similarly savages are much freer from disease than civilised races. It is when they live in artificial surroundings that they become prone to sickness.

Health is not a negative thing. It is a state in which every part is sound and acts in harmony with every other part.

The nature of health.

A motor-car consists of a great number of different parts—the gear, the engine, the petrol supply, the firing. It is not sufficient that each section should be in good order. For each must also fit in, both mechanically and in point of time, with every other. The petrol pipe may be clear, but unless the spark reaches the cylinders exactly in the nick of time there will be misfiring, and a loss of power in consequence.

This loss of power is not the only harm done. It means that there will be unnecessary friction also, causing extra wear and tear to the engine and gear. If this occurs but seldom, and is put right at once when detected, little damage may be done. If repeated often, and allowed to go on uncared for, the whole structure of the car will suffer and the life of the machine be shortened.

It does not follow that the car will come to a standstill. It will continue to run, but badly. For like every other engine, it has the faculty of compensation. That is to say, when one part is out of order other parts will take on some of its work, and help, for a time at least, to make good the deficiency.

For instance, in a four-cylinder car one of the cylinders may cease to act. Yet the other three will take on a certain part of the work, and help to some extent to make up the deficiencies of the faulty one.

This will be only for a time, however, for the additional strain will slowly but surely have a bad effect on the rest of the engine, and through it on the other parts of the machine. One by one these will give way, and have to be compensated in turn. If still neglected and left to take care of itself, there will come a time when so many sections are affected, that the remainder cannot overcome the mischief, and compensation will fail. The car will become practically useless. Perhaps, like the one-hoss shay, it will collapse en masse. It has gone beyond the stage of running badly, it has broken down.

The human machine.

The human system is much like a motor-car, in that it consists of a vast number of parts acting in unison. Yet it is infinitely more wonderful, for it is much more complicated, and can create its own supply of energy. It is made, roughly speaking, of a framework of bone and muscle, a delicately-adjusted alimentary system, whereby it takes in and assimilates food, and of a circulatory apparatus which drives blood and nourishment to all parts of the body. It contains also a nervous system, compared with which these other parts are crude, mechanical contrivances. For it is on their nervous supply that they depend for their usefulness. Cut the nerves that go to a limb, and the finest muscles in the world are as helpless as the meat in a butcher’s shop. Deprive the heart of its nerve supply for a single minute, and it will never beat again.

Yet we pay vastly more attention to a weak heart, as it is called, or still more so to a broken leg, than we do to a threatened failure in the nervous system, which outweighs them all in importance. Once that has got out of order, the driving power is gone. Not only the heart and muscles, but every other faculty we possess loses its energy and usefulness.

So closely allied, however, are the different parts, that the nervous system itself, which governs all else, is dependent for its welfare on the very organs it governs. Like the power of a king, it rests not only on its own intrinsic qualities, but also on the strength and harmony of the units over which it rules.

Interplay.

And there is a constant interplay going on between the various parts of the body. No one organ or system can stand alone. If it is working badly, it affects other parts, and disturbs the harmony on which the health of the whole depends.

One of the most marked examples of this is to be found in the action and reaction which take place between the digestive organs and the nervous system. The presence of congenial company at meal-times is one of the best aids to digestion; a cantankerous discussion is the very opposite. Similarly, if a man sits down to his dinner with a grievance or a worry on his mind, it is safe to predict dyspepsia.

A lady once received a telegram containing disastrous news just as she was finishing a meal. Up to that time she had never known what indigestion was, yet for the next couple of days she suffered from it in a most acute form. The nervous shock had thrown the stomach out of order, inhibiting the secretion of gastric juice.

We cannot help troubles of this sort, but it is only once in a lifetime, perhaps, that we get a message of that sort during the progress of a meal. It is to be feared, however, that it is of almost daily occurrence for some people to sit down to table worrying over the business of the day. And the accumulated effects of these minor disturbances may in the long run prove more detrimental than one big one.

Conversely, the stomach has an equally potent influence over the nervous system. Everyone knows that when their digestion is out of order, and they are feeling uncomfortable or bilious, their heads are not so clear as usual. And with this there is a feeling of langour and irritability, and a difficulty in doing work efficiently. This is because the body fails to get its proper supply of nourishment, and also because it is poisoned at the same time. In order to understand the manner in which this is brought about, it is necessary to know something as to the events which are taking place throughout the body every moment of our lives.

Combustion and elimination.

When food is taken it is first digested and then passes out of the stomach, and is carried by means of the circulation to all parts of the body. It nourishes the various tissues, replacing the loss which is constantly going on.

For there is throughout the whole system a process corresponding to combustion, and this combustion, like the furnace of an engine, is the source of our energy.

As in an ordinary fire, ashes are produced in the form of waste matter of a poisonous nature. This waste must be removed from the tissues, else it interferes with the process, as a neglected fire is apt to become choked up and burn badly.

This removal is also accomplished by the circulation. In any community you may see on any ordinary working day two sets of carts, those belonging to tradesmen which distribute groceries and vegetables, and the scavengers’ carts which gather up the refuse. The same processes go on in the human body, with the difference that in this case the same agency which brings the supplies also carries away the waste.

These impurities are eliminated from the body by means of the lungs, the skin, the kidneys and bowels. And in order that this elimination may be sufficient, the circulation must be maintained in all parts of the body. Unless the blood is kept moving, this waste matter will tend to collect somewhere or other and give rise to trouble. The way in which this motion is kept up is by exercise, which squeezes out the fluid like an automatic sponge. If the body was kept perfectly still for weeks, it would became loaded with this impure material, as a room that is shut up is found to collect, in such a surprising manner, dust and dirt.

When it reaches the lungs it is purified by means of the air. For the air which we exhale is very different from that which is breathed in, the former being charged with impurities. The drowsy feeling which we experience in a crowded, ill-ventilated room is due entirely to the influence of these toxic gases. The purer the atmosphere we breathe, the more effective it is in carrying off impurities from the blood, so that fresh air and hygiene are essential to health, whilst exercise acts as a valuable adjunct by increasing the respirations.

Yet exercise itself, important as it is, needs to be carried out in moderation. For the muscles, whilst fulfilling the vital functions just enumerated, produce a poison of their own, if exertion be too violent or prolonged. The severe cramp from which athletes are liable to suffer is due to an accumulation of this toxin.

This poison is eliminated from the system during repose, and especially during sleep. Rest is therefore as requisite as exercise itself, and unless the body gets regular rest and sufficient of it, severe damage may result. The muscles will not only become permeated with their own peculiar poison, but will be so enfeebled as to be unable to assist in discharging the waste matter which is constantly being formed throughout the whole system.

These impurities are the source of many of the ills with which mankind is afflicted—headaches, vague pains in various parts, languor, and the great majority of rheumatic troubles. But their worst effect of all is that which they exert on the nervous organisation.

Waste matter and the nervous system.

For the ramifications of the nervous system penetrate to every part of the body, including the internal organs. From its seat of honour in the brain and spinal cord it sends its messages to every tissue in the body, and receives messages in return. It may be compared to an electric power station, which distributes its current to every part of a town. But with this difference, if the electric light in a house goes wrong, it does not affect the main station, whereas if any portion of the body however small or insignificant gives way, it adversely affects the central parts of the nervous system. And if the various sections and organs do not work together smoothly, the nervous system, which governs them all, suffers along with them.

The nervous system suffers in two ways when the internal organs and other parts of the body fail to do their work properly.

Starvation.

First of all, it languishes from starvation. This does not mean that the individual is not taking sufficient quantity of food. He may be taking enough, even too much, but it is not being digested or assimilated satisfactorily, and though there is plenty of food there is a deficiency of nutriment.

Poisoning.

Secondly, it may suffer from poisoning. This may be the result of dyspepsia, for when food lies in the stomach undigested, it is apt to ferment, producing a poison that circulates throughout the body. Or it may be because the impurities, which are found throughout the whole body, are not being got rid of, owing to a want of exercise and fresh air. Or it may be owing to undue wear and tear in consequence of a lack of sufficient rest.

Too often it is a combination of the two processes, the nervous system being attacked by starvation and poisoning at the same time.

The whole of man’s structure is a marvellous automaton, and once the nervous element is disturbed the trouble which first upset the harmony is increased tenfold.

Compensation.

Yet the mischief may not be apparent all at once, for the whole organisation is so accurately balanced that defects in one part will be compensated for by other organs. And whilst this is a safeguard in one way, it is a serious menace in another. For the fault is apt to be overlooked, until at last the process has gone on to such an extent that the balance is upset. The machine does not stop running, but, like a motor-car in similar circumstances, it begins to run badly. The man himself becomes what is called “run down.”

It is a provision of Nature that the nervous system, being the mainspring of our existence, holds out longer than any other structure in the body. If it did not do so most of us would have been dead or broken down long ago. Yet it means that when the loss of balance reaches such a point that compensation fails, the breakdown is all the more disastrous.

The cause of the breakdown.

Then, when the crash comes, we blame our nerves, our civilisation, our worries and troubles, our heredity, anything in short except ourselves. Of course, there are cases in which circumstances have entered over which the patient has had no control. Sometimes neurasthenia follows a severe illness or a bad accident. Sometimes it comes on at critical periods of life. And in some instances heredity has played a part. There are some unfortunate individuals who have been born with weak frames and little stamina, so that even the ordinary conditions of life, however favourable, prove too much for them.

The Remedy.

Such cases are the exception. In the great majority of instances the faults which have undermined the system are the results of mistakes, either through ignorance or thoughtlessness, in the mode of life. Not necessarily, observe, a vicious mode of life. The victims may have been consistently sober and virtuous. Yet they may have been guilty of egregious errors in regard to the quantity or quality of the food they have taken, or the way in which they have eaten it or in their neglect of fresh air, exercise or rest. The fault may lie in any one of these elements, or in more than one; in all of them, perhaps. And it is only by close examination of the habits of life that the source of the mischief can be brought to light. In like manner the treatment of nervous breakdowns consists in remedying these faults, once they have been ascertained. Patients seldom understand this fact. What they particularly desire is a tonic to restore their jaded energies, on the principle, evidently, of whipping up a tired horse to make him go.

They look for some patent food which shall build them up in marvellous manner. Articles of this sort are valuable aids in cases where starvation from lack of sufficient food has been the cause of the trouble. But where there has been an error in diet, it has been, in an overwhelming proportion of cases, an excess of food rather than a lack of it, and when this has been so, it is about as rational to give such remedies, as it would be to pile more coals on to a fire that was already choked.

It is not sufficient merely to treat individual symptoms, taking phenacetine for headache, pepsin for indigestion, and so forth; for that is but to touch the fringe of the matter, leaving the real secret of the trouble undealt with.

Neither is it of any use to tell the sufferer that there is nothing the matter, that all he requires is to rouse himself or cease his restlessness, as the case may be. You might as well tell a drowning man who cannot swim to buck up and be cheerful.

The rest cure, so much in vogue, may have its advantages in some cases, but too frequently the patient leaves the institution only to resume his former mode of life, and repeat the very mistakes which brought on the illness. A consumptive might as well never enter a sanatorium if he is to return to a badly-ventilated house and unwholesome surroundings.

Not uncommonly it happens that a man will make up his mind to have a course of treatment at some spa, even though it means a sacrifice of time and money. When he is told that it is his manner of life that needs overhauling, the commonplaceness of the observation affronts him. Like Naaman, he expects to be sent, if not to the waters of Jordan, at any rate to those of Homburg or some such resort, and he strongly objects to being told that all he needs he can get at home.

Some time ago I was travelling from London to Buxton. There were two other men in the carriage, and one of them was telling the other that he was going there for his health. He said that he found it necessary to go several times a year, as he got so run down. The other man asked him what treatment he had on these occasions, did he have baths or drink the waters or what?

“No,” answered the first one, “I simply get up early and go to bed in good time and take plain food.”

“And why don’t you do it at home instead?” inquired the other.

There was no reply.

CHAPTER IV.
THE VALUE OF HEALTH.

The supreme value of good health is the fact that it is associated with happiness and a greater capacity for good work.

Health and happiness.

It is not our environment but our state of health which handicaps us. Mark Tapley succeeded in ejaculating “jolly” under the most depressing circumstances. I know nothing as to Mark’s medical history, but I should not hesitate to affirm that he did not suffer from a disordered liver.

Everything in this world varies according to the way it is looked at, and we are all liable to develop mental astigmatism when we are not feeling up to the mark. A man will say and do things that are foreign to his nature when he is waiting in impatient hunger for his dinner. Wives who are wise have found this out, and wait until the brute has been fed before they broach the subject of a new hat.

A man who has nothing special to worry him, and who if any difficult position arose would face it without flinching, will brood over his affairs during the hours of a sleepless night until he has created troubles enough to last him for the rest of his life. His business may be running like clockwork, but before morning he will have convinced himself that he is on the road to the workhouse. A good night’s rest, a brisk walk, even a cup of tea will work wonders in a careworn man or woman, who has almost come to the conclusion that life was not worth living.

One of the most prominent symptoms of jaundice is the depression which accompanies that malady. There is a solid substratum of truth in the old saying, “Looking at the world through jaundiced eyes.”

The most trying part of nursing sick people is the cantankerousness which even the best-tempered persons tend to develop when they are ill or in pain. The most considerate of patients are apt to become positively unreasonable at such times. Yet because of their sufferings they need all the sympathy and patience that can be bestowed upon them. And as a rule, so long as they are really ill and laid aside, they get it. What the world gets sick of is the croaker, who never ceases talking about his ailments. People may sympathise with him for a time, but before long they get tired of hearing about his complaints. It is only human nature to prefer listening to skylarks rather than to frogs.

Health and work.

Perhaps the most serious effect of ill-health is the loss of confidence which it entails. Many a man of frail physique and little stamina has been left behind by others not nearly so richly endowed with skill or intellectual ability. He has the accomplishments, but not the power to use them. He is so afraid of making mistakes, that the psychological moment has gone past before he has made up his mind, and time after time he fails to take the tide at the flood.

Trace back the history of characters such as this, and you will find that in almost all cases they have been weakly boys, who on account of their lack of vigour and health were always afraid to take the plunge. They might learn to swim, but they could not learn to dive.

A rising young Member of Parliament was once asked what quality was most indispensable for success in the House of Commons? Some expected him to say the art of speaking, others the faculty of rapid thinking, others again firmness of convictions. All were surprised when he replied, “Good bodily health. That,” he said, “was more important than anything else.”

When you come to analyse that statement, it is found to imply more than the strength to endure the enervating atmosphere of the House or the tedium of long sittings. It means that if a man is well and strong he is able to seize every opportunity of speaking, or otherwise showing his capabilities and making use of them. Good health is not merely a valuable asset in itself, it unlocks the door of all the other faculties.

Most of us are not going into Parliament, but most of us have to make our living. And no matter in what way we have to do it, whether by artisanship, business or professional career, vigour and robustness are essential to success.

An employer when about to engage a hand will most certainly give the preference to a candidate who looks strong and seems in good spirits. And this for more than mere consideration as to workmen’s compensation. For we have all learned to associate cheerfulness with ability. If a man undertakes a job as if he enjoys it, even if it is only a plumber mending a kitchen sink, we naturally conclude that he knows what he is about. If on the other hand he looks worried, we suspect that he has come across difficulties that he does not understand. If he seems to have no confidence in himself, we cease to have any confidence in him.

We are all more inclined to extend our patronage to a tradesman who serves with a beaming smile than to one who looks as if he would be thankful to see the last of us.

And in any avocation good health goes a long way by contributing that quiet contentment of mind which is a sine qua non to the attainment of excellence.

It is a dictum in the medical profession that you can always tell the state of a surgeon’s digestion by the amount of confidence with which he makes his incisions.

The parson who enters the pulpit with an air of robust vigour is vastly better calculated to secure the attention of his hearers than one who crawls in looking as if he wished it were all over.

A man who is at the head of a large business awoke one morning feeling out of sorts. His breakfast disagreed with him, and he arrived at his destination in a state of irritability. Then he rapped out at his subordinates until he had flurried them to such an extent that they could not do their work properly. And of course after that everything else went wrong. When he was called on to come to a decision in regard to an important contract, he got the worst of the bargain simply through lack of a little tact. Yet ordinarily he was noted for powers of dealing, and for a judgment that was rarely at fault. That day he was the victim of his own stomach.

Want of stamina has deprived the world of some who might have done much to ease its woes and help its advancement. For it effectually limits the sphere of a man’s operations. There are some of conspicuous ability who have had to waste their talents in some quiet backwater, when had they but had the requisite amount of strength they might have occupied a prominent place in public affairs. Young men who have possessed every other fitting quality have been rejected for the missionary cause because their health was not good enough to stand the hardships of such a life.

Some may ask as to whether good work has not been done by those crippled by ill-health. Undoubtedly it has been done, yet as a rule it has been by those endowed with talents which enabled them to carry out their work in seclusion—writers, poets, composers and so forth—not by those compelled to take their place among the rank and file in the busy world of men and things. Too often in the latter case they have fallen behind and been submerged. Even if success has been their lot, it has been at such a cost to mind and body alike as to make it scarcely worth the while.

Yet even those who have been in the fortunate position of being able to exercise their talents in solitude, far from the madding crowd, have betrayed the influence of their infirmities in the nature of their works. Schubert and Chopin both wrote exquisite music, yet their weak state of health still reveals itself in the melancholy strain which pervades their compositions. The same is characteristic of some of the writers and poets. Robert Louis Stevenson is the great exception. But the disease which attacked him in his young days, and dogged his steps mercilessly to the end of his life, was one that is oftentimes, strangely enough, characterised by buoyancy and enthusiasm, in marked contrast to the prevailing depression of the confirmed dyspeptic, of which Carlyle was such a marked example. Yet what chiefly enabled Stevenson to keep up the vigour and inimitable style of his writing to the day of his death was the unremitting care which he took in order to regulate his life in such a way as to preserve his energies and keep his mental powers intact to the very end. That last broken sentence, the most pathetic ever written, in Weir of Hermiston, is more than an expression of his great genius; it is a lasting tribute to the vigilance with which he safeguarded such strength as he possessed. It is a lasting reproach to those who have been gifted with robust health, and by their own heedlessness have lost what is man’s most priceless possession. People may disregard the laws of health and appear for a time to go unscathed. But the day of retribution will come, and outraged Nature assert itself. Sooner or later the inevitable penalty must be paid.

CHAPTER V.
REWARDS AND PENALTIES.

The health-seeker.

Some people expect health, as others expect riches, to fall into their lap. Either because they do not know, or do not care, they prefer to leave their health to look after itself. They call it trusting to Nature. And when they see other people studying the best way to be strong and well, they call them cranks and faddists.

There is a vast difference, however, between the faddist and the genuine health-seeker. The individual who thinks the world is going to be saved by eating brown bread or any other article of diet, regardless of the fact that what agrees with one may upset another, is nothing short of a nuisance. The man who strives to exercise his common sense, and to find out what suits him, either from his own experience or from the advice of those in a position to give him useful information, is worthy of all respect.

It is all very well to talk of leaving things to Nature, but does Nature always do her work in the best possible way?

Leave a garden to Nature for a year, and you will have a clear answer to that question. It will be overgrown with weeds. Leave a tract of country to Nature, and it becomes a wilderness. Leave your health to Nature, and it will be nothing short of a miracle if she does not make a mess of it.

Talk to any elderly man, who has succeeded in keeping himself fit and strong, and almost certainly you will find that he has well-defined ideas on the maintenance of health. He has found out what agrees with him and what does not. Sometimes he appears to be careless as to what he eats, taking things that would disagree with many other persons. Yet he is only taking them because he has discovered that they suit his constitution. Moreover, you will notice, if you watch him closely, that he is extremely particular as to the way in which he eats that food and all his other food as well. A man is either a physician or a fool at forty, it is said. The worst of it is that by the time most of us have reached that age we have managed to inflict more harm than can be undone.

Nowadays nearly everything is taught in the schools, including perhaps a few subjects that might well be spared. When the teaching of health is made compulsory, we shall make rapid strides in regard to national physique. The medical inspection of schools was one of the greatest advances ever made. And when in addition every child is instructed in the elementary rules of health, the country will be spared a vast amount of time and money, such as is expended at present in looking after the feeble and diseased. We do not expect a boy or girl to learn any other subject on its own account or of its own freewill, and we have no right to expect them to learn the secrets of health. They must be taught them just as they are taught to read and write. Above all, they must have it impressed upon them that health is largely a matter of care and study.

The reward of care.

The reason why some people are stronger than others is, in the great majority of cases, because they have taken care of themselves, rather than because they have inherited more robust frames and greater staying powers. There are some, it is true, who have to struggle against ill-health from their earliest childhood. All through life, it may be, they have to contend against their own infirmities.

Yet not uncommonly it has turned out that those who have been handicapped from the start have in the long run passed their more robust comrades. It is not always the healthy baby that develops into the hardiest member of the family. The puny little one has been known to have the best of it in regard to health by the time it has grown up.

And when this happens it is simply a reward for taking care. Parents are bound to pay more attention to a weakly child, while the robust ones are often left to take their chance, and as they grow up into boyhood and manhood, the delicate one has still to exercise care and look after his health, if only for his own comfort. He knows, even in his schooldays, that if he eats too much pastry or sweets, or neglects to change his clothes if he gets a wetting, he will have to suffer for it. All this time his hardy brother is running all sorts of risks, and playing ducks and drakes with his digestion and his constitution in general.

When they are approaching middle age, the strong one has developed into a gouty, dyspeptic individual, who does not know what it is to feel well for a single week at a time. And the weakly one may be better and stronger than he has ever been in his life before.

He has never been able to do anything by leaps and bounds, but he has plodded steadily on, exercising care and common sense, and looking after his health in every possible way. It is another example of the hare and the tortoise.

Two men were crossing a ship’s gangway, which had a rail at one side but was unprotected on the other. The first was a frail, nervous man, while his friend who followed him was a strong, lusty fellow. The delicate one took care to keep a firm grip on the rail. He reached the ship’s side in safety. The second man disdained to avail himself of its aid, and walked up the gangway with his hands in his pockets, paying no heed to his steps. Suddenly he lost his balance and fell into the water.

He scrambled out and cursed his bad luck. “He was the most unfortunate beggar that ever lived,” he said. He completely lost sight of the fact that it was his own carelessness which had brought about the mishap.

And it is a common occurrence to hear people, who have been running all sorts of unnecessary risks, complaining of their bad fortune when illness overtakes them. They get wet through and sit in their damp clothes, and are very much aggrieved when they take a chill. Or they gorge themselves with pastry or sweetmeats, and consider themselves martyrs when they suffer from a bilious attack.

The inevitable penalty.

There is one penalty ever before us, that which must be paid by all who transgress the laws of health. I say penalty, not punishment. A boy who has purloined a plum cake and eaten inordinately of it may obtain his mother’s forgiveness, but the chances are that he will be penalised by having to endure a bout of stomach-ache.

In all this I have no wish to imply that those who disregard the laws of health do so from self-indulgence. On the contrary, the great majority of breakdowns occur in those who have overtaxed their strength whilst toiling to support their wives and families, or to minister to the welfare or comfort of those around them, or to labour in some way or other on behalf of humanity.

In a Midland town two young parsons worked side by side. One of them was a genial sort of fellow, who seemed to have plenty of time for everything, work and play alike. When his labours were over for the day, people enjoyed having him in for a bit of supper and a chat.

On bright days, Mondays particularly, he would mount his bicycle or shoulder his golf clubs, and set off to have a good time of it. His doings were a puzzle to his confrère, who never had a minute to spare, and rushed at his work, sermon-making, visiting, and meetings alike, with feverish anxiety. Even his meals were hurried through in the same manner, for those, like recreation, he regarded as an interference with his duties.

When his daily work came to an end, he would proceed to make up for lost time by reading or writing till long after midnight, with the result that such sleep as he got when he went to bed was simply the broken sleep of brain exhaustion.

Little wonder that he always looked strained and anxious, and that when he went into the pulpit on Sundays he failed to get into touch with his hearers. With all his unceasing efforts, he could not but realise that his friend had a vastly greater hold on the people than he was ever able to acquire. Then he would conclude that it must be due to some fault in himself, and would begin to look for it in the wrong place, viz. in his own soul. It must be some black place in his own heart, he thought, which was hindering his work.

Now when a man indulges in too much introspection he is very liable to develop a morbid conscience, and see evil in himself that is purely imaginary. Hypochondriacs of any sort are a nuisance both to themselves and other people, but none more so than the spiritual hypochondriac. The consequence of these heart-searchings was that he would increase his efforts, and try to squeeze more work into the day.

He was sitting at breakfast one day scanning the morning paper, when a head-line attracted his notice, “Death of the Rev. X. Y.” The paragraph described how X. Y., whom the young parson had always taken as his model for energy and unremitting toil, had had to relinquish his duties owing to a nervous breakdown, brought on by overwork and the lack of holidays or recreation of any sort.

The young man’s eyes dilated with horror as he went on reading and realised the unmistakable fact that X. Y. had brought about his own death. The thought that such a fate might one day be his own sent a shudder through him, especially when it dawned upon him that he had been doing his work on precisely the same lines as those which had culminated in this tragedy.

It is not often that a man is so fortunate as to have such an object-lesson as this. More frequently he is allowed to persist in ways which lead, if not to a disaster like the one referred to, at any rate to a breakdown, which puts a stop to his career of usefulness.

No account of motives.

No matter how lofty may be the motives, Nature takes no account of them. She is a jealous mistress, and insists on having her due share of attention, allowing of no excuses. The mother who neglects her own needs through attending to the wants of her children will suffer equally with the silly girl who starves herself in order to keep her figure slim.

If a man stands out in the driving rain, he is equally susceptible to cold, whether he stood there in order to watch a football match or to take part in an evangelistic meeting. It is as injurious to sit in a draught in a church as in a music-hall. A stuffy atmosphere is no less detrimental to health whether we encounter it whilst visiting a sick friend or in spending the time in a gambling den.

Two of the worst cases of breakdown which I ever heard of occurred respectively in the case of a working man, who had starved himself in the necessaries of life in order to bring up three orphan nephews and nieces, and in that of a young professional man, who sat up every night for weeks, after doing his work by day, to nurse his wife through a dangerous illness.

Health lies in our own hands.

There are hundreds of people drifting towards a breakdown, not because of their circumstances or the nature of their avocation, but because of the way in which they choose to live and do their work. Health is a matter that lies in our own hands to a far greater extent than is usually supposed. All who wish to fulfil their mission in life to the best of their ability, and maintain their power of work as long as possible, must keep one eye on their work and the other on their health. Whilst doing their duty to others, they must not fail to do justice to themselves.

I once saw two men playing golf, both of whom were men of fame. One was a writer of repute, the other an orator whose name is known far and wide. They played round with an abandon and zest that was refreshing to witness. But what impressed me most was a remark made by one of them when they came in.

“My friend and I were anxious to get a game to-day,” he said, “because we are the principal speakers at two mass meetings to-night, and the people are expecting something special, so we must be prepared to let them have it.”

That was why, instead of immersing themselves in studious solitude, rehearsing their speeches, they spent the time in playing a game like a couple of schoolboys out for a holiday, with a good tea and a rest to follow. It is a dozen years since that happened, but those two men, who are among the hardest public workers of the day, are as fresh and fit for their duties now as they were then. And this, not from any natural strength or stamina, but simply because they have always taken pains to carry out the fundamental laws of health.

The remainder of this book will be directed to the consideration of these laws, on which the whole question of breakdowns and their prevention depends.

CHAPTER VI.
THE HUMAN ENGINE AND HOW TO STOKE IT.

An express train was standing in a London terminus, on the point of starting for her run to Edinburgh. Several persons were admiring the great locomotive, which was throbbing like a hound in leash, ready to be off the moment the guard’s signal was given. The guard waved his flag, and the train glided out of the station so smoothly, that the unwary passenger standing up in his compartment at the time was not even jolted. The first stopping-place, a hundred miles away, was reached on the stroke of time, without a hitch of any sort.

The man who was responsible for this perfect running was not the driver so much as the stoker, that humble individual, as we are apt to regard him, whose duty it was to put the coal on the fires. Unless he had done his work efficiently, the best driver of the finest locomotive ever built could not have made a good run.

He took care to use the right sort of coal, to put in enough of it to keep the fires bright, but not so much as to choke them up, and to shovel it in with discretion and at suitable times. Few people realise that there is a distinct art in stoking a furnace.

Yet that stoker was not a happy man. He was sallow and of a livery type. He often suffered from headaches and spots before his eyes, heartburn and nausea. Although he was muscular and powerfully built, he frequently felt so tired and listless that he was hardly able to face his day’s work.

All this was due to the circumstance that, although he had mastered the stoking of an engine, he had never learned to feed himself properly. He had not realised that he himself was an engine, quite as much so as the locomotive he worked on, and that the food he took was the fuel which supplied the driving power to his system and kept his machinery running. It had never dawned on him that there is an art in eating just as important as that of stoking, and demanding as much care and foresight.

He would take his meals at any time that happened to be convenient, and would eat anything that came before him, regardless as to whether it suited him or not. Furthermore, he often ate to repletion, and bolted his food down without masticating it properly. And that was why his own machinery ran badly and he felt tired and depressed. In which respects he was exactly like thousands of other people.

This resemblance between a steam engine and the human body is a pronounced one. As we have already pointed out, the food, after being digested and absorbed through the walls of the digestive tract, is burnt up in the tissues by a process closely corresponding to that of ordinary combustion, and there is a residue of waste products left behind resembling the cinders and ashes of a coal fire. Nature is able in various ways to dispose of this waste, eliminating it from the body. If, however, the amount of food taken be excessive, the residue is so large that the resources of the system are not sufficient to cope with it, and in consequence it accumulates in the tissues.

Then the individual suffers from discomfort or pains in the muscles, and from headache with a sense of tiredness, even apart from exercise or work; also from various other symptoms, owing to this waste matter circulating in the blood.

The wrong sort of food may have been taken, or eaten either too quickly or at unsuitable times, and dyspepsia results. Then there is a certain amount of undigested food constantly left behind in the stomach, and this begins to ferment, developing a poison of its own, which gets into the circulation and aggravates the effect of that already present. At the same time the nutritive quality of the food is diminished, so that there is superadded a process of starvation. There is plenty of food, but little nourishment.

The final stage is therefore one of poisoning and inanition combined. The effect of this on the whole body, and especially on the nervous system, is harmful to the last degree. The headaches are accentuated, and the individual feels depressed and irritable. The irritating influence of these baneful products is so marked, that the different organs begin to show signs of the damage which is slowly but surely taking place, and the delicate nervous system feels the influence of it most of all. The pain, discomfort and nausea caused by the contact of acid undigested food with the lining of the stomach add to the feeling of misery.

This may go on for years, until with one thing and another life is hardly worth living. It may disappear for a time, only to return, perhaps, in an aggravated form. Meanwhile the strain on the whole organisation becomes greater, as the organs grow less capable of propping each other up. If it is allowed to continue indefinitely, the time may come when Nature will rebel, refusing to be treated in this scurvy manner any longer.

The art of feeding resolves itself into four considerations: the sort of food to take, the amount necessary, how and when to eat it.

CHAPTER VII.
WHAT TO EAT.

Simple as this may appear at first sight, it is one of the most difficult problems with which human beings are confronted. The diet of a horse is limited, so is that of fowls. Among wild animals we find some that are flesh eaters, such as the lion and the tiger, while others live on vegetables or fruits. Man, on the other hand, like the pig (save the mark!) eats everything, and the question is what to choose out of this unlimited bill of fare.

Differences of constitutions.

We must remember that people are not all built alike, and that what is one man’s food is another’s poison. There is no greater mistake than that of imitating other people. The native of India thrives on rice, but white men who attempt to live exclusively on it soon find their systems going to pieces.

Even among persons of the same race we find marked differences. One of our neighbours flourishes on vegetables and bread; we adopt the same diet, with the result that we become too tired to do our work. Another takes meat three times a day and looks well on it; we try the same, and grow gouty. Another consumes a quart of milk a day in addition to his ordinary food, and says he cannot get on without it; we follow his example, and get a bilious attack.

There is a hale old gentleman of eighty who takes every night a supper of bread and cheese, with beer and walnuts to follow, going to bed immediately afterwards, and waking up fresh and vigorous in the morning. Most of us, if we took a supper like that, would go to bed to stay there.

The fact is that there is no general rule applicable to everyone. Some people thrive on a vegetarian diet, but others cannot get along on it at all; and the same remark applies to every other such restriction. It rests with each individual to discover for himself or herself what foods suit them best and keep to them, avoiding any which manifestly disagree.

Likes and dislikes.

Within reasonable bounds the question of likes and dislikes is a useful guide. Rich, highly-seasoned dishes are of course bad for everybody; but as applied to plain, healthy articles of food, it is safe to say that what people like agrees with them, and vice versa.

As to dislikes, there are no two opinions on the subject. If the taste of any food is repugnant it should be avoided like poison. In fact, so far as that particular person is concerned, it probably is a poison. Some people dislike cheese to such an extent that they cannot even swallow it, try as they may. If they did succeed in getting it down the results would most likely be disastrous. I know of one family who cannot take eggs in any form, not even in the smallest quantity as a mere flavouring. If they get it by mistake they are ill with an attack resembling acute gastritis for days afterwards.

It does not follow that a patient has been living luxuriously because he is suffering from habitual dyspepsia. It is not uncommon to hear people say that they cannot understand why they should be so afflicted, as their diet had been of the plainest. Bacon and dry bread, with toast and marmalade to follow, sounds rational enough in all conscience. But if the bacon is badly fried and swimming in fat, the bread new, and the toast hot and soaked in butter, it is not surprising that people feel wretched and uncomfortable for the rest of the morning.

The way in which food is cooked has always to be taken into consideration. Some cooks and housewives have a genius for spoiling good food, either in the way they prepare it or by their neglect to clean the pots and pans. Greasy saucepans have much to account for.

Classes of food.

Sometimes, however, the fault lies at the door of the person concerned. A partiality for new bread, and an unwillingness to give it up when so advised, have been at the root of a chronic dyspepsia with all its attendant evils. Articles of diet are divided into four classes: Proteids or meat foods, carbohydrates or starchy, oils and fats, water and other liquids.

Meats.

Proteids or meat foods, include fish, fowl, butcher’s meat, and vegetables, such as peas, beans and lentils. The problem of meat, and particularly butcher’s meat, is a vital one for all who are getting on in years. So long as people have no organic disease necessitating special diet they cannot go far wrong in regard to fowl, fish, tongue, ham or bacon. It is a different matter when we come to deal with butcher’s meat, for this contains a large proportion of fibre, which constitutes one of the most difficult forms of waste matter to get rid of.

Meat and gout.

And the ill-effects of this waste matter are more pronounced as people get older, for however healthy they may be, their systems become less capable of eliminating it. It is an excellent rule, therefore, for all persons approaching middle age, even for those who have got into the forties, to reduce their allowance of butcher’s meat, especially beef, taking it no oftener than once a day, and preferably at midday instead of in the evening. Digestion goes on very slowly, if at all, during the hours of sleep, and the habit of eating meat at late dinner or supper is one of the chief causes tending to gout and rheumatism of the gouty type.

It is this disease in some phase or other which is the starting-point of so many breakdowns in health. The harmful residue in the system affects almost every organ and tissue, and the arteries in particular. Its most serious effect is on the vessels of the kidney: when once they have become thickened, the elimination of waste matter is reduced to dangerous limits. Then the health of the whole system is imperilled, for one of the most important outlets has become blocked up.

Too often this complication means the beginning of the end, the onset of premature old age. It is on this account, and not from any desire to advocate vegetarianism, that I have emphasised the necessity of diminishing the quantity of butcher’s meat, once the period of early manhood has gone past. In fact, it would be to the benefit of all, young and old alike, to take nothing heavier than fish or fowl at least one or two days a week.

Starchy foods.

Carbohydrates or starchy foods. These include bread, sago, tapioca, rice, and underground vegetables such as potatoes. Bread is the most important of these. It is called the staff of life, and yet it accounts for more dyspepsia than all other causes put together, and for more miserableness than all the incidental troubles and misfortunes of life in one. For there is nothing which depresses a man’s spirits so effectually as dyspepsia, and an overwhelming proportion of cases of this complaint are due to the imperfect digestion of starchy foods, of which bread is the most common.

The saliva.

Starchy foods are dealt with by the saliva, and this, in order to do its work properly, must penetrate to the heart of the granules. And this it cannot do if something else has got there first. People are often surprised when they get indigestion after partaking of bread and milk; that is, bread soaked in hot milk. But the milk has permeated the starch granules, and as two things cannot be in the same place at the same time, the saliva cannot get there.

This explains why bread is the source of so much discomfort. For bread, as it is usually made in this country, is more or less moist, and consequently the saliva has the same difficulty to encounter as in the case of bread and milk. The water has arrived first and keeps the saliva out. If the process were carried on to a further and drier stage, as in the hardbake of the Colonial, we should be able to assimilate it with ease.

We are apt to envy the Oriental his capacity for digesting starch. Yet his powers in this direction are due not so much to any inherited faculty on his part as to the way in which the rice is cooked. The glutinous material on the outside of the granules prevents the saliva from penetrating. The Oriental gets rid of it by washing the rice in cold water half-way through the cooking, rubbing it between his hands at the same time. The writer once recommended this plan to a lady who complained of indigestion after eating rice, and told her that if she insisted on its being carried out she would have no further difficulty in the matter. She replied that there would be a great difficulty—the cook would immediately give notice.

The slow poison of dyspepsia.

Yet if these hints as to the preparation of starchy foods were taken advantage of, we should hear much less of the fermentative dyspepsia which is at the root of so much of the slow poisoning from which many people suffer, to the detriment of their general health and their nervous systems in particular.

It is this slow, long-continued poisoning which undermines the nervous system and lays it open to attack from all the other causes that predispose to a breakdown. No amount of inconvenience or self-denial is too great that can lead to the avoidance of the dyspepsia which causes it. And this ailment may accompany the plainest and simplest of diets, if they are taken in the wrong way. Space would not permit of our treating this fully, but mention will be made of two or three common articles of diet which are liable to be followed by indigestion.

Eggs.

Apart from any special idiosyncrasy, many people suffer from nausea or some other form of discomfort after taking eggs. It is not uncommon to hear people say that they can take them in the latter part of the day, but not in the mornings, without some ill-effect. If that is so, they should be careful to avoid having them for breakfast, for when taken at this meal they are often responsible for headaches which come on in the course of the morning.

In many cases these bad effects can be avoided by having the eggs boiled for eight minutes. This prolonged boiling reduces the contents to a light powder, and seems to get rid of some element that is of a poisonous nature.

Soup.

A small quantity of soup is beneficial as a preliminary to dinner. If a man is tired after his day’s work it stimulates the digestion and puts it into a better condition to do its work. On the other hand, it is a great mistake to take too much of it, as then it is apt to swamp the stomach with so much liquid as to hinder the secretion of gastric juice.

Fats and oils.

Some people can digest fat who cannot take oil without becoming bilious, and some cannot take either. Yet it is as a rule the very ones who cannot take one or the other who try to do so, in spite of their aversion for it. It seems strange that it is stout people who are best able to digest fat, and thin ones who cannot do so. It is not so strange after all, however, for the simple reason that people are thin because they cannot assimilate fat.

Yet oftentimes we find such persons persevering in taking fat or even cod-liver oil, in order to put on flesh. The result is, in many instances, that they become thinner than ever, owing to their digestions being thrown completely out of order.

Milk.

Milk is the ideal food. Yet there is no food, however ideal, which can be regarded as universal. There are some people, and not a few, who cannot take milk without suffering from indigestion or biliousness. Even among children one finds this peculiarity at times; if such youngsters are forced to drink it, they are upset in consequence.

This is often due to the fact that it is taken raw and undiluted. There is a widely prevalent theory to the effect that any interference with the milk in its natural state deprives it of its nutritive qualities. This is not the case. If the milk is boiled, for instance, a certain substance which it contains, casein by name, undergoes a change. Yet it is this casein which causes the curdling of milk that is prone to take place in many stomachs, producing flatulence, pain, and it may be actual vomiting. This casein is nutritious to those whose digestions can cope with it, but for those who cannot digest it the boiling is of great advantage, as the remaining elements of the milk become more nutritious because more digestible.

It is of no use simply to heat the milk, it must be actually brought to the boil. If the taste of it in this form is objected to, this can be overcome by adding a little sugar or salt, or a flavouring of nutmeg. And if the patients do not care for it hot, it may be cooled down and taken cold with or without soda-water.

Sour milk, either in the form of ordinary butter-milk or prepared in the scientific manner, is one of the healthiest of drinks. It has been a well-established fact for many years that people living in parts of the country where the drinking of butter-milk is in vogue are exceptionally healthy. This led to the researches which culminated in the sour milk treatment, which came so much to the front a few years ago. It was a valuable discovery, for many of us are so situated that we cannot get butter-milk. Also, the scientific way of preparing it is much cleaner and more satisfactory than the old crude one, which was liable to implant other and less desirable germs in our inside along with the health-giving ones.

When this treatment came into vogue we were all to lose our aches and pains, and enjoy robust health or something approaching it. Already, in this short time, the method has fallen almost into disrepute. And simply, so people said, because it did not do what it professed. In this they did it a great injustice. If it did not do what it professed to accomplish it was only because it did not have a chance. If people continue to eat all sorts of unsuitable things and bolt them down, they need not expect to whitewash their insides by taking sour milk on the top of an injudicious diet. Like a good many other adjuncts to health, it has to be taken with a grain, not of salt but of sound common sense.

Sauces.

People are often perplexed on the question of sauces, as to whether they are harmful or otherwise. A rich, oily sauce is only too likely to cause dyspepsia, but a flavouring of what we might term a “clean” sauce is often an aid to digestion. For in spite of all that has been said and written on the subject of plain foods, there is no doubt that if a taste is pleasant it tends to stimulate the flow of saliva and gastric juice. There is a scientific foundation for the saying, “It makes my mouth water.”

The main disadvantages of sauces and spices is that if used to excess they are apt to increase the appetite more than they stimulate the gastric juice, and so lead to more food being taken than can be digested.

After all, hunger is the best sauce, and the man who has earned his meal by work or exercise has little need of artificial aids and flavourings.

Tea.

A vast amount of evil has been attributed to the use of tea. To a certain extent this condemnation is true. Yet it is not so much the tea itself as the way in which it is made and the conditions under which it is taken that are to be blamed for the mischief.

If allowed to stand stewing for long it is nothing short of a poison. For then it is converted into a concentrated extract of tannin, which has a most irritating effect on the wall of the stomach, producing a secretion of acid liquid, causing heartburn and perhaps injuring the delicate mucous membrane to the point of ulceration.

There is also another deleterious substance present called thein, and this has a specially pernicious influence on the nervous system when taken in excess. If tea is drunk within a few minutes of being made there is just enough of this alkaloid to produce a pleasant, refreshing effect without any harm being done. Yet even when prepared in this way, but taken too frequently, the accumulated effect of repeated small doses is as injurious as a large one, causing nervous irritability and sleeplessness.

In many instances the harm of tea-drinking lies in the fact of its being taken at wrong times. The custom of drinking it after a meal such as dinner is a bad one, as it retards the flow of gastric juice.

Of all pernicious customs there is none more to be deprecated than that of high tea, as it is called. It is a sociable meal, but a deadly one. Many of us look back with a shudder to an array of sardines, tongue, ham or fish, followed by bread and butter with two sorts of jam, buns and cakes of all sorts, washed down with copious draughts of strong tea.

The use of tea, as opposed to its abuse or misuse, is highly beneficial to the system. There is no remedy equal to it for a tired headache. It washes out the stomach and gives it a fresh start for the next meal. A cup of tea in the early morning will often enable a better breakfast to be taken, and one in the afternoon between four and five o’clock helps to complete the digestion of the midday meal.

Furthermore, it serves a good purpose in making the blood circulate more freely and in dilating the vessels of the skin, thus assisting in the elimination of waste matter. In this respect it is much better adapted than cold drinks in hot weather, particularly for those engaged in active outdoor games, such as tennis. For it makes a more efficient thirst-quencher, and by flushing out the tissues helps to prevent the onset of fatigue.

Have it freshly made, take it in moderation, and it will never do any harm. Especially is this the case with China tea, if taken in preference to Indian, for it does not injure the stomach or the nerves in the way that the latter is apt to do.

Coffee.

Coffee does not as a rule tend to cause indigestion or affect the nerves; its ill-effects are due to the fact of its causing biliousness. People of what is known as a “livery” type had better avoid it altogether, if they have found it to have this result. Yet they might as well ascertain first as to whether it was the coffee or the milk which they took with it which accounted for their discomfort. It is a mystery as to why people, who cannot on their own assertion take hot milk without upsetting their livers, should drink it when its taste is disguised by that of coffee. The milk is there just the same, and the after-effects are bound to be as bad as if taken by itself.

Let such persons take their coffee thin, making it with water, and adding only as much milk as they would put into their tea, and it will probably turn out that they can take it without any bad after-effects.

There is one form, however, in which this beverage is harmful. That is in the form of black coffee. When taken in this form it certainly causes indigestion as well as biliousness. Some of the most persistent cases of dyspepsia, especially that which is most pronounced on waking up in the morning, are due entirely to the habit of drinking black coffee after dinner in the evenings. And the taste is evidently a seductive one, for there is no habit, not even that of alcohol, more difficult to eradicate. Yet until the use of coffee in this form is given up, the dyspepsia will most surely persist.

Water.

The amount of liquid consumed in the twenty-four hours is one of the most important questions in connection with diet, especially for anyone suffering from headaches, rheumatic pains, malaise, undue fatigue, and a variety of suchlike complaints, “minor ailments” as they are called. These ailments are anything but minor, we may observe, in regard to the amount of suffering they cause, and the train of symptoms and diseases to which they lead.

Without a sufficient quantity of liquids the waste matter in the tissues is apt to become too condensed, and on this account less able to reach the eliminatory organs, whose function it is to throw it off. It not uncommonly happens that a man will consult a doctor, complaining that he is suffering from pains in his limbs, either in the muscles or the joints or both, also from a constant dull headache and sense of tiredness. He fears that he is on the verge of rheumatic fever, and it is not improbable that that is exactly what he is. On inquiry it turns out that he has been in the habit of taking very little liquid either with meals or between them. He is told to take an extra quart, two if possible, a day. Then it often happens that in a week or two all his symptoms have disappeared, and he is capable of as much exertion as he ever was.

The liquid may be taken in any form, hot or cold, or in tea, coffee, lemon water or any other beverage the person may prefer. It does not matter how it is taken, so long as it gets into the system.

Alcohol.