Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1892 — A DOCTOR’S ADVICE. [ARTICLE]

A DOCTOR’S ADVICE.

Self-Inspection and Simple Means ot Curing Its Mental Effects. Many persons who have many ailments of slight individual importance got a group of symptoms which are annoying and sometimes distressing. These are apt to cause in those of melancholy temperament an anxiety iu regard to health and a genera) concern iu one’s self. This continued produces a habit of making one’s feelings a mirror, but this mirror, it may be remarked, is about as accurate in its reflections as the pieces of glass in a dime museum which make a lean man fat or a. fat man lean and in general distort evtry feature. Headaches, pains over the stomach, backaches, feelings of fatigue, muscular soreness, depressed spirits and a multitude of other things, appearing singly and amounting to little, tend to give one an impression that disease actually exists where there is nothing that is tangible. This condition of ailment carries with it what is known as hypochondria—a mental affection which brings with it an introspection. Those who have a habit of putting in the balance their little complaints against nature scarcely realize the risk they run. Thinking of one’s self and speculating on the outcome of this little thing and that little thing in the way of something extraordinary often makes an invalid out of one who is really in good physical condition. Hypochondria is a purely mental disease, born of internal feelings, but always outwardly, expressed. Depression of spirit, a tendency to magnify little complaints and a searching after what does not exist marks its course. It is diagnosed with ease and can be cured by proper attention to a few very simple details. In your ordinary course of existence, do not drug yourself; take plenty of exercise; avoid the mirror, except for the toilet; let your conversation not include yourself; occupy your mind with sensible reading matter or home work, and, iu a nutshell, forget that you exist so far as your petty ailments are concerned. It is only dwelling on trifles that makes a mental impression which develops with age and which has a well-defined tendency to create and maintain a mordid state of the mind. The sufferer thinks that she has this complaint and believes her thoughts right in every sense. Those inclined to be hypochondriacal are advised to keep away from dispensaries and medical institutions in general, and to busy themselves with anything which will take “one’s mind away from one’s self,” —[New York World.