Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1913 — That “Blue" Feeling. [ARTICLE]

That “Blue" Feeling.

The use of the word “blue” to denote melancholy or terror, as In the phrases to “feel blue,” "blue devils,” a “blue funk,” and on so, is not entirely figurative, if we are to credit a recent medical writer. The class of phenomena that Includes fainting, vertigo, nausea, etc., is controlled by certain brain centers that also bring about a sort of cramp of the external muscles of the eye. The resulting compression of the organ causes objects to look gray or bluish, and ultimately produces apparent darkness. The. use of the word, having a physiological basis, is common to many languages. The French say, for instance: “I see blue.” A writer says that the French word eblouissement (giddiness) should be spelled ebleuissement, and has the same origin.