Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1876 — Nerves. [ARTICLE]

Nerves.

There is nothing in animated nature that has such a weight of reproach to carry as the nerves. Let what will happen in a body’s ecqnomy that is at all obscure in its origin, the nerves are instantly held responsible and called to account, unless the burden Can, by any possibility, be thrust ujion the liver, a second terra, incognita. The stomach, to be sure, can get out of order, and one can have a cold in the head, and, the cause bjing se obvious, the poor nerves will escape blame; but hardly anything else can come to pass with us that we do not tax the nerves with the sin. Are we wakeful at night,' through chance of overheating, or of not' having eaten enoughs through too much excitement or surplus of sorrow, or through care and an uneasy conscience—the nerves are takpn to task. Have we no appetite as the tdble, the system not demanding furthers supplies just then—we are too nervous ft eat. Are we oppressed w ith fatigue and requiring a great deal of sleep—it is because our nerves tire all worn out. Have we a toothache, resulting from a defective tooth that courage has failed us to remove in season—we call it neuralgia, and declare that the excitement over recent events or over events to come has wrought injury to our nerves. Have we an attack of gout arising from too great self-indulgence, perhaps, on our part, perhaps on the part of our ancestors —we attribute it to the irritation that one untoward thing or-another has produced upon our nerves. Do we indulge ourselves in a rousing hysteric, throwing the whole household into confusion and alarm, and occasioning almost as much disturbance as a fire or a moving—it is quite out of the power of our feeble nerves to resist it. Do we imagine ourselves afflicted with all the ailments of the doctors’ books, conjure up phantoms of disease from our fears, detail our symptoms to every listening ear, and darken home with hypochondria—we say our nervous system is completely shattered. Are we cross and snappish, and finding tlie world out of joint generally—we say that our nerves are in such a state! Do we use every endeavor to curb our violent temper, keep silent under provocation, make a pleasant reply when the tongue tingles with a sarcastic one, return good| for evil on the spot — other people say: “Oh, well, they have no nerves.” Do we allow curselves to be annoyed bv every trifle, to have our teeth set on edge by every grating sound, to be upset by every disaster—we say it is our delicate nervous organization. We never say that we are wanting in self-control, and in the desire for self-control both as to our nerves and the appetites that we allow those nerves to excite; that we are wanting in patience and forbearance, in good temper, in good-will, in resolution, in health and virtue generally; but, on the other hand, we make tlie scape-goat of bur poor nerves, and send them out into the wilderness with all our sins packed and strapped on their back. We do not even have so much as a scirrhus tumor, bequeathed to us through the sins of some one among all our forefathers, but we dub it a nervous fungus. A smile is often kindled at the frequent iteration by the members of past generations of the fact that in the “ good old times” everything w’as conducted in a manner far superior to that of to-day; but in this regard, at least, there is some truth in the complaint. In those good old’ times, before there were any nerves, things were at any rate called by their right names. Irritability and selfishness had to bear the weight of their own misdoing, and when a person deserved either Newgate or Bedlam nobody ever dreamed of excusing him on the score of his sick nerves. Perhaps it was occasionally too heroic treatment, for there may have been cases in those days-in which really’ sick nerves were abused in consequence; but we fancy-that a little of the same treatment nowadays would not come badly into play once in a while. When an urchin throws a whole neighborhood into a fever, by screaming for a couple of hours without good and sufficient reason, instead of mothers and aunts and nurses running about distractedly to soothe the dear child’s nerves, we think a mild application bf some domestic Newgate would be more in order. When a person abandons herself to the delights of a hysteric, it is not impossible that if, instead of yield-

ing all the peace and comfort of everybody else in the place, she 'were treated as a gentle lunatic, and given to understand that Bedlam waited for her, she would not so readily surrender to the hysteric again. When another, who by suspicions, jealousies, sharp retorts and sarcastic addresses makes the surrounding region thoroughly uncomfortable, should be accorded the treatment once accorded a common scold, and “ducked” in the nearest water, there -would, as a rule, be clearer sky reigning in that region. And when the hypochondriac tlirows his gloom upon the face of creation, if we remember the old adage that “conceit can kill and conceit can cure,” we may do better than concern ourselves about him. In fact, we hardly believe in nerves at all, as they are commonly spoken of. Nerves, of course, anatomically speaking, must be acknowledged with countless forms of neurosis; but nerves, the bugbear with which the weak and the wicked control and tyrannize over the rest of the race, are a ghost that can hardly be laid too soon. The whole nervous system is yet an unexplored country, except for its mere outer boundaries; there are few things of which we are in more ignorance, the most learned confessing themselves mere sciolists in relation to it. Nervous, electric, chemic, magnetic—we scarcely know which is the ruling element in the vast machinery that carries us from one eternity to the other; and it is the part of a charlatan instantly to ascribe cause and cure to such mysteries.

And certainly it is more than a charlatan’s part to put off on the nerves the affairs that really belong to the virtues—or, shall we say, to the want of the virtues ? It would seem as if life might be made a pleasanter thing to many people if, instead of such common use of bromides and valerians and opiates as exists, each one of them playing on the nerves as on so many fiddle-strings, there were a little use of determined selt-restraint, steady purpose, resignation and sweet temper. Diseased nerve-centers are all very fine things to talk about, but very poor things to possess. It may cause a young lady to appear in an interesting light when her mamma speaks of her exceedingly delicate nervous organization as if it were a fine piece of lace and rather enhanced one’s social distinction, and were, at all events, a mark of refinement. But it is a light that should be interesting.chiefly to the medical student. For the man who so far forgets himself as to marry a wife with a delicate nervous organization has little but trouble before him and must consider himself as good as sold to her whims and the doctors for her life or until she drives him into an insane asylum or

goes into one herself. A delicate nervous organization ipeans the habit of tumbling over at every hit, of going to bed if the chimney smokes, of crying if the roast is burned, of having hysterics if a glass breaks, of indulging in an outburst if crossed in a desire, of imagining slights, resorting to sulks, sending for tlie doctor at a scratch, conjuring trbuble and making home a desert. A delicate organization may be interesting, indeed, exciting that pity which is akin- to love; but he who suffers himself to experience these tender emotions' concerning it walks on a quicksand, and would do much” lietter merely to look at it as a curious study in pathology. That young woman who is not aware of possessing nerves, to whose mother it has never occurred that she has an organization at all out of the common, is the only one with whom to secure happiness at the hearth, unless the other kind be held in hand by a moral principle and strength of will as robust as the nerves are delicate. Il would be good for all of us were we more in tlie state described by the old man at Haworth to some travelers of our acquaintance who were visiting the home of Charlotte and Emily Bronte. “What a dreary place,” said the travelers, “ for women with such nerves aS theirs!” “Naa, naa,” said the old rustic. “We? ha’ summat else to do here than to be thinkin’ o’ our narves.”— Harper's Bazar.