On Physical Disease from Mental Strain [pp. 374-375]

3 74 APPLETONS' JO (IRNAL OF POPULAR [NOVEMBER 6,
investigation, and competent to bend his energies to specific
research, yet his manly interest in his fellow-beings, and the
welfare and progress of society, has determined the course of
his studies, and led him constantly to the development of large
practical results. This was precisely the inspiration he needed
to do his work. When he began with organic chemistry, it
was in its infancy, and chiefly confined to the production of a
few organic compounds by laboratory decomposition. As for
the chemical interpretation of the living organism, it was hardly
thought of. The mystery of the vital forces reigned supreme,
and barred the way to true inductive investigation. So also
with agricultural chemistry. Davy had originated the name
early in the century, and presented some of its elementary facts;
but they did not reach to practical results, and amounted to
nothing in their influence upon the public. The work of Liebig was nothing less than to erect both these sciences into recognized branches of study, to direct the scientific thought of
his age to these fields of inquiry, and to arouse the interest of
the public in their practical applications; and this great work
it is his lasting honor to have accomplished. That he should
have committed errors, and led many into mistakes, was inevitable. The first bold original speculations upon complex subjects cannot fail to be always imperfect. And, besides, that
order of temperament which fitted him to be a reformer and a
leader, and to stimulate and urge on other men, was favorable
to rashness of generalization and a sanguine anticipation of
conclusions. And yet Liebig's leading doctrines, however unsafe for literal guidance, and to whatever degree requiring modification, were steps in the right direction of investigation;
while their amendment and revision have made the reputations
of other men.
Professor Liebig's name will always be intimately and honorably associated with the rise of biological science in the nineteenth century. He stands at the beginning of one of the great
epochs of knowledge, to which his genius has assisted to give
development and direction, and he illustrates in an eminent
degree that highest trait of modern character devotion to
scientific truth to the end of a large and noble utility.
ON PHYSICAL DISEASE FROIM MENTAL
STRAIN.
BY B. W. RICHARDSON, M. D., F. R. S.
I.
N a former address, I directed attention to the great importance of
recognizing the influence of mental action on physical disease.
I ventured to press the fact that the most scientific physicians have
fallen into the error of studying, with too exclusive a care, the observable conditions of the body, healthy or diseased, and those agencies for curing diseases which produce the most obvious effects-such
as knives and other instruments, anesthetic vapors, active drugs, heat
anid cold, electrical shocks, and the like. I admitted that, as the pure
physical existence is the ground-work and the primary necessity of
the highest form of a living thinking thing, it is by nature the first duty
of the healer to make that corporeal frame pure and whole; but I insisted that it is equally his duty to study what shall enter by the senses
or windows of the mind, and, though invisibly entering, be potent
forces for evil or for good. Because an agency is not visible, not
tangible, is it, I asked, less real? If a man lose his mind by the failure of his blood, that, it is said, is plain to understand, for it is physical; but, if some horror come upon the man through his mind, so
that, like poor Horatio, he is be-chilled
"Almost to jelly by the act of fear,
Stands dumb, and speaks not,
is not that, too, physical?-an action direct of mind on matter, reversing the physics of the body, and creating disease? It must be
so; and in the study of this action, from the universe into the man,
there lies, I maintained, a world ahuost unknown.
I argued further that, with strange acuteness, charlatans of all
kinds have touched, without understanding, this unknown world.
They have played, it is said, on the credulity of man; they have done
more-they have, in ignorance of what they were doing, touched the
animal motion through the direct entrances by which the universal
spirit enters also. I urged that the need for new contemplation in
this direction increases with the intellectual development of the race;
that the animal body, in order to maintain equality of power, and be
the equal of the soul within it, must, in the course of the suns, be re placed by an organism more finely moulded, more accessible to the
external beauty and harmony, more sensitive of pain, more sensible
of weakness, less susceptible of maladies evidenced through matter,
more susceptible of maladies evidenced through mind, and more im pressionable to cure or to injury through the mind than through the
baser body. And, lastly, I submitted that, to study these changes of
existence and action, to open this unknown world of natural truth,
not to trade upon the knowledge of its existence, but to comprehend
it with the grasp of a philosopher, are tasks to which the man of
physic must devote himself with zeal, or recede with humiliation from
one of the strongest seats in philosophy.
The subject thus glanced at in the address to which I have referred
is the key-note of the present effort. I am desirous to bring before
you who are most conversant with the mental side of disease the
question I have opened from its physical point of view, and to illus trate how, in many and various ways, the practice of medicine becomes
a single and simple art and science in the hands of those who treat
the disorders exhibited either through the phenomena of the mind or
the body. This is my primary object; but there is another, hardly
secondary. I am anxious also to put before the world at large the
existence of certain physical social evils, which are under perfect control, but which, developing with an increasing intelligence, are degrading the physical powers of our most powerful men, and, as I think,
are interfering with the progressive development of powerful generations of men who should, or rather might, belong to the future.
Let me at once guard myself from any suspicion of a desire to
exaggerate the evils of mental strain, by the remark that I have no
idea of any evil from mental work when that is carried on with evenness and order and generalization. I take the brain to be the most
enduring of organs-the organ that admits of most change, the organ
that requires most change, the organ that is the most perfect repository of animal force, and the most ready dispenser of it-the organ
that can rest in parts when jaded, and work in parts that are not jaded,
at one and the same time. I look on mental work, and even on hard
mental work, as conducive to health of life and length of days. I
speak only of evils resulting from extreme strain on one particular
series of nervous structures-strain induced either by persistent and
prolonged struggle, or by sudden and vehement shock conveyed by the
senses and transited too urgently into conscious manifestation.
SUBJECTS OF.M'FNTAL STRAIN.
Those who become subject to unfair mental influences from intense
or prolonged strain belong to particular and easily-defined classes of
society. They are all mental workers, but as mental workers they
constitute classes of themselves-classes distinguished by the character of work in which they move. I divide these classes into six:
First, there is the mere copyist, the man who sits all day at his
desk, and transfers copies of writing, or of a speech, to a piece of
paper. The clerk, the compositor, the reporter, and the second and
third rate author, are of this class.
Secondly, there is the thinker and writer, who copies also, but not
directly from other writings, nor from thoughts expressed by other
minds, but who goes to the great manuscripts of the Supreme Author
-to the hills, and plains, and oceans, to the living kingdoms of all
animals, and of all times, and transfers the pictures of these to canvas or paper, bringing the vastness of the universe, as seen by his
superior sense, into moderate compass and legible form, so that lesser
minds may read through him the truths he sees and unfolds.
Thirdly, there is the speculative man, usually very selfish and locked
up in himself; who from day to day, and night to night, and hour to
hour, schemes; who walks with his head down, his eyes on the earth,
and thinks-thinks how he shall meet this obstacle, waylay that plan,
and anticipate such and such events-a truly business man in the
world's acceptation; one who is up and down like a Jack-in-the-box,
very large when he is up, and out of sight veritably wxxhen he is down.
Fourthly, there is the man who carries oa his shoulders other people's anxieties, who thinks for others rather than for himself, and must
APPLETOiS' JO U-RNA-L OF POPULAR
[NOVEMtEiiR 6,
374