MENTAL OVERWORK. 327 



mon experience to meet with cases in which damage has been done to 

 the bodily constitution by indulging too recklessly in athletic exer- 

 cises and active physical exertion when the muscles have become 

 flabby and feeble from disuse. A man accustomed to sedentary pur- 

 suits takes suddenly to boating or running, or the horizontal bar, and, 

 if he escapes straining his heart, he is certain to make himself stiff 

 and uncomfortable. Or he has been told that there is nothing like 

 Switzerland for reviving the faded Londoner, so, without the slightest 

 attempt at preparation, he dovotes himself enthusiastically to climb- 

 ing ice-peaks and traversing snow-passes; and, when his brief holiday 

 is over, he comes back, worn and jaded, and astonished to find that 

 the glacial air, which has proved so beneficial to many, has done 

 nothing for him. * 



Now, the fault here lies in the want of proper preliminary training. 

 Even as we do not prescribe quinine as a tonic until we have ascer- 

 tained that the digestive functions of our patient are in good working 

 order, so it is most improper for any one to attempt active muscular 

 exertion without bracing up the previously-unused muscles by care- 

 fully-graduated exercise. And in mental operations the same analogy 

 holds good. If the brain is not habituated to the constant gymnastic 

 influence of steady work, it is liable to give way or suffer more or less 

 injury from any sudden and spasmodic effort. If, on the other hand, 

 however, its healthy nutrition is insured by the free supply of pure 

 blood and the true balance between destruction and repair, we shall 

 find ourselves in possession of an organ which will bear almost any 

 amount of steady strain, so long as certain conditions are fulfilled. 

 So long as a brain-worker is able to sleep w r ell, to eat well, and to take 

 a fair proportion of out-door exercise, it may safely be said that it is 

 not necessary to impose any special limits on the actual number of 

 hours which he devotes to his labors. But when what is generally 

 known as worry steps in to complicate matters, when cares connected 

 with family arrangements, or with those numerous personal details 

 which we can seldom escape, intervene, or when the daily occupation 

 of life is in itself a fertile source of anxiety, then we find one or 

 other of these three safeguards broken down. Probably the man of 

 business or the successful advocate cannot shake himself free from his 

 business thoughts at night. Slumber becomes fitful and disturbed. 

 The sympathetic system, unsettled by the mental strain, brings about 

 various defects in nutrition ; the appetite fails, and the vigor of the 

 nervous tissues is no longer able to withstand the endless round; and 

 then we meet with the sleeplessness, the dyspepsia, the irresolution,, 

 the irritability, and the depression, which are among the chief mis- 

 eries of those who we are in the habit of saying are overworked. 



Now, the Lancet has lately laid before its readers some interest- 

 ing statements which would lead us to believe that damage is being 

 done to many boys in preparatory schools by the strong competition 



