MENTAL OVERWORK, 329 



cational grooves. I think I have seen an increase of headaches and 

 nervous complaints among the children of the poor since compulsory 

 attendance has been enforced, and would only wish to record the 

 warning against attempts to make bricks too rapidly out of the straw 

 which has fallen into our hands to mould for good or evil. 



Coming to the universities, cases of overwork are, I imagine, more 

 common there, for not only are the young men at a more sensitive 

 period of life, but they naturally feel that to many of them this is 

 their great opportunity the great crisis of their existence and that 

 their success or failure will now effectually make or mar their career. 

 Here the element of anxiety comes into play, sleep is disturbed, exer- 

 cise neglected, digestion suffers, and the inevitable result follows, of 

 total collapse, from which recovery is slow, and perhaps never com- 

 plete. Others, again, endeavor in their last year to make up for the 

 frivolities of the first two; but when Dr. Morgan takes up for us the 

 history of the intellectual life of the universities in the same exhaus- 

 tive way in which he has traced the statistics of their leading oars, I 

 doubt not that we shall find that the indictment of overwork brought 

 against them has also been much exaggerated. 



But, although less common than is generally supposed, instances 

 of this class of break-down do occur from time to time, and I should 

 like to ask those who have devoted special attention to nervous dis- 

 eases what is their view of the pathology of such cases as the fol- 

 lowing : 



A student, or an artist, or the master of a public school, after a 

 very heavy mental strain, suddenly gives way, and is seized with 

 sharp illness, comparable in some degree to the old-fashioned brain - 

 fever. On his recovery he takes a prolonged rest, and his general 

 health is perfectly restored ; he looks strong and hearty, and has 

 even gained flesh, and so at last he thinks himself well enough to re- 

 sume his duties. But it is found that, although he can do a little, any- 

 thing like his old power of concentrated attention and steady appli- 

 cation is gone, and if he tries to do a full day's work, he breaks down 

 again in minor degree, and at last is obliged to content himself with 

 taking only a very slight share in those occupations in which he used 

 specially to excel, and in many cases his powers are never fully re- 

 gained. With all the outward appearances of health, he well knows 

 the very narrow limits within which he is now' compelled to restrict 

 his intellectual exercise. What, then, is the precise pathological con- 

 dition here ? Various diseases are also known to weaken the mental 

 powers for long periods after convalescence is established, and of these 

 scarlet and enteric fevers rank among the principal. Lancet. 



