NOSTALGIA. 219 



Whatever the nature of it, there is but one way to cure the un- 

 happy creature whom love of his country consumes and destroys, and 

 that is to send him back to his own land. AYhere that remedy is not 

 possible, and fortunately that is not often the case, the medical 

 treatment of nostalgia is limited merely to moral and hygienic pal- 

 liatives. The very first duty of physicians, whenever the causes of 

 nostalgia seem threatening, is to adopt preventives of its fatal in- 

 fluence. With this object, it is essential to employ actively and to 

 divert in all possible ways soldiers and sailors who are taken to a dis- 

 tance from their country. It seems to be settled, moreover, that 

 nostalgia is far less common in the navy than among the land-forces, 

 and the fact probably depends upon the careful attention with which 

 officers of the navy exert themselves to provide for the amusement of 

 sailors, and to guard them against ennui. Nothing is so gay as a 

 vessel's crew. Discipline does not suffer by it, and obedience is only 

 the more prompt. "A ship without singing aboard," says Fous- 

 sagrives, " always leads us to suspect the moral government it is kept 

 under." During the Chinese campaign, on board the Forbin, whose 

 crew was entirely made up of Bretons, all important manoeuvres were 

 gone through with to the accompaniment of the national biniou. 



In the case of nostalgic patients whose illness results from the 

 isolation they are reduced to by the language they speak, association 

 with people who speak the same tongue is often one of the most 

 effectual remedies. Esquirol, remarking that all the Bretons placed 

 in one of the halls of the Salpetriere showed more serious symptoms 

 than patients occupying beds in the other wards of the hospital, 

 directed students from Brittany to be stationed in that hall, request- 

 ing them to talk in a friendly way in their native dialect with their 

 compatriots. Ko other treatment was needed for the cure of nostalgic 

 cases. During: the sieo^e of Paris similar facts often occurred. In the 

 ambulances, countrymen, particularly Bretons, were remarked grow- 

 ing perceptibly thinner and weaker. The physicians questioned them 

 but got no answers, as they understood only their provincial dialect. 

 Some one was found at length who could talk with them in that dia- 

 lect, console them, and cheer them up, and the poor wretches visibly 

 regained strength and hope. When all expedients have failed, and 

 circumstances forbid the patient's return to his own country, there are 

 still devices of stratagem that may improve his case. During the in- 

 vestment of Mayence the physicians sent word to the soldiers swept 

 off by typhus and nostalgia that the general-in-chief had obtained from 

 the besiegers a free passage for convalescents. The hope revived the 

 courage of many among these unfortunates. Marceray cured a monk 

 employed in a military hospital by making him read a fictitious letter 

 containing permission from his superior to return before long to his 

 convent. The case is the same with nostalgia as with other nervous 

 affections, in which drugs are almost wholly powerless, and no im- 



