MENTAL OVER-WORK AMONG PUBLIC MEN. 7 



Thirteen of the seventeen cases between fifty and sixty, and 

 eight of the nine cases between sixty and seventy, were in political 

 or official life. It is premature decay for the man who should live 

 to eighty or ninety to die at seventy, or for one who should die at 

 seventy to j^ass away at fifty-five or sixty. It is a question of po- 

 tential longevity. In the cases before us, sudden or unusual brain 

 work or strain terminated the careers of those destined apparently 

 to live from five to twenty years longer. 



Vice-President Wilson died prematurely at sixty-three, without 

 doubt the victim of extreme over-work. The death of a distin- 

 guished Senator at the same age was precipitated by overwork both 

 inside and outside of the Senate, and by Avorry and excitement grow- 

 ing out of the opposition and censure of the Legislature of the State 

 which he represented. A Representative in Congress, and one 

 high in judicial position, subjected to special causes of work and 

 worry, died at sixty-five of cerebral haemorrhage. Another Rep- 

 resentative, overwhelmed with labors and anxieties of a peculiarly 

 harassing character, contracted diabetes, of which he eventually 

 died between sixty and seventy. 



Men may live for many years in comparative comfort, and 

 able to do a reasonable amount of work, with organic disease of the 

 kidneys, liver, heart, or other organs, as long as they are not sub- 

 jected to any unusual physical or mental strain. One of America's 

 most distinguished physicians died a few years ago at the age of 

 eighty-two, and was found after death to have advanced disease of 

 the kidneys which had not been suspected ; but the last twenty 

 years of his life were free from strain. 



The history of many old hemiplegias is confirmative of this j^oint. 

 At the Philadelphia Hospital, I usually have under observation a 

 score or more of hemiplegies, the victims of thrombosis, embolism, 

 or hsemorrhage. These cases, some advanced in years, with brittle, 

 atheromatous vessels, and (as numerous autopsies show) with disease 

 in almost every organ of the body, live on year after year without 



