LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



disabled for a time by a heavy cold. He recovered suffi- 

 ciently for duty in the summer term. In 1880, he was 

 once more obliged by his health to seek release from his 

 college duties. In 1890, after working hard on a new 

 edition of the Geology, he gave up college work, and 

 never resumed it. These are the crises in his indisposi- 

 tion but the weary monotony of fatigue cannot thus be 

 defined. 



Here is a letter from Mrs. Dana to a naturalist who 

 was breaking down from overwork Professor S. F. 

 Baird. It was written in January, 1874, before Mr. Baird 

 had performed his greatest services to the National 

 Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. It is here 

 printed for the hints it may give to other tired workers 

 with the brain. 



44 I was truly sorry to learn from your note that you 

 were feeling poorly again, and only wish it were possible 

 to talk with you of the various points mentioned in your 

 letter. In retracing the experience of almost fourteen 

 years in the invalid condition of my husband, it is by no 

 means easy to catch the marked epochs. There have 

 been during those years very great variations of condition, 

 and perhaps my abiding impression is of great incredulity 

 in the judgment of doctors. No medical treatment has 

 ever been of any avail, and I think Mr. Dana would sum 

 up his case in a few words. He would say, stop at once 

 when you feel you are doing too much, and always alter- 

 nate large measure of field work, in the hills or the woods, 

 with labor in the study. 



" He thinks his first anxious indication was a sensation 

 of soreness rawness, as he calls it internally on the 

 top of the head, which made all mental activity, even 

 conversation, a trial, and persistence in it, distressing. I 

 do not think he has ever suffered from pain ; but more 

 from a sense of weariness like that which impels you to 

 lay down your head, and yet without finding complete 

 rest. There was for a time some difficulty in sleeping, 

 but it did not continue long, nor is it common now. He 

 finds great comfort in the use of a sponge with cold water 



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