460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



found among the wives of the wretches who consider a marriage-con- 

 tract a license for illimited venery. For girls of a chlorotic disposi- 

 tion, a prurient literature does what sewer-gas would do for a con- 

 sumptive — though idleness will find other means to supply the want 

 of dime-novels. In such cases, out-door work is worth all the medi- 

 cines of the drug-market. 



A quiet country home is the best refuge from the sufferings of that 

 dreary form of nervous disorders that result from the reaction of deep 

 mental wounds — disappointed hope, reverses of fortune, or the loss of 

 a favorite child. Seasons make no difference ; the very hardships of 

 rustic life often act as a balm in such afflictions. After the death of 

 his only son, Goethe sought solace among the pines of the Thuringian 

 forest, like Shenstone in his Ainsford solitude, and Petrarch in his 

 hermitage of Vaucluse. " A sick man," says old Burton, " sits upon 

 a green bank, and, when the dog-star parcheth the plains and dries 

 up the rivers, he lies in a shady bower, fronde sub arhorea ferventia 

 temperat astra, and feeds his eyes with a variety of objects, herbs, 

 trees, to comfort his misery — or takes a boat on a pleasant evening, 

 and rows upon the waters, which Plutarch so much applauds, ^lian 

 admires, upon the river Pineus — in those Thessalian fields, beset with 

 green bays, where birds so sweetly sing that passengers, enchanted, as 

 it were, with their heavenly music, omniuin laborum et curarum ohli- 

 viscantnr, forget forthwith all labors, care, and grief." Especially if 

 the passenger can be persuaded to row his own boat, and to dismiss 

 the delusion that the night-mists of his Pineus have to be counter- 

 acted with a bottle of alcoholic bitters. 



In the homes of the poor, nervous afflictions are sometimes the re- 

 sult of insufficient sleep. After a sleepless night, the attempt to en- 

 gage in labor of an exacting kind will lead to a fever of fidgets and 

 nervous twitchings, and the same consequences may result from the 

 habit of rising every morning before Nature admits that the gain of 

 the night has quite equalized the expenses of the foregoing day. But 

 it is a true saying that we are not nourished by what we eat, but by 

 what we digest, and that an indigestible meal is as bad as a fast-day. 

 Nervous people should remember that unquiet sleep is not much bet- 

 ter than sleeplessness, and that the blessing of a good night's rest can 

 be enjoyed only in a well-ventilated bedroom. With the largest pos- 

 sible supply of fresh air by day and by night, with sunshine, out-door 

 exercise, and healthy food, the most obstinate nervous disorders can 

 be gradually overcome ; the impediments yield, till the river of life 

 flows with an unobstructed current : the body has been restored to 

 the conditions of existence for which its organism was originally 

 adapted. 



