December 30, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



373' 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



**# Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The ■ 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



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The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character 

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Nervous Diseases and Civilization. 



In Dr. Brinton's note on " Nervous Diseases in Low Races and 

 Stages of Culture" in your issue of Dec. 16, he holds that those 

 are in error who claim that " diseases of the nervous system have 

 greatly increased with the development of civilization." My own 

 Very positive conviction, based upon a somewhat extended ex- 

 perience in the treatment of neurasthenic cases, is quite the re- 

 verse of this. In hospitals, in dispensaries, and among the very 

 poor everywhere, a typical case of neurasthenia is dilRcult to find, 

 but among the well-to-do and the intellectual, and especially 

 among those in the professions and in the higher walks of business 

 life who are in deadly earnest in the race for place and jjower, 

 this peculiar impoverishment of nerve force that we term " neu- 

 rasthenia " appears with alarming frequency. 



Dr. Brinton says also that "civilization, so far from increasing 

 this class of maladies, is one of the most efficient agents in reduc- 

 ing them in number and severity, especially when freed from re- 

 ligious excitement and competitive anxieties " 



It should, however, be remembered that these "competitive 

 anxieties." this worry of business and professional life, are ihe 

 very conditions that civilization fosters and intensifies, and there- 

 fore civilization itself, with all that the term implies, with its 

 railway, telegraph, telephone, and periodical press, exciting in 

 ten thousand ways cerebral activity and worry, is the primary 

 cause of this increase of nervousness among the higher classes in 

 all countries. American nervousness is becoming almost a dis- 

 tinctive phrase, and it cannot be denied that in this country there 

 are climatic conditions, and business and social environments, to 

 the influence of which the nervous system is peculiarly suscepti- 

 ble, especially if complicated with evil habits, excesses, tobacco, 

 alcohol, worry, and sp&nal excitements. In the older countries 

 men plod along in the footsteps of their fathers, generation after 

 generation, with little possibility, and therefore little thought, of 

 entering a higher social grade. Here, on the contrary, no one is 

 content to rest, with the possibility ever before him of stepping 

 higher, and the race of life is all haste and unrest. 



It has been aptly said that " the human body is a reservoir of 

 force constantly escaping, constantly being renewed from the one 

 centre of force — the sun." A perfectly healthy man has a large 

 amount of nerve force in reserve, and this reserve is not often 

 exhausted, even approximately, by the necessary toil and wear of 

 mind and muscle. A nervously exhausted man has a small 

 amount of nerve force in reserve, and this reserve is often and 

 speedily exhausted. 



The margin on which he can draw is narrow, may be almost 

 wiped out under the calls of emotion and of mental and bodily labor, 

 but, just as with the strong man, the force is renewed from with- 

 out by food and repose, so, like the strong man, he can keep on 

 thinking and worrying until he dies, which may be long after 

 the death of the strong man. While nervousness makes life pain- 

 ful and irritating, it does not of necessity shorten life, nor does it 

 always destroy its usefulness. "The Indian squaw, sitting in 

 front of her wigwam, keeps almost all of her force in reserve. 

 The slow and easy drudgery of the savage domestic life in the 

 open air, unblessed and uncursed by the exhausting sentiment of 

 love, without reading or writing or calculating, without past or 

 future, and only a dull present, never calls for the full quota 

 of available nerve force; the larger part is always lying on its 

 arms. The sensitive white woman — pre-eminently the American 

 woman — with small inherited endowment of force ; living indoors ; 

 torn and crossed by happy or unhappy love; subsisting on fiction, 

 journals, receptions; waylaid at all hours by the cruelest of all 

 robbers, worry and ambition, that seize the last unit of her force, 

 can never hold a powerful reserve, but must live, and does 

 live, in a physical sense, from band to mouth, giving out quite as 

 fast as she takes in, — much faster oftentimes, — and needing 



longer periods of rest before and aft^r any important campaign, 

 and yet living as long as her Indian sister, — much longer it may 

 be, — bearing age far better, and carrying the affections and the 

 feelings of youth into the declioe of life " (Beard's "Sexual Neu- 

 rasthenia," edited by A. D. Rockwell, M.D,, E. B. Treat, New 

 York, publisher). 



While Americans are undoubtedly a particiilarly nervous peo^ 

 pie, it is well to remember that a large number wh'> think them- 

 selves nervously exhausted altogether misconceive their real con- 

 dition. There is a vanity of disease as well as of dress. Many 

 would rather be thought nervous than bilious or gouty, and are 

 pleased with a diagnosis which touches the nerves rather than the 

 stomach, bowels, or liver. As a matter of fact, the nervous sys- 

 tem in many of these cases is strong enough, and would give no 

 trouble were it not poisoned by the abnormal products of diges- 

 tion that enter the blood and circulate freely throush every tissue 

 of the body, and the practical and all-important point is. to dif- 

 ferentiate between these two classes. The array of symptoms in 

 each class of cases is so much alike that real impoverishment of 

 nerve force due to overwork and worry is often confounded with 

 a poisoned condition of the system, the result of indolent habits 

 and an excess of food; and, instead of rest, quiet, and soothing 

 dr.iughts, there is need of mental and physical activity, — less not' 

 more food, depletion rather than repletion. 



New York. A D. ROCKWeLL, M.D.- 



Observations on the Cretaceous at Gay Head. 

 Since my good friend Mr. David White has thought it worth 

 while to give me a gentle reminder that I have been "a little con- 

 fident and hasty in naming the various terranes at Gay Head," it 

 seems becoming and necessary that I should offer a few short re- 

 marks in elucidation of my statements published in these columns 

 Sept. 23, 1893, and somewhat more fully in the Transactions of 

 the Maryland Academy of Sciences, 1892, pp. 204-212, The 

 points of difference between Mr. White and myself are not so 

 great as to cause questions of moment to arise from their state- 

 ment. It seems evident to me that if we could visit Gay Head 

 together for only a few hours he would not be able to resist the 

 evidence of observation which results from clearing away the 

 covering of the face of the bluffs. My statements were derived from 

 an examination of the body of the hill behind the loose, or thrown, 

 material spread upon its faces In order to get at the beds in 

 ]}lace, and which really constitute the promontory of Gay Head, 

 it was necessary to dig away a few feet, or inches, of sand, clay, 

 marl, and other slipped material from many parts of the face of 

 the bluffs. This I did with the assistance of men from the neigh- 

 borhood, and by this means it became possible for me to see that 

 the axis of the whole system was a lead-colored clay, and that 

 upon this eroded ridge of clay, which descend^'below lowest tide- 

 level, all the other geological members rest in their usual nearly 

 horizontal order of sequence, as in Maryland and New Jersey. 

 Since my return home, I have compared this clay more thoroughly 

 with samples from the Woodbridge and Amboy districts of New 

 Jersey, and the conviction is pressed upon me that the two are 

 identical, as far as regards elements and type of structure. Nev- 

 ertheless, as I have not found fossils in this clay, it is not possible- 

 for me to decide as to its exact horizon. From its relative posi- 

 tion in the column of strata, it should belong near the middle of 

 the Albirupean formation, and therefore it should be a homologue 

 of the dark member of the clay which occurs in the upper middle 

 portion of the terranes at both Amboy and Woodbridge. The 

 fact should not be forgotten that there are three distinct types of 

 "Variegated Clay," and that these three belong to levels wide 

 apart, and in three different formations, viz , the Potomac, the 

 Albirupean, and the Raritan All these become variegated by 

 disturbance and saturation with iron-bearing waters, while in 

 their unchanged condition they are either lead-coloied or drab. 

 The use of the term "Potomac" in the papers atiove cited was in 

 deference to the usage of Messrs. McGee and Darton, but with the 

 accumulated evidence now present to my mind it dovs not seem 

 likely that the axial clay of Gay Head and Martha's Vineyard can 

 be referred to the " Variegated Clay " of the Potomac formation, 

 as designated by Professor Fontaine and myself. 



