972 
V* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 30, 1921 
| HOPE FARM NOTES 
I am reading a book entitled “Outwit¬ 
ting Our Nerves.” If you are fond of 
long words, here is another title for it: 
“A Primer of Psychotherapy.” Take your 
choice. The book is an excellent study of 
nervous people and the reasons why their 
“nerves” gain mastery over them. I pre¬ 
sume all of us can be said to be more or 
less nervous.. Each is a possible neurotic. 
This is not, apparently, so much a disease 
of the body as a mental trouble. Most of 
us who are “nervous” must have a form 
of re-education—that is, have the mind 
and its mental processes made over and 
set to working at something that will car¬ 
ry ufc away from our own troubles. What 
is known as psychotherapy is the treat¬ 
ment by mental measures, and without 
question it has cured many mental dis¬ 
orders and put “nerves” to rights. There 
has arisen within the past few years a 
close study of the human emotions. What 
is responsible for them, and how can they 
be directed or controlled? There is noth¬ 
ing of the fake or fraud about this—the 
study is based upon the latest knowledge 
of human anatomy and the functions of 
the bodily organs. 
***** 
Tears ago, when I was a boy, people 
died of tuberculosis, but the disease was 
not fully understood. I used to see pa¬ 
tients far gone with the disease sitting by 
the stove in the kitchen where all the food 
was cooked, and where all the family 
gathered for warmth. They never would 
open a window to let in the fresh air in 
those days, and they kept the sunshine 
out by pulling down the shades. No 
wonder the consumptive never recovered; 
no wonder entire families were swept 
away. Through all the years since then 
scientific men have been searching out 
the true history and character of the dis¬ 
ease. That has led to the discovery of 
methods of prevention or treatment. To¬ 
day the disease is curable in its earlier 
stages, and before many years it will be 
less common than smallpox or typhoid. I 
can remember in my youth how people 
laughed at the attempts of scientific in¬ 
vestigation or control of tuberculosis, but 
the work went on. Now we can all look 
about us and see men and women who are 
the victims of nervous troubles. With 
some it would be rather hard to tell just 
where they stej) over the line into insan¬ 
ity. Others are victims of fear or melan¬ 
choly, conceit, and other troubles. They 
are not normal, though it would be diffi¬ 
cult to find anything wrong with their 
physical organs. It is a case of “nerves.” 
They are controlled by their emotions, 
without full power of self-restraint. Now, 
as was the case with the study of tuber¬ 
culosis years ago, efforts are being made 
to study these nervous cases so as to find 
some sure method of treating them. 
***** 
Human life and its action from day to 
day seems to be guided by fundamental 
instincts. What the psychologists call an 
“instinct” is said to be “a gift from our 
ancestors.” For instance, all through the 
struggle for existence, men as well as ani¬ 
mals have been obliged to feed themselves, 
to run from danger, to fight if need be, 
to herd together, and do other things. 
This has gone on so long that we have 
come to do these things instinctively, 
without knowing just why we do them. 
And each instinct is controlled or pushed 
on by an emotion—such as hunger, fear, 
disgust, wonder or anger. It is therefore 
through the control of our emotions that 
we mark our course through the world. 
Extremely nervous people have lost more 
or less of this control. Their “cure” con¬ 
sists in readjusting living and thinking 
so as to win that control back. Speaking 
of fear, for example, one writer says: • 
“Perhaps the most striking difference 
between man and animal lies in the 
greater control which man has gained 
over his. primitive instinctive reactions.” 
For instance, take the emotion of 
anger. Most of us have seen timid crea¬ 
tures or feeble men, who with ordinary 
emotions would run from danger, when 
driven to bay, suddenly turn in fury and 
fight desperately. They seem to be sud¬ 
denly gifted with wonderful strength and 
courage—something entirely new to their 
nature. The entire body seems changed. 
***** 
And, indeed, it is changed. Dr. Jacks 
son. in the book I am reading, shows that 
under the emotion of fear or anger, what 
^he calls the “internal laboratories” of 
the body secrete certain chemicals. The 
suprarenal glands, or adrenals, just over 
the kidneys, and the thyroid gland in the 
neck, pour their secretions into the blood 
and the body responds. “Blood pressure 
rises; brain cells speed up; the liver 
pours forth glycogen, sweat glands send 
forth perspiration to regulate temperature 
and blood is pumped from the interior or¬ 
gans to the exterior muscles.” Most of us 
who “get mad” and feel an intense de¬ 
sire to fight or tear something apart have 
no idea what is going on in these little 
“laboratories.” The blood is flooded with 
substances which must be worked off in 
some sort of combat, or the body will 
suffer. It is far better to go out and fight 
the woodpile or to run a mile, and the 
ability to do this rather than get into a 
fight or whip the children without cause 
is one of the things which the new school 
of mental treatment hopes to give us. 
***** 
There is, of course, no new thing under 
the sun, and for many years men have 
realized the need of self-control or power 
over the emotions without understanding 
psychology or even being able to spell it. 
Years ago I worked for a farmer who hat 
trouble with his neighbor. They were 
both good men, and had lived neighbors 
for years, but one day they fell out in 
great fury. I never did know what it was 
all about. The first thing we knew one 
noon I looked out of the shed and saw the 
boss pulling his coat and climbing over 
the fence, where Neighbor Harlow hat 
his coat off and was spitting on his hands 
so as to bold his fists together. I starter 
on the run, and the woman of the house 
threw her apron over her head and fol¬ 
lowed. Harlow’s hired man and wife 
came, too, and the four of us got there to¬ 
gether. _ The boss and Neighbor Harlow 
had clinched and were down on the 
ground rolling—both wild animals in 
their anger. I am sorry that in those 
days I could not tell them how the liver, 
adrenals and thyroid were pouring secre¬ 
tions into the blood! It wouldn’t have 
done any good. These kindly and honest 
men had gone back to their wild ancestors 
in spirit. It was a clear case of the emo¬ 
tions playing wild games with instinct. 
Harlow’s hired man was loyal to his 
boss, and he proposed that we make it a 
four-handed fight, but I suggested that we 
act as forcible peacemakers. He was 
agreeable to anything, and with the aid of 
the women we separated the fighters and 
led them home. Neither one was burt in 
body, but both were badly bruised in 
spirit. Both knew they had no business 
to be fighting an old friend and neighbor, 
and as members of the church and promi¬ 
nent citizens—why, they were in bad bus¬ 
iness and both knew it. 
***** 
The boss could not eat any dinner. His 
wife asked him to go over to Harlow’s 
and say he was sorry, but the man stub¬ 
bornly refused. 
“He was in the wrong; let him come 
first,” and over at Harlow’s just the same 
dialogue was being spoken. Both men 
were ugly and dull and full of a strange 
uneasiness. The modern scientist would 
have told them that the emotion of anger 
had filled their system with “glycogen, 
adrenalin and thyroid secretions,” but 
that wouldn’t have done them any good. 
After dinner the boss walked out of the 
house, silent and sullen. He picked up 
an ax at the shed, and without a word 
walked up the lane toward the wood. I 
watched him stamp his way up the hill, 
and I can tell you that the thyroid extract 
and the rest of them showed in every step 
he took! I was working around the 
house, and in about an hour Harlow’s 
hired man came to the fence and called 
me. I went over to him. 
“There’s something going on over the 
hill. Your boss went over there with an 
ax, and a little later my boss followed 
with another ax. I’ll bet they never 
would hurt each other with their fists, but 
it’s different with an ax. None of our 
business what the boss does, but what say 
to finding out what they’re up to?” 
I was agreeable, and we walked up the 
lane on an investigating tour. The two 
farms joined, and right back of them was 
Seymour Brown’s woods. We got to the 
fence and I was just climbing over when 
Harlow’s hired man pulled me back and 
pointed off to the right. There, sitting 
side by side on a log, were the boss and 
Neighbor Harlow. Fighting or quarrel¬ 
ing? Not a bit of it. As the hired man 
said, “If they had been girls they’d a’ 
had their arms around each other.” There 
wasn’t a thing for us to do but sneak back 
to work, and along toward night the two 
farmers came down the lane with all the 
thyroid secretion and the rest of the 
angi-y poison worked out of their systems. 
***** 
What happened? The boss knew he 
had no business to show such anger at 
his neighbor, but somehow he could not 
get over it. You see, he had to work that 
thyroid secretion, etc., out of his system. 
It seems that Seymour Brown had taken 
a contract for railroad ties, but now he 
lay sick abed and could not work. The 
boss did not know it, but in his mind and 
body a mighty struggle was going on. The 
animal instinct coming down to him from 
wild ancestors urged him to go and renew 
the fight with his neighbor. All his 
Christian faith and habits of the gentle¬ 
man told him not to do it. Then he 
thought of Seymour Brown losing his con¬ 
tract because those ties were not cut, and 
still sullen and fighting against his in¬ 
stinct, he forced himself up the hill and 
into Brown’s woods, where he started <o 
cut ties for the sick man. And the fight 
against those trees worked the poison out 
until a great peace fell upon him. Sud¬ 
denly he heard the sound of chopping in 
another part of the wood. Perhaps some¬ 
one was stealing Brown’s timber! He 
went over to catch the possible thief, and 
f Continued on page 979) 
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