Charles David Musgrove

“ It is simply astonishing what a difference exercise, either outdoor or indoor, makes to those who carry it out systematically. After a few weeks pale, languid people begin to acquire a healthy colour and a sense of vigour they have never known for years; dyspeptic ones may forget that they ever had a stomach; whilst headaches that have been a curse for years are sometimes seen to disappear like magic. Life becomes brighter, for health and happiness go together, and the whole outlook becomes more cheering. ”

“ We are recommended to persuade ourselves that there is no season in the whole year so acceptable as the one that is just commencing—no beauty like that of spring, no glory like that of summer, no time so welcome as autumn with its dying splendours. And when winter comes we can look forward to the delights of the cosy fireside, so much more sociable than the long, garish days of summer. Instead of which, too many of us dread the heat and the cold and a good many other things, that are never so bad when they come as we think they are going to be. ”

“ There are some dwellings in which the air always feels dead; there is a staleness about it which offends our nostrils the moment we cross the threshold. The doors and windows are kept closed, and the whole house reeks of the accumulated poison from the lungs of those who have lived beneath its roof. ”

“ I have dealt at considerable length with this question of diet, simply because it has such an important bearing on the subject of breakdowns. There is no single path that leads to breakdowns, the way thither is rather a tangled maze of paths, along which people stumble blindly until they suddenly find themselves at an impasse. Yet the point at which they first left the high road of health consists in most cases of a mistake or series of mistakes in regard to their food and the manner in which they take it. ”

“ It is not hard, as a rule, to convince people that they are committing errors of diet, or getting too little fresh air; but it is very different when we come to deal with these other matters. Few people like to be told that they should take more exercise, or rouse themselves to show more interest in things outside their ordinary routine of work. It sounds like an accusation of indolence.
Yet such resentment is slight compared with that of the men or women who have to be warned that they are wasting their energies by restlessness and worry or lack of recreation. ”

“ Worry and anxiety are the common lot of mankind, at any rate in this age of stress and competition. Yet it is not the common cares of life which have a detrimental effect on the human system, but this useless, exaggerated vexation of spirit. When a man has lost the power of leaving his worries behind him, it is time that he began to take heed, for sooner or later they will affect his work. If he allows himself to drift, wasting his energies by futile struggling against his own disabilities, his mental faculties will begin to show signs of wear and tear. ”

“ A certain statesman, well endowed with this world’s goods, has been known to say that even when he is out of office and on a holiday, he finds it necessary to his personal comfort to study hard for at least two or three hours each day, otherwise his nerves and his heart begin to trouble him. And while making due allowance for patriotism and sense of duty, there is no doubt that many men who do not need to work for a living take up work of some sort or other, politics, the army, or whatever else takes their fancy, because they feel vastly better for having something definite to do. ”

“ Most human beings, in civilised countries at any rate, have something the matter with them—a weak digestion, tendency to sore throats or colds, or a predisposition to ailments of one sort or another.
Yet the fact that most people suffer from illness is no reason for calling it a natural condition. It is health that is natural; illness is an anomaly. Medical men themselves are the first to recognise the truth of this statement. Animals as a rule are sound and vigorous so long as they are in a wild state. It is only when they are in captivity that they become delicate. ”

“ It is a pitiable sight to see numbers of people wandering about a seaside resort on a damp, chilly day, looking cold and miserable, simply because they think it their duty to dress in flannels while they are on a holiday. ”

“ It is always a pity to spoil the good effect of a holiday by returning home at the last possible minute, late at night it may be. Better lose half a day of the vacation than get up next morning to resume work tired out and utterly unfit for it. For this will rob the holiday of those pleasant recollections which are one of its greatest boons. ”

“ It does not follow that a patient has been living luxuriously because he is suffering from habitual dyspepsia. It is not uncommon to hear people say that they cannot understand why they should be so afflicted, as their diet had been of the plainest. Bacon and dry bread, with toast and marmalade to follow, sounds rational enough in all conscience. But if the bacon is badly fried and swimming in fat, the bread new, and the toast hot and soaked in butter, it is not surprising that people feel wretched and uncomfortable for the rest of the morning. ”

“ The lamentable part about breakdowns is the fact that they attack those who can least be spared. It is not the clodhopper, the navvy or the labourer, the careless or the incompetent, who suffer from them. On the contrary, we meet with them among skilled workmen, business men of the greatest ability, professional men of the highest acumen and experience. The former can be replaced, whilst these others have carved a niche for themselves which no one else can fill.
It is the natures of finest fibre which accomplish the most, and it is they who are most liable to give way beneath the strain. ”

“ Punctuality at meals is absolutely essential for the maintenance of good health. The stomach gets into the habit of secreting its digestive juices at certain times, as meals fall due. If it does not meet with the food it has come to act upon, it will seize upon the stomach wall and cause pain and a nauseous sense of sinking. And these sensations will probably be followed by a headache, for the gastric juice, which is one of our vital agents, is nothing less than an irritant poison if it has no work to do. It is like a man loitering about an office or workshop when trade is slack. ”

“ No matter whether the weak spot be in the man’s own system or in his mode of life, Nature will find it out as surely as the arrow found the heel of Achilles. It is on his weak points that he must stand or fall; it is in these that the strain will manifest itself, in other words, that the breakdown will appear. ”

“ The yokel if he feels inclined for a sleep lies down and takes it just as the dumb creatures do. And many a man of education and refinement has envied the tramp his siesta in the roadside ditch. He would give anything to be able to get a rest like that whenever he wanted it. His delicately-balanced nervous system needs repose far more than that of the tramp or the peasant. Yet, instead of submitting to lie dormant, it is his nervous system which keeps him awake. It is like a fractious child, which will neither go to sleep nor allow its parents to get their rest. ”

“ Either because they do not know, or do not care, they prefer to leave their health to look after itself. They call it trusting to Nature. And when they see other people studying the best way to be strong and well, they call them cranks and faddists.
There is a vast difference, however, between the faddist and the genuine health-seeker. The individual who thinks the world is going to be saved by eating brown bread or any other article of diet, regardless of the fact that what agrees with one may upset another, is nothing short of a nuisance. ”

“ The human system is much like a motor-car, in that it consists of a vast number of parts acting in unison. Yet it is infinitely more wonderful, for it is much more complicated, and can create its own supply of energy. It is made, roughly speaking, of a framework of bone and muscle, a delicately-adjusted alimentary system, whereby it takes in and assimilates food, and of a circulatory apparatus which drives blood and nourishment to all parts of the body. It contains also a nervous system, compared with which these other parts are crude, mechanical contrivances. ”

“ At the very time when, by the experience he has gained, his years of greatest usefulness stretch before him, he is cut off, incapacitated by nervous debility.
And it is not only men who go through this experience; the same may befall women. Often has it happened that a woman has devoted herself so assiduously to the care of her family, regardless of her own disturbed meals and broken rest, that just when her children needed her most of all—and that is when they were growing up—her strength has failed her and she has become an invalid. ”

“ A man who has nothing special to worry him, and who if any difficult position arose would face it without flinching, will brood over his affairs during the hours of a sleepless night until he has created troubles enough to last him for the rest of his life. His business may be running like [Pg 32] clockwork, but before morning he will have convinced himself that he is on the road to the workhouse. A good night’s rest, a brisk walk, even a cup of tea will work wonders in a careworn man or woman, who has almost come to the conclusion that life was not worth living. ”

“ A hobby has been the means of the beginning of many a lifelong friendship. And a congenial friendship is the best remedy for the headaches and heartaches and soulaches with which lonely people are so often afflicted, to the detriment of their nervous systems.
For those who wish to cultivate some hobby to act as an evening pastime, and give the mind its needed rest, it is important to choose one that is a contrast to their daily occupation. If they work with their brains all day, they should take up some pursuit that involves manual exercise. ”

“ And change is rest. There is nothing more wearying to a mind that is tired and yet strung up than for any man or woman to sit gazing moodily at the fire, fretting their nervous systems with the worries that should have been left behind. Recreation is as indispensable to health as food itself.
A fascinating novel, a pleasant game or an absorbing hobby will afford the wearied brain its much-needed relaxation. ”

“ Work as mental exercise.
Work affords systematic exercise for the mind, and a mind to be healthy needs exercise as much as the body does. Why is it, then, that if work is indispensable to our bodily welfare from a health point of view we all look forward so eagerly to the time when we can retire and [Pg 157] leave it behind us? Yet that seems to be the goal towards which we are most of us striving. And it is an aimless one, unless a man has some pursuit by means of which he can use and enjoy his years of leisure, some absorbing hobby or public work of one sort or other. ”

“ In speaking of butcher’s meat, we pointed out that less of this is necessary in the case of people approaching middle age. The same remark applies, though not with the same urgency perhaps, to food of all sorts. As people grow older the system loses some of its power of throwing off the residue of waste matter, and it is of vital importance, therefore, that people should exercise even more care and discrimination than at any previous period in their lives.
Yet as a rule they tend to eat more rather than less. And the consequent strain upon the system is the starting-point of many a breakdown. ”

“ Apart from sunshine, fresh air has a potent influence on health. We all pine for fine holidays, and no doubt they do us more good, in addition to being more enjoyable, than wet ones. Yet it is amazing how much better people look after even a rainy holiday at the seaside or country. The rest from the worries of business and so forth has something to do with it, but I firmly believe that half the benefit is due to the fact that when people are on a holiday they spend the greater part of their time in the open air. ”

“ And in this case, as in all those of people whose lives and movements are limited owing to some physical weakness, if they have no such pursuits to brighten their lives, the incessant worrying and brooding are very liable to result in neurasthenia, which is the half-way house to breakdowns.
And for those of my readers who still retain the priceless gift of health, and wish to retain it, a hobby is better than all the riches in the world. It is independent of riches, too, for anyone can cultivate it, the poor as easily as the wealthy. ”

“ And when human beings live in houses that are not fresh and wholesome they are constantly inhaling dust and fusty smells, which act as a slow, subtle poison and lower the vitality of the various tissues of the body. It is so gradual that they may not notice it, until at last something gives way, and after that the downward tendency becomes comparatively rapid. When the cataclysm occurs, they date it from the day when the first crack, if we may call it so, appeared. Rather should they look back to the long years spent in an unhealthy atmosphere within their own homes. ”

“ Influenza comes like a bolt from the blue, attacking its victims with disconcerting suddenness. To be sure, breakdowns may appear, in many cases at least, to come in a fell swoop; but what seems so abrupt and unlooked for is usually the climax to a long-continued process [Pg 5] of undermining, like the collapse of a house, which has succumbed to the ravages of time. Yet the events which have led up to it may have been spread over a large number of years.
The nature of a breakdown. ”

“ When you come to analyse that statement, it is found to imply more than the strength to endure the enervating atmosphere of the House or the tedium of long sittings. It means that if a man is well and strong he is able to seize every opportunity of speaking, or otherwise showing his capabilities and making use of them. Good health is not merely a valuable asset in itself, it unlocks the door of all the other faculties. ”

“ Cut the nerves that go to a limb, and the finest muscles in the world are as helpless as the meat in a butcher’s shop. Deprive the heart of its nerve supply for a single minute, and it will never beat again.
Yet we pay vastly more attention to a weak [Pg 22] heart, as it is called, or still more so to a broken leg, than we do to a threatened failure in the nervous system, which outweighs them all in importance. Once that has got out of order, the driving power is gone. Not only the heart and muscles, but every other faculty we possess loses its energy and usefulness. ”

“ But when their nervous system shows signs of damage, they lose their sense of contentment just as the others lose their flow of vivacity.
All these are the premonitory signs of a breakdown, and if they are neglected the crash may come. The man finds that he cannot face his work, the woman is unable to carry out her duties in the home. Life becomes dark and void, and all that made it worth living seems to have gone.
Then too often they are assailed by the worst dread of all, the fear that they will lose their reason. ”

“ It happens not uncommonly that after doing this people fall asleep as soon as they lie down again.
The aimless wandering of the mind from one subject to another and back again may be prevented by repeating a piece of poetry to oneself. Needless to say, it must be something with which we are thoroughly acquainted, otherwise the effort to remember what is coming next will of itself prove a barrier to sleep. ”