William Taylor Marrs

“ Every State in the Union has at some time been lauded as the favored spot for the cure of consumption, but, after all, it seems as mythical as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Some climates may be better than others for those ill with this disease, but if you are a poor, homesick sufferer—a stranger in a strange land—I doubt whether the best climate on earth can vie with the comforts of home, surrounded by those nearest and dearest to you, and whose kindly administrations [Pg 83] are not to be regarded as a case of “love’s labor lost.”
I returned home “much improved in health.” ”

“ My knowledge of anatomy had betrayed me.
The old doctor then gave me this homely advice, which may or may not be correct. At any rate I never forgot it. He said:—
“You’ve been eating too much and have a little indigestion and stomach-ache. But like thousands of others who have fertile imaginations, you have appendicitis—on the brain. People rarely had this disease thirty years ago. Why should they have it so frequently to-day? Is the human body so radically different from what it was a few years ago? ”

“ It has many times been demonstrated that persons of a susceptible nature can be scared to death. But I don’t care how much assurance I get from scientific sources, I can’t get over the habit of being a little exclusive in regard to uncanny canines.
There is scarcely a disease or a symptom that I ever heard of that has not at some time preyed upon my mind lest I become a victim of it. These fears are hard to throw off or laugh out of existence when once they have become a part of your very being. ”

“ If I did not imagine myself in the actual embrace of some grave physical or mental disease, I feared that something would in the near future attack me; and that brings me to the main topic of this chapter—morbid fears.
These foolish, fanciful and often groundless fears are dignified by the name of “phobias.” A man who is afraid of everything should not [Pg 51] be dubbed a low-down coward—he is simply afflicted with “pantaphobia.” It doesn’t cost a bit more to be scientific and it carries with it more éclat.
Another one of these fears is agoraphobia—the fear of an open space. ”

“ I was supremely happy and looked at life through spectacles different from any I ever had before. Life had a roseate hue that it had never before possessed. Music was sweeter, flowers were prettier and pictures brighter than ever before. I seemed to be walking around in poetry and at the same time living up near heaven. While all this was true, I was at the same time miserable—a sort of ecstatic misery. It took away my appetite, made sleep impossible and filled my life with wavering hopes and fears. ”

“ A neurosis is a nervous symptom of some sort, and if you have a sufficient number and variety of them you are a neurasthenic. If you ever get so that you can move in neurasthenic circles, you will always be foolish about your health and your physical and mental well-being. It is quite common for us to ascribe all our defects to heredity. Poor old, overworked heredity is the dumping-ground for the most of our laziness, perversity and shortcomings! ”

“ One day, when a very good friend was visiting me, I thought I would begin on my course of depravity. The first lesson would be in swearing. When an opportunity presented itself, I uttered a word that I thought was strong enough for an amateur to begin on. It stuck in my throat and nearly choked me. My friend laughed and looked both amused and ashamed. Reader, if you have lived to maturity and never indulged in profanity, you can’t imagine how awkward it will be for you to turn out your first piece of swearing. You can’t do it justice. ”

“ I have since learned that the kidneys are not very sensitive organs and seldom give rise to much pain even in the gravest disease. I read up on kidney affections in the almanacs—oh! what authority!—and as I had about all the symptoms, I thought it best to put myself on the appropriate regimen. I began drinking buttermilk, taking it regularly and in place of water and coffee. I had read that sour milk was also conducive to longevity, and that if one would drink it faithfully he might live to be a hundred years old. ”

“ There is also the fear of a confined area, the fear of a crowd, fear of loss of speech at an inopportune moment, fear of falling buildings, fear of being alone, fear of poison, fear of germs, fears ad nauseam. I have qualified in all of them and taken post-graduate courses.
Another one of these fears I shall speak of and in no spirit of levity. It is too pathetic for pleasantry or jest. It is the fear that you will in some thoughtless moment, when the occasion is most ill-timed, utter some vulgar or profane word. ”

“ A few times in childhood I was scratched by a dog, in consequence of which I stood in mortal fear of hydrophobia. It was a popular belief that the poison of rabies might lie latent in the system and not manifest itself until years after. This belief obtains with many people to-day. The “madstones” in the possession of many credulous people help to perpetuate the fear of this awful disease. As a matter of fact, the madstone is simply a porous rock which may adhere to a warm, moist surface and exert an absorbent action. ”

“ Every year when I begin my course of lectures on the heart the boys call singly and in droves to see me and have my assurance that they have no cardiac lesions. I have never yet found one of them to have a crippled heart. Like you, they all have a slight neurosis, coupled with a self-consciousness, that makes them think the world revolves around them and their little imaginary ailments. ”

“ I visited a few places in this hot southwestern country where it is alleged that consumptives in all stages soon recover and grow fat. I soon learned that these alluring reports should be taken with the usual quantity of saline matter. This boosting of climate for invalids, I found, was mainly the work of land sharks, railroads, hotel and sanitarium people, and a few medical men who were crafty or misguided. This climate may be ideal in being germ-free, but where it is so hot and dry that even germs can’t eke out an existence, it is also a trifle trying on the tender-foot consumptive. ”

“ These little loves are like mumps and whooping-cough and other youthful affections: they seem necessary, but seldom prove serious. Aside from these, I had been proof against the tender passion throughout all that period of my life when, according to the poet, “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” While I was getting on in years the love germ was only sleeping, and when it awakened all the lost time was soon made up. I had always admired the female sex collectively and at a distance, but individually no one had ever entered my life until I met Genevieve. ”

“ At any rate, I have written enough to convince even the most skeptical that the neurasthenic is no ordinary individual. We want the world to know that our little brotherhood is ever entitled to respect—more so than many other cults that become fashionable for a day and then depart from the “earth, earthy.” It is true, we think much about our health and [Pg 114] those measures calculated to retain or regain it, as well as misdirecting energy in our pursuits and pastimes; but, after all, that’s our business! The world should not look on us as being cold and selfish ”

“ After I had described my symptoms, the doctor smiled rather more expansively than was to my liking and said:—
“You may have a little post-nasal catarrh, but I think it is only a neurosis.”
I thought to myself that if it was “only” a neurosis it was one with great possibilities. The fact that collapses are frequent among brain-workers was not easily dismissed from [Pg 25] my mind. I feared insanity and began to picture how I would disport myself in a madhouse. ”

“ Any owner of one of these stones who hires it out should be prosecuted for getting money under false pretense, and then dealt with by the humane societies for engendering morbid and groundless fears.
Scientific men are yet divided on the question as to whether or not hydrophobia is a [Pg 54] bona fide disease, or whether it is only a functional disturbance in which the element of fear predominates. No hydrophobia germ has ever been isolated, and when the doctors these days can’t find a germ to fit a disease, it looks as if there was something wrong. ”

“ I was very fond of coffee, but I read that it was the strongest causative factor in the production of heart disease. In medicine advertisements in the newspapers I [Pg 64] saw men falling dead on the street as a result of heart failure—always the same man, it is true; but that made little difference to me. I cut out both tea and coffee and drank only milk and water. When I got to reading about tuberculous cows and the action of State Boards of Health and public sanitarians in the matter, I became afraid to continue drinking milk. ”

“ I speculated in my childish way, on the function of each organ of my body and the relation it bore to the great scheme which [Pg 13] we call existence. One day I got to wondering what would happen if my heart should take a notion to stop and rest for a few seconds. The thought of such a catastrophe made me so nervous that all my organs apparently got out of gear and I had a diminutive fit. From that day I began to have all sorts of nervous symptoms, most of which were, to say the least, vague and indefinite. ”

“ I began taking syrup of pepsin to artificially digest my food and thus take some of the burden off my stomach. A friendly druggist took sufficient interest in me to inform me that there was not enough pepsin in the ordinary digestive syrups and elixirs to digest a mosquito’s dinner. When asked why this ferment was omitted from such preparations, the druggist confided to me in a whisper: “Pepsin is a drug that costs money, while diluted molasses is cheap.” ”

“ In nearly every room I occupied while in this Mecca for consumptives, the place had been rendered vacant by my predecessor having moved out—in a box. I did not stay in one locality very long, but visited a number of places that were exploited as being the land of promise for all afflicted with this agonizing disease. Everywhere I went I saw hundreds of victims being shorn of their money and deriving meager, if any, benefits. The native consumptives went elsewhere in search of health, it being another case of “green hills far away.” ”

“ Every male reader has been struck by it some time during his boyhood, and it is a healthy ambition of which we need not be ashamed. Yes, I was going to be an acrobat and wear pretty red tights with glittering spangles! It would be nice, too, I thought incidentally, to be near the little lady who wore the pink tights and did such awe-inspiring stunts on the flying-trapeze. The circus sawdust ring and the flapping folds of canvas may lure boys from books and study, but they give us our first ambition to be and to do something. ”

“ Day-dreaming never produces the kind of dream that comes true, and mental speculating is about as useless as indulging in Western mining stock. Well-laid plans are all right, but ideals that you can’t even hope to live up to have no place in life’s calendar. Dabbling with the unattainable is calculated [Pg 24] to sour us on the world and turn the milk of human kindness into buttermilk. ”

“ Once I read that a person by walking three hours a day would in seven years pass a space equivalent to the circumference of the globe. This thought staggered me and I believed there must be something wrong with a fellow who could conceive such a stupendous undertaking. Surely no one would think for a moment of putting it into execution! I also read with stolid indifference of the Herculean feats of labor performed by men known to history. ”

“ I have never since had a symptom of the disease, and somehow I can’t help associating appendicitis with hospitalitis.
[Pg 63]
CHAPTER X. DIETING FOR HEALTH’S SAKE. Next I must say something about my dietetic ventures. I have at one time and another eaten everything and again eschewed everything in the way of diet, all for the sake of promoting health and longevity. I had read somewhere that a man is simply a reflex of what he puts into his stomach, and also that by judicious eating and drinking he may easily live to be one hundred years old. ”

“ While I realized that these advertisements were base lies, gotten up to deceive the sick, or those who think they are sick, and to take their money in exchange for dope that was worse than useless, yet the diabolical wording of those sentences affected me in a queer and inexplicable way. The psychologist would, perhaps, call this a subconscious influence. When a person gets the disease idea rooted deeply in his mind, as I had it, he is kept busy watching for new symptoms. It is no trouble [Pg 32] at all to get some new disease on the very shortest notice. ”

“ Some of the churches denounced dancing and card-playing in no unmeaning terms, while others gave holy sanction to card-parties and charity balls. Some churches were bound down by certain rigid rules which they called creeds; others were very much opposed to these. For every belief there was an “anti.”
Under such conditions as these it was a big undertaking to try to sift the wheat from a mountain of chaff and become enthusiastic in one’s devotion to State and Church. Why should there be such a state of chaos on matters of the most vital importance? Is human nature not sincere? ”