HERO’S FEARS

Evening Star, Issue 20022, 13 November 1928, Page 1

HERO’S FEARS

"NERVES 11 IN THE NAVY Tho tribulations of nervous people ami jho signilicauce of nervous disease in iml>.try were matters dealt with by Dr Millais Culpin, lecturer on psycho-neuroses at Urn London Hospital Medical College, addressing the men and women delegates lo llm ninth annual conference of the Industrial Welfare Society lit Balliol College, Oxford (says Die ‘Sunday Times’). Exploding the theory that nervous break- . downs are caused by bard work, Dr Culpin declared that the words “overwork” and “overstrain” lefcrrcd not to work, but lo the reaction of the subject toward it. “ 1 do not suggest that wo should not eliminate overwork, worry, monotony, and noise; (hoy arc disagreeable tilings, and serve as pegs upon which the nervous subject hangs ills symptoms. But there is no evidence that occupations in which these factors play a part show a higher nervous sick rate than others, and there is at. least some evidence in the contrary direction. 11 In a. test arranged by (he Industrial Fatigue Research Board he had interviewed over 1,000 workers in various occupations to learn something about nervous illness in industry. The number of people in whom lie found no nervous symptoms win less than 50 pip' cent, of the whole, while from 5 per cent, to 10 per cent, were seriously in need of treatment.

In this “nervy” world of ours, to iw Dr Oulpin’s pbra-r, a man may be afraid to cross a field, yet deal calmly and courageously with real danger. Lois of people did not. like, to.be near cows, but if wo abolished cows wc should not . abolish nervous people bv one unit. Those who got the aspirin habit were usually nervous people. • The amount of m, rvousne.-s in Die Navy was fairly high, (.specially in (be higher ranks, Dr Culpin declared. An efficient typist could do her work with concent ration while thinking of her last week-end and her newest hat. .Many people nurse, as weak hearts organs that were only emotionally disturbed. If they eliminate nervousness entirely they might wipe out some of the great inventors and discoverers. One nervous man gave up chess because of an obsession so to arrange himself in relation to other people that their relative positions formed lim knight's move. Every nervous ease, said Dr Culpin. was a special problem, and wo were, faced with the difficulty Dial, while the nervous subject might lie unable to work on account of bis symptoms, if the escape from effort were made too easy, whether by sick pay or compensation, we might 1 perpetuate the (rouble in the individual and increase it in Die mass. Miners’ nystagmus, in his opinion, belonged- to (his-Hass, and it. bad increased alarmingly ’of. late years. Dr Culpin ‘said (hat, the welfare worker might be in a belter position to help in common cases of nervous diners than' the-! doctor. 1; • - - • ]

’Replying to a delegate Vim7asked about the effeetE, of drugs on nervous diseases, Or Culpin said that, with the exception of “a few scallywags” around Leicester square «ho took cocaine, the drug addict was a person entitled to sympathy.