THE “BLUES.”

Grey River Argus, 3 November 1928, Page 6

THE “BLUES.”

The majority of people attach too much importance to their feelings.” writes the medical correspondent of the Tinies Trade and Engineering Supplement. “If they are depressed, for example, they foresee calamity not only to their own houses but to the nation and even the civilisation to which they happen to belong. If they are cheerful the future glows with promise. Exac/ly the same facile acceptance of what our emotions choose to offer us is usual when illness threatens or arrives. The majority of mon meet a cold in the head with gloomy forebodings of bronchitis with, pneumonia to follow. “It is the fashion now to talk about th e great influence which the mind wields over the body, and to belittle the influence which• the body wields over the mind. The new fashion, though its adherents pretend that it 'strips reality bare’, is, in fact, a subtle form of self-glorification. “We all lik e to believe that our great and throbbing emotions are able to make this mortal flesh their poor slave. The idea that out exquisite melancholy is occasioned only by a bilious attack is far less attractive. “No doubt the mind does influence the body greatly; only a very dull person would deny that. But the probability is. nevertheless. that the body influences the mind much more and much more frequently. It is merely foolish to worry about one’s feelings if one has had a late night or has become the victim of a cold in the head or sees yellow spots before one’s eyes. fi “It is well to keep this fact firmly in mind, for it is a fact which when recognised, saves one from many a foolish word or even deed. Let the/ wise repeat, when dark emotions assail

them: “I am ill- I am Hit of sorts. Nothing which I feel to-day has any kind of significance. I will wait til] to-morrow or the next day before I allow myself to fret.’

“An attitude of that sort would save quite half of all the nedless worry with which our world is vexed, and it would without doubt, facilitate the business of the world and nrake its home-life happier.

“For the mi-chief is that the bilious man or woman demands that he or she shall be treated as a normal, nonbilious man or woman. The whole healthy world must put on jaundiced spectacles to keep bilious people in countenance.

“From that simple fact outbursts of temper innumerable proceed every day; on that fact those domestic martyrdoms which inflict such wretchedness on all except the martyr are

founded. “Let it be added that it tak fe a brave doctor to tell a patient who has surrendered himself to his feelings that it is only his liver \<hicb is out of order. ♦ “One can sometimes 'walk oi>’ a lit of the blues just as effect: W-* l ' one can emetines ‘walx eff’ a cjt 1 or a bi'itus attack”.