MONKEYS AND NERVES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 13

MONKEYS AND NERVES.

A USEFUL ANALOGY. MARRIED PEOPLE’S TIFFS. Most of the nervous problems that confront the modern physician, declares Dr G. V. Hamilton, an American nerve specialist, can be solved by a study of the behaviour of apes. Dr Hamilton, who is director of psychobiological tesearch at the American Bureau of Social Hygiene, has reached this conclusion after maintaining his own monkey village in California. . ' “Men and women,” he explains, “have been trained by the exigencies of civilisation to cover their natural with layer after layer of disguise. It is accordingly very difficult to defect the real Individual beneath the cloak. A monkey, on the other hand, is nothing less than a human being acting on first impulse and wearing no mask or dress. “I am frequently puzzled by some neurotic patient who is worrying himself or herself ill over some personal, baffling situation. I lean back, on these occasions, in my consulting room chair, shut my eyes, end say to myself: ‘How would kevs react to an analogous situation?’ MANY VARIETIES. Dr Hamilton’s monkey village was in a live oak grove at Montecito, and had a population of 23 apes and monkeys of both sexes, many varieties, and all sizes. “Monkeys are affectionate, emotional, restless, and intensely curious,” be says. “They are gregarious, cowardly, and impulsive. They love attention, strut, boast, and quarrel without any restraint. Like human beings, monkeys are good at bluffing. A monkey cannot stand the feeling of inferiority any more than a man. ad ha is as skilful as a human being in per•Mding. himself that he is a fine fellow aH*r all. “Two monkeys—who mate voluntarily—become terribly weary of each other’s company after a time when shut up in a cage together,” continues Dr Hamilton. _ “The husband; just like his human cousin in many cases, tries to create a diversion by quarrelling with his wife, biting her, pinching her, and pulling her eyelids until she squeals. A passionate reconciliation follows, but soon they are fighting again. “The craving for a variety of stimulation,” adds Dr Hamilton, ‘‘is one of the most important traits common to monkeys and human beings. A monkey shut up and deprived of the opportunity for new enjoyments mopes just as human beings do. VAGUE LONGING. “I found, while making a survey of nervous illness among the farmers in the Mississippi valley, that, during the winter and early spring months, when the roads are impassable, the farmers, their wives, and their adolescent children are all likely to complain of morning weakness, inner tension, digestive troubles, and a vague longing for something they cannot define. “Women in all walks of life also suffer a great deal when the vague craving for variety is thwarted, and this thwarting is too frequently the cause of the nervousness of which complaint is" made. The craving to create is the outcome of the craving for varied stimulation, and leads in man to arts and inventions. I found traces of this craving to create among my monkeys. “Skirrel, who was especially brainy, stole a hammer, nails, a toy saw, and some hits of wood, actually drove the nails point down info the wood and partly sawed through the wood, all on his own initiative. Nora, an ourang-utang, who came to the village in the rainy season, and suffered from the cold, folded and shaped a piece of burlap from a pile which I threw in her cage into a sort of Grecian gown, which she wore, doing the same thing later with an old coat that was given to her.'.'-