BRAIN AND BODY:

Otago Witness, Issue 2426, 12 September 1900, Page 69

BRAIN AND BODY:

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IN SOCIAL LIFE. By Andrew Wilsox, M.D. London : James Bowden. (Reviewed by Dinorxis.) Dr Andrew Wilson is a man of topics — many of them. A professorship of things in particular would, I think, bs an admirable appointment for him. He is always genial, chatty, and instructive, in a superior, yet withal pleasant, style of his own. He has attained to the art of being newsy and familiar without damage to literary excellence or lessening of practical value. "Brain and Body" is a worthy addition to the list of achievements in the making of little books of undeniably useful character. My shelf contains volumes of his earlier works of a more solidly scientific cast, but certainly nothing more entertaining than the present volume.. Many a reader will have slipped along to the last page and have acquired an excellent idea ot the nervous system and its trials -and- troubles before perceiving that he has been reading anything scientific, Dr Wi son's pills are nicely sugared, but they are good pills. His words should be read by a very large proportion of all those who have mental work to do. Some such ihera are who don't need this book, but they ore few. The nervous system is, perhaps, the worsttreated department of our bodily organisation, but vague ignorance renders tha fact so unnotieeabie that reform is never dreamt of. Yet "the nervous system is really king of ' our kingdom, and. its work for good or evil in oui history is, beyond compare, far greater than that exhibited hr aiv other series ot organs included in cur bodily belongings." Dr Wilson has^ a good word to say for several things tliat cranks for ever gibe &t — as, rightly used, he has a loving wcrd for the "weed. ' He repels attacks made by "anti-tobacco societies and other organisations, which chiefly seem to exist for the purpose of preventing other people from doing as they vjl ease m a rational way, and of enjoying the good gift which. Nature has provided for the use of man. . . . Tobacco ■ posse&sss an eminently social side, and the man who smokej, and enjoys his pipe or cigar, is, all things considered, perhaps a more amiable animal than one who has renounced what he is pleased to call these vanities of ths flesh." - Addressing himself mainly to "brain■workers," his chapters embody much sensible * r dvice and blandly persuasive admonition that should agree quite well with heaps 3f us wlis- are but little given to overworking our biains. His passages descriptive of the nervous system, its work, and methods of wort are admirable, his bantering, yet keen, showing up of quack alleged remedies equally so. The "potent pill" is potent only in the' promise made for it. The thing is to substitute order and reason foi their opposites in our daily lives, but il the trouble has gone too far, then tte physician must have the situation handed over to him in its entirety. Dr Wilson proposes to save us from going to the physician by showing us how to prevent matters from coining " to the undesirable climax of mental breakdown. To a great many readers his book will be a sort of revelation, and it certainly should, if only a tithe of the -knowledge and wisdom contained in it /is applied, do a lot of good. He is of those who would affect a half cure to begin with by cheerfully proceeding to prove that the sufferer was really not more theu half as far gone as he himself imagined. The rest he would do with comparative ease by judicious changes in the patient's diet, habits, and — well, let us say, his tipple. Like "that good, rural parson wbo always cut his morning sermon short, "because, sir, I would not 'between any man and his Sunday dinner," the ' doctor would not stand between any man and the enjoyment of his pipe, cigar, or glass of whisky. • Ths thing is to be moderate, cleanly and mannerly in the use of these things. Of "drinking" and its worse than bestial aspects, nothing need be said, but of the man who trots out his cigarette case at the dinner table it is not too late to say a word, and that word should be, "suppress him." The author has a good work to say for some other things — Bovril, and Fry's Cocoa, and so on. The only time I tried the first named it ssemed to taste very "wei-sh." He has a bad word for some other things, the "patent medicine. craze" coming in for some gentlß satire. In regard to a few points of minor importance, I am not in agreement with the author's statements. His comparison of woman and her nervous system with man and his (pp. 102-3) seems to me^to reverse the actual facts of the case, to some extent at least. But this does not, in my eyes, at all impair the value of this clever, cheerful, and instructive booklet. I particularly like Dr . Wilson's remarks upon '"Lobbies" in his closing chapter. Hobbies are the antithesis of vices, and the pity is that as such they are le.°s recognised than they deserve to be. This little book is both instructive and entertaining, and deserves to have a wide circulation.