WEAR AND TEAR OF MODERN LIFE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3602, 16 April 1886, Page 3

WEAR AND TEAR OF MODERN LIFE.

|: L . • , : ♦ A London physician -m large practice has ' been • calling pnblio attention, m tho pages of tho Fortnightly Rcviexo, to tho wear and tear of modern life among tho professional and trading classes, especially m the city with which he is boaf> acquainted, although it is equally groat m New York, Paris, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Melbourne, and 'm nil great centres of intellectual and commercial aotivity. ' Human existence ' m each of these is no longer a measured' march, but a rapid race. It leaves little time for rest and none for reflection. Our minds and bodies are like so" many engines, with _ the furnaces always alight and the machinery always working under high pressure. Now and then it breaks down, and, as we hoar of this or that person being' carried off by -apoplexy or disabled by paj-alysis, we. pause, for a moment, to utter expression of compassion or borrow, and then resume the wild gallop m vihich he participated,. and : , by '. which ■he suffered. ' Qiir very recreations, .as Dr Roose points' out, belie the. epithet. They are pursued with such energy that they become very . hard work. Even the "duties of^ society" performed by women, whose circumstances exempt them ..from the necessity ' of making any other exertions, are laborious m the extreme, and the. wear and tear .of fashionable life is responsible for ' a disease— ■ neurdfts— which was unknown ,m former times. Worse than all, insanity is rapidly on the increase, especially ib Victoria, ns shown by Mr Hayter's Year 'Book, from whioh we take the following figures : — i

In 1861 there was one lunatic in every 819 poMOUfI | In 1871 do. do. 32J do. 11l 1881 _ do. do. 304 do. _ Now, BUBtained mental exoitement and tension must bo reckoned cmong the predisposing causes of lunacy, and tlio stages by which it is arrived at are thus described by Dr Kooso : — Want of tone, sleeplessness, indigestion and loss of appetite, derangement of the heart, and hypochondriasis. When this haß been reached, he observes. " tho " border lands of insanity are within " measurable distance, even if thoy have " not already been reached." Surely this is an exorbitant price to pay for a questionable advantage, be the same a material fortune, which the mater of it does not live to enjoy, or some form of distinction, which can certainly be of no value to the occupant of a email freehold in the cemetery. Dr Rooae's recommendation that wo should avail ourselves of intervals of rest and thankfulness may well receive the serious attention of all thoßO upon whom tho wear and tear of modern lifo 19 telling most prejudicially. — Argus. For remainder of News see Fourth Paye.