Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] SATURDAY. DECEMBER 14, 1907 NERVES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 8940, 14 December 1907, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] SATURDAY. DECEMBER 14, 1907 NERVES.

Our nerves are sometimes our. best friends, and occasionally our worst enemies. Treated well, they are a source of almost unlimited power; it is only when they are starved and overworked that they punish their owners. There was a time when, in society, "nerves" were fashionable. It was a correct thing for women to be a little hysterical, or to affect an undue sensitiveness. The old lady who thanked God that she was born before nerves came into fashion belonged to the earlier period of the nineteenth century. Now-a-days feminine fashion takes the form of athletic exercise, and a girl who professed to be nervous would be laughed at.

There are abstruse medical works which describe with great minuteness the nervous system and its ramifications, but we do nob trouble much about these. Are they not the special domain of medical experts, who are wont, according to Punch, to order a patieut a long sea voyage, when he has just completed a trip round the world? Wβ recall a number of men we have known as victims to nervous breakdown, and the first point that strikes us is that they have usually been thin men. The fat man, as a rule, possesses fairly good nervesnerves good enough to keep him fat; but the thin man is at a disadvantage. We have found the thin man usually to be an active person, who uses up too much nerve power iv his ordinary profession or business, and has not got enough left to put on flesh. The trouble seems to be that his nerves want feeding, and he might just as well feed them in his own home as on the other side of the globe.

The present sultry weather is a little trying for nervous people. Fifty years ago such nerve-invalids used to be sent to some warm climate; now it is found that a cold bracing air suits them better. We remember one pioneer Wairarapa settler, who was asked after the health of his family during "the dog days. " He replied, "They are well in health, but bad in their tempers.'' We are afraid that before next autumn comes there will be an epidemic of bad tempers. Cold is cheerful, but heat is ever trying. The only remedy for bad nerves during hot weather is a little attention to the natural laws of health. The very best time of the day, when the air is bracing, and the nerves can have a good tonic is between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m., yet how many people take advantage of this particular three hours which lend themselves to the special work of nerve recuperation?

Then again, the state of the nerves depends very much upon the simplicity of the food eaten, and the times when it is taken. We have seen a nervous man do well on the "no breakfast plan," but this does not suit all people. If a man's nerves are in a better oondition to digest food in the early morning than they are later in the day, then he should make breakfast his principal meal. There can be no fixed law other than moderation and the absolute avoidance of all discomfort. The person who gets a headache or an attack of indigestion is on the wrong track, and the sooner he gets off it the better, if he is to avoid nervous trouble. With nerves in fair order a man will not get "run down" during a hot summer; with nerves in disorder he is bound to come

to grief. '' Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace," writes the poet of "The Seasons."

Jangling nerves make even a brave man a coward. The trembling is purely physical, and is as inevitable as the start which a racehorse gives when he meets a traction-engine. The racehorse is finely strung, and will take alarm at sounds which a stolid waggon horse would fail to notice. It is the same with a nervous man, who envies the thicker-skinned people who do not worry. David said of old, "Fearfulness has come upon me, and a horrible dread hath overwhelmed me." David was evidently a man with nerves; indeed, he would not have been as great a king and prophet as he was but for this sensitiveness.

A man has to take his own nerves into his own hand, aud conform to the well-understood rules which govern both mental aud physical health. He can expect no outside assistance which will relievo him of nis own responsibility to his own inner self, which will cancel his obligation to follow and obey the laws which make a healthy man, woman or child. If his habits be such that he violates these laws habitually, all the doctors in the world cannot cure him. Curiously enough, the men who suffer from nerves often violate the law of work. They do more than they are fit to undertake. They overtask those sensitive nerves of theirs, which are equal to a certain amount of duty, bnt which rebel when their labouring capacity is unduly exhausted. The hardest taskmasters in the world are the men that drive themselves; the men who will not wait to give themselves that rest which they need; the men who do not grasp the fact that those who travel carefully cover, in the long run, the greater distance; the men who are not contented to wait for results, but who desire to hurry things along. Doing one's duty in the world is one thing, and worrying is another.

The verves may be regarded as a myriad of tiny telephones which bring men into touch with the immutable laws which govern all things in heaven and on earth, and with the infinite spirit which is at the back of these laws. There are correspondences continually passing through these tiny telephones, which link the finite with the infinite. Men can connect their higher selves or their lower selves on these telephones. If the little telephones are out of order, the mind, which is both the transmitter and the receiver, is wrong. The ills of the body arc the outcome of the ills of the mind, aud the man who said "Physician, heal thyself," uttered a great truth. The mind has been called "the natural protector of the body," and it is from this source that bodily health must be sought. The mind is at once the cause of the suffering and its remedy; and the nerves, the tell-tale verves, record its condition. When the nerves are in harmony with immutable laws, and the infinite spirit which flows through them, all is well. If the tiny telephones won't communicate with these, it is better to "ring off" until they are fit to do the work for which they were desigued.