NAGGING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue XI, 16 March 1895, Page 253

NAGGING.

Dr. Cyrus Edson has an article in the current number of the North American Review in which he discusses the physiological, and to some extent the mental and moral, effects of nagging. It is an essay in a new field.

It is true that the subject has been treated humorously, as for instance in the series of funny papers by Douglas Jerrold, mentioned by Dr. Edson, which are known as ' Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures.’ Everyone will also recall many imitations of the Caudle lectures, if indeed Jerrold was not himself an imitator of some earlier humorist, which is of course probable. But Edson appears to have been the first to think of treating the subject of tiresome fault-finding and ‘ never-ending scolding,’ from the scientific and professional standpoint of the physiologist and physician. That the habit of nagging has always been considered a nuisance Dr. Edson makes plain but he treats the offence in a more serious light. To him it has a scientific interest, as suggested. First, in relation to its effect upon the person who nags, and second, on those who are nagged. He asserts as a physiological fact that a nagging man or woman cannot enjoy good health. A gloomy, discontented, dissatisfied mind —anxiety, worry from any cause, produces mental turmoil, the primary physiolog’cal effect of which is to impair the powers of digestion. The blood needed for the function of digestion is

continually drawn away from the stomach by the excitement in the brain, and the man or woman who nags suffers. The body becomes, in a sense, partially starved. • The excessive excitement wears the brain out at last.’ It becomes a species of insanity, and frequently actual madness ensues. But in view of the misery and unhappiness which naggers inflict on those around them, Dr. Edson says that he is not disposed to waste much pity on them. The sooner they kill themselves, he says, or the sooner their insanity so far develops as to make it possible to place them in an asylum, the better it is for everyone. Naggers, who are the most unhappy of people, are a curse, not only to themselves, but to others. Moreover, they do a fearful amount of harm. All that Dr. Edson says in this regard maybe accepted as indisputable. In fact he fully justifies his assertion that the habit of persistent and senseless fault-finding and scolding is the source or untold mental and moral distress and physical misery. Still it is hard to agree with the cold-blooded statement that the sooner a nagging woman destroys herself in one way or another the better. If the habit of nagging is a nervous disease, as Dr. Edson admits, at least in many instances, it would be more in consonance with the dictates of humanity to apply some effective treatment. It is not necessary to return to the brutal custom which prevailed in a ruder age, of ducking, mentioned by Dr. Edson in his cynical way, but there ought to be medicines that would reach the disease, and if not, then asylums and retreats should be provided, as in the cases of confirmed drunkards. Perhaps as medical science advances some one may discover a Keely cure, so to speak, for nagging. If Dr. Edson’s statements of the frightful evil wrought upon others particularly upon children, by the nagging habit are to be accepted, such a discovery would certainly be a great boon to the civilized world. Among barbarous peoples they seem to have no need of medical treatment of the disease. Dr. Edson’s keen and discriminating analysis of the physiological effects upon the nervous system of the victims of the nagging habit is certainly very interesting. It may be laid down as a broad proposition, he says, that continued brain excitement has in time a disastrous effect on the cerebral tissues and the nerves. The physical injury done when the brain is continually excited by nagging is akin to that produced bv overwork. Yet the injury is even greater, because added to the excitement there is the element of anger. It is not only the stimulated mental condition of intense study or work, but it is worse because it is wholly without the element of tranquillity. It is a double visitation, a double excitement in which each part acts and reacts on the other. Perhaps the most interesting and instructive portion of the article under discussion is that which treats of the effect of persistent nagging upon children. Of course many, if not most of them, are nothing more than healthy little animals from whose minds and memories scolding runs off as water from the back of a duck, but others are sensitive and suffer from the consciousness of being treated unjustly—suffer, as much, if not more, than grown people. Particularly is this true of those under ten years of age. It is then their business to eat, to sleep, to play, to enjoy themselves, and to grow. It is nature’s primary preparation for life’s work. If a sensitive child is nagged at that time the result is likely to be disastrous. Its physical health is ruined and its mind is warped and perverted. The constant exaggeration inseparable from nagging prevents the growth in the mind of the child of true mental perspective. Nor is this all. The effect of nagging on the child’s moral nature is equallv bad. The constant, unceasing injustice warps its better instincts. The natural sense of justice is destroyed. As tyranny makes tyrants of those tyrannised over when they in turn have power, so the injustice of nagging kills the sense of justice in a child. ‘ Then, too, in order to shield itself from the intolerable torture, the child naturally resorts to lies. It is not to be blamed for this, for, as the exaggeration of nagging is almost invariably nothing but falsehood, the little one cannot know any better ' Children are helpless to help themselves. I'or that reason those who owe them protection should regard it as a sacred duty to prevent them from being tortured. He or she who refuses is as guilty toward them as their torturer—perhaps more guilty, because he or she knows from personal experience what the torture is. The little ones can have no other friend ; no one else knows ; no one else can interfere.