Is Fear a Disease?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue I, 2 January 1904, Page 58

Is Fear a Disease?

Bring atiaid is bring ill. Thr specialists in fear can note its ami follow their progress in our organisms just as the fever specialist notes thr course of typhoid fever. It is as contagious as measles and as subject to epidemics as the “grip.” Fear acts directly on the nerves and through them on all our faculties, commencing by that of movement. Sometimes it excites the motor nerves to such a degree that the victim must run and flee, no matter what comes; sometimes it makes them tremble convulsively. We are paralyzed, cannot budge. The capillary vessels which carry the blood to the skin contract or dilate, and the face either pales or blushes. The nerves no longer direct the motions of the heart, which strikes quickly like a clock out of order. A cry escapes your lips despite yourself, a sound which you wish to emit remains in your throat, because the nerves of the respiratory apparatus and those of the vocal organs are a fleeted the same as the heart. “SCARED TO DEATH” LITERALLY TRUE. Add to thi< the facial? movements, the coming and going on the features of the grimaces which follow each other, or the strained inasklike fixity with the cadaverous aiir of stupidity and you have the symptoms of fear. TliC'C physiological troubles can be so aggravated that death is the natural end. One man while passing a tomb thought some one clutched at his feet. Instantly frightful images assailed his mind: he saw a figure rise from the grave trying to seize him: he died the same night. Another man expired from terror on the day that had been predicted that he would die. Many have fallen rigid while awaiting a death sentence; they die of the fear of death! Surgeons know this better than any one else: how many times fear and not the knife has been the death, oi patients on -the operating table. The famous Dusault traced on the skin of one of his patients the line along which he would make his incision: the patient exhale! one breath ami expired. One can even die of a hypnotic fear. Some college youths determined to give an unpopular teacher a scare, and conducted him into a dark room, where they had arranged a block and a hatchet. He at first took all as a joke, bur when they assured him that nothing could be more serious and that he was to be beheaded on the stroke of tie* clock, ami. finally, when they laid his head on the block he grew serious enough. The appropriate motions were performed, his head was let drop from its rest, and when the handkerchief was removed from his eyes to notice the effect he was found dead. FEAR OF THUNDER MOST COMMON. Medical dictionaries classify fear diseases as phobias. One of the commonest is the fear of thunder. The pret-

tiest example of this phobia is about Mme. Saint Hereur, a French dame who immediately made for the underside of her bed when it commenced to thunder, and ordered all her servants to pile on top of it. one above the other, so that should the thunder fall above her it would light upon the servants first and be softened in its descent. The fear of water is another frequent phobia. There are people to whom it is a material impossibility to cross a bridge. This was the case of the Alsatian enrolled in tHe German army in 1870, who, rather than put his foot on the bridge, resolutely cast himself into the water, despite the orders of his officers and his subsequent punishment. Two phobias, opposite in their nature, are equally common in extent—the fear of solitude and the fear of crowds. The latter is what is manifest every day by the country folk freshly arrived in town. The uproar in the streets, the passing of the vehicles startle them; they feel like beating a retreat to the railway station for the first train home. QUIET PEOPLE AFRAID OF ACTIVITY. Others are afraid of travel. There are people even to-day who have never yet consented to enter a railway carriage. Men of studious habits, accustomed to live in the domain of thought, are often alarmed by every variety of action and by contact with reality. It is said of Carlyle that merely the thought of entering a shop made him unhappy. The idea of ordering a suit or of buying a pair of gloves prostrated him. while the thought of travelling alone with his wife after -their marriage seemed simply in admissible. Perhaps the most curious form of the disease of fear is the fear of disease. A rtrang" and numerous category is that of imaginary patients! They attack the doctors with their grievances and hold consultations without end. Everything to them is suspicious—-the milk mav be tuberculous, the water may be infected with typhoid germs. How can they enter a eab which might have held an infected person? In epidemics fear claims more victims than the malady proper. There is a phobia familiar to actors, playwrights, and lawyers; it is stage fright, the fear of appearing before manv people. Every dramatic author at his debut, every novice actor experiences it. One lawyer about to make his final grand appeal to the jury could onlv sav: •■Gentlemen of the jury. I re••onnnend the accused to your severity! CONTAGION OF FRIGHT EXTENDS RA PIDLY. The disease of fear is contagious—like all diseases that come from the nerves. It speaks in crowds with an unbelievable rapidity. How many times panics have altered the fate of battles! A cry suffices to displace ranks which bullets could not disband. There are examples of double fight. A Latin historian tells of a battle where both armies turned

their backs at the same time; the one fled, the other decamped. There are veritable epidemics of fear in besieged villages in times of trouble, of revolutions, of famines. During the siege of Paris in 1871) every figure on the boulevards was a suspect, every candle in a window at night was the signal for an alarm; all was complicity, treason. It is often said that in certain eases and in the presence of dangers which are real fear is not only excusable but natural and legitimate. It is nothing of the sort. Instead of yielding to fear, which deprives us of our means of defense. better - redouble courage in order to defend ourselves: or. if all defense is useless, we ean at least face the danger and look at it without lowering the eyes. ANTICIPATION WORSE THAN ACTUAL DANGER. Besides, the idea of the danger is generally more frightful than the danger itself. Note the fact that the better we are acquainted with a danger the less we fear it. "Professional .courage" develops in the miner in the mine, the guide on the precipitous mountain path, and similar vocations. Exchange their roles and each will be afraid. The best time to conquer fear is in childhood. In many excellent families, on the contrary, fear is often actually cultivated in the children. M hen they are disobedient there is immediate -talk of a "bogie man” or the police. Instead, anv germs of courage should be encouraged with appeals to dignity, honour, duty, and sell-respect.