The Nervous Housewife

e Of "ner

f the housewife we must take up without great rega

s no place whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicat

r, if he is restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the ground of his nervousness, and I have seen

form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the general types found in single women and also in m

cord, or any part of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, etc., because there are marked changes

ife is concerned, is the condition called neurasthenia, although

by the stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it i

time-saving, i.e. distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone, telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to increase the number of things done, see

to all functions of the mind and body. Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild kind,

symptoms constitute alm

nd legs, pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings rather than true pains. These pains are freque

more often a capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied. The capriciousness of appetite is undoubte

at is back of these lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the stomach is impaired in neurasthe

how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once it is established, it in

, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared with a revolver ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he found him s

ubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is di

the health and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This

re of a host of sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the gastro-intestinal tract have no essential meaning in the majority of cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they multiply extraordinarily in num

ent, bad training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, over-?sthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desire

energy of the body (as after a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of energy. Th

pects of our subject a little closer, not so much as regard

at and as motion. The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our later years; it is the skill an

the spirit; one dances, laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a stimulus of great power

one, may completely de?nergize the strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,-the mistaken marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental pride.

take in all this and in further symptoms?

e, out of a host of writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed-that every human being is a pot boiling with des

red for the sake of the purpose to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,-a husband, a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one refuses t

repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses of the being, out of the light of the con

ult and undecided struggles in the case of the neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwis

ure, with a host of de?nergizing influences playing on her, buffeting her.

y related to the happenings of life as to the inborn disposition of the patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewi

toms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, etc., are either not so marked

lly to wash the hands, fear of disease-especially such as syphilis-and a host of other fears, all of which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and comes

ybody has such obsessions and doubts occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal debate a

s range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and cracking joints of t

ally be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in life, than to the curiousl

es and has probably played a very important r?le in the history of man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria, for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in their

ymptoms occur in the housewife as well

cs with laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics is this instability, this emotionality, which is

at all to injury to the nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call "dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions, ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any energizing influence like

women suspected with a pin, and if they found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters a

rently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague stateme

heir symptoms, real enough at bottom, are theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall l

he above conditions we must now consider

xes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the f

the wide sense of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied emotions,-hunger, sex, property, competit

tray it as bodily. "My heart thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mou

thing, and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,-immediately the jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-s

e cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order o

ing of blood vessels, heartbeat, lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion is a very important matter in our study of the housewife as of every other

ly upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the appetite, as occurs when

the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It may cause

y and thus bring about a fainting spell; i.e. may absolutely deprive the victim of consciousness

, or it may bring about sex manifestations whic

iasm, or power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow b

utest tissues of the body, may increase the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the "psychical" processes, but also it may de?nergize to an

row to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one smiles or laughs at some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow, anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energi

y is happy) is a social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous housewife is a problem of society becaus

is breakfast table. In the next room, seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feedin

flood of anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath. White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen, bursting into tears. The cook, soli

cture (which later went on to the usual happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally str

hat affect her husband, his work, and Society at large; we trace the things that mold