A writer in _Cassell’s Magazine_ remarks:—“We hear individuals now and
then talking of the ease with which the season-ticket holder journeys
backwards and forwards daily from Brighton. By the young, healthy man,
no doubt, the journey is done without fatigue; but, after a certain time
of life, the process of being conveyed by express fifty miles night and
morning is anything but refreshing. The shaking and jolting of the best
constructed carriage is not such as we experience in a coach on an
ordinary road; but is made up of an infinite series of slight
concussions, which jar the spinal column and keep the muscles of the back
and sides in continued action.” Dr. Radcliff, who has witnessed many
cases of serious injury to the nervous system from this cause,
contributed the following conclusive case some years ago to the pages of
the _Lancet_:—“A hale and stout gentleman, aged sixty-three, came to me
complaining of inability to sleep, numbness in limbs, great depression,
and all the symptoms of approaching paralytic seizure. He was very
actively engaged in large monetary transactions, which were naturally a
source of anxiety. He had a house in town; but, having been advised by
the late Doctor Todd to live at Brighton, he had taken a house there, and
travelled to and fro daily by the express train. The symptoms of which
he complained began to appear about four months after taking up his
residence at Brighton, and he had undergone a variety of treatment
without benefit, and was just hesitating about trying homæopathy when I
saw him. I advised him to give up the journey for a month, and make the
experiment of living quietly in town. In a fortnight his rest was
perfectly restored, and the other symptoms rapidly disappeared, so that
at the end of the month he was as well as ever again. After three
months, he was persuaded to join his family at Brighton, and resumed his
daily journeys. In a few days his rest became broken and in two months
all the old symptoms returned. By giving up the journeys and again
residing in town, he was once more perfectly restored; but, it being the
end of the season, when the house at Brighton could not readily be
disposed of, and yielding to the wishes of his family, he again resumed
his journeys. In a month’s time he was rendered so seriously unwell that
he hesitated no longer in taking up his permanent abode in town; and
since that time—now more than two years ago—he has enjoyed perfect
health.”