Buckle, in his "History of Civilization," claims that men and women
are divided into three classes. The first and lowest talks of persons,
the second of things, and the third and highest, of ideas. I should
divide the human race into four, instead of three classes, and name as
the lowest those persons who discuss their symptoms. The patients here
are counseled not to do it, so the vice is reduced to a minimum, being
practiced, say, not more than three out of the fourteen waking hours.
Swinging in a hammock in a shady nook this afternoon the conversation
that floated to me under my distant tree was somewhat after this
fashion.
Mrs. A. "Once I had neurasthenia. For three months I couldn't be moved
in bed, and for nine weeks I couldn't turn my head on the pillow."
_Mrs. B._ } "Mercy!"
_Mrs. C._ } "Oh, Mrs. A.!"
_Mrs. D._ } "Good gracious!"
Mrs. E. "Cerebro-spinal meningitis is worse than neurasthenia. I had
it four years ago, and the doctor said he'd never seen a woman live
that was as ill as I was. One night my temperature was 167."
_Mrs. C._ } "Goodness!"
_Mrs. B._ } "That's pretty high!"
_Mrs. A._ } "Are you sure?"
Mrs. E. "Yes, I'm perfectly sure, or at least I think I am; I am
seldom wrong on figures."
Mrs. A. "I asked, because I've noticed here that the thermometers
register only 110, and I wondered how they measured the temperature
when it rose above that point."
Mrs. E. (huffily). "Probably they have extra long thermometers for
extreme cases."
Mrs. F. "I am glad that in this sanitarium they take the temperature
by tucking the barometer-thing under the arm. My doctor at home always
puts it under the tongue, and it is a perfect nuisance. He never gets
it well placed but that I think of something I want to say. Then, of
course, I have to keep still for three minutes, which seem three
hundred, and by that time I have either forgotten it or changed my
mind, so there I am!"