HEALTH WORRIES
There is an army, whose numbers are legion, who worry about their
health and that of the members of their family. What with the doctors
scaring the life out of them with the germ theory, seeking to obtain
legislation to vaccinate them, examine their children nude in school,
take out their tonsils, appendices, and other internal organs, inject
serums into them for this, that, and the other, and requiring them to
observe a score and one maxims which they do not understand, there
is no wonder they are worried. Then when one considers the army of
physicians who feel it to be their duty to write of sickness for the
benefit of the people, who give detailed symptoms of every disease
known; and of the larger army of quacks who deliberately live and
fatten themselves upon the worries they can create in the minds of
the ignorant, the vicious and the diseased; of the patent-medicine
manufacturers, who spend millions of dollars annually in scaring
people into the use of their nostrums--none of which are worth the
cost of the paper with which they are wrapped up--is there any wonder
that people, who are not trained to think, should be worried. Worries
meet them on every hand, at every corner. Do they feel an ache or
a pain? According to such a doctor, or such a patent-medicine
advertisement, that is a dangerous symptom which must be checked at
once or the most fearful results will ensue.
Then there are the naturopaths, physicultopaths, gymnastopaths,
hygienists, raw food advocates, and a thousand and one other
notionists, who give advice as to what, when, and how you shall
eat. Horace Fletcher insists that food be chewed until it is liquid;
another authority says, "Bosh!" to this and asks you to look at the
dog who bolts his meat and is still healthy, vigorous and strong. The
raw food advocate assures you that the only good food is uncooked, and
that you take out this, that, and the other by cooking, all of which
are essential to the welfare of the body. Between these _natural
authorities_ and the _medical authorities_, there is a great deal of
warfare going on all the time, and the layman knows not wherein true
safety lies. Is it any wonder that he is worried.
Many members of the medical profession and the drug-stores have
themselves to thank for this state of perpetual worriment and mental
unrest. They inculcated, nurtured, and fostered a colossal ignorance
in regard to the needs of the body, and a tremendous dread and blind
fear of everything that seems the slightest degree removed from the
everyday normal. They have persistently taught those who rely upon
them that the only safe and wise procedure is to rush immediately to
a physician upon the first sign of anything even slightly out of the
ordinary. Then, with wise looks, mysterious words, strange symbols,
and loathsome decoctions, they have sent their victims home to imagine
that some marvelous wonder work will follow the swallowing of their
abominable mixtures instead of frankly and honestly telling their
consultants that their fever was caused by overeating, by too late
hours, by dancing in an ill-ventilated room, by too great application
to business, by too many cocktails, or too much tobacco smoking.
The results are many and disastrous. People become confirmed
"worriers" about their health. On the slightest suspicion of an
ache or a pain, they rush to the doctor or the drug-store for a
prescription, a dose, a powder, a potion, or a pill. The telephone is
kept in constant operation about trivialities, and every month a bill
of greater or lesser extent has to be paid.
While I do not wish to deprecate the calling in of a physician in any
serious case, by those who deem it advisable, I do condemn as absurd,
unnecessary, and foolish in the highest degree, this perpetual worry
about trivial symptoms of health. Every truthful physician will
frankly tell you--if you ask him--that worrying is often the worst
part of the trouble; in other words, that if you never did a thing
in these cases that distress you, but would quit your worrying, the
discomfort would generally disappear of its own accord.
One result of this kind of worry is that it genders a nervousness
that unnecessarily calls up to the mind pictures of a large variety
of possible dangers. Who has not met with this nervous species of
worrier?
The train enters a tunnel: "What an awful place for a wreck!" Or it is
climbing a mountain grade with a deep precipice on one side: "My, if
we were to swing off this grade!" I have heard scores of people, who,
on riding up the Great Cable Incline of the Mount Lowe Railway, have
exclaimed: "What would become of us if this cable were to break?" and
they were apparently people of reason and intelligence. The fact is,
the cable is so strong and heavy that with two cars crowded to the
utmost, their united weight is insufficient to stretch the cable
tight, let alone putting any strain upon it sufficient to break it.
And most nervous worries are as baseless as this.
"Yet," says some apologist for worries, "accidents do happen. Look
at the _Eastland_ in Chicago, and the loss of the _Titanic_. Railways
have wrecks, collisions, and accidents. Horses do run away. Dogs do
bite. People do become sick!"
Granted without debate or discussion. But if everybody on board the
wrecked vessels had worried for six months beforehand, would their
worries have prevented the wrecks? Mind you, I say worry, not proper
precaution. The shipping authorities, all railway officials and
employees, etc., should be as alert as possible to guard against all
accidents. But this can be done without one moment's worry on the part
of a solitary human being, and care is as different from worry as gold
is from dross, coal from ashes. By all means, take due precautions;
study to avoid the possibility of accidents, but do not give worry a
place in your mind for a moment.
A twin brother to this health-worrier is the nervous type, who is
sure that every dog loose on the streets is going to bite; every horse
driven behind is surely going to run away; every chauffeur is
either reckless, drunk, or sure to run into a telegraph pole, have
a collision with another car, overturn his car at the corner, or run
down the crossing pedestrian; every loitering person is a tramp, who
is a burglar in disguise; every stranger is an enemy, or at least must
be regarded with suspicion. Such worriers always seem to prefer to
look on the dark side of the unknown rather than on the bright side.
"Think no evil!" is good philosophy to apply to everything, as well as
genuine religion--when put into practice. The world is in the control
of the Powers of Good, and these seek our good, not our disaster. Have
faith in the goodness of the powers that be, and work and live to help
make your faith true. The man who sees evil where none exists, will do
more to call it into existence than he imagines, and equally true, or
even more so, is the converse, that he who sees good where none seems
to exist, will call it forth, bring it to the surface.
The teacher, who imagines that all children are mean and are merely
waiting for a chance to exercise that meanness, will soon justify his
suspicions and the children will become what he imagines them to be.
Yet such a teacher often little realizes that it has been his own
wicked fears and worries that helped--to put it mildly--the evil
assert itself.