MORBID FEARS AND FANCIES.
It should be remembered that I am now a full-fledged neurasthenic, with
all the rights and privileges that go with the job. Yes, Webster defines a
job as being an undertaking. Neurasthenia is certainly an "undertaking,"
therefore it must be a job--a big one at that. It interferes with the
holding of any more remunerative job and consumes most of one's time in
trying to keep his health in a passable condition. I have had positions of
some importance handed to me, which I discharged with eminent satisfaction
to all concerned until I got ready to go off at some new tangent. If I did
not imagine myself in the actual embrace of some grave physical or mental
disease, I feared that something would in the near future attack me; and
that brings me to the main topic of this chapter--morbid fears.
These foolish, fanciful and often groundless fears are dignified by the
name of "phobias." A man who is afraid of everything should not be dubbed
a low-down coward--he is simply afflicted with "pantaphobia." It doesn't
cost a bit more to be scientific and it carries with it more _éclat_.
Another one of these fears is agoraphobia--the fear of an open space. A
fellow who has it is afraid to cross an open lot or field, and if he does
make the venture, he carries with him a big stick or some weapon of
defense. This, like many other phobias, is explained by scientists as
being of simian inheritance. Our grandparents who lived in trees a few
thousand years ago had a much tougher struggle for existence than any of
us have today. Tree-tops were their only places of safety. If one of them
happened to fall out of a tree into an open space on the ground where
there was nothing to climb into, he was likely to be attacked by a lion or
a tiger. This always filled the life of our little ancestor with intense
fear and so affected his brain that the impress of it has been handed down
and occasionally crops out in some of us. Our dreams of falling, we are
told, are a vestige of the mental condition experienced by our
monkey-foreparents when they made a misleap and fell to the ground.
There is also the fear of a confined area, the fear of a crowd, fear of
loss of speech at an inopportune moment, fear of falling buildings, fear
of being alone, fear of poison, fear of germs, fears _ad nauseam_. I have
qualified in all of them and taken post-graduate courses.
Another one of these fears I shall speak of and in no spirit of levity. It
is too pathetic for pleasantry or jest. It is the fear that you will in
some thoughtless moment, when the occasion is most ill-timed, utter some
vulgar or profane word. These ugly, repulsive words or thoughts will cling
with the greatest tenacity and defy every effort to eradicate them. They
are of a nature entirely foreign to one's disposition and character; for
the neurasthenic, with all his eccentricities, is usually refined and
exemplary. A minister of the Gospel whose life was of almost immaculate
purity stated that the word "damn" often tortured his life and caused him
to fear that he would give it an untimely utterance. I have found that
many persons are similarly afflicted, but are rather reluctant to let
their fears be known.
Hydrophobia demands a few words. A few times in childhood I was scratched
by a dog, in consequence of which I stood in mortal fear of hydrophobia.
It was a popular belief that the poison of rabies might lie latent in the
system and not manifest itself until years after. This belief obtains with
many people to-day. The "madstones" in the possession of many credulous
people help to perpetuate the fear of this awful disease. As a matter of
fact, the madstone is simply a porous rock which may adhere to a warm,
moist surface and exert an absorbent action. Any poison introduced under
the skin is disseminated through the system in less than two minutes. If
the doctor ever gave you a hypodermic, your knowledge on this point is
convincing. The folly then of applying something, days or weeks later, to
absorb the poison of a mad-dog's bite from a localized spot is at once
apparent. Any owner of one of these stones who hires it out should be
prosecuted for getting money under false pretense, and then dealt with by
the humane societies for engendering morbid and groundless fears.
Scientific men are yet divided on the question as to whether or not
hydrophobia is a _bona fide_ disease, or whether it is only a functional
disturbance in which the element of fear predominates. No hydrophobia germ
has ever been isolated, and when the doctors these days can't find a germ
to fit a disease, it looks as if there was something wrong. It has many
times been demonstrated that persons of a susceptible nature can be scared
to death. But I don't care how much assurance I get from scientific
sources, I can't get over the habit of being a little exclusive in regard
to uncanny canines.
There is scarcely a disease or a symptom that I ever heard of that has not
at some time preyed upon my mind lest I become a victim of it. These fears
are hard to throw off or laugh out of existence when once they have become
a part of your very being. In order to avert untoward conditions which I
thought might overtake me, I have changed from one occupation to another
about as often as the man in the moon modifies his physiognomy. In making
these changes I have often found it about like dodging an automobile to
get hit by a street car.