[Footnote 4: Neither _nerves_ nor _nervousness_ are words to be found in the Bible or Shakespeare. The latter uses the word nerve at least seven times in the sense of sinewy. _Nervy_, which is obsolete, he employs as full of nerves, sinewy, strong. It is still heard in America, but I am sure would be classed as slang. Writers, of course, still employ nerve and nervous in the old sense, as a nervous style. Bailey's dictionary, 1734, has nervous,--sinewy, strongly made. Robt. Whytte, Edin., in the preface to his work on certain maladies, 1765, says, "Of late these have also got the name of nervous," and this is the earliest use of the word in the modern meaning I have found. Richardson has it in both its modern meanings, "vigorous," or "sensitive in nerves, and consequently weak, diseased." Hysteria is not in the Bible, and is found once in Shakespeare; as, "Hysterica passio, down," Lear ii. 4. It was common in Sydenham's day,--_i.e._, Charles II. and Cromwell's time,--but he classified under hysteria many disorders no longer considered as of this nature.] So much has been written on this subject by myself and others, that I should hesitate to treat it anew from a mere didactic point of view. But, perhaps, if I can bring home to the sufferer some more individualized advice, if I can speak here in a friendly and familiar way, I may be of more service than if I were to repeat, even in the fullest manner, all that is to be said or has been said of nervousness from a scientific point of view. The two questions referred to above are these: The woman who consults you says, "I am nervous. I did not use to be. What can I do to overcome it?" Once well again, she asks you,--and the query is common enough from the thoughtful,--"What can I do to keep my girls from being nervous?"