Insanity: Its Causes and PreventionStearns, Henry Putnam
Science
Insanity: Its Causes and Prevention
Stearns, Henry Putnam
Psychiatry -- Early works to 1900
The skill and power may be obtained, and the winning crew or club may have
the satisfaction of receiving the welcome plaudits or the crowning laurels
bestowed on victors, but how far all this will prove to be of service in
securing either strength or health of body, may be a question; or rather
it will not be a question at all. In nine out of every ten cases there
exists almost a certainty that a larger measure of physical health and
capacity of endurance in after-life would have been attained by some other
course, or method, attended with less stimulation and expenditure of
nerve-force. The period of reaction no less surely comes than in cases of
other kinds of stimulation, and is frequently manifested in functional or
organic derangements of the heart and other organs. Healthy and continuous
muscular power comes more surely by the expenditure of a medium amount of
nerve-force, and no other method can properly be considered as physical
education.
Lest, however, it may be thought I have placed too much importance in this
matter of over-study and nervous exertion, and to show that we Americans
are not the only ones at fault, I will here introduce some statements from
an English physician[6] of the highest authority.
He says: "The master of a private school informs me that he has proof of
the effects of overwork in the fact of boys being withdrawn from the keen
competition of a public-school career, which was proving injurious to
their health, and sent to him, that they might, in the less ambitious
atmosphere of a private school, pick up health and strength again. He
refers to instances of boys who had been crammed and much pressed in order
that they might enter a certain form or gain a desired exhibition, having
reached the goal successfully and then stagnated." He further says: "Too
many hours' daily study, and the knowledge of an approaching examination,
when the system is developing and requiring an abundance of good air and
exercise, easily accounts for pale and worn looks, frequent headache,
disturbed sleep, nightmare, and nervous fears. When the career of such
students does not end in graduating in a lunatic asylum, they lose for
years, possibly always, the elasticity and buoyancy of spirits essential
to robust health. A strong constitution may be sacrificed to supposed
educational necessities."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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