Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. OUR NERVOUS FRIENDS Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness BY ROBERT S. CARROLL, M.D. Medical Director Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina Author of "The Mastery of Nervousness," "The Soul in Suffering" NEW YORK 1919 HEARTILY--TO THE HOST OF US CHAPTER I OUR FRIENDLY NERVES Illustrating the Capacity for Nervous Adjustment CHAPTER II THE NEUROTIC Illustrating Damaging Nervous Overactivity CHAPTER III THE PRICE OF NERVOUSNESS Illustrating Misdirected Nervous Energy CHAPTER IV WRECKING A GENERATION Illustrating "The Enemy at the Gate" CHAPTER V THE NERVOUSLY DAMAGED MOTHER Illustrating the Child Wrongly Started CHAPTER VI THE MESS OF POTTAGE Illustrating Nervous Inferiority Due to Eating-Errors CHAPTER VII THE CRIME OF INACTIVITY Illustrating the Wreckage of the Pampered Body CHAPTER VIII LEARNING TO EAT Illustrating the Potency of Diet CHAPTER IX THE MAN WITH THE HOE Illustrating the Therapy of Work CHAPTER X THE FINE ART OF PLAY Illustrating Re-creation Through Play CHAPTER XI THE TANGLED SKEIN Illustrating a Tragedy of Thought Selection CHAPTER XII THE TROUBLED SEA Illustrating Emotional Tyranny CHAPTER XIII WILLING ILLNESS Illustrating Willessness and Wilfulness CHAPTER XIV UNTANGLING THE SNARL Illustrating the Replacing of Fatalism by Truth CHAPTER XV FROM FEAR TO FAITH Illustrating the Curative Power of Helpful Emotions CHAPTER XVI JUDICIOUS HARDENING Illustrating the Compelling of Health CHAPTER XVII THE SICK SOUL Illustrating the Sliding Moral Scale CHAPTER XVIII THE BATTLE WITH SELFIllustrating the Recklessness that Disintegrates CHAPTER XIX THE SUFFERING OF SELF-PITY Illustrating a Moral Surrender CHAPTER XX THE SLAVE OF CONSCIENCE Illustrating Discord with Self CHAPTER XXI CATASTROPHE CREATING CHARACTER Illustrating Disciplined Freedom CHAPTER XXII FINDING THE VICTORIOUS SELF Illustrating a Medical Conversion CHAPTER XXIII THE TRIUMPH OF HARMONY Illustrating the Power of the Spirit A REMARK Vividly as abstractions may be presented, they rarely succeed in revealing truths with the appealing intensity of living pictures. In Our Nervous Friends will be found portrayed, often with photographic clearness, a series of lives, with confidences protected, illustrating chapter for chapter the more vital principles of the author's The Mastery of Nervousness. CHAPTER I OUR FRIENDLY NERVES "Hop up, Dick, love! See how glorious the sun is on the new snow. Now isn't that more beautiful than your dreams? And see the birdies! They can't find any breakfast. Let's hurry and have our morning wrestle and dress and give them some breakie before Anne calls."