HEALTH OF MIND


XX.

HEALTH OF MIND.

There is such an intimate connection between the body and mind that
the health of one can not be preserved without a proper care of the
other. And it is from a neglect of this principle, that some of the
most exemplary and conscientious persons in the world suffer a thousand
mental agonies from a diseased state of body, while others ruin the
health of the body by neglecting the proper care of the mind.

When the mind is excited by earnest intellectual effort, or by strong
passions, the blood rushes to the head and the brain is excited. Sir
Astley Cooper records that, in examining the brain of a young man who
had lost a portion of his skull, whenever "he was agitated by some
opposition to his wishes," "the blood was sent with increased force
to his brain," and the pulsations "became frequent and violent." The
same effect was produced by any intellectual effort; and the flushed
countenance which attends earnest study or strong emotions of interest
of any kind, is an external indication of the suffused state of the
brain from such causes.

In exhibiting the causes which injure the health of the mind, we shall
find them to be partly physical, partly intellectual, and partly moral.

The first cause of mental disease and suffering is not unfrequently
in the want of a proper supply of duly oxygenized blood. It has been
shown that the blood, in passing through the lungs, is purified by the
oxygen of the air combining with the superabundant hydrogen and carbon
of the venous blood, thus forming carbonic acid and water, which are
expired into the atmosphere. Every pair of lungs is constantly
withdrawing from the surrounding atmosphere its healthful principle,
and returning one which is injurious to human life.

When, by confinement and this process, the air is deprived of its
appropriate supply of oxygen, the purification of the blood is
interrupted, and it passes without being properly prepared into the
brain, producing languor, restlessness, and inability to exercise the
intellect and feelings. Whenever, therefore, persons sleep in a close
apartment, or remain for a length of time in a crowded or ill-ventilated
room, a most pernicious influence is exerted on the brain, and, through
this, on the mind. A person who is often exposed to such influences
can never enjoy that elasticity and vigor of mind which is one of the
chief indications of its health. This is the reason why all rooms for
religious meetings, and all school-rooms and sleeping apartments should
be so contrived as to secure a constant supply of fresh air from
without. The minister who preaches in a crowded and ill-ventilated
apartment loses much of his power to feel and to speak, while the
audience are equally reduced in their capability of attending. The
teacher who confines children in a close apartment diminishes their
ability to study, or to attend to instructions. And the person who
habitually sleeps in a close room impairs mental energy in a similar
degree. It is not unfrequently the case that depression of spirits and
stupor of intellect are occasioned solely by inattention to this
subject.

Another cause of mental disease is the excessive exercise of the
intellect or feelings. If the eye is taxed beyond its strength by
protracted use, its blood-vessels become gorged, and the bloodshot
appearance warns of the excess and the need of rest. The brain is
affected in a similar manner by excessive use, though the suffering
and inflamed organ can not make its appeal to the eye. But there are
some indications which ought never to be misunderstood or disregarded.
In cases of pupils at school or at college, a diseased state, from
over-action, is often manifested by increased clearness of mind, and
temporary ease and vigor of mental action. In one instance, known to
the writer, a most exemplary and industrious pupil, anxious to improve
every hour and ignorant or unmindful of the laws of health, first
manifested the diseased state of her brain and mind by demands for
more studies, and a sudden and earnest activity in planning modes of
improvement for herself and others. When warned of her danger, she
protested that she never was better in her life; that she took regular
exercise in the open air, went to bed in season, slept soundly, and
felt perfectly well; that her mind was never before so bright and
clear, and study never so easy and delightful. And at this time, she
was on the verge of derangement, from which she was saved only by an
entire cessation of all intellectual efforts.

A similar case occurred, under the eye of the writer, from over-excited
feelings. It was during a time of unusual religious interest in the
community, and the mental disease was first manifested by the pupil
bringing her hymn-book or Bible to the class-room, and making it her
constant resort, in every interval of school duty. It finally became
impossible to convince her that it was her duty to attend to any thing
else; her conscience became morbidly sensitive, her perceptions
indistinct, her deductions unreasonable; and nothing but entire change
of scene and exercise, and occupation of her mind by amusement, saved
her. When the health of the brain was restored, she found that she
could attend to the "one thing needful," not only without interruption
of duty or injury to health, but rather so as to promote both. Clergymen
and teachers need most carefully to notice and guard against the dangers
here alluded to.

Any such attention to religion as prevents the performance of daily
duties and needful relaxation is dangerous, and tends to produce such
a state of the brain as makes it impossible to feel or judge correctly.
And when any morbid and unreasonable pertinacity appears, much exercise
and engagement in other interesting pursuits should be urged, as the
only mode of securing the religious benefits aimed at. And whenever
any mind is oppressed with care, anxiety, or sorrow, the amount of
active exercise in the fresh air should be greatly increased, that the
action of the muscles may withdraw the blood which, in such seasons,
is constantly tending too much to the brain.

There has been a most appalling amount of suffering, derangement,
disease, and death, occasioned by a want of attention to this subject,
in teachers and parents. Uncommon precocity in children is usually the
result of an unhealthy state of the brain; and in such cases medical
men would now direct that the wonderful child should be deprived of
all books and study, and turned to play out in the fresh air. Instead
of this, parents frequently add fuel to the fever of the brain, by
supplying constant mental stimulus, until the victim finds refuge in
idiocy or an early grave. Where such fatal results do not occur, the
brain in many cases is so weakened that the prodigy of infancy sinks
below the medium of intellectual powers in afterlife.

In our colleges, too, many of the most promising minds sink to an early
grave, or drag out a miserable existence, from this same cause. And
it is an evil as yet little alleviated by the increase of physiological
knowledge. Every college and professional school, and every seminary
for young ladies, needs a medical man or woman, not only to lecture
on physiology and the laws of health, but empowered by official capacity
to investigate the case of every pupil, and, by authority, to enforce
such a course of study, exercise and repose, as the physical system
requires. The writer has found by experience that in a large institution
there is one class of pupils who need to be restrained by penalties
from late hours and excessive study, as much as another class need
stimulus to industry.

Under the head of excessive mental action, must be placed the indulgence
of the imagination in novel-reading and "castle-building." This kind
of stimulus, unless counterbalanced by physical exercise, not only
wastes time and energies, but undermines the vigor of the nervous
system. The imagination was designed by our wise Creator as a charm
and stimulus to animate to benevolent activity; and its perverted
exercise seldom fails to bring a penalty.

Another cause of mental disease is the want of the appropriate exercise
of the various faculties of the mind. On this point, Dr. Combe remarks:
"We have seen that, by disuse, muscles become emaciated, bone softens,
blood-vessels are obliterated, and nerves lose their characteristic
structure. The brain is no exception to this general rule. The tone
of it is also impaired by permanent inactivity, and it becomes less
fit to manifest the mental powers with readiness and energy." It is
"the withdrawal of the stimulus necessary for its healthy exercise
which renders solitary confinement so severe a punishment, even to the
most daring minds. It is a lower degree of the same cause which renders
continuous seclusion from society so injurious to both mental and
bodily health."

"Inactivity of intellect and of feeling is a very frequent predisposing
cause of every form of nervous disease. For demonstrative evidence of
this position, we have only to look at the numerous victims to be found
among persons who have no call to exertion in gaining the means of
subsistence, and no objects of interest on which to exercise their
mental faculties, and who consequently sink into a state of mental
sloth and nervous weakness." "If we look abroad upon society, we shall
find innumerable examples of mental and nervous debility from this
cause. When a person of some mental capacity is confined for a long
time to an unvarying round of employment which affords neither scope
nor stimulus for one half of the faculties, and, from want of education
or society, has no external resources; the mental powers, for want of
exercise, become blunted, and the perceptions slow and dull." "The
intellect and feelings, not being provided with interests external to
themselves, must either become inactive and weak, or work upon
themselves and become diseased."

"The most frequent victims of this kind of predisposition are females
of the middle and higher ranks, especially those of a nervous
constitution and good natural abilities; but who, from an ill-directed
education, possess nothing more solid than mere accomplishments, and
have no materials for thought," and no "occupation to excite interest
or demand attention." "The liability of such persons to melancholy,
hysteria, hypochondriasis, and other varieties of mental distress,
really depends on a state of irritability of the brain, induced by
imperfect exercise."

These remarks of a medical man illustrate the principles before
indicated; namely, that the demand of Christianity, that we live to
promote the general happiness, and not merely for selfish indulgence,
has for its aim not only the general good, but the highest happiness
of the individual of whom it is required in offering abundant exercise
for all the noblest faculties.

A person possessed of wealth, who has nothing more noble to engage
attention than seeking personal enjoyment, subjects the mental powers
and moral feelings to a degree of inactivity utterly at war with health
and mind. And the greater the capacities, the greater are the sufferings
which result from this cause. Any one who has read the misanthropic
wailings of Lord Byron has seen the necessary result of great and noble
powers bereft of their appropriate exercise, and, in consequence,
becoming sources of the keenest suffering.

It is this view of the subject which has often awakened feelings of
sorrow and anxiety in the mind of the writer, while aiding in the
development and education of superior feminine minds, in the wealthier
circles. Not because there are not noble objects for interest and
effort, abundant, and within reach of such minds; but because
long-established custom has made it seem so quixotic to the majority,
even of the professed followers of Christ, for a woman of wealth to
practice any great self-denial, that few have independence of mind and
Christian principle sufficient to overcome such an influence. The more
a mind has its powers developed, the more does it aspire and pine after
some object worthy of its energies and affections; and they are
commonplace and phlegmatic characters who are most free from such
deep-seated wants. Many a young woman, of fine genius and elevated
sentiment, finds a charm in Lord Byron's writings, because they present
a glowing picture of what, to a certain extent, must be felt by every
well-developed mind which has no nobler object in life than the pursuit
of self-gratification.

If young ladies of wealth could pursue their education under the full
conviction that the increase of their powers and advantages increased
their obligations to use all for the good of society, and with some
plan of benevolent enterprise in view, what new motives of interest
would be added to their daily pursuits! And what blessed results would
follow to our beloved country, if all well-educated women, carried out
the principles of Christianity, in the exercise of their developed
powers!

The benevolent activities called forth in our late dreadful war
illustrate the blessed influence on character and happiness in having
a noble object for which to labor and suffer. In illustration of this,
may be mentioned the experience of one of the noble women who, in a
sickly climate and fervid season, devoted herself to the ministries
of a military hospital. Separated from an adored husband, deprived of
wonted comforts and luxuries, and toiling in humble and unwonted labors,
she yet recalls this as one of the happiest periods of her life. And
it was not the mere exercise of benevolence and piety in ministering,
comfort and relieving suffering. It was, still more, the elevated
enjoyment which only an enlarged and cultivated mind can attain, in
the inspirations of grand and far-reaching results purchased by such
sacrifice and suffering. It was in aiding to save her well-loved
country from impending ruin, and to preserve to coming generations the
blessings of true liberty and self-government, that toils and suffering
became triumphant joys.

Every Christian woman who "walks by faith and not by sight," who looks
forward to the results of self-sacrificing labor for the ignorant and
sinful as they will enlarge and expand through everlasting ages, may
rise to the same elevated sphere of experience and happiness. On the
contrary, the more highly cultivated the mind devoted to mere selfish
enjoyment, the more are the sources of true happiness closed and the
soul left to helpless emptiness and unrest.

The indications of a diseased mind, owing to the want of the proper
exercise of its powers, are apathy, discontent, a restless longing for
excitement, a craving for unattainable good, a diseased and morbid
action of the imagination, dissatisfaction with the world, and
factitious interest in trifles which the mind feels to be unworthy of
its powers. Such minds sometimes seek alleviation in exciting
amusements; others resort to the grosser enjoyments of sense. Oppressed
with the extremes of languor, or over-excitement, or apathy, the body
fails under the wearing process, and adds new causes of suffering to
the mind. Such, the compassionate Saviour calls to his service, in the
appropriate terms, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of
me," "and ye shall find rest unto your souls."