Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sleep / By Dr. W.W. Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![spent iii study, with errors in eating and neglect of exercise, may impair the nervous system, by calling the nervous fluid into action or use, before it is fully ripe or matured, is an often observed fact. The remedy, and the only remedy for these is, an avoid- ance of their causes; and it is as useless to look for relief in medicines, while the causes are in operation, as to prevent the finger from burning as long as it is in the lire. The cure in the latter case must begin with taking it out of the fire. If there is excessive use of any part of the nervous system, whether of the thinking portions or of the propensities, the remedy is rest; non-indulgence in the first place, and then ex- ercising the thoughts and propensities in another direction, to the extent, if possible, of an almost en- tire forgetfulness of previous studies and appetites. Li] for example, a man has studied himself into a dis- eased condition ; if he has had such weighty respon- sibilities resting on him, that the draft upon his brain is such that he can not get sufficient sleep, and he either becomes deranged or is on his way to the grave by nervous prostration, there is no more safe and certain means of perfect relief, than that of send- ing out the nervous influence, or stores, or accumu- lations, in a different direction—that, for example, of absorbing and pleasurably interesting out-door activi- ties. For the nervous fluids are constantly being gen- erated, as steam in a locomotive, when the fire is kept burning; and if that steam is not expending itself on the driving mechanism, it must be let out upon the air. Destruction is inevitable, unless it finds vent somewhere. Hence the process of cure for all those nervous maladies which arise from over-use, is not merely a cessation of such uses, which is rest, but an employment of the influences in a different direction; because, without such employment, there is no per- fect rest, as from mere force of habit these influences](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2102151x_0333.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
