328

HYPOCHONDRIAC AFFECTIONS.

physicians, whom the patient had consulted fit different times, butwhose names I suppress, as their prescriptions did him no good,and did them no honour. When the primary scat of the diseaseis in the mind, it is stooping to the low tricks of quackery to amusea patient with false hopes of the efficacy of any medicine. Thedisappointment that follows aggravates every painful symptom, andmakes the unhappy sufferer look forward to death as the only re-source. All I prescribe for him is travelling.

I should also have willingly inserted here an account of someother nervous affections of an extraordinary nature, had not theirlength exceeded the limits I prescribed to myself in these supple-mentary observations.

'For this very prevalent and distressing class of complaints,there is not any remedy so much to be relied on as the habit ofearly rising, which necessarily implies that of retiring also at anearly hour to rest. The energies of the nervous system becomeexhausted and worn out, by the impressions of external objects onthe senses, as well as by the mental exertions which are perpetu-ally going on while we are awake. Sleep is the means appointedby Nature for the renovation of these wasted energies. On wakingfrom a state of sound sleep, we find ourselves, in the proper senseof the word, refreshed. Such refreshment, however, is chiefly tobe expected from that sleep which takes place before midnight.After a certain hour of the evening, even the most healthy personsexperience an increased quickness of the pulse. In feeble consti-tutions this nocturnal access of fever is still inore strongly mark-ed ; and the repetition of it is the true cause of that worn, baggedappearance, by which the votaries, or rather the victims, of fashionmay, in general, be distinguished, it is by no means advisableto curtail the natural time of sleep. The great Lord Mansfield,himself an early riser, and whose long-protracted life gives impor-tance to his opinion on any subject connected with the preservationof health, used to counsel his friends, as one of the best means ofobtaining that blessing, " to cultivate sleep." But it must bethe sound repose of temperance, which can only be found duringthe early hours of night, not the perturbed slumbers of the noon-day couch. Nothing, indeed, tends more to debilitate the consti-tution, and in an especial manner to aggravate every species ofnervous complaint, than remaining in bed till a late hour of themorning.

Could "the still small voice of reason" expect to be heard inopposition to the imperious mandates of fashion, the present cus-tom of taking the principal meal at so rery late, an hear of the day,might also be denounced as contributing not a little to producediseases of the nerves. After the system has been exhausted bylong fasting, the stomach is suddenly replenished with a quantityof rich food and stimulating liquors, which the empty vessels ab-sorb with an eagerness far beyond their powers to assimilate. Ofthis, the immediate consequence is drowsiness, but if the flaggingspirits be roused by the presence of company, or the free use ofwine, the circulation is hurried ; the countenance becomes flushed,and a temporary exhilaration takes place, which must inevitably