CONFESSIONS OF A NEURASTHENIC
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: This work is presented for historical interest and subject background only. Many of the conclusions, attitudes, and treatments discussed here are those of an "expert" of another era, many of which have been overturned by science or are not acceptable in today's world.
CHAPTER IX.
GERMS AND HOW HE AVOIDED THEM. APPENDICITIS.
Morbid fears have been briefly mentioned. It may now be in order for me to chronicle some of the hygienic measures that I have pursued with a view to averting diseases to which I thought I might succumb. In a former chapter I reported having subjected myself to many rigid conditions in the hope of ridding myself of infirmities which I then had. Now I am looking to the future with the idea that prevention is better than cure.
The germ theory gave me a great deal of worry. I learned a bit about it and some of the habits of the ubiquitous bacillus. In this matter the little learning was, as usual, a dangerous thing. Germs were constantly on my mind, if not in my brain. It seemed that they were ever lying in wait for me and there was no avenue of escape. Sometimes my scrupulous care in trying to ignore the microbe caused me to be the subject of unfavorable[Pg 56] comment. Once, at communion service, I took pains to give the cup a thorough rubbing before putting it to my chaste lips. It had just passed an unkempt and unwashed brother, and for my little act of circumspection I gained his ill-will. However, on the next occasion the cup came direct to me from the lips of a good-looking young woman and I remember that I did not take the usual precautions. This shows how inconsistent I was. I have since learned that some of the most virulent germs are to be found in the mouths of young ladies of the “Gibson-girl” type.
When I was necessarily obliged to quench my thirst at a public drinking-place I drank up close to the right side of the handle of the cup, as I thought that would be the spot least contaminated. In order not to breathe any more germs than I could possibly avoid, I kept away from theatres and places where motley crowds assemble and shunned dust and impure air as I would a leper. I had read that there was on the market a sanitary mask to be worn when going to places where there was the greatest danger of coming into contact with germs, but I did not think that I could work[Pg 57] up sufficient nerve to appear in public muzzled in this way. I knew from reading how many million microbes of different kinds there are inhabiting every cubic inch of air, and it was indeed appalling to think what even one of them would do for me if it chanced to hit me in a vulnerable spot. I did the best I could and kept my windows open wide both day and night, that some of these little imps of Satan might ride out on the breeze. On a cold day I would sit shivering with my overcoat and heavy wraps on, while the wind was blowing a hurricane through any room. At this some of the neighbors were wont to smile, but when they rather intimated that I was a little off I reminded them that Columbus and all other men who lived in advance of the times were regarded as hopeless lunatics.
The wind was blowing a hurricane through my room.
One evening when I went to bed with my windows open as usual the weather was quite warm, but the temperature suddenly fell during the night and I chilled, in consequence of which I nearly had pneumonia. After that I thought it best to exclude some of the elements and try to put up with the germs. I went to the other extreme of avoiding fresh air. My[Pg 59] main reason for doing so was that I read that one could become immune to his own brand of germs—the kind that constantly live in your own house and eat your own food. I thought this seemed reasonable, on the same principle that parents can get used to their own children easier than they can to other people’s pestiferous brats. I don’t know that there is science about any of this—no means of escape is all there is to it.
Of late years I have changed my opinion regarding germs, the same as I have done over and over regarding everything else. We are all apt to think that the only good germs are like good Indians—dead ones. Perhaps most of these microscopic creatures are conservative and play some useful part in life’s economy if we only knew what it is. Then we don’t know whether microbes are the cause or the product of disease—just as we don’t know which came first, the hen or the egg. What we don’t know in this matter would make a stupendous volume. At any rate it is of no use to run from germs, for they are omnipresent.
[Pg 60]Appendicitis was a disease that I spent much time in battling. I read up on it and knew all the symptoms. I went to the public library and hunted up a Gray’s Anatomy and studied the appendix. It seemed to be a little receptacle in which to side-track grape-seeds and other useless rubbish. I would no sooner have knowingly swallowed a grape- or a lemon-seed than I would a stick of dynamite. I would not eat oysters lest I get a piece of shell or even a pearl into my vermiform appendix. I was exceedingly careful never to swallow anything which I thought might contain a gritty substance. I had once heard a lecturer on hygiene and sanitation speak of the limy coat which forms on the inside of our tea-kettles from using “hard” water. He stated that in time we would get that sort of crust inside of us from drinking water which contained mineral matter. I thought how easy it would be for some of it to chip off and slip into the appendix and set up an inflammation. So to be on the safe side, I thought I would try drinking spring water for a while, but it gave me a bad case of malaria. I then came to the conclusion that between being dead with[Pg 61] chills and having an inner concrete lining I would choose the latter, which seemed the lesser evil. But with some friend being operated upon for appendicitis nearly every day I could not easily dismiss this disease from my mind. Yet I realized that it was a high-toned disease and also a high-priced one, and that most fellows with my commercial rating are immune from it.
I happened to be visiting a friend in a small town, for a few days, and was acquiring a voracious appetite. One evening I was seized with a sudden pain, and I knew the dread disease had come at last. The doctor came. He was an old-fashioned fellow without any frills, but he had what books and colleges do not always bestow—a head full of common sense. I said:—
“Doctor, will it have to be done to-night?”
“What done?” asked the doctor.
“Because,” I replied, putting my hand on my left side, where the pain was, “I have appendicitis and I supposed——”
“My friend,” said this well-seasoned physician, “you are perhaps not aware of the fact that the appendix is on the right side.”
[Pg 62]My knowledge of anatomy had betrayed me.
The old doctor then gave me this homely advice, which may or may not be correct. At any rate I never forgot it. He said:—
“You’ve been eating too much and have a little indigestion and stomach-ache. But like thousands of others who have fertile imaginations, you have appendicitis—on the brain. People rarely had this disease thirty years ago. Why should they have it so frequently to-day? Is the human body so radically different from what it was a few years ago? I have been practicing my profession here for twenty-five years and during all this time I have seen very few cases of severe appendicitis, and those recovered under common-sense medical treatment. There may be an occasional case that requires the surgeon’s knife, but such are exceedingly rare.”
I have never since had a symptom of the disease, and somehow I can’t help associating appendicitis with hospitalitis.
