Part 9 (1/2)
And when the birds are silent, I have only to look down among the gra.s.s and moss to light on other acquaintances to keep me company. Over waving gra.s.s and corn flies a dragon-fly on wings of sun-glitter and fairy-web, and deep down in the path, which winds between the mighty gra.s.s stems, a little ant struggles on with a dry fir-needle on her back. Rough is the road, now it goes up-hill and now it goes down-hill, now she pushes the heavy load like a sledge before her, now she carries it upon her slender shoulders. She pulls so hard up-hill that her whole little body stiffens, she rolls down the steep slopes with her burden clasped tightly in her arms; but she never lets go, and onward it goes, for the ant is in a hurry to get home. Soon the dew will fall, and then it is unsafe to be out in the trackless forest, and best to be home in peace after the day's work is ended. Now the road becomes mountainous and steep, and suddenly a mighty rock rises in front of her--what the name of that rock is the ant knows well enough; I know nothing, and to me it looks like an ordinary pebble. The ant stops short and ponders awhile, then she gives a signal with her antennae, which I am too stupid to understand but which others at once respond to, for from behind a dry leaf I see two other ants approach to the rescue. I watch how they hold a council of war, and how the new arrivals with great concern pull the log to try how heavy it is. Suddenly they stand quite still and listen--an ant-patrol marches by a little way off, and I see how a couple of ants are told off to lend a.s.sistance. Then they all take hold together, and like sailors they haul up the log with a long slow pull.
I understand it is to repair the havoc made by an earthquake that the log is to be used--how many hard-working lives were perhaps crushed under the ruins of the fallen houses, and what evil power was it that destroyed what so much patient labour built up? I dare not ask, for who knows if it were not a pa.s.sing man who amused himself by knocking down the ant-hill with his stick!
And all the other tiny creatures, whose name I do not know, but into whose small world I look with joy, they also are fellow-citizens in Creation's great society, and probably they fulfil their public duties far better than I fulfil mine!
And besides, when thus lying down and staring into the gra.s.s, one ends by becoming so very small oneself.
And at last it seems to me as if I were nothing but an ant myself, struggling on with my heavy load through the trackless forest. Now it goes up-hill and now it goes down-hill. But the thing is not to let go.
And if there is some one to help to give a pull where the hill seems too steep and the load too heavy, all goes well enough.
But suddenly Fate comes pa.s.sing by and knocks down all that has been built up with so much hard labour.
The ant struggles on with her heavy load deep in the trackless forest.
The way is long, and there is still some time before the day's work is over and the dew falls.
But high overhead flies the dream on wings of sun-glitter and fairy-web.
HYPOCHONDRIA
The study of micro-organisms has directed medical science into new channels, and thrown open a hitherto undreamt-of world for eager investigators. The list of recent discoveries in bacteriology is already a long one. Koch's researches in cholera and tuberculosis, and Pasteur's method of vaccination against hydrophobia, are but links in the chain which one day shall fetter the hydra-headed dragon of disease. Less known, but hardly less important, are the very latest studies of hypochondria, which have led to the discovery that this evil also belongs to infectious diseases.
Struck by the constant disorder of thought and sensibility which characterise the hypochondriac, the doctors have up till now placed this malady amongst the nervous diseases, and it is in the central organs of the nervous system, more especially the brain, that its seat and origin have been determined. We finally know that hypochondria is an infectious disease, caused by a microbe which has been isolated, and named _Bacillus niger_ (A. M.).
It is after all astonis.h.i.+ng that this discovery has escaped so many investigators ever since Burton, whose _Anatomy of Melancholy_ still remains unparalleled--it is astonis.h.i.+ng when one considers the many a.n.a.logies which connect this so-called nervous disease with some of the best-known bacterial diseases, such as hydrophobia, tuberculosis, and cholera. As in hydrophobia, so in hypochondria the virus spreads over the nervous system, produces constant and well-known disorders in the brain, and ends here also by paralysis, paralysis of the affected individual's intellectual and moral functions, and, at last, mental death. As in hydrophobia, one also notices by the bacillus niger infection cramp in certain groups of muscles--that of the muscles of laughter being, for instance, very common. This cramp, _risus sardonicus_, is excessively painful, and its prognostic signification is a bad one, for it is a characteristic of absolutely incurable cases (Heine).
The tendency to bite, which characterises hydrophobia, is also encountered in certain forms of hypochondria (Schopenhauer). As a rule the affected individual is, however, inoffensive and resigned (Leopardi).
The cholera characteristic, _Stadium algidum_, is also to be found in bacillus niger infection--a Stadium algidum when the soul slowly grows cold, and at last reaches the zero of insensibility (Tiberius).
The curious, and, up till now, unexplained immunity which protects certain individuals from cholera, appears again in hypochondria--so, for instance, have idiots shown themselves absolutely refractory, _i.e._ not receptive of the bacillus niger infection. The explanation of the relative rarity of hypochondria is probably to be found in this fact... .
In a.n.a.logy with what experimental pathology has taught us about the microbes of cholera and tuberculosis, the bacillus niger does not seem to thrive on animals, though several exceptions to this rule are to be found, and as the tuberculosis bacillus is exceedingly common amongst cows, so may be pointed out the great diffusion of bacillus niger infection amongst old donkeys (Rosina). I do not believe, though, that here, as with the cows, one can speak of spontaneous infection--the virus has, in the case of the old donkey, more probably been introduced into the blood through a flogged back. Dogs seem, after a long contact with infected individuals, to be receptive of contagion (Puck).
Bacillus niger originates in the heart--there is no doubt about that--the disorders of the brain are secondary. The explanation why the seat of the evil has been supposed to be the brain is natural enough, because as a rule it is only since the infection has spread to the brain that the malady can be diagnosed. So long as bacillus niger has only attacked the heart, the diagnosis is much more difficult. The nature of the evil can, however, here, as in certain forms of tuberculosis, be easily enough detected at the back of the eyes. This is probably in relation with the morbid alteration of the organ of sight, which characterises the bacillus niger infection--_the patient sees life as it is_; when, on the contrary, as is well known, in the normal eye the vision of the outer world is reflected through certain media, illusions and never-dying hope, before it is transferred through the optic nerve to the brain.
As with microbes of the before-mentioned diseases, bacillus niger is also exceedingly tenacious of life. Its virulence can be temporarily reduced by alcohol, ink, and music. As for alcohol, its effect is indubitable, but unfortunately of very short duration. The microbe very soon--indeed, already the next morning, according to all experimentalists--regains its full vigour, and its temporary inactivity seems rather to have increased its virulence instead of decreasing it.
Like most of the other antimicrobic agents, alcohol is in itself a deadly poison, and its application in the treatment of the disease is therefore very limited. It is to be used with the greatest precaution, for there are numerous instances of the individual having followed his microbe to the grave.
May I here mention _en pa.s.sant_ a harmless old quack remedy--the common practice of smoking out the microbe. The home of the tobacco-plant is the same land where the poppy of oblivion blossoms, the silent sh.o.r.es between which flows the stream of Lethe. The fragrance of its leaf has deadened the microbe in more than one diseased brain, the clouds from an old pipe have hidden the reality from more than one sorrowful eye. (Do you remember Rodolphe in Henri Murger's _Vie de Boheme_?)
Ink as a bactericide is less known, but worth consideration. I know of a case, to which I shall return later, where a momentary amelioration was produced by an ink-cure. Contrary to alcohol, this specific can be used without any danger whatever to the individual himself--the danger being limited to his surroundings. The microbe is dipped in the ink-stand, and fixed on paper to dry. It maintains, however, its virulence long enough, and can, transplanted in a fertile soil, regain its vigour and grow.
The preparation must, therefore, be strictly locked up in the writing-desk, which now and then must be disinfected, the surest disinfectant being here, as always, fire.
As for music, this treatment was known even in the childhood of science; it was already highly esteemed by the ancients--hypochondria is, as is well known, one of the oldest of all diseases; it resounds already in the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides. The new world of bacteriology was then undreamt of, but the discoveries of thousands of years have done no more than verify the experience of the ancients. Music still remains the greatest consoler of sorrow-stricken man. Still to-day Saul seeks relief for his sombre soul from David's harp, still to-day does Orpheus conquer the shades of Hades by the sound of his lute; still to-day the song calls out for the Eurydice of our longing.
As was to be expected, the discovery of the microbe of hypochondria gave quite a new direction to the study of the treatment of this disease. To relate here the far-reaching experiences which followed the isolation of the bacillus niger would carry us too far--enough to say that the results of these investigations have unfortunately up till now been hopelessly negative. We, however, find it expedient to mention in a few words the experiments in air-therapeutics by which the discoverer of the microbe hoped to find a remedy for the evil--true that the result was even here negative, but there is a certain amount of interest still attached to these experiments which, pursued with more patience, might perhaps have led to a more satisfactory result. Starting from the a.n.a.logy between the bacillus niger infection and tuberculosis, the doctor emitted his hypothesis of a region of immunity from hypochondria as well as from consumption, of a possibility of finding in the pure air of the high alt.i.tudes a medium where the development of bacillus niger in the mind would cease, as well as the development of the tuberculosis-bacilli in the lungs. It was in the domain of experimental pathology--the field where Pasteur and Koch reaped their laurels--that the solution of the problem was to be looked for, and the bacterium in question living almost exclusively on mankind, the suitable animal for experiment had in this case necessarily to be a man. The doctor had for several years attended an individual affected with the complaint in question. It was a fine case. We quote here from the notes of the doctor: ”Man about thirty. The patient maintains an obstinate silence as to the origin of his sufferings; it is, however, evident that the evil dates from several years back. External examination nothing remarkable--on the contrary. Big dog at his heels. Energy but little developed. Active impulses wanting. Ambition rudimentary. Intelligence mediocre--maybe slightly above. Sense of humour well defined, as usual in these cases. Sensibility abnormally developed. Heart perhaps rather large. Tendency for idealism. Patient has hallucinations--fancies, for instance, he is surrounded by people who suffer and hunger; imagines seeing all sorts of animals oppressed and tortured to death.” The doctor had in vain prescribed several things in order to calm and distract his diseased mind, rest-cure in Anacapri for a whole year; earthquake in Ischia, cholera in Naples, etc. etc., but without any enduring result.