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Show NEWYORKITIS. By Michael Monahan. About ten years ago a man of physic by the name of Girdner made a frenzied bid for fame by publishing the diagnosis of a disease which he called Newyorkitls. The thing had been observed before that and some of the symptoms described but Girdner was rightfully awarded caveat, as ho was the first to identify it as a distinct malady and give it a name. Like other great benefactors of humanity, Girdner Gird-ner had small reward for his pains, and after a three days' wonder he was forgotten. Not long ago, I am told, he succumbed to Newyorkitls, thus by a strange fatality falling prey to the dread disease dis-ease of which he had been the virtual discoverer. Meanwhile the terrible plague for it Is nothing less, continues to extend its ravages and to aid to the appalling total of its victims. No other result re-sult could indeed be looked for, seeing the lack of intelligent theraputlcs and the constantly increasing increas-ing population of the Great City. Girdner is perhaps in his grave where it may be hoped that after life's fitful Newyorkitls he sleeps well. His book sleeps even more soundly and the warnings which he voiced a short decade ago are unheeded or forgotten. I hate to rush into the breach, dear friends, but somebody will have to lead the forlorn hope. So here goes! What, then, is Newyorkitls? It Is, as its name certifies, a special kind of disease to which New-yorkers New-yorkers are liable. Many are its manifestations and a deranged sense of the importance of things ia one of the most familiar symptoms. The afflicted af-flicted person never suspects that anything Is wrong with him and often remarks, apropos of nothing, that "little old New York has the rest of the Cosmos beaten to a frazzle", whatever that may mean. Girdner erred, I believe, in ascribing Newyorkitls Newyorki-tls largely to tne varied and infernally torturing noises of the city. These have their effect no ways, in particular, writes itself in certain forms of the disease. But if Girdner were living today ho would have to admit that more potent and malefic agents are to be traced to the yellow press, the mad, chase of the dollar, and above all, the unl-doubt, unl-doubt, and the nerve-grinding horror of the sub-versal sub-versal sex-lunacy. Different in kind as are these engendering causes, they lead ultimately to the same thing, and that is Newyorkitls. |