Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1922-07-16 | Page 7 | "Gone Bughouse"

"GONE BUGHOUSE" Around insane asylums there usual-1 ly is a harmless lunatic who is men-! tally normal except that he has an ob- j session for dressing up In freakish j clothes. The same individual would pass as sane at a masquerade, or even during epidemics of jazz styles. Another interesting eccentric around insane asylums is the gentle-' ! man who has the thrift instinct so highly developed that he hoardB bits ' of glass or bright quartz pebbles, under un-der the delusion that they arc immensely im-mensely valuable. He has a lot in 'common with some of the people out-1 side the asylum, who have the sam ' Jeagerness to accumulate money, ' jewels or rare articles I The insane people are not all lock cd up. 1 Science now la training its guns on nervous and mental disorders. One authority says that the biggest prob-tloni prob-tloni in America today is curbing our unconfined madmon all the way trom fanatics to what Ed Howes, wise J country editor, calls public-affairs; .lunatics." ' Dr. R. Warren Stearns, neurologist j ,ut Tufts Medical school, points out that one of the chief signs of a nor-(i nual brain is the tendency to conform ' !lo the customs and habits of tho raa :Jotity. . Discussing eccentric individuals, he -bays this about "paranoid personal! lies": "These individuals are peculiarly Sensitive. Their ego is dominant and hey care more for its promptings than i or commendation of the other members mem-bers of their group. These Individuals frequently head reform movements, but more often they live a thorn In Stile flesh of their associates, quibbling jover the social transgressions of their 1 neighbors, and attempting numerous ' -oclal measures, the main motive for -which lb an unconscious and blind C struggle against the dictates of the "larger herd or group of people. Among heae will be found sympathizers with '.He enemy In time of war, certain con sclentiou8 objectors, and those who habitually form themselves Into 'antl' societies. Carried to the extreme de greo: these Individuals are called 'par-anoiacs' 'par-anoiacs' those who are so far unbalanced un-balanced as to have delusions of persecution per-secution and Ideas of grandeur " Dr Stearns adds this word of caution, cau-tion, in considering "paranoid personalities" per-sonalities" that It is human Instinct to regard any one who disagrees with us as of morbid or Inferior mind, "and it must be remembered that every j once in a while one of these indlvid-! indlvid-! uals is right and that the world is I wrong." But, on the whole, this wouldn't bo bad time for the American people ' to take an inventory of some of the national "paranoid personalities" and figure out their degree of sanity or I unbalance