Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1922-07-16 | Page 7 | Peculiar Moods

I PECULIAR MOODS. Do you ever, in walking along a ! street, try to step on every crack In j the sidewalk, or change the length of your strides to avoid stepping on j cracks altogether'1 In going upBtalrs, do you have impulses im-pulses to take certain steps "two at a ! time," or count the number of steps? Famous old Dr. Samuel Johnson had a similar habit. In taking a walk he could not resist hitting each picket of a fence with his cane Sometimes, he wrote it became an obsession with him that he had missed a picket. Then he would walk back several blocks and hit the annoying picket with great satisfaction Every one, at some time or otln i has peculiar impulses of this sort. Few stop to analyze them These absurd impulses or habits are mild symptoms of psychaBthenia, according ac-cording to Dr Abraham Myerson, who teaches neurology in Tufts Medical school Psychasthenla, suys Dr. Myerson, is a disease one of the formB of nervous ner-vous and mental disorders which the s public calls 'nervousness" and the scientist calls "psychoneurosls." Generallv these peculiar Impulses I can be eliminated b will powr r Ev-er Ev-er one has them at times, so no use worrying about them. We all have "crazy moments"' Psychasthenia, however, can develop devel-op Into a decidedly diseased condition that interferes with happiness and efficiency. ef-ficiency. In the background is the Disease of Fear. In advanced cases, fear becomes an extreme dread "of closed places, of . being alone, of dirt, of disease, of all ! kinds and manners of situations." I in extreme psychasthenia, says Dr. Myerson. the difficulty of making up the mind of deciding becomes so great that a person may suffer an agony of internal debate about crossing cross-ing the street, putting on the clothing, cloth-ing, eating the meals in fact, about every detail of acting and thinking. The scientist who specializes on ab normalties of the body's endocrine glands steps in and says that fear la the result of imperfect functioning of the adrenal glands, attached to the kidneys. Opposed to him is the mental scientist scien-tist who claims that it's the otber way around, that mental disorders causo the glandular "acting up." Regardless of which is right, It Is a good thing that attention Is finally-being finally-being paid to menial health as well as bodily health. We live In a hlghlv nervous age, with many times more Insane people outside asylum walls than within