The Brain and the Nerves. By T. Shilito Dowse, M.D.
(Baillibre, Tindal, and Co.)—Dr. Dowse thinks that neurasthenia has been un- duly neglected by the profession, and that this neglect is very harmful to sufferers. For he refuses to think that disorders which may be said to dwell chiefly in the imagination are best dealt with by being let alone. On the contrary, he holds, as he pithily puts it, that " the worst enemy of the emotions is the intellect," and that the judicious physician will call in the aid of the intellect to dissipate delusions bred up in what may be called the emotional part of the nature. He has made a very interesting book out of this subject. There is, we doubt not, a considerable public of readers to whom the matter is one of surpassing interest ; and we should hardly be wrong if we guessed that a certain proportion of it are readers of the Spectator. The constituency of a sporting paper, on the other hand, would pro- bably not contribute many. Dr. Dowse speaks at length of the various forms which neurasthenia takes, such as cerebral indigestion, and other maladies—whether real or imaginary, or, as most of them probably are, mixed on the real and the fanciful—which might be enumerated. It is not commonly good for a patient to read disquisi- tions about his own ailments; but there is at least a partial exception to this rule in the case of neurasthenics. These invalids always believe themselves to be worse than they really are, and accordingly they cannot but be benefited by learning the truth.
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