f the physician has to find the
middle way between a temporary removal of irritation which really allows
a development of new energies and a mere interruption which simply
damages the acquired relative adjustment. Every cause of friction which
can be permanently annihilated for the patient certainly should be
removed.

This negative remedy demands its positive supplement. The patient must
be brought under conditions and influences which give fair chances for
the recuperation of his energies. Too often from the standpoint of the
psychologist, the prescription is simply rest. As far as rest involves
sleep, it is certainly the ideal prescription. There is no other
influence which builds up the injured central nervous system as safely
as sound natural sleep, and loss of sleep is certainly one of the most
pernicious conditions for the brain. Again rest is a great factor in
those systematic rest cures which for a long while were almost the
fashion with the neurologist. Experience has shown that their
stereotyped use is often unsuccessful, and moreover that the advantage
gained by those months spent in bed completely isolated and overfed is
perhaps due to the separation and changed nutrition more than to the
overlong absolute rest. Yet used with discrimination, the physiological
and the psychical effect of lying in bed for a few weeks has certainly
often been a marked improvement, especially with young women. But more
often the idea of rest in bed during daytime is not meant at all when
the nerve specialist recommends rest to his over-strained patient. It is
simply meant that he give up his fatiguing daily work, even if that work
is made up of a round of entertainments and calls and social
engagements. The neurasthenic and all similar varieties are sent away
from the noise of the city, away from the rush of their busy life, away
from telephones and street cars, away from the hustling business and
politics.

Indeed it is the dogma of most official and unofficial doctors that the
restlessness and hurry and noise which all are characteristic of the
technical conditions of our time are the chief sources of the prevailing
nervousness. There was no time in the history of civilization in which
the average man was overwhelmed by so many demands on his nerve energy,
no time which asked such an abundance of interests even from the school
child. The wild chase for luxury in the higher classes, reenforced by
the commercialism of our tim