Golden Age, November 12, 1930
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crhe Golden. Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND- COURAGE
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RESISTING x
WORLD’S MENTAL bi. jOWN
OUT OF THE WRECK
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
UNEMPLOYMENT
DIVINE PROPHECY
Full text of an address by Judge Butherford, broadcast in WATCHTOWER national chain program
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every other
WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XII - No. 291 -
N ovember 12,19 3 0 .
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Greatest Economic Crisis Ever Known......117
Near East Aristocracy Changing 117
Broadcasting Bolshevism
over Europe ...... 117
How to Get Twice as Much Money 119
No More Conscientious Objectors 120
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
The World’s Mental Breakdown 102
Out of the Wreck.....117
Uncle Sam Not Eating Wheat . 117
Religion Excluded from China . 118
The Raids at Folkstone . . . 118
Soviet Confiscates Bibles . . . 118
Fifty Million Bibles a Year . . 118
Cost of a Loaf of Bread . . . 119
Genesis of the Anti-Saloon League ........126
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Russia’s Astonishing Development 119
HOME AND HEALTH
Sterilization of the Unfit , .
The Helpless Serum Purveyors
Easy Way to Cure High Blood
Pressure ..... .
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Barbarisms in South China . . 117
Independence of South Africa . 119
Cuenca’s Chamber of Horrors . 119
Russia Preparing New World War 120
Erratum...... 120
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Traffic Instructions in Tokio . 116
American Aviation Now Leads . 117
Still Heaping Treasure Together 117
Deposits and Cash.....118
The Kara Sea Fleet .... 118
The Dairymen’s League . . . 120
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Resisting the- Truth in
Montpelier, Indiana Payments in Kind . . Divine Prophecy . . . The Responsibility for
Unemployment . .
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Golden Age
Volume XII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, November 12, 1930 Number 2S1
Resisting the Truth in Montpelier, Indiana
'Wow as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt MINDS, of no judgment concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly
. shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was J—2 Tim. 3:8, 9, margin.
THE Lord’s true people are the most inoffensive people on earth. It is not pleasant for them to be compelled to refer directly to the shortcomings of others, and they never do so unless conditions are such that there seems no other way open if the truth, God’s own truth, as plainly set down in the Bible, is to have its proper standing in a community.
ISAIAH 0
The Blind Leading the Bund
It was no pleasure for Jesus to refer to the . ‘Ministerial Association’ of Jerusalem as hypocrites, whited sepulchres full of dead men’s bones, men who are lovers of their own selves, men who took away the key of knowledge from the people, and would neither go into the kingdom of heaven themselves nor permit others to enter in, yet, on emergency, he did not hesitate to do his full duty in this regard.
A summary of his terrible castigations of Jerusalem’s official Board of Hypocrisy can be found in Judge Rutherford’s latest book, Light, Book Two, under the heading “Hypocrisy Exposed”. We unreservedly recommend this book to the people of Montpelier, Indiana.
ATAN'S , RGANIZATION
Everybody knows where the Ministerial Association of Montpelier, Indiana, stood during the World War. It stood, firmly and squarely, on the Devil’s side, on the side of murdering one’s enemies instead of loving them. It did not teach, and dared not teach, Love your enemies, resist not evil, blessed are the peacemakers, put up thy sword into its sheath, do to others as ye would that they should do to you, our weapons are not carnal weapons, if thine enemy hunger feed him, etc., etc., or, in other words, the simplest and plainest tenets of Christianity, which is to love your neighbor as yourself.
It stood where every other Ministerial Association of America stood, and where every Ministerial Association of Germany and Great Britain stood. It stood as the sure and dependable tool of the Devil himself in what has
turned out to be the worst curse the world has ever seen, the World War, which has brought sorrow to everybody and good to nobody.
It does not surprise us, therefore, when we find in the Montpelier Herald, of September 29, the following libelous item:
Issue Warning Against Books City Ministerial Association Issues Paper Signed by AU Ministers
A warning against the buying of alleged Bible Study books from a house-to-house canvasser, was issued this morning by the ministers of the city, at the regular meeting of the Ministerial Association held in the Methodist church at ten o’clock.
The warning was issued following the appearance in this city, of a lady canvasser who is selling publications which the local ministers claim were suspended by the United States government during the war for presenting dangerous propaganda to the people.
The statement as signed by the ministers is as follows:
“There is a lady in town canvassing from house to house, selling what she claims to be Bible study books that are said to be written by a Judge Rutherford, and claiming to make a thorough explanation of all Biblical revelation.
“We think it is due the public that we, the undersigned ministers, state that Judge Rutherford is the successor of Pastor Russell and his millennial dawn theories that have long since been discredited by
Bible students and religious educators and thinking people.
“During the recent world war these publications .....
were suspended by the United States government for .
presenting dangerous propaganda to the people.
“Signed: .........
“William H. Law, Pres., “J. 11. Stelle, ............
“A. E. Chastain, q yay “Chas. H. Broughman,.........._
5 ‘ Gaston R. Coyner,
Secretary.’’ .....
The devotional service of the meeting this morning, was led by the president, the Reverend W. II. Law. ? The Reverend Gaston R. Coyner, pastor of the Naz-arene, was elected secretary. The ministers present gave a summary of their work yesterday, each report- ••• = ing an increase in attendance at services. After discussing plans for the welfare -of the churches, the ....... ;
meeting adjourned to meet at the call of the president some time in November.
Under these circumstances it is a peculiar pleasure to us to give our readers the benefit of seeing a letter written by Judge Rutherford to William IL Law, president of the Montpelier Ministerial Association. It speaks the truth in love, but it speaks it plainly. The Golden Age endorses every word:
.. Oct. 7, 1930.
William II. Law, President,
Montpelier, Indiana.
Sib :
In its issue of September 29, 1930, the Montpelier Herald publishes a paper which purports to be signed by yourself, J. R. Stelle, A. E. Chastain, Chas. H. Broughman, and Gaston R. Coyner, representing yourselves to be members of the Ministerial Association of that town. Manifestly your motive in issuing this statement is to prevent the people from obtaining and reading certain books written by myself, and which are devoted entirely to Bible instruction. It is hardly necessary for me to say that if your statement is untrue, then you are guilty of libel for such publication. You have misled the newspaper man to publish a libel which also makes him liable.
From your published statement I quote paragraphs as follows: “Thore is a lady in town canvassing from house to house, selling what she claims to be Bible study books that are said to be written by a Judge Rutherford, and claiming to make a thorough explanation of all Biblical revelation.” “During the recent world war these publications were suspended by the United States government for presenting-dangerous propaganda to the people.”
The language of the paragraph last above quoted is grossly false and libelous, and is prima facie evidence of malicious intent on your part. The first book written by me was. written and published in 1921, three years after the world war ended, and the books dealing with Revelation which you specifically mention were written and published in 1930. The facts therefore show you have published a deliberate lie, and that you have done so with an intent to do injury to others.
For your information I might say that the total number of books that I have written and which are now in the hands of the people amount to many millions, and therefore there are millions of people in the United States who will at once know when they read your statement, that you are lying and that your purpose is to do injury to myself and to the people.
Furthermore, you have falsely stated that these books are propaganda. They are not propaganda, because they set forth the view of no man nor attempt to propagate any doctrines of man. Every point therein is supported by the facts, and particularly by the Bible, which enables the people to find in the Bible the truths they desire to know. Jehovah God sent Jesus to earth to be a witness to the truth, and Jesus faithfully gave that testimony amidst persecution similar to what you now would inflict upon those who serve the Lord. (John 18:37) The clergy among the Jews accused Jesus of propaganda and sedition, and refused to believe the truth that he told. Therefore Jesus said to them: “But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God. . . . Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father will ye do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8: 40, 43, 44) You put yourselves in the same class with these Pharisees, and prove by your words that you are of your father the Devil and you continue to maintain his reputation for promulgating lies.
You are not interested in helping the people to find out the truth. If you were, then you would encourage them to study the Bible and use the books that explain the Bible. If you found anything in these books contrary to the Bible you would point it out that it is against God’s Word, and not try to make it appear that it is against the government. You know nothing about the Bible yourselves and you vrant to keep the people blind to the Bible truths. Therefore you put yourselves in the same class again with the Pharisees of whom Jesus said: “Let them alone: they be leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” (Matt. 15:14) The people are now letting you alone and staying away from your churches, and you are unable to mislead them much longer, and that makes you angry.
You pose before the people as representatives of God and of Christ, and at the same time ally yourselves with the polities of this world, which the Word of God denounces. (Jas. 4:4; 2 Cor. 4:3, 4) You pose before the people as being interested in their spiritual welfare, and yet your words and course of action show that you are more interested in cooperating with a class of men who force a law such as prohibition upon the people and which opens the door to criminals as never before. If you were really interested in God’s kingdom and what the Scriptures teach, you would tell the people that all the crime resulting from the various bootlegging schemes and other crimes are due to the ■wicked influence of the Devil, and that the oppression of the people is due to the Devil’s influence, and that God’s kingdom is the only remedy. You are not doing that. You do not instruct the people concerning the Bible and its teachings of God’s kingdom.
The Lord hates a hypocrite, and he denounces in the 23d chapter of Matthew such men as pose before the people as representing God, and at the same time misrepresent him. You are willing to make yourselves guilty of slanderous speech and libelous words against a man or men who are trying to help the people, because of a selfish reason on your part. Y’ou think if the people know the truth that is taught in the Bible they will stay away from your congregations, and no more will you be able to make your living by taking their dimes while talking politics and other things that have nothing to do with their eternal welfare.
If the ministers of the United States had told the people the truth concerning God and His kingdom, there would be far less crime than today and far less discontent. The people are suffering great want and oppression, and yet there is not a clergyman in any of the denominations who busies himself in teaching the people how their relief from these oppressions can come and will come through God’s kingdom, and it alone.
Of course, you gentlemen are at liberty to believe what you please, and take your' own course, but you ought to cease calling yourselves clergymen and posing as representatives of the Lord when you deliberately misrepresent His Word. The time is not far distant when the people’s eyes will be opened to the fact that you have misrepresented God, and Christ and His kingdom, and kept them in blindness. It would be far better if you would encourage the people to read books that are published on the Bible, and then meet with them and study, and whatsoever set forth therein that is contrary to the Word of God, point it out to them. That would be more consistent than engaging in libelous accusation of another, when you claim to be teachers of the Bible.
You call yourselves the shepherd of the flock, and yet you have let the flock starve for want of the truth. For your enlightenment I call your attention to the Word of God that is applied to men of your class and set forth in Ezekiel chapter 34, verses 2 to 10, inclusive.
If you gentlemen that signed that paper were honest and fair, you would sign one more and have it published, and admit to the public that your statement was untrue and that you were wrong, and suggest that the people inform themselves by reading the books and see whether or not they teach the Word of God. If you would let the politics of the country alone and devote yourselves honestly and earnestly to the study of God’s Word, and help the people, you would do some good. But it seems from your course of action you are practically beyond all recovery. The Lord will give you attention in due season.
Respectfully,
J. F. Rutherford.
The World’s Mental Breakdown
TIGERS do not kill tigers, lions do not kill lions, hyenas do not kill hyenas, and boa constrictors do not kill boa constrictors. It is not till one comes to creatures created in the image and likeness of God, and that have fallen from that image, that one finds the mentally ill in any considerable numbers, man is mentally ill. It accounts for the foolish things he believes and practices. Only a mentally ill creature would take the life of his own kind.
In 1850 the census showed that in the United States there were 15,610 insane, while in 1923 there were 267,617 such persons then actually patients in asylums. It is estimated that by 1970 there will be 950,000 thus confined, or about 635 per 100,000 of population.
In New York state one out of every twenty-two persons is confined to a mental institution at some time during his or her life. At present the chance of a young person fifteen years of age of developing an incapacitating mental disorder, whether sent to a mental hospital for insanity or not, is about that of one to ten.
In examining the citizenry of the nation at the time of the World War it was found that there were more men with mental diseases outside the hospitals than there ’were in the hospitals. These results were almost the same in Massachusetts as in New York state. One-half of the insane patients in New York insane asylums were born in Europe.
Taking the country as a whole, insanity and mental disorders are increasing four times as fast as the population. One-half of the hospital beds in the United States are for mental cases, and the beds for such cases are increasing more rapidly than for all other classes put together. Some of this increase is due to the increased attention being given to mental disorders.
The same phenomena which confront the United States are observable in England, Wales, Germany, Australia, France and all other countries involved in the World War. It is stated that at the rate at which insanity-is increasing in the United States there would not 'be a sane man or woman left in North America in two hundred years,, and that in fifty years the burden of supporting the insane and the feeble-minded would be too great for the sane to bear. Mental diseases are increasing in all parts of the world.
A Test of Abnormality
One of the simplest of the tests suggested to determine abnormality is to ask a person to name a number between five and twelve, and a color. If the number is seven and the color is blue the person is normal. The theory is that seven is a supposedly lucky number, and blue a popular color. Sixteen out of twenty persons passed this test. That looks like too simple a test to be worth much, but we give it for what it is worth.
Another test is to make a list of the fifty men and women you know best and then carefully check over the list to see how many of them, to your personal knowledge, have at one time or another had a nervous breakdown, a psychoneurotie reaction to the vicissitudes of life, or, in other words, a mental disease.
In the World War psycho-neuroses constituted a major problem on both sides of the line. Twenty percent of the soldiers discharged for disability from the British army had one or another of the mental diseases termed “shell shock’’, neurasthenia or war neurosis. It is claimed that at least 90 percent of us are mentally defective.
Each year in America one person out of every forty-eight homes passes through the courts into correctional institutions. At least half of these are mentally disordered, mentally deficient or unstable individuals. America has seventeen thousand suicides a year. At least ten thousand of these cases are due to well defined mental disorders. More than a third of the hospital patients cared for by the Veterans’ Bureau are mental or nervous cases. What a commentary on war!
When men are disillusioned regarding life they take it harder than the women, the practical half of the human family. In both the single and widowed groups the males are in larger numbers for first admission into mental institutions. But the men recover more quickly. Patients with alcoholic insanity improve rapidly, and patients with general paralysis die quickly; so the average duration of hospital life is less for males than for females. .
Like the prisons, the asylums for the insane are overcrowded. In 1926 New York state expended five million dollars improving its asylums, and within three years thereafter they were overcrowded. California has had a like experience.
The Seven Times of Madness
Nebuchadnezzar, in his day, represented Gentile rule in the earth. He was insane for seven years. Those seven years represent the seven Gentile times, the period from the overthrow of King Zedekiah, 606 B, C., down to the outbreak of the World War, which legally ended Gentile rule and almost ended it actually.
The condition of affairs during those 2,520 years proves that the rulers have been madmen. What sane persons believe that the common people of any land desire to murder their fellows or to be murdered by them? And yet they have given their support to a set of rulers that have brought on one terrible era of bloodshed after another.
■ Other countries besides Germany have suffered because of the inordinately vain Kaiser Wilhelm II. His father and his grandfather ■were sane, but his earlier ancestors showed all the evidence of minds that were out of balance. Frederick I was a spendthrift and tyrant; Frederick William I was bloodthirsty and tyrannical, and hated his own son; Frederick the Great was a human butcher; the next two generations were weak-minded fanatics, and William IV died insane.
Before the Kaiser’s birth his mother, then but eighteen years of age, was under a doctor’s care for nervous troubles and in a pitiable condition. The child was at first thought to have been born dead; it is almost a pity that he had not been.
But of what can America boast as respects sanity? There was every reason that sanity could urge why she should have stayed out of the war. America was in no more possible danger of an invasion from the Germans than it was from the Patagonians.
But America, had a ruler (a servant he was, but he thought himself a ruler) that was of the same general type as the Kaiser, vain, egotistical, heady; and as he thought that the lives, fortunes, and influence for good of the American people were all at stake, they were herded into a war against their own interests and to the ruin of all except the patrioteers.
When crazy rulers are not planning the ruin of the people by driving them into some war, they are planning their ruin economically. The avowed purpose of politicians is to sustain a system which hands over most of the wealth to those who do no useful work, and to keep that class in luxury while the workers receive a bare subsistence. What could be crazier?
Causes of Insanity
At the top of the list of the causes of insanity we put the influence of the demons, evil spirits. A large proportion of the insane are in their present condition because the 'demons have taken advantage of some injury or weakness in their mental structures.
The Scriptures, and the Son of God Himself, repeatedly charge the demons with causing breakdowns of the human mind, and of the body as well. See the account of dumbness, in Matthew 9:32; of blindness and dumbness, in Matthew 12:22; of epilepsy, in Mark 9:17-27; of the incident at Gadara, in Mark 5:1-15; of the failure of the apostles, in Matthew 17:14-21; and of the clairvoyant of Thyatira, in Acts 16:16-18.
The Scriptures link the demons with. Armageddon, going forth To gather the kings of the whole earth to the battle of that great day of God Almighty’. (Rev. 16:14-) They charge Satan’s entire government and management of the affairs of earth as being “the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit”.—Rev. 18:2.
A way in which demons get in contact with humans is through mediums, who constantly advertise in the papers as clairvoyants, healers, consulters, and revealers of hidden things. Many brainy people, many talented personages, are among spiritism’s devotees, not knowing the true explanation of its phenomena.
Too much attention to the operation of the mind is a cause of insanity. When one spends too much time pondering upon the operations of his own mind he is in a fair way to lose control of it. Manual dexterity does not come from gazing at one’s hands or poring over one’s anatomy, but from paying close attention to the things in hand. It is the same way with the mind.
Confusion of the Mind Doctors
The mind doctors have made up a list of kinds of insanity and causes of insanity that makes one’s head ache to look at it. Some of the kinds are: ■'
general paresis
feeble-mindedness
epilepsy
alcoholic psychosis
dipsomania
delirium tremens
paranoia
lycanthropy
alcoholic hallucinasis encephalopsychosis transitory psychosis
old age psychosis dementia praecox neurosis melancholia
abnormal irritability psych op athic personality satyriasis
nymphomania
manic depressive psychosis.
Tne causes are as varied as the kinds of insanity m which they result. Under this head
are listed:
exclusiveness discouragement suspicion unsoeiability antisocial attitude cocaine fear
anxiety
selfishness
worry distrust incompatibility syphilis
blows on head joy
grief
laziness discontent misinterpretation alcoholism
opium fevers
anger
temperamentalism overconcentration
senility asthma diabetes toothache influenza pneumonia ,
carbon monoxide enteric fever .
autosuggestion unemployment sore throat skin disease association with insane load poison benzol dysentery adolescence focal infections hay fever loss of hearing malaria typhoid fever carbon bisulphid gasoline thirst
. Emil Kraepelin, one of the most conspicuous figures in modern psychiatry (treatment of the mind), who devoted his lifetime to the study of mental disorders and examined thousands of patients, gave as his final judgment that the causes of dementia praseox (deterioration of mind in early life) are at the present time wrapped in impenetrable darkness, and that this is generally true of other forms of insanity.
Dr. G. B. Cruickshanks, government inspector in insanity for twenty years, said: “There is no line of demarcation between sanity and insanity. Some people are insane in the opinion of others, and yet might be regarded by ths vast majority as being in full possession of their senses. There is no real distinction between sanity and insanity. Some of our most valuable citizens are cranks and yet their work in life is very useful.”
Indications of Mental Disorder
When it comes to the visible indications of mental disorder there is less disagreement. If a person cannot get along with other people he is mentally ill. Nobody has a mental breakdown while he is getting on smoothly with other people. When Saul became insane he wanted to kill David. The fact is that a demon had possession of his mind.
Dodging something disagreeable may bring on a headache, a sign of mental disorder. If the person had faced the difficulty courageously there would have been no headache. A pain in the back may follow discouragement, another mental disorder. Sleeplessness may follow as a result of worry, another mental disorder.
Stealing indicates mental disorder, and so does the fatigue which grows out of laziness. Lynchings are contagious mental disorders, where demons use a leader to override the sense ....... of a crowd and turn it into a mob. Fear lessens the blood flow and is a cause and evidence of insanity.
The mind has such a powerful influence over the body that an author writing of an Arctic blizzard grew so cold in midsummer that he was ......forced to start a fire in the grate. Many people grow colder immediately when they find no heat in a radiator after touching it and finding f that there is no heat in it.
The scribbling of weird and ugly faces on paper indicates a troubled state of mind, so says a teacher of graphology. Paranoia or monomania is a delusion which takes the form of self-importanee or imaginary persecution and ........ is considered one of the most dangerous forms of insanity. The deluded one is sane on all subloots except that he becomes convinced that an employer, a friend or a relative is plotting ■ against him. When his load becomes mentally intolerable there is a tragedy. Moral: Stop thinking about yourself. A sense of humor is a big help just here.
_ . PFhat the PsrjcktaMst Looks For
- A nerve specialist inquires whether one’s gait ......is regular or jerky, whether his speech is controlled or breathless, and whether his pronunelation is clear or jumbled. He notes a loss of the sense of humor, a failing memory, a desire ......... to brood alone, inability to concentrate, muddy thinking, a trembling near the pit of the stoin-ach, a series of psychic experiences, a whirling ";" sensation or a sudden change of religious ideas
as evidences of mental disorder. The chances are that the patient is not eating enough fruit and vegetables, and not working industriously. A. Melancholia, or manic depressive insanity, -■ constitutes 70 to 80 percent of all mental
_ disease. More than half of these eases terminate in complete recovery. Dementia prsecox (mental decay) is an ailment of university students and often results in suicide. *
It is noted that the insane cannot act in concert. There is no teamwork. People can help to keep themselves sane by training themselves to join heartily in some good cause and submerge their own individualities in it for the good of the cause. The very best cause of all in which to do this is the Lord’s cause, and it provides plenty of opportunities for service and for selfeffacement.
When insanity develops it commonly takes the form of hatred of those nearest and dearest. Confinement with the insane tends to make doctors, nurses and attendants insane, and tends to keep insane those who are already afflicted. The quiet and orderly routine is an offset to this tendency.
The total incidence of insanity differs but slightly in the two sexes. The percentage of insanity is greater among the unmarried than the married. The focal infection theory of insanity is now pretty generally discredited. It belongs to the days of popular removal of any surplus parts of the body which could be hacked off or chopped out.
Some hhlssoneeptions
The National Committee for Mental Hygiene lists some misconceptions respecting insanity. These are that it conies suddenly, is incurable and is a disgrace, that nobody can guard against it, and that admission to an asylum rings down the curtain on the life of the victim.
The Committee also regards with disapproval the theories that emotional shock, loss of loved ones, disappointment in love, or other misfortunes cause insanity, or that it is a specific disease entity, or that a nervous breakdown is a disease of the nerves.
The Committee holds that insanity develops gradually, that it is a condition no more to be ashamed of than a broken limb, that asylums today are being turned into hospitals from which 25 to 40 percent are discharged fully recovered or improved, that mental illness caused by personal misfortunes or tragedies are merely the climactic features of other causes of insanity which have been working for some time, probably unnoticed and unheeded. The way to be prepared for such climaxes is to meet the lesser evils with fortitude as they present themselves in everyday life.
It is an error that the insane cannot reason, and also that the mind does not function well when it is fatigued. The popular conception that there is a connection between lunacy and the shining of luna, the moon, is probably without foundation. The fact that this idea is widespread all over darkest Africa and the Far East suggests that it is one more of Satan’s schemes to discredit the Creator, whose gift of the moon was intended to be and is a. blessing to all created things on this earth.
It is a misconception that insanity implies mental deficiency. Idiots, morons and imbeciles are not normally insane; nor are the aments, those poor creatures with bodies warped, twisted and distorted, with heads suggesting horses or dogs. A psychiatrist states that he has enjoyed brilliant discussions in two languages about intricate phases of scit nee with insane patients locked in the most violent wards, while an ament would have so few brain cells that he would starve to death at a table laden with food.
Demonism Exceedingly Common
Demonism was exceedingly common in Old Testament times, in the time of our Lord and of the apostles, and throughout the Dark Ages. It is common today all over Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and North America and the islands of the sea, and demonism breeds insanity and is a form of insanity, mental sickness.
A British social student made a visit to the Falkland Islands, off the tip of South America. While there a number of persons attacked with a kind of influenza committed suicide, all in the same way. At a certain point in the run of the disease the victim dashed from the house straight through the window, if that was nearer than the door, and ran in a direct line as fast as he could go until he suicided by running off a cliff or into the open ocean. This was evidently the work of demons.
A somewhat similar form of suicide occurs in Siberia, where the natives rush out into the snow and freeze to death. How this reminds one of the case cured by the Lord where the demon continually thrust the unfortunate victim into either the fire or the water, evidently trying to kill him.—Matt. 17:15.
The best way to keep out of demonism and out of mental sickness is to live as our Lord and the apostles lived and as they advised the church to live, engaged in doing and delighting to do the will of God as set down in His Word. The constructive message of God’s Kingdom is the sanest thing in the world today. The efforts to uphold Satan’s empire are insane.
The happiest way to live is to concentrate on first one thing and then another. Perhaps the management of the International Bible Students recognize this principle when they inaugurate their drives in the placing of literature. Variety gives spice and zest to life. The same work is helpful toward sanity because it drives fear out of one’s life, and fear is a step toward mental sickness.
Employment Helps to Sanity
Useful employment, especially if there is some variety to it, helps toward sanity. No Bible Student today can complain that he can find nothing to do. There are millions of people to be called on and revisited with the message of the Kingdom. On the other hand those who have nothing to do are the most unhappy people in the world. Fear gnaws at their mental structures until, sooner or later, there is a collapse. The doctors wrho have thousands of the insane under their care notice that cases multiply more rapidly as the waves of unemployment come. Worry ovei’ the needs of one’s loved ones, due to lack of work on the part of the family breadwinner, may so fill the mind as to break down the mental balance.
The present condition of civilization, in which there is employment for neither man nor beast, but the machine does it all or nearly all, is the final phase of Satan’s empire; and one of the worst, because it means the physical and mental ruin of his subjects. .
The idiotic course of periodically killing off the finest youths in wars has done much to weaken humanity intellectually. The ones that would make the sanest fathers are deprived of parenthood and of life. The culls are left to fill the world with their own kind, and as the intellectually capable refuse to bear children the course of mankind is ever downward.
There is no evidence that the brain of man today is equal to that of the man of ancient Greece. If Aristotle or Socrates had had access to the facts now available in books their use of those facts would far outshine the achievements of our contemporaries; and when it comes to a knowledge and use of the Scriptures, every Bible Student today knows that our wise men are mere babies, prattlers.
Size of brain means nothing as respects sanity. The brain of Anatole France, genius, philosopher, scholar, was only three-fourths of that of the normal weight, 48 ounces. The largest brain ever discovered, according to De Quatrefages, belonged to a lunatic. Youth means nothing as respects sanity. The average age of all the insane is but 42, just at a time when they should be doing their best work.
Education means little and opportunity means little as respects sanity. When President Wilson lost control of himself at the mention of Theodore Roosevelt’s name, Lloyd George is said to have remarked to his secretary, “Fancy any man taking another man so seriously.” Irritability and loss of temper are evidences of mental illness.
Ability to play games is not a proof of sanity. After his execution it transpired that a murderer who was undoubtedly insane was found guilty because it leaked out to the jury that he was the best card-player in the jail where he was confined awaiting trial. Yet card-playing is one of the most common diversions of patients in asylums.
A feeling of self-importance is not a proof of sanity. It is the reverse. In one of the asylums often visited by an investigator of these subjects was a criminal patient who believed he was the president of the United States. He was rational and intelligent on every other subject, ■with as keen perception and calm judgment as any intelligent man outside, but a hint that he was not the president of whom the papers were speaking transformed him immediately into a gibbering sophist.
Genius and Temperament
Dr. E. S. Southard, an eminent alienist from Boston, president of the American Mental and Psychical Association, in an address at Philadelphia asserted that every form of neurosis may be classified as a, form of insanity, that every “temperamental” person is really insane, and that from this point of view all mankind are unbalanced.
Musicians, painters, and poets, all bear testimony to the fact that talent, genius, and insanity are closely allied. The craze for paintings by cubists and futurists was insanity; many of the modern dances and the music which accompanies them are the work of disordered minds.
When it comes to authors, we see the eccentricities of Francis Bret Harte finding hereditary expression in his daughter, Jessamy Harte Steel, until her career is ended by confinement in the St. Lawrence Hospital for the Insane.
There was mental unsoundness on both sides of the poet Cowper’s ancestry; and he himself suffered from hallucinations, melancholia and suicidal mania, spending over a year in an asylum. Shelley had an insane ancestry, was subject to vivid hallucinations, and at school was known as “Mad Shelley”. .
Charles Lamb, at the age of twenty, was committed to an asylum; and his sister Mary while insane murdered her mother. There was insanity in Wordsworth’s family. His sister Dorothy, of his own poetical temperament, became hopelessly insane. Southey came of insane stock on his mother’s side.
Coleridge’s family had strongly marked insane tendencies: his father was eccentric and his mother simple-minded. Sir Walter Scott’s family was permeated with nerve disorders and dementia on both sides. Byron’s mother was unbalanced, and his maternal grandfather suffered from melancholia and finally committed suicide. His father also committed suicide while insane.
It Is Good to Be of the Common People
It is good to be of the common people. When one is walking with his feet on the ground he has not so far to fall as when he is walking on stilts. Those that are great, or thought to be great, are on the stilts. Kraft-Ebing, a noted specialist on insanity, made the observation that “more people of great genius exhibit manifestations of insanity than do persons of ordinary mentality”.
Some illustrations of this are found in the fact that Goethe, the German poet, and Benvenuto Cellini, the noted Italian artist, were both quite mad at times. Cardinal Richelieu used to caper about his room imitating a horse, and Lord Beaconsfield used to shout aloud at times to make sure that he was alive.
If all the machinery in the world were to become in a moment inoperative the only people that would be able to live are the Esquimaux who make everything they use, and the villagers who are in the habit of providing almost all of their own tools and equipment. Most capitalists would starve.
The labor turnover in a certain factory was far above what it should have been. A psychiatrist was called in. He made a careful study of the facts and showed that the ones who left were the bright ones. He advised the manufacturer to hire commonplace men and train them. They would be more likely to remain sane.
If the plans of the Russians mature there will sometime be a fund of information regarding brains. They purpose to keep the brains of celebrities in glass bowls, -with plates telling whose brain is inside and what the brain was noted for in life.
It would be interesting to see the brain of Magliabecchi, the man who never forgot anything he had ever read, or the two brains mentioned by Mr. J. A. Hadfield, of London University. One of these was of a man who remembered the details of a fire which happened when he was a baby of eight months, and the other was of a woman who remembered what happened a few minutes after her birth.
Noise and Worry '
Anything that tears steadily at the nerves is a cause of mental illness, and for that reason the rate of insanity is much higher in cities than in the rural districts. Unemployment we have already touched on, but another thing about the city that makes it hard on the nerves is noise. Concerning this, Dr. Mam", trustee of the Sanitary District of Chicago, said:
Unnecessary noises are the bane of metropolitan existence. They murder sleep, assassinate mental rest, shatter our nerves, and indirectly shorten our lives. Factory whistles screeching three times a day, in addition to steamboat, tug-boat and locomotive whistles, the grinding, crunching, munching of flat-wheeled street-cars and elevated trains, the shrill sirens of auto trucks, the cannonade of exploding motors, venders of vegetables crying their song of sale, boys screaming extra papers, barking dogs, howling cats, rattling milkwagons, the untimely sounding of guns, church bells, hand organs and barrel organs, the discordant piano and whining phonograph, the radio loud speaker, the amateur trombone, the saxophone in practice. Noise! It increases the death rate by murdering sleep. It destroys the vital and recuperative powers of the sick. It increases deafness. It helps indirectly to fill our insane asylums. There is little doubt but that many nervous wrecks are created every year by the incessant din. and clamor to which the average city resident is continually subjected.
The war was a direct cause of insanity. There are 100,000 mentally deranged in Paris, mostly from that cause; and from the American forces alone 72,000 are reported by the American Legion as deranged. Consequently, the total number on all fronts and in all sides of the conflict must be nearly or quite half a million.
Then the war was an indirect cause of insanity to great numbers who found no way of reconciling the conflicting voices of conscience, loyalty, duty, self-preservation, patriotism, Christianity, etc., presented to them.
Moral courage makes for sanity. The man who takes a stand, one way or the other, and abides by what he believes to be right, will endure the reverses of life with a courage and success that ■will seem almost supernatural. Children should be trained to face unpleasant situations and to make the best of them, but not to worry about them.
There is on record a credible case of a young woman happily married who so feared motherhood that she actually induced her husband to take her life. How much better for them both to have spared both lives and added another happy little new face to greet the blessings here below.
Fear of insanity has caused many suicides and murders, and fear of military service or fear of the sufferings of the conscientious objector has caused insanity, which is worse than either of the dread alternatives.
> The evading of any responsibility tends toward insanity. The more hopelessly insane a person is, the more he acts like an infant, assuming that whatever he wishes should be provided for him by others because he desires it. The possession of a disposition to wish to get along without work is therefore an evidence of insanity. It indicates the neurotic mind. The desire to work, to produce, so that one may have for himself and have to give to others, is an evidence of sanity. The idle rich are all on the road to insanity, and many of them are actually insane.
Too Much Excitement
The movie theaters have been blamed for some of the increase in insanity, and probably not without reason. Every form of mental strain is depicted by the actors, and this cannot fail to have some effect upon those who are suffering mentally or are predisposed to insanity.
Much insanity is caused by poisons of various kinds undermining the brain structure through the blood stream. Syphilis is deadly to the brain structure; and there is hardly a person who does not have it in his blood, either bovine syphilis, derived from vaccination, or the real thing obtained from our tainted (not sainted) ancestors.
There is too much excitement in American universities and in American business. The proof of this statement lies in the fact that fully one-half of our university graduates have suffered from threatened or actual nervous breakdowns, and fully one-third of our metropolitan business men. These facts have led Europeans to wonder if America will not soon become the world’s greatest madhouse.
High-speed automobiles, rushing hither and thither in fabulous numbers and at excessive speed, are doing their part toward holding us in line for the. doubtful he 1 t i - r >ed. A recent investigation of f i a e at an insane asylum showed thar one-mird of them held drivers’ licenses.
Occasionally we have a terrible wreck where some railroad engineer goes insane while at his post. The same thing might happen in an airplane. In France a railroad engineer and his fireman both went insane at the same time and ran their train past ten stations without stopping, finally coming into the terminal three-quarters of an hour ahead of time.
Present-day liquor is responsible for about one-fifth of the cases of insanity. Doctor Hall, chairman of the Insanity Commission of Cook County, Illinois, says on this subject:
There are two classes of alcoholic cases we are getting. There is a class of elderly persons who were accustomed to use a certain amount of liquor regularly. They were able to coordinate and to combat social, domestic and business worries. Then prohibition came, and they wore unable to obtain liquor regularly. When they did get it, it would be by the bottle. Not knowing when they would got more, they would drink it all at once. As a result they broke down mentally. The other class comprises the young, who got the unlabeled or moonshine whiskey. They drink all they can get, when they can get it. It, contains a large percentage of poison and works havoc with their minds. We had several eases of young doctors who wrote their own prescriptions, and got bad whiskey, which they drank to excess, resulting in their breakdown. It lias been necessary to commit several to an asylum for the insane.
The Effect of Diet
It is well known that there is a direct relationship between food and intelligence. The children of the well-to-do have a much better chance of becoming intelligent adults, simply because they are better fed. In the case of the poor, worry, fear or overwork sometimes develops ulcers of the stomach, resulting in nervous disorders and deranged mentalities.
Dr. II. P. Sidles, of Chicago, treats very interestingly, the whole subject of the effect of diet upon the mind. He says:
There are 20,000 new cases of dementia praaeox every year and all declare that it is on the increase. The mental phenomena vary with different cases. The physical phenomena prove that in a very large percent the patients have faulty digestion and faulty circulation as well as faulty elimination, and we will find in almost all of them a faulty respiration, very little if any abdominal breathing.
When we remember that we can retard or completely stop the respiration by pressing on any one of the branches of the sympathetic nerves that may be abnormal, either in the upper or lower orifices of the body,. then it is plain to us that if any one or more of these branches become involved so that the respiration is impeded and the sympathetic normal efficiency is reduced it is reasonable to say that the elimination and digestion as well as assimilation will be reduced. ■
Therefore in order to relieve one of these cases we must see to it that every branch must be inspected and eared for, so that we can have as nearly as possible normal functions. Why? Because normal functions must obtain if we are to have normal use of the cerebrospinal in all of its varied duties, and the highest of these is normal thought.
We must first eliminate the fact that there is no central lesion; when that is done it is admitted that the primary cause is not in the brain. Then we proceed to examine the functions. We find that we have in these cases as a rule either a low or a high blood pressure, a great majority being a low blood pressure. By persistent correcting of the different orifices the low blood pressure is gradually relieved, but sometimes very slowly.
We find also that these cases are suffering from varied degrees of auto-toxemia, so that auto-intoxication obtains a part or all the time. It is plain that as long as the patient’s auto-intoxication persists he will not be responsible, but when his toxemia is reduced below the state of intoxication he will then be responsible and his mental condition will be clear. But he will not be well until the toxemia is reduced to such an extent that the functions of the body will be normal each day, accompanied by normal blood and normal blood pressure. And more, all of the functions of the body must obtain until the strength of the entire body has been restored; and then will he have normal poise and normal thought.
The sympathetic system being first corrected, the diet carefully chosen, baths prescribed, we must, if possible, change the blood pressure. In these eases we have a venous status whether in high or low. blood pressure cases. In the low blood pressure cases the venous status is due mainly to a dilation of the veins, making it impossible for them to deliver the blood to the heart in sufficient quantities to be normal, and so we have a delayed circulation. . . . Additional excitement increases the high blood pressure of the high pressure cases and correspondingly doereases the blood pressure of the low blood pressure cases.
We will all admit that the poisons from the different tissues are being thrown into the veins and that if we can reduce the poisons by any means we will shorten the recovery of the patient.
Every now and again we find that the pressure goes up and down from some fault in somebody or the patient, and we find that anything that will cause loose movements of the bowels will upset our blood pressure. From this we learn lessons of great value which we must teach the patient, namely, that if he wishes to remain well he must forever abstain from all kinds of drugs that will cause loose discharges from his bowels; that if he has arrived at the happy medium where his thoughts are lucid and his poise is perfect under all occasions it is up to him to thus remain; that evidently his assimilation and elimination which take place in the millions of capillaries in all parts of his body which make it possible for him to live and carry on both physically and mentally are performing their functions normally, and if he obeys the laws of his body he will remain well; that the sickness he has suffered causing him to experience many abnormal thoughts and experience many abnormal perceptions have been physical.
We are now of the belief that dementia pweeox, so called, is produced by a faulty metabolism (changing food into protoplasm and carrying off waste) in the capillaries of the body, and is curable. - -
We must educate not only those immediately interested, but the great masses, to show them how they must live. A nation-wide education must be made against the habit of giving and prescribing all kinds of physic; for it is an impossibility to cure one of these cases if only one dose of cathartics of any kind is given. . . . Only by preventing insanity will we be doing our whole duty.
The Ductless Glands
Dr. Schlapp, professor of neuropathology at the Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, New ¥ork city (who is authority for the statement that twenty-five percent of the murders in this country were committed by insane persons who could have been cured by proper treatment in early stages), writes of the discoveries that have been made in recent years in endocrinopathy, or diseases due to improper working of the ductless glands of internal secretion. He says:
Twenty years ago the very term was unknown and the science of the ductless glands had no standing. Today our knowledge of the endoerines and their influence upon every function of the nervous system in man promises to revolutionize our whole understanding of human behavior. We know now that many men commit crimes because their thyroid glands or other glands are out of order. \Vo understand now that many unfortunate human creatures are unable to control themselves under temptation or in the face of other arousing stimuli because there is some derangement in the glands. It is now certain that these endocrine organs control the activities of our nerves altogether, including the workings of the. brain.
This means, of course, that science has brought human conduct or misconduct down to a physiological, or rather a chemical, basis. Men do not err because they are evil, but because of chemical disturbances in that marvelous and intricate machine, the human body. Just how far we want to go or can go with this statement at present is doubtful, but to some extent it must already be accepted and acted upon: for we are able to treat many criminals, to correct this chemical disturbance or abnormality and thereby to restore these sufferers to health and normality.
At least the well-informed among us know that many of the men who commit crimes are not responsible for their acts but are the victims of disease or pathological or chemical conditions. We know, also, that many men in our prisons should be in hospitals and sanitariums. And we know that a very large proportion of all the men sent to prison for felonious breaches of the law are sick men who can be cured of their illness. But we continue to treat these men as pariahs and monsters. We continue to torture them and cage.them and judge them according to stupid and obsolete standards.
Care of the Insane
About seven years ago we had a study of this subject in The Golden Age and referred to an asylum in the East where there are clean, carpeted halls, furnished with rockers and other chairs; where the walls are adorned with pictures and there are ferns and plants about; where the rooms for patients confined to their beds are perfectly ventilated, and the rooms themselves are large and cheerful; where the dining-room tables are covered with white linen, and adorned with ferns and flowers; where the patients were said to be served with care and attention to the wholesomeness of the food; where there are no handcuffs, no chains and no strait-jackets; where the nurses and attendants are of high class and well instructed in the care of their patients; and where, as a result, within nine months after their admission, 340 cases were discharged as cured out of total admissions of 400.
Well, we mentioned the name of this institution, and a subscriber sent his wife there, only to be disappointed, and to reproach us severely. Handling the insane is a difficult business; but it must be grappled with, and it seems to us that all the above conditions are essential if , .......real progress is to be made. Probably the ideal
institution for the care of the insane does not exist.
We mention as some of the things that have been found helpful, theatricals conducted by the patients, baths and mineral waters, exposure to sunlight, massage, modification of. diet, rest in bed, music, exercise and work. The Greeks used all these methods two thousand years ago.
The insane must be treated with kindness and respect. Coaxing works better with them than force. By listening to them carefully a way can often be found to point the way to a cure. They often remember well and are responsive to kindness and consideration with them in their follies. They should be allowed to write to whom they please, and as often as they please. The j . village model is better than the great institution, because more homelike.
Performances by paid clowns have been helpful. Friends and relatives should write to the insane and visit them, and treat them as sane. The insane cannot be argued with. A man bereft of reason adheres to an idea which to him seems absolutely correct, because he has been deprived of the means of detecting his r-.........error.
A beauty parlor is a useful accessory of the Utica Hospital. Visits of curiosity seekers should be stopped. These are as unpopular with the insane as they are with political or other prisoners. Ridicule or censure are resented as much by the insane as by the sane.
An attendant or a physician must be a big enough man to overlook the words and acts of the insane. 04* course some situations have to be dealt with by force, but mere -words or looks or acts which do not endanger the lives of others should be passed by as one ignores the irresponsible acts of childhood. To the insane words do not mean-what they usually do.
How Not to Care for Them
There were places in America where what were once human creatures were kept perfectly nude in cells in which there was no seat, bed, or even a pallet of straw. They were washed with the hose, as were their cells, and they were fed through holes under the doors.
There are places in America where an inexperienced and irresponsible person can secure work at once as an attendant upon the insane. A tramp was hired at $4.50 a week to care for an old man whose relatives were paying $85 a -week for his board and room at a private sanitarium.
There are places in America where the polite requests for a drink of water may be refused with, curses, followed by blows and kicks, if there is any retort.
There is a place in America where a refined woman, made mentally ill by childbirth, was fed so forcibly with a sharp-edged spoon that the roof of her mouth was broken through and her tonsils were cut off. She soon recovered from her temporary hallucination respecting food, and was as well as ever, but because she was a high-priced patient she was kept in the institution eight months after she was well, and the letters she wrote to her* husband were torn up before her eyes, meantime.
There was a time in America when hyoscyamine was injected hypodermically into the bodies of the insane, bringing about paralysis of the.body without affecting the activity of the mind. The victim cannot move a finger, or even move his tongue to moisten his lips. It may be that hyoscyamine is still used; we do not know, but we think that it is.
The Tarpeian Rock
The Romans used to fling their insane from the top of the Tarpeian rock. Nothing like this is done in America, but kicking and choking is so common that every book written by the insane who have recovered makes frequent mention of having witnessed or been a party to such scenes.
There are places in America where the insane have been subjected to terrible sufferings from the cold. To many people this form of torture is one of the worst. Would you think that anywhere an attendant would force a patient to bathe in water which had already been used for several others 1 It has been done.
GOLDEN AQE
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Would you think that because an ex-senator of the United States, an infirm old man, protested against the rude way he had been hustled across the hall, a cheap attendant would slap li ini with the open palm first on one cheek and then on another, with every evidence of passion? It is of record.
Would it seem credible that a new attendant, a young man studying to be a physician, starting out with high ideals as to how to treat the insane, would be taunted with cowardice by older attendants until lie finally knocked down an inoffensive man for refusing to stop his prattle at his command, and thereafter assaulted patients right and left?
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