Author:

Orison Swett Marden

Publisher:

Thomas Y. Crowell & Company

Year Published:

1925

Number of Pages:

308

Number of Chapters:

Thirty

Sub-Title:

None

The patient was reassured. ‘Nothing organically wrong – only neres,’ he repeated to himself. But as the physician went to his cabinet to choose a medicine, he quietly shook his head. He knew from experience that here was a difficult case – in all likelihood more difficult than if there had been organic trouble. And so the patient – a busy business man – was ordered to go to Bermuda, or Florida, or California – anywhere to get away from his desk. He went under protest, for there were some big deals in the works, and he mentally anathematized his ‘nerves’ for the trouble.

The next patient was a High School student. She was in her senior year, and confessed to being a member of the basketball team, president of a debating society, member of the dramatic club, and was also taking music and dancing lessons. The physician gave her one glance and then said gravely: ‘You are threatened with a nervous breakdown. I prescribe complete rest for one month – then come to see me again.’

‘But, Doctor -!’ she protested.

‘But me no buts, as Shakespeare would say,’ he retorted smilingly, but still firm. ‘This is not a case for medicine, but for rest.’

The overwrought girl burst into tears and like the other patient, blamed her ‘nerves’ for it all

These are not hypothetical case. They may be found every day in almost any specialist’s office. Nerves, nerves, nerves! Our whole American people is cursed (or blessed) with nerves.

One might as well blame the messenger boy who brings the yellow slip of paper telling of a sorrow or tragedy, as to blame our ‘nerves’ for their bad tidings. They are merely telling us the things we ought to already know."

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE: For some months before his death, Dr. Marden was gathering material on the subject of Making Friends With Our Nerves. He thought, and rightly, that ‘Nerves’ was becoming a great modern obsession – a sort of scapegoat which could be blamed for every imaginable ill. He wanted to make a pronouncement showing that nerves are really our friends, not our enemies, and that they are the great, though much abused, servant of the human race.

Practically all the material for Making Friends With Our Nerves, was in shape and passed upon by him at the time of his death. For a few chapters, scattered editorials from his pen have been drawn upon. The pathological side of the book has been vised by a nerve specialist. The work as a whole, with its direct appeal to physical well-being and its sound common-sense, is one of the best of the many helpful books from this famous writer.

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