All of the nerves of special sense may be used to excess. Nerves, in their normal state, give out a feeling of comfort and Veil-being. When they have been forced to spend over much, or are forced to give out a feeling of well-being beyond what is good for us, or beyond the normal capacity, or when artificial pleasures are indulged, they send out a feeling of discomfort, which should serve as a warning, and should guide us back to normal behavior. It is no part of wisdom or science to ignore, negate or dispute this truth.

Overstimulation of the eyes is quite common. In these days of much sight-seeing, movie-going, etc., the strain on the nerves is great. Eye-strain is enervating. The reflex influence of the body's effort to compensate for a visual defect is especially important. The stress in such a condition is more or less constant.

This is an age of much and varied noise. The time will come when it will be necessary to eliminate the noise of the streets of the cities. Bells on churches and street-cars, the rattling of wheels, honking of horns and blowing of whistles, and the various noises produced by machinery will have to be eliminated from city life to save people from nervous "diseases."

Noise shocks the nervous system and the constant nerve-shocks from the loud noise incident to modern civilization result in a great wear and tear upon the brain and nervous system, producing fatigue (enervation), lowered functional efficiency, and "nervousness." Noise, while eating, disturbs digestion. Life in the large cities with their elevated trains, street cars, thousands of auto horns, riveting machines on the steel structures of sky-scrapers, typewriters, telephone bells, music or its substitute--jazz-- noisy crowds and noisy talkies, the loud blaring of radios, jazz orchestras, is almost unbearable. The mental worker disturbed more by noise than the physical worker, makes a futile effort to overcome the irritation caused by these incessant sounds and tries to increase his mental concentration upon his work. This effort constitutes an added strain upon his nervous system and severe nerve weakness, morbidity, despondency and other neuroses and psychoses result.

The city worker needs peace, quiet, relaxation, rest. But he does not usually seek these when he is off work, or when he is on vacation. He becomes part of a noisy crowd at the beach or at a dance hall where a "hot" dance orchestra, with "an inspired cymbal dasher" "whoops it up." Speed, noise, stimulation--these are added to the hot dogs and soft drinks with which he commits suicide.

Sensuality (sense indulgence) may, perhaps, be made to cover almost the whole class of enervating practices common to mankind. Within limitations, man may properly and beneficially indulge sense. But there is a limit beyond which discomfort develops --a warning to moderate or desist. It is customary to ignore the warning, palliate the discomfort, and persist in the indulgence, so that the organism is gradually weakened and premature death results.

Sylvester Graham says: "The grand experiment of the whole human family seems ever to have been to ascertain how far they can go in indulgence, how near they can approach the brink of death, and yet not die so suddenly and violently as to be compelled to know that they have destroyed themselves."--Science of Human Life, p. 350. Humanity has been on a debauch for ages but there is almost always a desire to evade responsibilities for habits that waste life.

We pursue the phantom of pleasure over the boundry lines of discretion; that is, we enjoy mental and physical pleasures beyond the powers of resistance--we use up nerve energy beyond the point of full return or restoration before a like expenditure is again made. Pleasure seeking is wasteful of energy and is especially baneful in its influence upon those who are already enervated and toxemic.

It is unfortunate that so few are willing to heed sound hygienic advice in order to prevent suffering. They prefer to indulge their appetites and other animal pleasures, often deliberately choosing such enjoyments and pursuing them in the face of known dangers. These regard the true office of the doctor to be merely that of waiting upon them when they are ill and will not heed any advice about the regulation of private and public hygiene with the view of preventing illness. The intelligent may have a better time by adopting better plans.

To ignorantly or wilfully disregard the limitations set by each individual's body to automatically warn him when he is going too far in work or pleasure leads to body impairment. Enjoying beyond your limitations brings "disease" and death. "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

The continuous attendance upon picture shows or dances, or indulging the sexual function so frequently that no time is given for recuperation, brings on enervation. It is no mere accident that austerity, chastity and beauty are found together in nature. We barter away the potentials for a heaven in the here and now for Bacchanalian revels. "We. are so drunk on our thousand-and-one mental stimulants that we cannot sec or understand that we kill ourselves before mental maturity."

This is an age of great strain on the nervous system; no wonder the asylums are filled to overflowing. The late hours, the hurrying convivialities, the luxuries of modern city life, the noise and excitement, make early wrecks of the nervous system, and with it, of digestion, nutrition, excretion, and the general vigor of bodily repair. These influences impair the powers of life almost from the first day of extra-uterine existence.

The past lives of those who visit us show that their weak spot is nervous impairment. The nervous system being unbalanced at birth, in most of them, due to malnutrition, is then unhinged or almost shattered by the customs under which, as children, they are reared.