WORRY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3552, 19 October 1926, Page 4

WORRY.

THE DISEASE OF THE AGE. At the Wellington Town Hall last Friday evening, Dr. Elliott delivered an interesting health lecture on “Worry, the Disease of the Age,” before a crowded audience. Dr. Elliott said that the subject was one that entered on the border of the spiritual and the physical. “Unless we vegetate and do not live like human beings,” he proceeded, “we cannot avoid the ordinary worries of life, but when we have used all j>ossible foresight we should not have the morbid worry of forebodings as to the outcome. Phlegmatic people are not inclined towards worry. It is those of the neurotic type, who, with all their faults, are the leaders of the world’s thought, who fall victims to the disease. The speaker stated that it was modern civilisation with its unnatural conditions of life that made worry the disease of the age. A great deal of money had been wasted on a system of education which endeavoured: to train people for work for which they were totally unfitted. Despite all the advantages that scientific advancement had brought, there was as much discontent in the world to-day as there had ever been.

“One of the greatest causes of worry is the pursuit of riches, social position, and power,” continued Dr. Elliott. “Every man is entitled to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but, if obtaining worldly advancement is to entail worry, then the cost is too great. The vagueness of. our religious beliefs and the scepticism that exists regarding the great verities is another great cause of worry. Worry means fretfulness, irritability, anger, and malice in the home. It is more injurious to the body than physical fatigue. Fatigfie does not injure the muscles, but worry results in a permanent injury to the delicate tissues of the brain. Bodily pain is usually apparent—there is no disgrace in it. But we hide mental pain. Because our rivals are succeeding and we are failing we cherish the mental anguish, which thus flourishes and increases. Worry shortens life, it determines a fatal issue in some diseases that otherwise would be recovered from. It is the prime cause of all nervous disorders. Worry also leads to high blood pressure, and so people find themselves too old at forty. If they had lived otherwise they would have been hale and hearty at fifty. Were stoicism is ineffective as far as the curing of worry is concerned It lacks dynamic force. Happiness must come from within.”

“There is in the gloom of life,” concluded the speaker, “a ray of hope that comes beyond the sun and stars —the consolation; of religion.” (Applause.)