HYPOCHONDRIACISM. O wad some power the giftie gie us, What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, HYPOCHONDRIACISM is a disorder produced by the disorganization of the nervous system, whereby the patient ceases to view things as they exist, and acquires the property of seeing others that have no existence. His faculties become changed, and he regards chimeras as realities, and realities as chimeras. On all points excepting one, a hypochondriac may be perfectly sane, but on that one he looks upon the rest of the world as fools, and himself as the only person to whom heaven has given. light. There are many shades of this disorder, and the ways in which it manifests itself are innumerable. Doctor Johnson gives a very meagre definition of a hypochondriac when he says it is "one affected with melancholy." Now, though in some instances this may be the primary cause, in nine cases out of ten it is the offspring of vanity and ignorance, which, secreting themselves in a man's brain, engender there strange and overweening notions of his own qualities and capabilities; this, in the first stage of the disorder, is termed self-conceit, but swelling beyond all imaginable or endurable bounds, it becomes at last a confirmed case of mental delusion, and takes the form of medical, legal, religious, political, or literary hypochondriacism. One of the peculiarities of this disease is the manner in which those who are affected with it laugh and jeer at all who are in a similar predicament with themselves the quickness with which they detect their neighbor's infirmities, and the obstinacy with which they shut their eyes to their own. Thus, a well-informed gentleman, who eat, drank, slept, and behaved himself like other people, could never get over the strange belief that he was a barleycorn, and at the mere sight of a barn-yard fowl he would fly into his house and lock himself in, for fear of being picked up and transferred to the crop of his enemy; yet the same gentleman was very much tickled with the story of another hypochondriac, who in walking imagined that he did not possess the power of turning, but ་ must of necessity move on in a direct line, and who had cut himself severely by marching straight through a shop window which unfortunately crossed his way-just as one foolish hypochondriacal author will laugh at another's expectations of immortality, although at the same time he does not entertain a doubt of its being his own inheritance. I knew a profound scholar, and what is more, a sensible man, but who, nevertheless, insisted that he was cursed with a cast-iron nose. No arguments could convince him of the fallacy of what he considered so self-evident that it might be observed by any one; and when a storm of thunder and lightning occurred, he was to be seen running about in an agony of fear, and using all sorts of precautions to prevent his metal proboscis from attracting the electric fluid; after the storm he would regain his composure, and thank heaven for his remarkable deliverance. A friend, to cure him of this fancy, told him of another person who ima-. gined he had a glass nose, and was afraid of going out on a windy day for fear of getting it injured, at which he laughed immoderately, and proceeded to show very plainly that no man ever had, or could by any possibility have a glass nose. The other then began gently to insinuate doubts respecting the existence of any metallic substance on his own face, upon which he grew mightily offended, hit his nose a sharp blow, and asked him if he could not hear it was cast-iron by the sound! This would all seem ridiculous enough to a spectator, but how many hundred thousands are there in this world who terrify themselves with evils just as imaginary as cast-metal noses, yet at the same time laugh heartily at the fears of those who entertain apprehensions for their glass ones? but because their numbers are such as to keep each other in countenance, they escape the charge of hypochondriacism which manifestly attaches to them. Of all classes of hypochondriacs, the health-preserving are perhaps the most numerous and notorious. These are the people for whom heaven has not been able to make any thing fit to eat. Every dish that is set upon the table is, according to their view of things, impregnated with subtle poison. One produces flatulency, another acidity-beef is indigestible, ham is bilious, tea nervous, and so on from the simplest receipt in Dr. Kitchiner's cookery to the most complicated effort of Mons. Ude. Whenever they eat they say, "I know it is wrong;" and look upon a person who makes a hearty, careless, miscellaneous meal, as one who is not long for this world. All their conversation turns upon their internal concerns; and, in company, they favor the unfortunate lady or gentleman who sits next them with anecdotes of their stomach and digestive reminiscences for the last three weeks. They are amateurs in physic, and swallow all sorts of abominations with infinite relish; and then they wonder, for all the care they take of themselves, that they are no better. Poor wretches! the undertaker eyes them as he walks along; the coffin-maker takes their dimensions in his "mind's eye," and proceeds to make their mahogany resting-places on speculation; the sexton chuckles at their approach, and says he hopes he "see's them well!" the resurrectionist marks them for his own; and the surgeon, surveying their formation with a scientific eye, longs to settle some disputed points of anatomy by means of their unfortunate bodies. Death comes at last and pops the little life out of them that dieting and doctoring have left, and they are troubled with hypochondriacism no more! Literary, as well as health-preserving hypochondriacism, is not unfrequently occasioned by a slight touch of dyspepsia. Young gentlemen with yellow faces and weak digestions, mistake the sickly fancies produced by a diseased state of the humors for the coruscations of genius, and whenever they feel a little unwell, concoct what they call poetry, which is merely a number of hypochondriacal notions |