THE STIMULANT DELUSION.
By David Paulson, M.D.
THE mistake many people make when they begin to feel run down and exhausted all the time is that they want to get something to "brace them up." It is a delusion and a snare to try to put something into a man to bring something out of him that is not there. The nerve energy must be built up. We often hear it said that a man has a "torpid liver." There is no such thing as a torpid liver—it is nothing but a tired liver. We may take a drug to whip up that tired liver and make it do more work for a time, just as a man will whip up a tired horse to make him pull more. He may pull a little farther, but it does not put any more strength into him to whip him. You all know something about a mortgage. It gives a person for the time being some ready cash; but a mortgage can be foreclosed. So we may get a mortgage for a time on nature's forces, but the time comes when this mortgage must be foreclosed. In a similar manner, thousands of people all around us are foreclosing their mortgages now. We may illustrate this subject in another way. Just think of an ordinary drinking tank full of water, and let that represent the nervous system full of energy. The water, you see, is running out of the faucet in a perfect stream. So with multitudes of young people; they seem to have plenty of nerve energy, and they plunge into various lines of dissipation, and13when remonstrated with, the answer is, "It does not hurt me in the least." But days of folly and nights of dissipation continue, and the nerve energy begins to run low; the day of reckoning is coming on apace. At last the water in the tank gets so low that instead of running out in a perfect stream, it is a mere dribble. Finally, it will not run out at all, although there is a little water left below the faucet. We can get that water to run again. By introducing a siphon tube, you can begin to draw off the remainder of the water, but by and by the bottom is reached, and the day of reckoning has come. So it is with the man who gets all tired and worn out; he feels that he can not go any farther. He says he must have something "to tone him up;" and he goes over to the drug store and gets a little strychnine or caffeine, or his wife makes the coffee a little stronger, and thus the tired nerves are whipped up by these poisonous drugs to go on a little longer, just as the siphon, introduced into the water tank, secured the rest of the water. The man feels better. He will say: "Why, how that built me up! I am just getting along beautifully." He thinks he is getting ahead of nature. Now, we all make mistakes, even expert accountants sometimes make mistakes, but be assured nature does not make mistakes. She deals with unerring accuracy and never forgets the injuries done her. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The only legitimate way to get nervous energy is to eat proper food, to take proper exercise, breathe an abundance of heaven's pure air, and in other ways live in harmony with nature's laws. Under those circumstances God imparts to us day by day His strength, and we may realize in our lives the promise, As our days are, so shall our strength be. DAVID PAULSON, M.D.
Battle Creek, Mich.