The Selected Writings of Benjamin Rush by Dagobert D. Runes

Author:Dagobert D. Runes [Runes, Dagobert D.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Philosophical Library
Published: 2015-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

“Say, O! my Muse—say whence such boldness springs,—

Such daring courage—in such tim’rous things?

Start from a feather—from an insect fly—

A match for nothing—but, the Deity!”

4. The ODOR PHOBIA is a very frequent disease with all classes of people. There are few men or women to whom smells of some kind are not disagreeable. Old cheese has often produced paleness and tremor in a full fed guest. There are odors from certain flowers that produce the same effects: hence it is not altogether a figure to say, that there are persons who “die of a rose in aromatic pain.”

5. The DIRT PHOBIA. This disease is peculiar to certain ladies, especially to such as are of low Dutch extraction. They make every body miserable around them with their excessive cleanliness: the whole of their lives is one continued warfare with dirt—their rooms resound at all hours with the noise of scrubbing brushes, and their entries are obstructed three times a week, with tubs and buckets. I have heard of women, afflicted with this disease, who sat constantly in their kitchens, lest they should dirty their parlours. I once saw one of those women in New-Jersey, fall down upon her knees, with a house cloth in her hand, and wipe away such of the liquid parts of the food as fell upon the floor from a company of gentlemen, that dined in her house; muttering, at the same time, the most terrible complaints, in low Dutch of the beastly manners of her guests. I have heard of a woman in the same state, who never received a visit from any persons who did not leave their shoes at her door in muddy weather. She always had a pair of slippers placed at the door, for her visitors to put on, till their shoes were cleaned by a servant.

6. The RUM PHOBIA is a very rare distemper. I have known only five instances of it in the course of my life. The smell of rum, and of spirituous liquors of all kinds, produced upon these persons, sickness and distress. If it were possible to communicate this distemper as we do the small-pox, by inoculation, what an immense revenue would be derived from it by physicians, provided every person in our country who is addicted to the intemperate use of spirits, were compelled to submit to that operation!

7. The WATER PHOBIA. This species includes not the dread of swallowing, but of crossing water. I have known some people, who sweat with terror in crossing an ordinary ferry. Peter the Great of Muscovy laboured under this disease in early life. As a variety of this species of Water Phobia, may be considered that aversion from drinking water, which we sometimes observe in some men, without being accompanied with a similar dislike to artificial liquors. I recollect once to have heard of a physician in this city, who told a gentleman that was afflicted with a dropsy, just before he tapped him, that he expected to draw off

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