B M Bower

Cabin Fever B M Bower

If you would test th soul of a friend, take him into the wilderness and rub elbows with him for five months. Either you will hate each other forever afterwards, or emerge with contempt tinged with a pitying toleration -- or you will be close, unquestioning friends to the end of your days. There is a certain malady of the mind induced by too much of one thing. Just as the body fed too long upon meat becomes a prey to that horrid disease called scurvy, so the mind fed too long upon monotony succumbs to the insidious mental ailment which the West calls "cabin fever." True, it parades under different names, according to circumstances and caste. You may be afflicted in a palace and call it ennui, and it may drive you to commit peccadillos and indiscretions of various sorts. You may be attacked in a middle-class apartment house, and call it various names, and it may drive you to cafe life and affinities and alimony.