It gave him no margin for wilfulness. Except
when he spoke in public, his life was regulated with mathematical
accuracy. There was something almost death-like in his self-control, and
yet at times that also had to give way. If he had lived otherwise his
case would have grown continually worse. The only recreation he had was
working in his garden, and an occasional game of billiards. Four or five
times a year he would go to a symphony concert, to hear Matthew Arnold
lecture, or to see a distinguished actor. People who blamed him for not
recovering his health knew not what they did. A Philadelphia doctor has
made himself quite famous by curing women who have become nervous and
debilitated from an unhealthy mode of life and drinking strong tea, but
that is a very different thing from curing a true nervous disorder.
Sumner's case was almost exceptional. He was cured in three years by Dr.
Brown-Sequard and made perfectly well; but he had temperament, climate,
and everything that money might give, in his favor. A good many invalids
have been helped by Brown-Sequard after other doctors had failed to help
them. A sturdy New Hampshire farmer wounded his foot with an axe and was
supposed to have split a nerve in it. The wound healed perfectly but he
never was able to do a whole day's work afterward. An oarsman in the
international regatta of 1869 who was a man of enormous physical
strength, deranged his nerves in some way and shot himself rather than
endure the kind of life that was forced upon him.
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