Talking is Healthy and Important

The way women talk more than men appears to be a trifling matter for discussion by eminent physicians but lunching with a number of them the other day, I put the question, and was surprised to find that it is one of importance from the medical point of view.

The opinion of one doctor was that greater capacity for talking in men or women indicates greater vitality. When attending a very talkative woman patient he never despairs of her recovery from the most serious disease, because this power to talk continuously indicates an immense reserve of nervous energy. The members of parliament, he argued, who talk the most live the longest and retain their vital energy to an age when silent men are long dead.

This was one view. Another is that a woman's nervous system is more responsive to every nervous stimulus than a man's nervous system. Hence every slight thought finds instant expression, and if it does not, the woman suffers from mental discomfort. The stimulus that urges a man to say something passes slowly to the brain, and before it gets there someone else has jumped in and he has lost his opportunity, or, by the time it reaches his brain, he does not think it worth while giving expression to the idea.

However, this physician agreed that the more a person talks the healthier he is. Talking, in a measure, promotes health by increasing circulation of blood in the brain, but it is in itself a sign of good circulation, a strong heart, and an alert nervous system.

Someone remarked that women are only larger editions of children, and children, even with their very limited vocabulary, find it imperative to talk through all their waking hours. This is probably a provision of nature to develop the brain intelligence. But it was admitted that the greatest talkers are often the shallowest thinkers, although not always by any means.

It is really a question of deep physiological significance. Our first real advance in civilization was attained when we develop the power to express our thoughts in words, and the people most capable of expression made the quickest advance.

Talking is the greatest agent of intellectual development. The silent man or woman contributes nothing toward it.

It is the talkative people who spread enlightenment by the interchange of ideas, and hence, in a way, women contribute more to the growth of intelligence than men.