NEURASTHENIA: SOME POINTS IN ITS PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT.

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The comparatively sudden recognition, through the work of Dr. Beard, about a quarter of a century ago, of the morbid state since known as neurasthenia, forms one of the curious chapters in the history of medicine. While there is ample proof and ample a priori grounds for believing that there has been a tremendous increase of the condition in recent times, it is also equally certain that it is older than the history of medicine. We find the familiar syndrome of insomnia, nervous anxiety, disturbance of vision, ringing in the ears, vertigo, and difficult breathing described by Hippocrates. 1 Passing over the intervening centuries, and simply noting a few suggestive titles in literature, we find one of Robert Whytt's, in the middle of the eighteenth century—Observations on the Nature, Causes and Cure of those Disorders which have been Commonly Called Nervous, Hypochondriac, or Hysteric; to which are Prefixed some Remarks