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NEURASTHENIA (Gr. veuupov, nerve, and...

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 428 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NEURASTHENIA (Gr. veuupov, See also:nerve, and lur%veta, weakness) , the See also:general medical See also:term for a See also:condition of weakness of the See also:nervous See also:system. The symptoms may See also:present themselves as follows: (r) general feeling of malaise, combined with a mixed See also:state of excitement and depression; (2) headache, sometimes with the addition of vertigo, deafness and a transitory clouding of consciousness simulating See also:petit mal or migraine; (3) disturbed and restless, unrefreshing See also:sleep, often troubled with dreams; (4) weakness of memory, especially for See also:recent events; (5) blurring of sight, noises or ringing in the ears; (6) variable disturbances of sensibility, especially scattered analgesia (partial and symmetrical) affecting the backs of the hands especially, and in See also:women the breasts; (7) various troubles of sympathetic origin, notably localized coldness, particularly in the extremities, morbid heats, flushings and sweats; (8) various phenomena of nervous depression associated with functional disturbances of See also:organs, e.g. See also:muscular weakness, lack of See also:tone, and sense of fatigue upon effort, See also:dyspepsia and gastric atony with See also:dilatation of the See also:stomach and gastralgia; pseudo-anginal attacks and palpitation of the See also:heart; loss of sexual See also:power with nocturnal pollutions and premature ejaculations leading to See also:apprehension of oncoming See also:impotence. See also:Objective signs met with in organic disease are absent, but the See also:knee-jerks are usually exaggerated. According to the complexity of symptoms, the neurasthenia is more particularly defined as cerebral, See also:spinal, gastric and sexual. The cerebral See also:form is sometimes termed psychasthenia, and is liable to present morbid fears or phobias, e.g. agoraphobia (fright in crowds), monophobia (fright of being alone), claustrophobia (fright of being in a confined See also:place), anthropophobia (fright of society), batophobia (fright of things falling), siderodromophobia (fright of railway travelling). There may also be See also:mental ruminations, in which there is a continuous flow of connected ideas from which there is no breaking away, often most insistent at See also:night and leading to See also:insomnia. Sometimes there is arithmomania (an imperative See also:idea to See also:count). Such cases often exhibit a marked emotionalism and readily See also:manifest joy or sorrow; they may be cynical, pessimistic, introspective and self-centred, only able to talk about themselves or matters of See also:personal See also:interest, yet they frequently possess See also:great intellectual ability, and although there may be mental depression, there is an See also:absence of the insane ideas characteristic of See also:melancholia. Traumatic neurasthenia is the neurasthenia following See also:shock from injury; it is sometimes termed " railway spine," " railway See also:brain," from the frequency with which it occurs after railway accidents, especially in See also:people of a nervous temperament. The See also:physical injury at the See also:time may be slight, so that the patient is able to resume See also:work, but symptoms develop later which may simulate serious organic disease. As in all forms of neurasthenia, the subjective symptoms may be numerous and varied, whereas the objective signs are but few and slight. Many difficulties, therefore, present themselves in arriving at a See also:sound See also:opinion as to the future in such cases.

It is desirable not only to study the See also:

case carefully, but to obtain some knowledge of the previous See also:history of an individual who is claiming See also:damages on See also:account of traumatic neurasthenia. (F. W.

End of Article: NEURASTHENIA (Gr. veuupov, nerve, and lur%veta, weakness)

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