Clinical lectures on neurasthenia.

  • Savill, Thomas Dixon, 1856-1910.
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Clinical lectures on neurasthenia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    severe flushing, shivering, palpitation, and perspiration, and followed by great agitation and floods of tears. She also suffers from cold hands and feet, and occasional faints. This case resembles hysteria in some of its features, but she has had none of the active manifestations of that disorder —no paralysis, spasm, anaesthesia, or seizures—whereas all the chief indications of the other diseases are present. She complains, moreover, of a very common symptom in neuras- thenia—agoraphobia, i.e., she dreads to be alone. When so left she says the feelings of terror and dread of impending evil which come over her are indescribable. She cannot even come to the hospital without a companion. She has had ammoniated tincture of valerian and bromide of ammonium, but so far the medicine has only partially relieved her ; for her cure it will, I believe, be necessary to remove her completely from the conditions under which the neurasthenia arose. There is one other case which I should like briefly to relate, which occurred in my private clientele. It is that of a post-office clerk, aged 37, who had worked case v. very hard and closely at figures since he was fifteen years of age. He came to me to decide whether he should give up his post, as he had been advised to do by two other medical gentlemen, because of his incapacity for work, and his complete failure to obtain relief from the distressing symptoms. Great depression, inability to grasp mental facts, incapacity to remember names, and a dread lest he should make a mistake in his work, were the symptoms of most note in this case. I have noticed that this fear of making a mistake in their work is a very common symptom among neurasthenics. He had had for a long while severe headache resembling the head- ache due to asthenopia, i.e., a headache which is bad