Clinical lectures on neurasthenia / by Thomas D. Savill.

  • Savill, Thomas Dixon, 1856-1910.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on neurasthenia / by Thomas D. Savill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    82/196 (page 62)
    contrary, a considerable resemblance between electrical and nerve forces, and in nothing more than in this matter of exhaustion. Just as a faradic battery, after continuous use, gradually becomes weaker—we can hear the note emitted by the interrupter become more and more feeble—and then after a rest becomes restored again, so does nerve force require periods of intermission for recuperation. This seems to me to be the simplest way of looking at neurasthenia due to over¬ work ; and this, in turn, is the simplest form of neurasthenia to study. Investigation of neurasthenic patients who present retraction of the fields of vision, confirms the idea that neuras¬ thenia is essentially a state of fatigue or exhaustion of the nerve cells, for I have on several occasions found that the retraction is absent, or less marked after periods of rest, and vice versa.x Let us consider a little more in detail how this irritability and weakness of the nerve cells may be produced. A very little investigation shows that they may arise, like many other pathological conditions, from a complexity of causes ; hence one of the chief difficulties in the task before us. A careful study of all the cases which have come under my notice leads me to believe that neurasthenia may arise under four different pathological conditions :— I._Toxic blood states, which include the neurasthenia which supervenes on and is associated with prolonged gastric dis¬ order and constipation, &c. (toxic neurasthenia).2 IIMalnutrition of the nervous system, which arises in various debilitated conditions (malnutrition neurasthenia). HI,—Over-functioning or fatigue of the nervous system, 1 The case, for example, of a cabman narrated in Lecture IV. 2 'j'h.g neurasthenia which attends influenza and some other disorders also belong to this, the toxic group, but the opportunity for the study of these has been rela¬ tively infrequent in comparison with the dyspeptic cases.