Clinical lectures on neurasthenia / by Thomas Dixon Savill.

  • Thomas Dixon Savill
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

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

    85/250 (page 67)
    a considerable resemblance between electrical and nervous forces, and in nothing more than in this matter of ex- haustion. 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 nervous force require periods of intermission for recupera- tion. This seems to me to be the simplest way of looking at neurasthenia due to overwork ; and this, in turn, is the simplest form of neurasthenia to study. Investigation of neurasthenia patients who present retraction of the fields of vision, confirms the idea that neurasthenia 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, I hope to show you a case of this kind at our next meeting (Lecture V.). Let us consider a little more in detail how this irritability and weakness of the nerve cells may be pro- duced. 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, e.g., the neurasthenia which results from septic conditions or supervenes on prolonged gastric disorder and constipation (Toxic Neurasthenia). II. Malnutrition of the nervous system, which arises in various debilitating conditions (Malnutrition Neurasthenia). Ill- Fatigue or Over-functioning of the nervous