Neurasthenia / by Gilbert Ballet ; translated from the third French edition by P. Campbell Smith.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Neurasthenia / by Gilbert Ballet ; translated from the third French edition by P. Campbell Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    72/450 (page 36)
    predisposing cause above all others, that which prepares the ground in the greater number of cases, and facilitates the action of the exciting etio- logical elements, is neuro-arthritic heredity. Its intervention, however common it be, is yet not indispensable. There is no doubt that neuras- thenia can be brought into existence de novo ; one may even say that it constitutes one of the gates of entry, perhaps the principal gate, into the ground of pathological heredity; it is the first bough of the genealogical tree, with its many and bushy branches, that represents the neuropathic family. In addition to heredity, but after it, come: first, bad education^ which allows the original vices of constitution to develop freely, and which sends forth into life subjects badly prepared for the struggle, and physically and morally enfeebled; then puberty, with its new sensations, and the thoughts and appetites it gives birth to, which, if ill-regulated, may profoundly disorder the nervous equihbrium. Then come all the exciting causes, weak or powerful, acute or chronic, sufficing or secondai'y, the common effect of all of which is to weaken the nervous system or to overpower its resistance: bad hygiene, exaggerated business cares, excess of work, the preoccupations of ambition, abuse of alcohol and tobacco, acute or chronic diseases, utero-ovarian affections in women, traumatic shocks, and above all depressing emotions. i