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Self Help for Nervous Women
Self Help for Nervous Women
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PREFACE
At the suggestion of the Editor of Harper's Bazar I wrote in 1901 a series of short articles partly as advice to nervous women, partly as counsel to those who were in danger of becoming nervous.
The many letters received during and after their publication indicated an interest which has led to the expansion and rewriting of the brief papers then published, incorporating some of the suggestions and answering some of the questions of those correspondents. The familiar style has been retained, as it seemed the easiest and most direct way of getting into personal relation with the readers.
Much of the advice may be criticised as old; if so it is none the worse for having stood the test of time and service. Indeed all good advice is old, and no newer than good conduct or the necessity for it.
The hook is not intended for doctors and it has been my endeavor to avoid touching upon matters purely medical; also I have tried to make distinct the limits beyond which the best self help would indicate that a physician's aid should be sought.
The address is chiefly to women because they form the larger number of sufferers from functional nervous disease, but in most instances if the pronouns were changed the lessons would apply as well to men. The hygiene of nervousness is not very different in the two sexes though the causes of nervousness may vary widely.
It is hoped that the families and friends of the nervous will find in these pages information which will help them materially in their relations with the sufferers from nervous disorders and teach them the best way to help, control and comfort, it may be even to cure.'
***
Contents
I. Of Nervousness in General
II. Prevention and Control of Nervous Symptoms
III. Control Of Nervousness, Continued
IV. Of Established Nervousness and Its Symptoms
V. Of Nervousness In Children and Its Prevention
VI. Sympathy—Its Use and Its Abuse
VI. Religion and Nervousness
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
Chapter I.
Of Nervousness In General—Definitions Of Nervousness And Of The Nervous System—Manifestations And Causes Of Nervousness.
In order that it may be understood at the start what the aims of this little book are and its necessary limitations, some sort of definition must be made of what is meant by " nervousness." The word is a comparatively modern one and the dictionaries explain it in a manner scarcely more definite than its ordinary loose and vague acceptation. Any physician who has much to do with nervous people has constantly to ask his patients to state clearly
what they mean by describing their disorder as nervousness. It is not only by patients that it is misapplied, for doctors themselves often use it so as to include whole classes of diseases to which it has only the relation of a symptom. The more precise sounding term neurasthenia which is sometimes used as its equivalent is of even more recent coinage but it is employed in the same loose way. It would be better if " nervousness " were used only to describe ordinary general manifestations of the every-day sort and " neurasthenia " with its many complications applied to conditions in which the nervous symptoms amount to a disease, or rather a disorder.
Neurasthenia
The neurologist has patients sent to him daily to whose cases, partly from a desire not to alarm the sufferer or the family, partly from a lack of exact knowledge, a label of " neurasthenia " has been attached without any other warrant than that they are undoubtedly "nervous"— but nervous as a secondary symptom of other disease, nervous, mental or general. To quote a personal experience, in my note-books of the past year are found cases described by the physicians referring them as "neurasthenias" among which are several varieties of insanity, some of them actual wild mania, others of beginning softening of the brain, of melancholia, of hysteria, and not a few which turned out on examination to be well-defined forms of clearly marked organic disease such as cancer, Bright's disease, heart disease and catarrh of the intestines. " Nervous exhaustion" and "nervous prostration" are other phrases which are misused and misapplied. Strictly speaking they are more rare and more serious conditions and the words should not be used as if they were synonyms for mere fatigue—but they are constantly thus employed. A case of real nervous exhaustion may be so bad as to render the patient unable to exert so much nerve-force as is needed to walk up stairs but one hears a person who is merely rather tired and irritable announce with unction that he has nervous exhaustion. A woman, obviously in no very desperate state, told me she had had nervous prostration. Supposing this had been some time since, she was asked how long it lasted."...
At the suggestion of the Editor of Harper's Bazar I wrote in 1901 a series of short articles partly as advice to nervous women, partly as counsel to those who were in danger of becoming nervous.
The many letters received during and after their publication indicated an interest which has led to the expansion and rewriting of the brief papers then published, incorporating some of the suggestions and answering some of the questions of those correspondents. The familiar style has been retained, as it seemed the easiest and most direct way of getting into personal relation with the readers.
Much of the advice may be criticised as old; if so it is none the worse for having stood the test of time and service. Indeed all good advice is old, and no newer than good conduct or the necessity for it.
The hook is not intended for doctors and it has been my endeavor to avoid touching upon matters purely medical; also I have tried to make distinct the limits beyond which the best self help would indicate that a physician's aid should be sought.
The address is chiefly to women because they form the larger number of sufferers from functional nervous disease, but in most instances if the pronouns were changed the lessons would apply as well to men. The hygiene of nervousness is not very different in the two sexes though the causes of nervousness may vary widely.
It is hoped that the families and friends of the nervous will find in these pages information which will help them materially in their relations with the sufferers from nervous disorders and teach them the best way to help, control and comfort, it may be even to cure.'
***
Contents
I. Of Nervousness in General
II. Prevention and Control of Nervous Symptoms
III. Control Of Nervousness, Continued
IV. Of Established Nervousness and Its Symptoms
V. Of Nervousness In Children and Its Prevention
VI. Sympathy—Its Use and Its Abuse
VI. Religion and Nervousness
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
Chapter I.
Of Nervousness In General—Definitions Of Nervousness And Of The Nervous System—Manifestations And Causes Of Nervousness.
In order that it may be understood at the start what the aims of this little book are and its necessary limitations, some sort of definition must be made of what is meant by " nervousness." The word is a comparatively modern one and the dictionaries explain it in a manner scarcely more definite than its ordinary loose and vague acceptation. Any physician who has much to do with nervous people has constantly to ask his patients to state clearly
what they mean by describing their disorder as nervousness. It is not only by patients that it is misapplied, for doctors themselves often use it so as to include whole classes of diseases to which it has only the relation of a symptom. The more precise sounding term neurasthenia which is sometimes used as its equivalent is of even more recent coinage but it is employed in the same loose way. It would be better if " nervousness " were used only to describe ordinary general manifestations of the every-day sort and " neurasthenia " with its many complications applied to conditions in which the nervous symptoms amount to a disease, or rather a disorder.
Neurasthenia
The neurologist has patients sent to him daily to whose cases, partly from a desire not to alarm the sufferer or the family, partly from a lack of exact knowledge, a label of " neurasthenia " has been attached without any other warrant than that they are undoubtedly "nervous"— but nervous as a secondary symptom of other disease, nervous, mental or general. To quote a personal experience, in my note-books of the past year are found cases described by the physicians referring them as "neurasthenias" among which are several varieties of insanity, some of them actual wild mania, others of beginning softening of the brain, of melancholia, of hysteria, and not a few which turned out on examination to be well-defined forms of clearly marked organic disease such as cancer, Bright's disease, heart disease and catarrh of the intestines. " Nervous exhaustion" and "nervous prostration" are other phrases which are misused and misapplied. Strictly speaking they are more rare and more serious conditions and the words should not be used as if they were synonyms for mere fatigue—but they are constantly thus employed. A case of real nervous exhaustion may be so bad as to render the patient unable to exert so much nerve-force as is needed to walk up stairs but one hears a person who is merely rather tired and irritable announce with unction that he has nervous exhaustion. A woman, obviously in no very desperate state, told me she had had nervous prostration. Supposing this had been some time since, she was asked how long it lasted."...
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