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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Neurasthenia

Neurasthenia \Neu*ras`the*ni"a\, n. [NL., fr. Gr. ney^ron nerve + ? weakness.] (Med.) A condition of nervous debility supposed to be dependent upon impairment in the functions of the spinal cord.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
neurasthenia

"nervous exhaustion," 1854, medical Latin, from neur- (form of neuro- before a vowel) + asthenia "weakness" (see asthenia). Related: Neurasthenic.

Wiktionary
neurasthenia

n. (context psychiatry English) An ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance.

WordNet
neurasthenia

n. nervous breakdown (not in technical use)

Wikipedia
Neurasthenia

Neurasthenia is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 to label a mechanical weakness of the actual nerves, rather than the more metaphorical "nerves" referred to by George Miller Beard later.

As a psychopathological term, neurasthenia was used by Beard in 1869 to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, neuralgia and depressed mood.

Neurasthenia is currently a diagnosis in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (and the Chinese Society of Psychiatry's Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders). However, it is no longer included as a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Americans were said to be particularly prone to neurasthenia, which resulted in the nickname "Americanitis" (popularized by William James). Another, rarely used, term for neurasthenia is nervosism.

Usage examples of "neurasthenia".

Nervous Prostration, or Nervous Weakness, and, to the medical profession, as Neurasthenia, or Nervous Asthenia, is becoming alarmingly prevalent.

This affection, also popularly known as Nervous Prostration, or Nervous Weakness, and, to the medical profession, as Neurasthenia, or Nervous Asthenia, is becoming alarmingly prevalent.

He had been labeled with a number of interesting diagnoses, such as chorea, epilepsy, myotonia, hysteria, and neurasthenia.

In an habitual slouching posture, the blood of the abdomen tends to stagnate in the liver and the splanchnic circulation, causing a feeling of despondency and mental confusion, headache, coldness of the hands and feet, and chronic fatigue or neurasthenia, and often constipation.

Wilbur diagnosed her as suffering from neurasthenia, a type of neurosis resulting from emotional conflicts that usually are characterized by fatigue, depression, worry, and often, localized pains without apparent objective causes.

Steady and frequent application treats hysteria, chlorosis, greensickness, neurasthenia and all manner of hysteroneurasthenic disorders, and even simple fatigue and melancholy.

GENERAL NEURASTHENIA, or nervous exhaustion, may also produce a local weakness of the sexual centres of the brain and spinal cord, with symptoms at least resembling those of partial impotency and great irritability of the sexual organs, or a complete impotence, with premature seminal discharge whenever coition is attempted.

It is boredom and neurasthenia interrupted now and then by small jolts of terror like armaments going off in the night.