portant measures in the treatment of diseases of
the nervous system, even in those extreme forms known as insanity.

Closely allied to these are those disturbances of the nervous system
lumped together under the soul-satisfying designation of "neurasthenia,"
which are chiefly due to the accumulation in the system of the fatigue
poisons, or substances due to prolonged overstrain, under-rest, or
underfeeding of the system. Neurasthenia is the "fatigue neurosis," as a
leading expert terms it. It may be due to any morbid condition under
heaven. It is "that blessed word Mesopotamia" of the slipshod
diagnostician. Nearly one-fourth of the cases which come into our
sanatoria for tuberculosis have been diagnosed and treated for months
and even years as "neurasthenia." It satisfies the patient--and it means
nothing; though some experts contend for a distinct disease entity of
this name but admit its rarity.

The intelligent neurologist, nowadays, has practically no known specific
for any form of nervous disease, no remedy which acts directly and
curatively upon the nervous system itself. He relies chiefly--and this
applies to the asylum physician also--upon intestinal antisepsis, upon
rest, upon baths, upon regulation diet, and habits of life.

A number of the more sudden and fatal disturbances of the nervous
system, as for instance, the familiar "stroke of paralysis," or
apoplexy, of later middle life, are due to a defect, not in the nervous
system at all, but in the blood-vessels supplying the brain; rupture of
a vessel, and consequent escape of blood, destroys so much of the
surrounding brain-tissue as to produce paralysis, and, in extreme cases,
death. Just why the blood-vessels of the brain in general, and of one
part of the basal ganglia in particular (the _Lenticulostriate_ artery
in the internal capsule of the _corpus striatum_, the old jaw
ganglion), are so liable to rupture we do not know; but it certainly is
chiefly from a defect of the blood-vessels, and not of the brain. All of
which brings us to the following important practical conclusions.

First of all, that every attack or touch, however light, of
"nervousness," "nerves," "imagination," "neurasthenia," yes, hysteria,
_means_ something. It is the cry of protest of a smaller or larger part
of the nervous system against underfed blood, under-ventilated muscles,
lack of sunlight, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, excess of work, or
bad habits. In other words, it