s of the affliction is painful and increases the chasm between
wife and husband.

That some of the sweetest marriages result where the wife is of this
type does not change the general situation that such a marriage is an
increased risk. Should a man knowingly marry such a woman? The question
is futile in the overwhelming majority of cases. He will marry her, is
the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type.
Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil
that changes with each emotion, the mobile face,--delicate, with a play
of color, red and white, that is charming to look at, but which the grim
physician calls "Vasomotor instability." There is nothing neutral about
this type; she is either very lovely or a freak.

So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it
is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is
more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that
something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of
neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real
knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of
cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and
Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration.

But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is
usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical
possibilities of his offspring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman
as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really
needs what only the rich can have,--servants, variety, frequent
vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even
the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who
ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth,
and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man.

Essential in the study of "nervousness" is the physical examination, and
we here pass to the physically ill housewife.

It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is,
properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of
exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses
that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the
diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung,
or kidney disease, or with derangements of t