Sorry, this unexpectedly turned into a rant.
From that
history link given in post
#23
At the end of the last century, doctors were holding a similar debate over a condition called Neurasthenia. This was characterized by fatigue and muscle weakness, leaving sufferers able to do very little. There was no medical consensus around cause or cure. Some doctors advocated rest, others exercise. Some said it particularly affected successful, active businessmen, professionals, even doctors. Others said it was mainly an illness of females, and was largely "all in the mind".
The fact that the article has the centuries muddled up is proof that it is very old. The last century was the 20th century, not the 19th which is when neurasthenia was introduced and discussed a lot.
If people can still talk about neurasthenia and consider it relevant in any way to ME, even as a historical term, this is absolutely shocking.
According to the wiki article on
neurasthenia :
Neurasthenia is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829
[1] for a mechanical weakness of the
nerves and became a major diagnosis in North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after neurologist
George Miller Beard reintroduced the concept in 1869.
As a
psychopathological term, the first to publish on neurasthenia was Michigan
alienist E. H. Van Deusen of the Kalamazoo asylum in 1869,
[2] followed a few months later by New York neurologist George Beard, also in 1869
[3] to denote a condition with symptoms of
fatigue,
anxiety,
headache,
heart palpitations,
high blood pressure,
neuralgia, and
depressed mood. Van Deusen associated the condition with farm wives made sick by isolation and a lack of engaging activity, while Beard connected the condition to busy society women and overworked businessmen.
Note : "Alienist" is an old-fashioned term for a psychiatrist.
That list of symptoms could belong to many, many conditions. For example, when was anaemia first described and understood, could be tested for, and could be correctly treated? Women have been prone to this for ever, because of heavy periods and the resulting iron deficiency. It's as common as muck. And there are many forms of anaemia, not related to iron deficiency, that could be caused by numerous conditions.
How many people had Multiple Sclerosis and were diagnosed with neurasthenia?
How much was known about diabetes in all its forms?
Hypothyroidism couldn't be treated in the UK until the 1890s. Untreated sufferers ended up in lunatic asylums, and there were many untreated sufferers still around until the NHS was created. I imagine there are many sufferers who are untreated in the US even now. Under-treatment is common. Doctors really don't like testing thyroid function if they can prescribe anti-depressants instead. And Central Hypothyroidism is almost impossible to get diagnosed even now.
What about adrenal insufficiency? Difficult to get tested for - and when it is tested for only the
primary form is considered worth testing for in many cases.
I could go on and on. There must be hundreds of medical conditions that can be diagnosed and treated now that were unknown, undiagnosable, and untreatable in the 1800s. Those undiagnosed and untreated people were at risk of being described as suffering from neurasthenia in the 1800s, and this is the starting point for many articles on ME, which is unjustifiable and outrageous, in my opinion.
