Neurasthenic Nation : : America's Search for Health, Happiness, and Comfort, 1869-1920 / / David G Schuster.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Schuster, David G,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Issues in Health and Medicine
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.) :; 14 illustrations and figures

As the United States rushed toward industrial and technological modernization in the late nineteenth century, people worried that the workplace had become too competitive, the economy too turbulent, domestic chores too taxing, while new machines had created a fast-paced environment that sickened the nation. Physicians testified that, without a doubt, modern civilization was causing a host of ills-everything from irritability to insomnia, lethargy to weight loss, anxiety to lack of ambition, and indigestion to impotence. They called this condition neurasthenia. Neurasthenic Nation investigates how the concept of neurasthenia helped doctors and patients, men and women, and advertisers and consumers negotiate changes commonly associated with "modernity." Combining a survey of medical and popular literature on neurasthenia with original research into rare archives of personal letters, patient records, and corporate files, David Schuster charts the emergence of a "neurasthenic nation"-a place where people saw their personal health as inextricably tied to the pitfalls and possibilities of a changing world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Professional Medicine and the Discovery of Neurasthenia -- Chapter 2. The Popular Diagnosis -- Chapter 3. The Search for Inspiration: Neurasthenia and Therapeutic Spirituality -- Chapter 4. Neurasthenia, Health, and Gender -- Chapter 5. Lifestyle and Managing the Healthy Balance -- Chapter 6. The Decline of Neurasthenia -- Epilogue: Neurasthenia's Legacy -- Notes -- Index