In the condition known as neurasthenia, which is often taken as a type of a functional disease, the basal and intrinsic cause is activity of the nervous system with the using up of material which is not compensated for by the renewal which comes in repose and sleep. Neurasthenia is one of the common conditions of our civilization, found among children and adults, the poor and rich, the idle and the factory worker; it is rife in the scholastic professions and among those who earn their living by brain work. It seems to be more common in the upper classes and particularly in the women, but this is because these are more subject to medical care and the condition is more in evidence. There are all sorts of symptoms attached to the condition, for the unusual mental action can be variously expressed. The cerebral form has been thus described by a well-known medical writer: "One of the most characteristic features of cerebral neurasthenia is a weary brain. The sensation is familiar enough to any fagged man, especially if he fall short of sleep. Impressions seem to go half into one's head and there sink into a woolly bed and die. Voices sound far off, the lines of a book run into one another and the meaning of them passes unperceived. Doors bang and windows rattle as they never did before; if a shoestring breaks, an imprecation is upon the lips. Business matters are in a conspiracy to go wrong. Letters are left unopened partly from want of will, partly from a senseless dread lest they contain bad news. At night the patient tosses on his bed possessed by all the cares which blacken with darkness. Headache is common, loss of memory is distressing, and in severe cases it is wider and deeper than mere inattention can explain. There is often the torture of acute hearing, or an inability to suppress attention; the hater of clocks and crowing cocks is a neurasthenic." The disease is especially common in the women players of the social game, and its unhappy victims too often seek relief from the nervous irritability which is a common early symptom in still greater nervous excitement. It is a sad commentary on our civilization that one of the means of treatment for these persons which has been found efficacious is to supply them with some restful household occupation such as knitting or plain sewing, and there are institutions which combine refuge from social activities, often called duties, with simple occupation. FOOTNOTE: [1] By structure as used in this wide sense, there must be understood not merely the anatomical structure, which is revealed by the dissecting knife and microscope, but molecular structure, or the manner in which elements are arranged to form the molecule, as well. CHAPTER XII