NEURASTHENIA 207 



plementary color which anyone may observe after looking 

 fixedly at bright objects, become persistent and dis- 

 quieting. The entoptic appearances, the shreds and spots 

 in the humors of the eye and the twinkling corpuscles in 

 the capillaries of the retina, obtrude themselves upon the 

 attention. Johannes Mtiller was at one time greatly dis- 

 tressed by the loss of the power to exclude these things 

 from his consciousness. They may be seized upon as 

 symptoms of ocular or brain disease. 



As it is with the eye, so it is with the ear. Sounds be- 

 come wearisome; sometimes the loud ones are particularly 

 irritating, so that the subject cannot bear to hear children 

 at play, sometimes the greatest annoyance proceeds rather 

 from slight and repeated noises, like the ticking of a clock 

 or the gnawing of a mouse within the bedroom wall. 

 Olfactory stimuli may have an intensified effect and the 

 detestation of certain odors may seem unreasonable. 

 The sensory relations of the neurasthenic should serve 

 to make clear to a well person how desirable it is to be pro- 

 tected against so many of these possible sources of dis- 

 comfort by the height of the normal "threshold." The 

 same external forces assail the vigorous and the weakened 

 subjects alike, but the sufferer from nervous fatigue 

 is like a man without a cuticle everything is felt too 

 keenly. 



3. As the admission of impulses into the central fabric 

 is too free, so the outpouring that follows is too profuse. 

 We have seen how this is expressed through the neuro- 

 muscular system as unrest. We have now to turn to the 

 autonomic system. Impulses sent out over the paths of 

 this system may have either inhibitory or excitatory 

 effects. We find evidence of their action upon the heart, 

 the blood-vessels, the digestive tract, the genito-urinary 

 organs, and the sweat-glands. The list might readily be 

 extended to include still other responding elements. 



Heart symptoms in the neurasthenic are common. 

 They may be due in part to the direct flow of impulses of 

 undesirable intensity from the medulla to the organ; they 



