NEURASTHENIA 12 13 



he rejoices with a liveliness that he had never expected to 

 realize again. 



Plainly, this systematic piquing of the nervous invalid to 

 restore both the capacity for inhibition and for vigorous 

 performance cannot be practised successfully upon those 

 who have organic disorders as an important element of 

 their condition. Medical or surgical treatment is appro- 

 priate in all such cases. Attractive meals and acceptable 

 forms of recreation are of great importance. Courtney 

 protests against the common error of sending neuras- 

 thenics into the country, where they find a degree of stag- 

 nation that is as distressing to them as the excess of 

 action from which it is planned to have them escape. 

 A medium condition is to be chosen, in which both the 

 sense of pressure and the sense of enforced idleness may be 

 avoided. If the patient is willing to be lazy for a while, 

 this is very fortunate, but it is more likely that he will 

 demand some variety of interests. 



Exercise is a definite need of the neurasthenic, but it is 

 desirable that it shall be interesting and not merely mechan- 

 ical. Courtney recommends hunting, because it is so well 

 calculated to take one out of self and fix the attention on 

 the world outside. The more the mind can be made to con- 

 cern itself with the messages of the special sense organs, 

 the less it can dwell upon the misbehavior of the body. 

 Much may be said in favor of walking in mild or incipient 

 cases. Long tramps in the country are not quite so refresh- 

 ing as they were before the automobiles filled the roads 

 with dust and stenches and woke the echoes with their 

 raucous and insulting horns, but it is still possible to 

 choose routes over byways which are rarely invaded by 

 motor cars. The most stimulating element in a walk is 

 novelty. The country should not be well known to the 

 walker. He will then have a delightful series of surprises 

 as the unexpected landscapes open to his view, broad 

 prospects from the hill-tops and glimpses of rushing brooks 

 in shaded valleys. 



A vigorous walk of a hundred miles in four days taken 



