No. They were indeterminately diagnosed symptoms about what he may or may
not have been undergoing at that time. Which is why things are no longer
classified that way. I reiterate.

GAVIN



on 9/28/02 8:09 PM, Nancy Gish at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> You may be talking about what psychiatry says now. I was and am
> talking about what they said when Eliot both represented it and had a
> psychiatrist for therapy because of his "breakdown." If I recall, that is
> what started this discussion. In any case it did mean something quite
> specific to call him neurasthenic. There were clear symptoms that
> referred to, and he had them.
> Nancy
>
>
>
> Date sent: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 17:14:37 -0700
> Send reply to: "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum." <[log in to unmask]>
> From: Francis Gavin <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Some Queries, was Re: Deluge...
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> I don't care what they meant then we're talking about what they mean
> now--which is essentially nothing since they were too general. Describing
> Eliot as "neurasthenic" means nothing, as it once may have meant what
> seemed like something but was really in fact nothing.
>
> GAVIN
>
>
>
>
>
> on 9/28/02 12:37 PM, Nancy Gish at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry, but if you want a long list of medical articles from the
>> period that say quite differently, let me know. At the turn of the
>> century and up to and through the war, "hysteria" was a broad term that
>> did indeed include shell shock and what we would call post-traumatic
>> stress. I only said "neurasthenia" was hard to distinguish, and there
>> is a long text making that claim and giving charts of differences that
>> then got quoted by many doctors. On this you are factually wrong as to
>> what the terms meant then. As I spent many, many weeks reading on this
>> at the Bodlian last year, I am quite certain of my terminology. Cheers,
>> Nancy
>>
>>
>> Date sent: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 12:13:58 -0700
>> Send reply to: "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum."
>> <[log in to unmask]> From: Francis Gavin
>> <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Some Queries, was
>> Re: Deluge... To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> Both neurasthenia and hysteria are considered quaint antiquated terms in
>> medical circles. Hysteria is sometimes used in a very limited way to
>> describe disassociation in personality formation, neurasthenia not at
>> all. Neither one has anything to do with battle fatigue or PTSD, which
>> are in turn, two different things.
>>
>> GAVIN
>>
>>
>> on 9/28/02 10:26 AM, Nancy Gish at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>
>>> "Shell Shock" is what they called hysteria and we
>>> would probably call post-traumatic stress disorder. In any case, there
>>> was a very extensive literature on it that actually goes back a couple
>>> of thousand years to ancient Egypt. Vittoz specifically wrote on
>>> "neurasthenia."