Neurasthenic Nation: Americau27s Search for Health, Happiness, and Comfort, 1869-1920

摘要

Neurasthenic Nation investigates how the concept of neurasthenia, a common medical diagnosis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 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, this book 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.