concerning business; fear concerning the health
and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has
even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is
almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the
possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a
symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability
to worry becomes greatly increased.

Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors
hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The
hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease,
every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis,
every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache
into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze
inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of
sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant
for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily
processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the
little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the
gastro-intestinal tract have no essential meaning in the majority of
cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they
multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal
groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily
disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally
enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or
perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The
faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then
proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of
treatment.

What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back
of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in
relation to the housewife,--matters like innate temperament, bad
training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for
sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook,
over-aesthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy,
passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and
doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork,
wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc.

Fundamentally neurastheni