-By nervousness is meant an abnormal impressionability. A nervous person in one easily shocked by trivial events; jumps and starts when spoken to, cannot bear the least noise or movement about her. This condition may be a matter of temperament, or it may induced by worry, mental shock, or indulgence in stimulants, especially tea. When it gets so far that the patient loses self-control, it becomes HYSTERIA; when in man it develops morbid self-consciousness and introspection, it is HYPOCHONDRIASIS. See under these two headings.
General Treatment.-Quiet, change of air, freedom from responsibility, good food-these are the best general means of restoring proper tone to the nervous system when overwrought. But these are not always obtainable. If with the nervousness there is loss of appetite and wasting, the Weir Mitchell plan of seclusion, massage, and excessive feeding is very efficacious.
Where tea has been the cause, or any other stimulant, this must be left off entirely.
Medicines.-(Every three or four hours.)
Chamomilla 6.
-When the patient is peevish and irritable and there is disorder of the stomach and bowels.
Nux. v. 3.
-In spare, dark subjects, who suffer from constipation; those addicted to strong spiced food, coffee, and wines.
Ignat. 3.
-When there is depression, apprehension, tendency to tears.
Iodium 3.
-In all cases where there is wasting and loss of appetite.