Word: cramping
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Writer's cramp is an ailment that has puzzled doctors for more than a century, and it continues to baffle them. The victim of writer's cramp is seized by a strange kind of palsy. He may be able to play the piano or balance a teacup, but as soon as he tries to write, his fingers begin to stutter. Some doctors think that the cramp is an occupational disease brought on by too much writing. They prescribe 1) a long rest from writing, or 2) a change of occupation...
...wrong, a British expert now reports. M. Narasimha Pai, an Indian-born psychiatrist attached to Britain's Mill Hill and Sutton Emergency Hospitals, has decided that previous investigators were misled by the name of the disease, which is also known as "scrivener's palsy." Writer's cramp, he says, has nothing to do with writers or writing fatigue; it is a symptom of neurosis and may attack anybody...
...British Journal of Mental Science, Pai reports that he has found writer's cramp surprisingly widespread in Britain.* He examined 1,880 psychoneurotic British soldiers and found that 171 had writer's cramp. Only six, all clerks, had done a good deal of writing. Most of the patients developed their symptoms upon being assigned to uncongenial jobs that required some writing...
...British Workmen's Compensation Act recognizes writer's cramp as a compensable disease under "Dangerous Trades"; in the U.S., where the disorder has no such official standing, it is comparatively rare...
...paced and danced about the stage as they piped marches and piobaireachds, a kind of wailing dirge which sounds like the cries of caged animals. Said Archibald Campbell: "We purists are passionately devoted to the piobaireachd." When the last piper had piped, one of the judges complained of a cramp and was heard to mutter: "Och, it's a terrible long business, terrible long." Another admitted to "a little pressure around the temples." The judges sadly agreed that the war years had not improved the quality of the pipers...