Word: neurasthenia
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Philip, hero of The Strange River, is a timid, rich, unambitious young man whose growing neurasthenia takes the uninteresting form of preoccupation with the petty details of his own life. He lives in a menage a trois with his wife, with whom he is only on speaking terms, and his older sister-in-law. Eliane, just shivering on the verge of old-maidhood. Eliane knows Philip better than he knows himself, knows also all about her sister's lover, does not resent Philip being cuckolded because she loves him herself. Her minute caretaking of him gets on Philip's nerves...
...Then it would shiver, warm & wake itself up, according to Scientist Herrman. Insulin would inhibit the shivering but cause convulsions. Cooling to 70° would stop the convulsions. Corollaries of the plan: "Hibernation might be prescribed as a perfect cure for a nervous breakdown or any form of neurasthenia. Social historians in their prime might be preserved for a couple of generations to describe to their descendants at first hand the manners of a bygone period. Politicians out of office might sleep until their party came once more into power...
...convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen at Houston last week Secretary of Labor William Nuckles Doak pulled from his pocket an old, flat, Irish potato. This, he announced, was his "magic potato." It brought him good luck. Said he: "It is even good for neurasthenia...