"Nervous prostration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man was scarcely responsible for what he did. He was beside himself with dread. The solitude was on his nerves, this haunting dog, his own reflections, all had combined to reduce him to the verge of nervous prostration. With the last dying sound his heavy revolver was levelled in the direction of the oncoming hound. There was a moment's pause, then a shot rang out and the dog stood quite still. The bullet fell short and only kicked up the snow some ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... was the same story. Through carefully-preserved woods they had marched, frightening the birds and driving keepers into fits of nervous prostration. Fishing, owing to their tramping carelessly through the streams, was at a standstill. Croquet had been ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... told him at last. "If you don't look out you'll have nervous prostration—or I shall, if you don't stop jumping about like a jack-in-the-box. I advise you," she said, "to see a doctor before you get ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... urged Jerry to Bob. "He'll give us nervous prostration if we listen to him any longer," but they need not have hurried, for Andy, so full of news that he could not keep still, had rushed off down the street, hopping, skipping and jumping, to spread the tidings, which nearly every Academy pupil in ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... spoil some of our scenery, Ab. I thought I'd run up and see how much government land you were going to move without a permit. Glad you got down so promptly. Callahan had nervous prostration for a while last night. I told him you'd have some sort of a trick in your bag, but I didn't suppose you would spring the side of a mountain on us. Am I to have any coffee or not? What are you eating, dynamite? Why, there's Ed Smith—what are you hanging ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... way," she went on, as if speaking to herself, pacing the floor and fanning herself violently—for her face, and especially her nose, was as red as a beet; she really laces disgracefully—"there's only one way; I must fall ill at once. I must have nervous prostration, or— it's nearly June. I shall leave ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... performed in shoes that fit, than in such as tire the feet? And this is scarcely less true of brain-work than house-work. I believe that the shoes worn by young girls and young women now, are a great cause of nervous irritability, and, joined with other causes, may be a source of disease, "nervous prostration," so called in after life. I have heard women say many times, "Nothing in the world will bring a sick-headache on so quickly as wearing a shoe that hurts my feet." The oft repeated words have led me to watch my pupils in this respect carefully, and to study shoes ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... all over; he himself was utterly devoid of nerves, and he could not appreciate the part they played in a man of normal make-up. My being threatened with nervous prostration he regarded as a joke. His pleasantries rather damped my interest in deep-sea fishing, however, and I cast about for something else. It was at this juncture that I thought of Four-Pools Plantation. "Four-Pools" was the somewhat fantastic name of a stock farm in the Shenandoah ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... been discussed for centuries. There is little chance for originality; they not only thresh old straw, but the thresh straw that has been threshed a million times—straw in which there has not been a grain of wheat for hundreds of years. No wonder that they have nervous prostration. No wonder that they need vacations, and no wonder that their congregations enjoy the vacations as keenly as the ministers themselves. Better deliver a real good address fifty-two times than fifty-two poor ones—just for the sake ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... fill the harbor to say nothing of the small ones, and there are thousands of coolies working like mad. I could tell you many interesting things, but I am afraid of the censor. If he deciphers all my letters home, he will probably have nervous prostration by the ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... Church was rendered sad and solicitous by learning that its rector was on the eve of nervous prostration, and that his physician had ordered a change of air. He went away in company with his mother for a vacation of three months. The day after his departure Joy Irving received a letter from him ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... loud whenever he jumped a man, and all obnoxious with animation when he got into my king row, would have made a sheep-dog sick with mortification. Him that was once satisfied only when he was pegging six boards at keno or giving the faro dealers nervous prostration—to see him pushing them checkers about like Sally Louisa at a school-children's party—why, I was all smothered ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... They let me see they thought I was crazy going to Redmond and trying to take a B.A., and ever since I've been wondering if I am. Mrs. Peter Sloane sighed and said she hoped my strength would hold out till I got through; and at once I saw myself a hopeless victim of nervous prostration at the end of my third year; Mrs. Eben Wright said it must cost an awful lot to put in four years at Redmond; and I felt all over me that it was unpardonable of me to squander Marilla's money and my own on such a folly. Mrs. Jasper Bell said she hoped I wouldn't let college spoil me, as it ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... conversation in the de Laney's drawing-room, or Maude Eliza's dressed-up self-consciousness. The experience of having the three Westerners to dinner just once would, Bennington knew, drive his lady mother to the verge of nervous prostration—he remembered his father's one and only experience in bringing business connections home to lunch—; his imagination failed to picture the effect of her having to endure them as actual members of the family! As if this were not bad enough, ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... the present day has fallen off sadly in her carriage and beauty, to be saved from death by her, as Smith was, and feel that she therefore had a claim on him, must have given one nervous prostration, ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... stop. Studying never does harm, but nervous excitement does. When you have puzzled your brains an hour over a problem in arithmetic, the probability is that you have ceased thinking rationally, and are only plunging deeper and deeper into confusion. Nervous prostration comes from unreasonable taxation of the brain oftener than from ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... into Society had taken place in the winter-time, and he had yet to witness its vacation activities. When Society's belles and dames had completed a season's round of dinner-parties and dances, they were more or less near to nervous prostration, and Newport was the place which they had selected to retire to and recuperate. It was an old-fashioned New England town, not far from the entrance to Long Island Sound, and from a village with several grocery shops and a tavern, it had been ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... I have enjoyed this summer's outing, it's a wonder I haven't had nervous prostration long before this. It'll be a load off my mind if I get you all back in Chillicothe without anything serious ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... there are five hundred other parents on the same rock, and the eggs look to be only a couple of inches apart, the scene must be distracting, and I have no doubt we should find, if statistics were gathered, that thousands of guillemots die of nervous prostration. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... express the stuff they hide, As yours, I like to fancy, take their tone From stern, ascetic qualities inside; Just as the soldier's heavy marching-gear Conceals a heart of high determination, Too big, in any temperature, to fear Nervous prostration. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... to bed nearer nervous prostration than I'd come in a long time. Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels, and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... architect who must put that work in front of all other engagements. He did so, but trying to keep his contracts with every one gave him in the end an illness many people in this country have, called nervous prostration. I suppose it is an American disease, as one does not have it elsewhere. That was the first bad luck of the house, but not the last. When it was finished, before even it was named, the old Stanislaws died in a sad way—a way Mr. Caspian said I would not like ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... Mr. Null saw, in that grave scrutiny, an opportunity of presenting himself under a favourable light. He waved his hand persuasively towards Carmina. "Some nervous prostration, sir, in my interesting patient, as you no doubt perceive," he began. "Not such rapid progress towards recovery as I had hoped. I think of recommending the air of the seaside." Benjulia's dreary eyes turned on him slowly, ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... that the ordinary bird, which is generally of rather quiet disposition, is too much annoyed by the unending nuisance to find the neighborhood at all to his taste. Where a large number of sparrows have gathered together the conditions are such as would give a robin or a bluebird nervous prostration, and his only recourse is to depart to a neighborhood where there is more peace and quiet. But our English sparrow is not only better fitted for the struggle than the robins and bluebirds, the orioles and the wrens. He ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... life at the Hill Top School was a very bewildering one to Isabelle. The excitement over Peggy's accident was soon past, to that heroine's intense regret. She prolonged her nervous prostration as long as possible, and was duly petted and made much of by the girls. Isabelle, full of remorse for the trouble she had brought upon her room-mate, adopted her as her ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... their separation she died of nervous prostration, leaving Janina, who was then ten years old. Orlowski immediately took her away from his wife's ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... I'm not going to try anything so risky again," declared Delia. "It was the fix of my life. I'll be down with nervous prostration to-morrow. Shouldn't wonder if I raise a temperature to-night. Peachy Proctor, you may coax and tease as you like, but nothing you say will ever induce me to climb that wall and go into Count Sutri's garden again. It's not worth the thrills. Sorry to be a crab, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... her death. She also sought solace by smoking a pipe. And this reminds me that a noted specialist in neurotics has recently said that if women would use the weed moderately, tired nerves would find repose and nervous prostration would be a luxury unknown. Not being much of a smoker myself, and knowing nothing about the subject, I give the item ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... sufferer for nine years; had a belief of incurable disease of the heart, and was subject to severe nervous prostration if I became the least weary. I was told that if I should read your books they would cure me. I commenced reading them: in ten days I was surprised to find myself overcoming my nervous spasms without the aid ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... ends meet. Westford has been saved from rusting out by the advent in the nick of time of the fashionable summer boarder, and Mrs. Sidney Dale, whose husband is a New York banker, and who spent two summers there as a cure for nervous prostration, fascinated Edna without meaning to and made a new woman of her in the process. There is the story for you. A year ago Mrs. Dale took her to Europe as a sort of finishing touch, I suppose. I understand Westford thinks her affliction ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... have nervous prostration if I ride in that wagon," she said. "Every minute expecting it to collapse isn't any too good for one who has just been drowned, and ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... swooned away, and was found unconscious in his bed the next morning by his host, simply saturated with sea-water and fright, from the combined effects of which he never recovered, dying four years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration at ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... not necessary, and you're much better off in bed. That's the time for you to get a little extra rest. No human being can stand the whole season without making some rest up somehow! You'll see the girls begin to drop with nervous prostration in January; Barbara used to lose twenty pounds every winter. And I won't have you getting pale. Just take things easy in the morning, and sleep as late as ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... smile, the way her eyes flashed and dropped, strained his new resolution almost to the breaking-point. He leaned back in the seat with his arms rigid and his fists clenched until she, noticing the tense muscles of his hand, laughingly told him he would have nervous prostration if he did not learn to relax ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... afforded they had; but it may be well understood that this location between two hostile armies, with active hostilities likely to be resumed any moment, and in the midst of a picket force keenly on the alert night and day, was not likely to be selected as a sanitarium for cases of nervous prostration. The men on picket had reason to remember Mrs. Harris, for those located at the Lacey House daily partook of her bounty in the way of hot coffee, and frequently a dish of good hot soup; and the officers stationed there, usually three or four, were regularly invited to her table for all meals. ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... Mrs. Flint had cried, lifting herself from the lace pillows, "what do you expect me to do especially when I have nervous prostration? I've tried to do my duty by Victoria—goodness knows—to bring her up—among the sons and daughters of the people who are my friends. They tell me that she has temperament—whatever that may be. I'm sure I never found out, except that the best thing to do ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in keeping up before him was brief. The strain had been a little too severe. She soon gave way to nervous prostration and headache, and was compelled to retire to her room instead of returning for Gregory as she had intended. But he was promptly sent for, Miss Eulie going in her place, and taking every appliance ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... be escaped; it is not suspended for illness until collapse comes to the relief of the hapless wretch. It is a refinement of cruelty which probably is not to be found in any other country. Little wonder that the continued dizziness and lack of ability to stretch the limbs bring about a complete nervous prostration and reduce the strongest man to a physical wreck within a very short time. And if the hapless prisoner declines to answer the stern command "Pace!" then bayonet prodding, clubbing and head-cuffing are brought into action as ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... compromised with ma, and she is to meet the show at Kalamazoo and go with us to Kankakee and Keokuk until she is overcome by nervous prostration, when we shall have her go home. Pa thinks ma would last about two days with the show, but I guess if she took a course of treatment with peanuts and red lemonade one afternoon and evening, she would want to throw ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... turned round my own plans. It come entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia, rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... dealing with stocks and shares, in a noise of hell which in groups here and there rose to a scream of exaltation or a roar of disappointment. How anyone could keep nerves or hearing sense, after a week of it, one cannot imagine. No wonder American men have nervous prostration, and are so often a little deaf. The floor was strewn with bits of paper, that they had used to make calculations on, and they had a lovely kind of game of snowballing with it now and then—I suppose to vary the monotony of shouting ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... all—indeed, what was this strange thing that had already befallen them in the obsession of this silent woman, who sat so still, so suddenly endued with vigor, so brilliant with health and freshness, out of a state of mental anguish bordering on nervous prostration? Was it all fictitious?—and was there something terrible to ensue when it should collapse? And what action was incumbent on her hostess, left to face this problem in this lonely country house in the dead ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... is very censorious of poor Christine. Every one will say that she is the kind of woman who can't stick to a man in adversity. Yes, I assure you, Riatt, lots of these women who can't put down one of their motors without having nervous prostration will pillory Christine for breaking ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... such as Aikin, where two years out of three, perhaps, consumptives, in certain stages, may go with benefit; yet there is no Atlantic or Gulf State with a climate and soil adapted to aid in the cure of bronchial and catarrh troubles and nervous prostration at all comparable to Florida in the ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... keen blasts of New England a hundred years ago. Her countenance disclosed all the sprightly intelligence which her great-grandmother may have possessed, but her glowing cheeks and bright blue eyes told of a constitution against which nervous prostration fulminated in vain. Nor were the bang or bangle of a former generation visible in her composition. But here a deceptive phrase deserves an explanation. "Composition" is an epithet which, least of all, is applicable. Miss Windsor's perfections of ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... other good and abundant sufficiencies. He states that so far as Emily's personal conduct is concerned, during her enforced sojourn in his midst, she's always deported herself like a perfect lady. But she takes up an awful lot of room, and one of the hands is now on the verge of nervous prostration from overexertions incurred in packing hay to her, and, it seems she's addicted to nightmares. She gets to dreaming that a mouse nearly an inch and a half long is after her,—all bulls is terrible ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... that, for the love of goodness! Just think of a gang of sophs being captured by freshmen disguised as Indians, taken out into the country, tied to stakes and nearly roasted, while the freshmen dance a gleeful cancan around them! It's awful! The mere thought of it gives me nervous prostration!" ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... promise, Don," ran on Barstow, "for I tell you that it's either a rest or the hospital for you. You have nervous prostration written big all over your face. I know how hard it is to make the initial effort to pull out when your brain is all wound up, but you 'll regret it if you don't. And you 'll like the crowd, Don. Lindsey is a hearty fellow, who hasn't anything ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... must be conducted with the utmost secrecy and speed. Her mother could not have written to her, for she has been suffering with brain fever and nervous prostration since Leroy's death. Lorraine knows her market value too well, and is too shrewd to let so much property pass out of his hands without making ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... get the suit to fit her. And she changed her shoes three times," added the society matron. "Finally I told her if she was going to have nervous prostration getting ready to take physical culture, she'd better wait and take ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... we imagined that, in some sudden attack of homesickness, he had gone back to his father, but nothing had been heard of him. The Duke is greatly agitated, and, as to me, you have seen yourselves the state of nervous prostration to which the suspense and the responsibility have reduced me. Mr. Holmes, if ever you put forward your full powers, I implore you to do so now, for never in your life could you have a case which ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a mistake in permitting the conference," he said. "The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete nervous prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even years. I strongly recommend her being taken into the country as ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it's necessary for me to accomplish if I am to go on respecting myself, every one enters into a conspiracy to stop my doing anything at all. The only thing that makes me nervous is the way I am thwarted and opposed at every turn. I haven't got nervous prostration." ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... very much all day. Every one noticed it, although, with the self-possession of a gentlewoman, she went calmly through the ceremonies at the church, and through the breakfast here. But I think she must have broken down in her room, and while in that state of nervous prostration she must have become an easy dupe to that beggar, or thief, whichever her strange visitor may have been," said the duke; and while he spoke so calmly on such an anxious and exciting subject, he, too, under circumstances ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... old man," she said, "has simply been draining the life out of you, Clarence. I saw it from the beginning, and I warned you against it; but you wouldn't listen to me. Now I suppose you will listen, after the doctor tells you that you're in danger of nervous prostration, and that you've got to give up everything and rest. I think you've been in danger of losing your reason, you've overworked it so; and I sha'n't be easy till I've got you safely away at the seaside, and out of ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Neurasthenia (nervous prostration) has for its immediate exciting cause some overwork or stress of circumstance, but the sufferer not infrequently was already so far handicapped by regrets for the past, doubts for the present, and anxieties ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... was taken mortally ill this morning just before daybreak. She cannot live many hours, our physician says. Mabel is in a state of complete nervous prostration caused by the shock of this calamity. I wish you would come to us at once. I fear for my dear child's reason unless you prove able to calm and quiet her through this ordeal. Hasten then, my dear son; every moment before you arrive ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... couldn't sleep. Sleep, you know! It wasn't after ten—but it seems he had a headache, as usual, because Mrs. Johnson had insisted on going to look at pictures with him and Rhoda, and her remarks were such—Nervous prostration, poor Mr. Vyvian. So I've had Illuminato down here with me since then. He wants to go to ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... with armed men patrolling my garden-paths, with a lot of filibusters plotting at my own dinner-table, and a civil war likely to break out, entirely on my account. And Dr. Winter told me this was the only place that would cure my nervous prostration!" ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... gone; the troopers withdrawn, or, at least, without a guiding hand, what might Retief not be free to do while the settlement awaited the coming of a fresh detachment of police. He impotently cursed the raider. The craven weakness, induced by his condition of nervous prostration, was almost pitiable. All the selfishness which practically monopolized his entire nature displayed itself in his terror. He cared nothing for others. He believed that Retief was at war with him alone. He believed ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the three Ministers departed, Vennard and Cargill in a hansom and Mulross on foot. I can only describe the condition of those left behind as nervous prostration. We looked furtively at each other, each afraid to hint his suspicions, but all convinced that a surprising judgment had befallen at least two members of his Majesty's Government. For myself I put the number at three, for I did not like to hear a respected Whig Foreign Secretary ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... was too ill to proceed farther. Babette was at home in Vienna for she could speak German, and she soon learned that the Hospital of St. Stephen's would give her mistress the rest and medical treatment that her condition required—for she was on the verge of nervous prostration. The discomfort of travelling was not the cause of her physical break-down for Aunt Ella had told her "that nothing was too good for a traveller" and every comfort and convenience that money could supply had been hers. Her ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... he looks," Olive reassured him. "In reality, he comes cheap. He is just up from nervous prostration and ordered to a more relaxing climate, so we got him at ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the verge of nervous prostration," whispered Rose, as his attention was claimed by Mrs. Cartright. "The effort of keeping my countenance—but the way you handle a trowel, Tiny, is a new chapter in diplomacy. Butter and molasses for fifty and after; a vaporiser and peau d'espagne for the sharp ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... father died four years ago, Pearsall brother-in-law until she is twenty-one, which will be in three months. Girl well known, extremely popular, lived Dalesville until last year, when went abroad with uncle, since then reports of melancholia and nervous prostration, before that health excellent—no signs insanity—none in family. Be careful how handle Pearsall, was doctor, gave up practice to look after estate, is prominent in local business and church ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... got your worries, Markulies. The simple little things which a shipping clerk must got to do would oser give anybody the nervous prostration." ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... ramrod back and sharp tongue, used to say, "Nerves! nerves! nothing but nerves!" She thanked God she was born before the doctors had discovered nerves. Though neurotic theories had not been sufficiently elaborated for me to ascribe my state to the most refined of modern ills—nervous prostration—I was aware, as I dragged over the prairie with the horse at the end of a trailing bridle rein, that something was seriously out of tune. It was daylight before I caught the frightened broncho and no knock-kneed coward ever shook more, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... that was easily arranged. A little discreet wire pulling and Esther was once more established as school mistress of District Number Fifteen. People shook their heads, but by the time of the first snowstorm they had ceased to prophesy nervous prostration, and by the time sleighing was fairly established they were ready to admit that the girl ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... sweating in the general paralysis of the insane. Ramskill reports a case of sweating on one side of the face in a patient who was subject to epileptic convulsions. Takacs describes a case of unilateral sweating with proportionate nervous prostration. Bartholow and Bryan report unilateral sweating of the head. Cason speaks of unilateral sweating of the head, face, and neck. Elliotson mentions sweat from the left half of the body and the left extremities only. Lewis reports a case ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... note the exception." Lincoln generally met the objections by the placid remark, "I reckon that's so." Thus he gave up point after point, apparently giving away his case over and over again, until his associates were brought to the verge of nervous prostration. After giving away six points he would fasten upon the seventh, which was the pivotal point of the case, and would handle that so as to win. This ought to have been satisfactory, but neither Herndon nor his other associates ever ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... seemed to hang by a single thread. It was the very worst case of nervous prostration I have ever been called to combat, and for weeks we had to be contented if we enabled him to hold his own. During all this time Gwen watched both Maitland and myself with a closeness that suffered nothing to escape her. I think she knew the changes in his condition better ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... to the rumors rife in the office that morning. Rumors which emanate from the managing editor's room are usually of the sort which burden the subordinate ones with anxiety. The London correspondent was "going to pieces." He had cabled that he was suffering from nervous prostration, supplementing a request for a two months' leave of absence. For "nervous prostration" we read "drink." Our London correspondent was a brilliant journalist; he had written one or two clever books; he had a broad knowledge ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... chamber. Madame Arles is among the earliest who come with eager inquiries, and begs to see the sufferer. But she is confronted by the indefatigable spinster, who, cloaking her denial under ceremonious form, declares that her state of nervous prostration will not admit of it. Madame withdraws, sadly; but the visit and the claim are repeated from time to time, until the stately civility of Miss Johns ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... feverishly for his turning in at her gate with the tidings of her husband's safety. Night after night she Jay awake, hoping, praying that she might hear his step returning on a furlough to which wounds or sickness had entitled him. The natural and inevitable result was illness and nervous prostration. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... as housekeeper, had remained at Fair Oaks, seemed, as the last carriage disappeared from view, to be on the verge of collapse from nervous prostration. No one knew the mental excitement or the terrible nervous strain which she had undergone during those last few days. Many at the funeral had noted her extreme pallor, but no one dreamed of the tremendous will power by ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... recent addition to the Bannister home. It had been established as the result of a heart-to-heart talk between old John Bannister and his doctor. The doctor spoke earnestly of nervous prostration and stated without preamble the exact number of months which would elapse before Mr. Bannister living his present life, would make first-hand acquaintance with it. He insisted on a regular routine of exercise. The gymnasium came into being, and Mr. Steve Dingle, physical instructor at ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... weeks that followed, for Mrs. Salisbury steadily declined into a real illness, and the worried family was only too glad to delegate all the domestic problems to Justine. The invalid's condition, from "nervous breakdown" became "nervous prostration," and August was made terrible for the loving little group that watched her by the cruel fight with typhoid fever into which Mrs. Salisbury's exhausted little body was drawn. Weak as she was physically, her spirit never failed her; she met ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... upon with awe. Neither is it strange that it seems to many, especially the ignorant, a subject to be shunned. It is not uncommon for a mother, whose daughter is suffering, and may be on the verge of nervous prostration because of her misused nerves, to say, "I do not want my daughter to know that she has nerves." The poor child knows it already in the wrong way. It is certainly better that she should know her nerves by learning a wholesome, natural use of them. The ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... ought to fly, without a moment's delay, to the poor girl's assistance. Yet fear of exposure, of ridicule, of loss of caste, held her a helpless prisoner in her own home, where she paced the floor and moaned and wrung her hands until she was on the verge of nervous prostration. If at any time she seemed to acquire sufficient courage to go to Louise, a glance at the detective watching the house unnerved her and prevented her from carrying out her ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... nothing short of an operation for appendicitis was likely to put me in possession of the missing exhibit. So I went on to the hotel, and ten minutes later found myself in the presence of an interesting case of nervous prostration. Poor Goward! When I observed the wrought-up condition of his nerves, I was immediately so filled with pity for him that if it hadn't been for Maria I think I should at once have assumed charge of his case, and, as his personal counsel, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... me. The whistling of the wind—which had risen since sunset—made me start up in bed, with my heart throbbing, and my blood all chill. When no sounds were audible, then I listened for them to come—listened breathlessly, without daring to move. At last, the agony of nervous prostration grew more than I could bear—grew worse even than the child's horror of walking in the darkness, and sleeping alone on the bed-room floor, which had overcome me, almost from the first moment when I laid down. I groped my way to the table and lit the candle again; then wrapped my dressing-gown round ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... living, or burned in indiscriminate heaps with horses and dogs and the mingled ashes scattered to the winds—must indeed have been well-nigh unbearable. No wonder there were lunatics in Galveston, and unnumbered cases of nervous prostration. ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... continued Silvia, "that they had given her nervous prostration, but she had no time to prostrate, and if she didn't succeed in getting them graded by the coming fall term, she should accept an offer of marriage she had received from a cross-eyed man, and you know how unlucky that would ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... suddenly. So Morrow was on the verge of nervous prostration, eh? That was bad. It had been Matt's experience that, as a usual thing, but two things conduce to bring about nervous prostration—overwork and worry; and in Morrow's case it must be worry, for Kelton did all the work! Kelton, too, looked ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... for work is usually thrown into a state of nervous prostration by the difficulties that beset his task. By a perusal of the following hints he may learn to acquire an invulnerable calm, and if he follows the directions given he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... bless me; of course.... A calm, complete sleep of utter prostration—utter nervous prostration. And can one wonder? Poor fellow, poor fellow!' He walked to the window and peered between the blinds. 'Sparrows, sunshine—yes, and here's the postman,' he said, as if to himself. Then he turned sharply round, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... explanation of Monny's presence in the mushrbiyeh kiosk on the roof of Mena House, on the night following the great adventure, which would have put most girls to bed with nervous prostration! ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... fear of being awakened by more burglars, thus increasing her impression of fear; and of course, if she slept at all, she was liable at any time to wake with a nervous start. The process of working herself into nervous prostration through this constant, useless repetition was ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... recommendation that I should be looked after. And out of the mistaken kindness of his heart, he printed a personal in his next issue to the effect that his "valued contributor, Mr. Me, the public would regret to hear, was confined to his house by a sudden and severe attack of nervous prostration," following it up with an estimate of my career, which bore every mark of having been saved up to that time ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a little bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another victim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the nerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration. ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... type was proof of collusion with evil powers. And all nervous ailments were once deemed a sign of the witches compact with Satan. Hence, since the unmitigated drudgery and the hard conditions of the lives of most women made them not only prematurely old but also given to nervous prostration (before that title appeared in the medical lists), the numbers of old women tortured, burned, drowned, beaten, and stoned to death, and otherwise destroyed, seems almost incredible to modern ideas, although so well ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... of misfortunes, Harrowby's health broke down. On discovering the truth about Prussia's secret demand for Hanover, he fell into the depths of despair and nervous prostration, as appears from the postscript of his letter of 24th ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... was stayed for a few years by the new life that came to me through the evolutions of health in the rooms of the sick that seemed to portend possible professional glories: but as the years went on I suffered more and more from nervous prostration through waste of power in ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... especially acceptable to Sir Reginald Elphinstone, for it very soon became evident to him that Barker's daring attempt at piracy had inflicted a very severe shock upon Lady Olivia, which quickly developed into an attack of nervous prostration, that rendered an immediate return home exceedingly desirable; the more so that Ida was also suffering from shock, although not to nearly so serious an extent as her mother. The whole question was fully discussed ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... disease, and lung complaint, inhale this vapor with impunity. It stimulates the circulation of the blood and builds up the tissues. Indorsed by the highest authority in the professions, recommended in midwifery and all cases of nervous prostration. Physicians, surgeons, dentists and private families supplied with this vapor, liquefied, in cylinders of various capacities. It should be administered the same as Nitrous Oxide, but it does not produce headache and nausea as ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... that the mind had a great deal to do with the body, and possibly this mind cure might help nervous prostration or hysterical women, but if Mrs. Hayden's limb was healed, depend upon it, the medicine taken all ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... early part of this year. In a foot-note in her "Journal," she paid a grateful tribute to his "attention, care and faithfulness"—to his rare devotion to her, especially during a period of physical weakness and nervous prostration, when such service as his was invaluable. She also says of him, "He has all the independence and elevation of feeling peculiar to the Highland race, and is singularly straightforward, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... I won't! Oh, I never thought I could get so excited about anything. I believe I'm going to have nervous prostration and I sha'n't see you again till war ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... efforts to his father, who, after getting the garments thus secured in a condition of fictitious newness, displayed them in front of his establishment, marked with prices which, as he explained to those unwary enough to venture within the radius of his personality, brought him as near to nervous prostration as was possible for the parent of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... she had some fair streaks of good fortune, just enough to keep her thoroughly amused with her new distraction; but on the whole she was a loser. The Brimley Bomefields had a collective attack of nervous prostration on the day when she sold out a quantity of shares in Argentine rails. 'Nothing will ever bring that money back,' they remarked ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... of fact, Isabella d' Este witnessed the sacking of Rome without so much as thinking of nervous prostration. This was nearly four hundred years ago, but it is the high-water mark of feminine fortitude. To live through such days and nights of horror, and emerge therefrom with unimpaired vitality, and unquenched love for a beautiful and dangerous world, is to rob the words "shock" ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... so much science and sociology into that weak noddle of his that they kind of made him drunk, as you might say, and the doctor had sent him down to board with the Scudders and sleep it off. 'Nervous prostration' was the way he had his symptoms labeled, and the nerve part was all right, for if a hen flew at him he'd holler and run. Scart! you never see such a scart cat in your born days. Scart of a boat, scart of being seasick, scart of ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it is a great exertion to lay one every day, and no sooner is the work finished than I think of the same task to be done on the morrow, until I'm on the verge of nervous prostration,' and Mrs. Goose waddled up and down the room as if she was a living skeleton, instead of the fattest ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... live in little old New York. Of course, we didn't pull off such a success as Barnum did; but we had no kick coming when we counted up the receipts for the next week. Merritt's lecture was a work of art and he manufactured language at a rate which would have given Noah Webster nervous prostration when he christened the python 'Old Glory,' and told about its combining the venomous qualities of the cobra and the strength of the boa-constrictor. The python was so stuck on its new colors that it nearly broke its neck turning around ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... to render yourself liable to an attack of nervous prostration you should never watch a skilful workman nailing on lath. It is the most bewildering spectacle you can conceive of. I watched it for twenty minutes one day—it was when they were lathing the big front ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... Ferris, who kept Priscilla on the verge of nervous prostration for a whole semester, entered upon her college career in an entirely unpremeditated and impromptu manner. It began one day away back in November. Georgie Merriles and Patty had just strolled home from the athletic field, where they ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... returned very slowly, and she had many trying hours of weakness and nervous prostration to endure. She was almost always very patient, but on a few rare occasions, when suffering more than usual, there was a slight peevishness in her tone. Once it was to her father she was speaking, and the instant she had done so, she looked up at him with eyes ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... in command of the Taira van, Fujiwara no Tadakiyo, laboured under the disadvantage of being a coward, and the Taira generals, Koremori and Tadamori, grandson and youngest brother, respectively, of Kiyomori, seem to have been thrown into a state of nervous prostration by the unexpected magnitude of the Minamoto's uprising. They were debating, and had nearly recognized the propriety of falling back without challenging a combat or venturing their heads further into the tiger's mouth, when something—a flight of water-birds, a reconnaissance ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and that he had outmanoeuvred at every point the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his nervous prostration. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... life. He returned to New York from an exhausting campaign, depressed in spirit and weary in body and in mind. The death of his devoted wife added to his sorrows, and on November 29, 1872, only a few weeks after the Presidential election, he died at Pleasantville, N. Y., of mental and nervous prostration. His body lay in state in the City Hall, and his funeral was attended by the notables of the land—President Grant, who had just been re-elected by the people, being numbered among those ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... saw her for a moment absolutely still. On the rare occasions when her body was at rest, her head turned from side to side as though moved by machinery, like the mandarin dolls of the toy-shops, and I had doubts whether she ever slept. I was really concerned about her. Nervous prostration seemed the only thing she could look forward to; and later I found that Bradford Torrey had suffered similar anxiety about one of her kind, as related in his charming ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... Nervous prostration is seldom the result of present trouble or work, but of work and trouble anticipated. Mental exhaustion comes to those who look ahead, and climb mountains before reaching them. Resolutely build a wall about to-day, and live within the inclosure. The past may have been hard, ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... sand. Tuberculosis, rheumatism, insomnia are unknown to wild animals. Our bodies are sick and weak because we have denatured ourselves. Make friends of the wild animals, they will teach you how to keep well. They have not a single case of nervous prostration in all their vast forest home. Learn to relax. Drop your tension and you check confusion. Stop a few minutes sometime in the day and quiet your nerves, rest your muscles, calm your senses, sooth your thoughts, somewhere in the sunshine, or under the shade of an old apple-tree. Eat simply, slowly, ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... too much, all at once?" Lane remonstrated in the mild way of husbands who have experienced nervous prostration with ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... news you've got to give out It's probably got a bullet in it somewhere. I'm sick of bullets. What I need is a little rest from chunks of lead. I'm coming down with nervous prostration as it is. Everything seems to happen around me. No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it. Why, that ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... Anthony stirs up papers with resolution on Kansas men; description by Chicago Herald; seized with nervous prostration at Lakeside, O.; sympathy of people and press; secret of vitality; letter on maternity hospitals; on "hard times;" on woman's dress; Mrs. Stanton's birthday celebration; Miss Anthony magnanimously refuses to take the lead; tribute from Tilton; ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... withstand all this hardship with varying moral. There are a few who sadly collapse before the onslaught of adverse circumstances, who give way without a fight to nervous prostration, and who are subject at times to wild spasms of uncontrolable trembling, finally going down the line with a form of shell-shock altogether distinct to shock ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... received a direct order—never, at least, without long, and sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be expected to hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come down here if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New York right ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... all day I was unable to leave my room, owing to a headache and nervous prostration, caused by late hours and too much company, the doctor said. It is too bad, and yet I do so much enjoy our card parties and the excitement of the game. To-night I am to take part in a little quiet game of draw poker, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... only a melancholy ruin will be left if you do not speedily return. Indeed, it is pretty bad. The boys are quite terrible, and even my "angels" are becoming infected. Your special pet, Coley, after reducing poor Mr. Locke to the verge of nervous prostration, has "quit," and though I have sought him in his haunts, and used my very choicest blandishments, he remains obdurate. To my remonstrances, he finally deigned to reply: "Naw, they ain't none of 'em any good no more; them ducks is too pious for me." I don't know whether you will consider ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... that the glories of the Mayors of London with 4,000,000 souls, of Berlin, Chicago, and Peking, with millions more, are so slight that you can't remember their names—or even to have heard them, for that matter. Really, Thaddeus, I am surprised at you. What you expect to get out of this besides nervous prostration I must confess I ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... to the girl's lips, then disappeared on the instant. "It wouldn't be proper," she said gravely. "Port Angeles is a city and people look at things differently in cities. Aunt Mary would have nervous prostration if I ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... to see. I shouldn't wonder if Paasma has now taken to his bed with a sudden attack of—whatever the Dutch have instead of nervous prostration. He didn't ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... case that presented just the symptoms you mentioned. High-school girl broken down from trying to lead her classes, lead her fraternity, lead her parents, lead society——the Lord only knows what else. Gone all to pieces! Pretty a case of nervous prostration as you ever saw in a person of fifty. I began on fractional doses with it, and at last got her where she can rest. It did precisely what you claimed it ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... mushrooms with a rich gray gravy and successively waltzing, meandering, or floating with the Tom, Dick, and Harry of the workaday social world from eighteen to thirty! And yet we fathers and philosophers ask ourselves why in thunder (or even more vehemently) our daughters have nervous prostration. Why should they? And yet I hear Josephine ask, for the discussion is uppermost in our ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... the hospital of Exeter has been filled with—teachers suffering from nervous prostration. Dr. Morgan's ebony locks have turned silver. During the holidays Miss Wilhelm, who tried to teach them classics, in a fit of desperation sought refuge in matrimony. We might speak more fully of the effects of their being among us were it not that we believe ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... work. I know lots of teachers; they're always having nervous prostration. But you ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... she said, "seems to hev married because they both use a good deal o' salt—'t least they ain't much else they're alike in. An' Emerel is just one-half workin' her head off for him. Little nervous thing she is—when I heard she was down with nervous prostration two years ago, I says, 'Land, land,' I says, 'but ain't she always had it?' They's a strain o' good blood in that girl,—Al Kitton was New England,—but they don't none of it flow up through her head. She's great on sacrificin', but she don't sacrifice judicious. ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... Nervous Prostration.—Persons suffering from nervous prostration have probably allowed the urgency of seeming duty to drive them on in work till the vital energies have been fairly exhausted. At last they are completely broken down, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... for several days. That was all they knew. Yes, there had been talk of giving the case to a detective agency, but they weren't sure it had been done. And here is his poor mother up in New Rochelle, almost on the verge of nervous prostration. There is his fiancee, too; little Betty Parsons, who is crying her eyes out. Nice girl, Betty. And it's a shame that something isn't being done. Anyway, I shall ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... startling news within the next few weeks. Mrs. Hartley had come to be very fond of Lettice, and she guarded her jealously, with all the tyranny of an old woman's love for a young one. The first thing, in her mind, was to get rid of the nervous prostration from which Lettice had been suffering, and to restore her to health ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the greater part of the night to composition. He worked so hard that the opera, begun in December 1851, was finished in two years, but he paid dearly for all this extra labor. He fell ill—a state of nervous prostration—and was unable for some time to compose ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... know about sneezing. I shall only be too glad if I don't have nervous prostration ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... told me that at first, in the complete nervous prostration, she seemed to have a morbid idea that you had been unkind to her, neglected and deserted her—left her to face some endless horror all alone. The shock to her mind had been terrible, Garry; everything was grotesquely twisted—she had some fever, you know—and Miss Lester told me that ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... A.P., a resting place was found for the stranger who had suddenly dashed from their lips the scarcely tasted cup of happiness. Mr. Luzerne employed for her the best medical skill he could obtain. She was suffering from nervous prostration and brain fever. Annette was constant in her attentions to the sufferer, and day after day listened to her delirious ravings. Sometimes she would speak of a diamond necklace, and say so beseechingly, "Clarence, don't look at me so. You surely can't think that I am guilty. I will ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... an attack of insomnia, neurasthenia, nervous prostration and the nightmare, with ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... of an Earl consented to Buttle for them. He refused them Butter with their Meals and kept them trembling most of the time, but they determined to do things Right, even if both died of Nervous Prostration. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... which are attributed to malarial conditions. Renal diseases are also wanting; disorders of the liver and kidneys, and Bright's disease, gout, and rheumatism, are not native. The climate in its effect is stimulating, but at the same time soothing to the nerves, so that if "nervous prostration" is wanted, it must be brought here, and cannot be relied on to continue long. These facts are derived from medical practice with the native Indian and Mexican population. Dr. Remondino, to whom I have before referred, has made ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... being in a monastery, she would be thinking of her precious Sisterhood and wanting to hurry back as fast as she could. She does mean to join when her year is up, I know, which is so silly of her, when the world's such a nice place; and it nearly gives me nervous prostration to hear her talk about it. Not that she often does; but it's bad enough to ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... strain of overstudy she had been through had left its effects on her system, and Patty, though she would not admit it, and no one else realised it, was in imminent danger of an attack of nervous prostration. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells |
