A Case of Neurasthenia Apparently Cured by a Diet of Ghee

Neurasthenia (wikipedia) = The condition was explained as being a result of exhaustion of the central nervous system’s energy reserves, which Beard attributed to modern civilization. Physicians in the Beard school of thought associated neurasthenia with the stresses of urbanization and with stress suffered as a result of the increasingly competitive business environment. Typically, it was associated with upper class people and with professionalsworking in sedentary occupations, but really can apply to anyone who lives within the monetary system.

Freud included a variety of physical symptoms in this category, including fatigue, [dyspepsia] with [flatulence], and indications of intra-cranial pressure and spinal irritation. In common with some other people of the time, he believed this condition to be due to “non-completed coitus” or the non-completion of the higher cultural correlate thereof, or to “infrequency of emissions” or the infrequent practice of the higher cultural correlate thereof. Later, Freud formulated that in cases of coitus interruptus as well as in cases of masturbation, there was “an insufficient libidinal discharge” that had a poisoning effect on the organism, in other words, neurasthenia was the result of (auto‑)intoxication. Eventually he separated it from [anxiety neurosis], though he believed that a combination of the two conditions existed in many cases.

Recovery with ghee https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5163896/

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Pretty amusing that a doctor would speculate about the importance of diet in healing in 1933… and that he would prescribe what is essentially a high fat diet.

The medical profession has definitely moved backwards when it comes to the effect of diet on health – it’s very rare that you’d get any kind of pointers on diet from a doctor these days.

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