passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and
doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork,
wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc.

Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that
either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after
a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of
energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some
thought, some life situation of a depressing kind.

It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our
subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over
the wider field of the human being.

The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the
building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is
digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into
the tissues,--and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion.
The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the
human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other
words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our
later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of
our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our
love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought
battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and
achievement.

Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in
tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition
there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,--that create vigor