Confessions of a Neurasthenic

'Confessions of a Neurasthenic' is an autobiography of the author's life, William Taylor Marrs. He was diagnosed with an illness called neurasthenic, a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after neurologist George Miller Beard reintroduced the concept in 1869. It is used to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, neuralgia, and depressed mood.