In the spring of 1876, a young woman penned this letter to her family.

"I do not know where any news granted me more gladly than your letter of today. Ma is to all appearances as well as ever, but I fare not as well, am now rested in an "invalid chair" and am gaining as quickly as it is possible. For me to gain under a like sickness what of a perfect nervous prostration, and slow nervous fever, a long time coming down and consequently a slow getting up, so many relapses. But Providence permitting, I am on a fair way to recover. . ."

Six months later, she was dead. What caused her death? What was nervous prostration and slow nervous fever? How was it treated? Is it inherited? Do her descendants need to worry about it? These questions are ones that many family historians face.

There are Internet webpages that explain what the old medical terms mean. Two useful ones are Old Diseases and their Modern Definitions and Old Medical Terminology .

Both defined nervous prostration in general terms, and I wanted more information. I went to Google.com, a search engine, and entered the term "nervous prostration." Bingo! I found a webpage that explained it was the term applied to a nervous breakdown or depression.

The main symptom of nervous prostration is a feeling of mental and physical exhaustion. The symptoms of nervous fever include: languor, debility, dejection of mind, alternate flushes of heat and chills, loathing of food, and confusion of ideas. These are succeeded by vertigo, pain in the head, cough, frequent weak and sometimes intermitting pulse. The patient talks wildly.

Another website, Colonial Diseases and Cures lists treatments. They included purging, drinking wine whey and beef-tea, and ingesting sulphate of quinine.

From another website, I learned that Lydia E. Pinkham invented a Vegetable Compound to cure any "female complaint" from nervous prostration to a prolapsed uterus. The compound was a blend of ground herbs such as the true unicorn root and pleurisy root. It had an alcoholic content of 18 percent.

So, we know what the disease was. Yes, the descendants do want to know about this condition. Learning about diseases that our ancestors had increases our knowledge of them and the world around them. It also provides us with information about possible conditions that family members may face in the future.

© 2001-2006

Connie Lenzen, CG^SM

CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by board certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.