What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia.  Back of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in relation to the housewife,—­matters like innate temperament, bad training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, over-aesthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy, 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 deenergization.  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 and strength of body and mind.  Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work with zeal and renewed energy.  Hope brings with it an eagerness for the battle, a zest for work.  The glow of pride that comes with praise is a stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality.  The feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a new birth of purpose and will.  And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end.