Alcohol is a potent factor for tropical neurasthenia as the tendency is for excess in this direction in those who in temperate climates are only moderate drinkers.
Hookworm Disease.—The patients with this disease are apt to become hypochondriacal and even melancholic.
There is a correspondence between the physical and mental backwardness of children with this disease, a child of twelve, who by the Binet-Simon test will only be rated at 7 will also not seem larger or better developed physically than a child of seven years would be.
Malta Fever.—Owing to the neuralgic pains and insomnia patients with this disease are apt to become neurasthenic. They are peculiarly liable to form the morphine habit if this drug be placed in their hands for the relief of pain.
The victims of leprosy not only may show an indifference to their condition but may also exhibit a moral apathy.
Dengue often shows a rather marked neurasthenia during convalescence and this may be protracted if the patient tries to resume his active duties before his complete recovery.
In latah there is echolalia and echopraxia, the patient repeating words he hears and mimicking movements he sees. The mind is usually clear. As a matter of fact the symptoms show similarity to those of the catatonic form of dementia praecox. The disease is more common in that part of the world centering in the Malay peninsula. Suggestion is an important factor in this neurosis.
In amok, a sort of epileptiform seizure in which the patient is obsessed with a desire to kill, there may be no recollection of the running amok. After the attack the patient may be stuporous.