We should see that these syndromes have exploded in prevalence since 1970, when diagnosis of endocrine disorder by clinical symptoms went out of fashion in favour of diagnosis by blood hormone level tests.
As I remember from writing the first essay, Billewicz’ paper seems to have been the last word in clinical diagnosis, and that was late 60s/early 70s, I think. After that they went over to TSH tests. Before that the tests weren’t trusted and were only used for the hard cases, according to Billewicz.
A book on CFS recommended to me as the bible of the only successful standard treatment told me that the disease was widely thought to be recent, but that ‘neurasthenia’ existed in Victorian times, and seems to have been similar. I think her point was supposed to be that it wasn’t anything new. But that made me really suspicious.
I remember reading about the ‘yuppie flu’ in the 1980s, and a friend of mine at college came down with it in about 1992, and I still remember how it poleaxed him, so I reckon CFS must have kicked off about then.
Apart from that I know nothing, but it’s a fairly strong prediction of mine that it wouldn’t have existed much before 1970, because any serious investigation would have ended in deciding that it was hypothyroidism, and they’d have treated it with desiccated thyroid.
Since, whatever Broda Barnes and my own experience says, I don’t think dessicated thyroid is a priori that good a treatment, there might have been some strangely resistant cases, but I imagine they’d have got lost in the noise.
A book on CFS recommended to me as the bible of the only successful standard treatment told me that the disease was widely thought to be recent
In general it would help if you would name the book in cases like that to make it easier for other people to follow your reasoning.
I looked up Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia on Google Ngrams.
There a huge uptick in the late 1980′s but not in 1970. Very interestingly there’s a fall of both.
To me that suggests that while your prediction of it not existing before 1970 happens to be true, your overall representation of the history isn’t and it happened later than the timeline you are presenting. That in turn raises the question whether you are similary imprecise about other issues.
Amazon tells me that the book was Overcoming Chronic Fatigue by Mary Burgess, and it was recommended to me as the best book for CFS by a close friend who’s a consultant psychiatrist.
As I remember, the first half of it describes what was happening to me so well that I could have written it myself, and the second half (the treatment) seemed weirdly irrelevant. I gave it to Oxfam in the end (the usual fate of my books) so I can’t check what she actually said about neurasthenia.
The ngrams technique is brilliant! Actually Fibromyalgia seems to have started in ’66. I am very interested in the fact that both things have fallen since 2000, any idea what that would mean?
Also, could you try some of the other things I’m claiming? I have done, and found what I expected, but if I say what to search for, that will look like I’m leading you.
I am certain to have been imprecise about other issues. I’ve only been thinking about this for three months, and I was writing what I thought, and now I can’t distinguish my own writing from my memories or the truth! And in my original narrative I glossed over any details that detracted from the story, while being careful not to say anything I knew to be untrue or miss out anything I thought relevant. If I have been deliberately imprecise in misleading ways you have my word that it was unconscious bias, for what that’s worth.
All changes will have happened slowly, and new ‘syndromes’ take a while to be accepted and given names, so the raw ngrams graph you link to looks as I’d expect up until 2000. The fall after, I can’t explain, and the existence of Fibromyalgia in 1966 is a surprise too.
Looked up Billewicz’ paper and it was published in 1969.
How do you know about the timeline?
I don’t know a great deal about the timeline.
As I remember from writing the first essay, Billewicz’ paper seems to have been the last word in clinical diagnosis, and that was late 60s/early 70s, I think. After that they went over to TSH tests. Before that the tests weren’t trusted and were only used for the hard cases, according to Billewicz.
A book on CFS recommended to me as the bible of the only successful standard treatment told me that the disease was widely thought to be recent, but that ‘neurasthenia’ existed in Victorian times, and seems to have been similar. I think her point was supposed to be that it wasn’t anything new. But that made me really suspicious.
I remember reading about the ‘yuppie flu’ in the 1980s, and a friend of mine at college came down with it in about 1992, and I still remember how it poleaxed him, so I reckon CFS must have kicked off about then.
Apart from that I know nothing, but it’s a fairly strong prediction of mine that it wouldn’t have existed much before 1970, because any serious investigation would have ended in deciding that it was hypothyroidism, and they’d have treated it with desiccated thyroid.
Since, whatever Broda Barnes and my own experience says, I don’t think dessicated thyroid is a priori that good a treatment, there might have been some strangely resistant cases, but I imagine they’d have got lost in the noise.
In general it would help if you would name the book in cases like that to make it easier for other people to follow your reasoning.
I looked up Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia on Google Ngrams.
There a huge uptick in the late 1980′s but not in 1970. Very interestingly there’s a fall of both. To me that suggests that while your prediction of it not existing before 1970 happens to be true, your overall representation of the history isn’t and it happened later than the timeline you are presenting. That in turn raises the question whether you are similary imprecise about other issues.
Amazon tells me that the book was Overcoming Chronic Fatigue by Mary Burgess, and it was recommended to me as the best book for CFS by a close friend who’s a consultant psychiatrist.
As I remember, the first half of it describes what was happening to me so well that I could have written it myself, and the second half (the treatment) seemed weirdly irrelevant. I gave it to Oxfam in the end (the usual fate of my books) so I can’t check what she actually said about neurasthenia.
The ngrams technique is brilliant! Actually Fibromyalgia seems to have started in ’66. I am very interested in the fact that both things have fallen since 2000, any idea what that would mean?
Also, could you try some of the other things I’m claiming? I have done, and found what I expected, but if I say what to search for, that will look like I’m leading you.
I am certain to have been imprecise about other issues. I’ve only been thinking about this for three months, and I was writing what I thought, and now I can’t distinguish my own writing from my memories or the truth! And in my original narrative I glossed over any details that detracted from the story, while being careful not to say anything I knew to be untrue or miss out anything I thought relevant. If I have been deliberately imprecise in misleading ways you have my word that it was unconscious bias, for what that’s worth.
All changes will have happened slowly, and new ‘syndromes’ take a while to be accepted and given names, so the raw ngrams graph you link to looks as I’d expect up until 2000. The fall after, I can’t explain, and the existence of Fibromyalgia in 1966 is a surprise too.
Looked up Billewicz’ paper and it was published in 1969.