# What was "brain fever" in the 19th century? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 20, 2006, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139 "2006-11-20T13:14:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2021, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/21 "2021-06-10T03:29:49Z")
I’ve seen “planet struck” listed as a cause of death back in the day, and no, they didn’t jump off a tall building, as someone else once suggested. 🙃 ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2021, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/22 "2021-06-10T07:56:49Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > Ordinary working class folk and especially women were often almost invisible in most of English literature of the time This is a really important point. Conan Doyle wrote for readers of The Strand magazine. He wrote for what mattered to them and their experience. Success meant pandering to that readership’s world view. He would never have imagined we would discussing his work over a century later. We forgive some breathtaking social attitudes in his writing. This was also a time when some women needed to take extended holidays in the countryside for quite different reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2021, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/23 "2021-06-10T08:26:14Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Were writers then using “brain fever” the way writers today use “PTSD” In what I’ve read, Traumatic Shock maybe, not Post Traumatic Shock. > [@DSeid](#): > > and other eras used “shell shocked”? I think I’d translate “Shell Shock” as “combat fatigue” or CSR, rather than PTSD, so a better match for Brain Fever. From what I’ve read, if you used Shell Shock to describe Post Traumatic Stress, you’d be using it the same sense as “he’s still suffering from loosing his legs”, where the actual CSR/shell shock/leg loss was something that happened in the past. When I’ve read English people describing WWI PTSD (‘he never slept without a light on’ / ‘he had the most terrible dreams for years after’ / etc) they sometimes attributed it to Shell Shock, but didn’t describe it as Shell Shock. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2021, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/24 "2021-06-10T09:36:16Z")
The best account seems to be in the paper cited above, [Brain Fever in Nineteenth-Century Literature](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3826384?mag=did-victorians-really-get-brain-fever&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents). I downloaded the PDF without having to register or have any subscription. > As late as 1858 James Copland identifies the symptoms of “Brain Fever” as “acute pain in the head, with intolerance of light and sound; watchfulness, delirium; flushed countenance, and redness of the conjunctiva, or a heavy suffused state of the eyes; quick pulse; frequently spasmodic twitchings or convulsions, passing into somnolency, coma, and complete relaxation of the limbs.” > Although there is no precise present-day equivalent for brain fever, many of the symptoms and the post-mortem evidence were consistent with some forms of meningitis or encephalitis. However, the causes were unknown, and could be assigned to psychological factors. > Among the causes of fever he cites famine, fatigue, and those events which give “a severe shock to the nervous system. The various kinds of mental emotion—fear, anxiety, disappointments, long continued watching on a sick bed, intense study, want of sleep may individually be ranked among the predisposing causes of fever” > It is clear enough, then, that brain fever was not a fictional invention, but that both physicians and laymen believed that emotional shock or excessive intellectual activity could produce a severe and prolonged fever. > The disease was particularly attractive to writers of fiction because of its dramatic onset and long duration. Although most fictional accounts follow the medical descriptions closely, some general differences in the two are evident. For example, the disease is more often fatal in medicine than in fiction. Some literary victims die but most survive and continue to function in the narrative. The author also discusses two Sherlock Holmes stories in detail, among a number of other fictional examples. She concludes: > The modern reader who encounters “brain fever” in fiction is likely to attribute the disease to psychological causes. Certainly both real and fictional persons do sometimes become seriously ill as a result of grief, emotional shock, or even excessive study. What makes the nineteenth-century description of brain fever unique is that it assigns emotional causes to a disease which then follows a prescribed physiological course like that of other recognized diseases. Just as the gradual wasting away of tuberculosis made that disease a popular one for fictional purposes, so the combination of emotional cause and physical effect made brain fever attractive to the novelist, according to the needs of the specific work. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2021, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/25 "2021-06-11T23:31:39Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’ve seen “planet struck” listed as a cause of death back in the day, and no, they didn’t jump off a tall building, as someone else once suggested. 🙃 Doesn’t that mean a meteor struck Mars, knocking a chunk loose, and then that chunk eventually reaching Earth and striking someone? 😆 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/26 "2021-06-12T05:46:16Z")
Some people believe that this may be how rocks from Mars landed in Antarctica. I respectfully disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/27 "2021-06-12T06:39:45Z")
This classic bit of copypasta feels relevant to the thread; [![](https://i.redd.it/4l4g5padd2x21.jpg) ](https://i.redd.it/4l4g5padd2x21.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/28 "2021-06-12T07:36:44Z")
Mmmf?? Which type of Victorian novels were they reading? 😳😁 ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/29 "2021-06-12T07:46:13Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > This classic bit of copypasta feels relevant to the thread; I had always assumed that these were cryptic references to known works, but my reading of Victoriana is very limited to say the least, so although a couple look possible, I really have not much of a clue. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/30 "2021-06-12T13:36:48Z")
“Going outside at night in Italy” is _Daisy Miller_, but I have to admit I can’t identify any of the others (and I’m an English professor, so I should be better at this!) ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/31 "2021-06-12T14:33:37Z")
Yeah, that one certainly works. Since it is women in literate, the span could be quite wide. Cold hands brings to mind Mimi in La Traviata, “your tiny hand is frozen”. Dying of tuberculosis must have been one of the commonest ways of finishing off a large number of characters. Too many pillows might suggest Desdemona in Othello. But it isn’t easy. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/32 "2021-06-12T16:48:13Z")
We have 17 year locusts and now 7 year threads. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/33 "2021-06-12T17:02:00Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > “Going outside at night in Italy” is _Daisy Miller_ , but I have to admit I can’t identify any of the others (and I’m an English professor, so I should be better at this!) That’s not what the cause of death was. “Going outside at night, when mosquitoes are out, to an area where malaria is known to be common” is a more accurate description of the cause of death. But that wouldn’t fit with the list’s goal of making it seem like 19th century novelists drew women as absurdly sensitive creatures. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/34 "2021-06-12T17:04:47Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Mimi in La Traviata, “your tiny hand is frozen”. Pah, I meant La Bohème. Both Mimi and Violeta die of tuberculosis, so it is all too easy to get confused. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/35 "2021-06-12T17:06:58Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > “Going outside at night, when mosquitoes are out, to an area where malaria is known to be common” is a more accurate description of the cause of death. But that wouldn’t fit with the list’s goal of making it seem like 19th century novelists drew women as absurdly sensitive creatures. Some quick Googling indicates that mosquitoes were first prove to spread malaria in 1897. I don’t know if there was suspicion of it earlier then that. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/36 "2021-06-12T17:07:30Z")
And again, an exaggeration in the list to make a supposed point. The cold hands are a a symptom of the disease that is killing her, tuberculosis. That’s the cause of death, not the cold hands. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/37 "2021-06-12T17:12:47Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > Some quick Googling indicates that mosquitoes were first prove to spread malaria in 1897. I don’t know if there was suspicion of it earlier then that. True, but Winterbourne reproaches Giovanelli for taking Daisy to the Colessrum at night, a place where it’s known “Roman fever” (malaria) is a well-known risk. She then catches the disease and dies. The point is that in the context of the story, the risk of catching a fatal disease at the Colesseum was apparently well-known. That’s what killed her, not going for a walk in Rome at night. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139/38 "2021-06-12T17:15:16Z")
Yeah, but there is no fun in it then. I don’t think the list is intended to make female protagonists look weak, but just to have some fun with the stories and to appeal to people that are well enough read in the genres to recognise the works from the cryptic clues. Too add - Mimi dying of tuberculosis puts her in a large set of others, but a frozen hand, is pretty specific to the specific story. If you wrote “tuberculosis” in the list, the number of possible answers would be legion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-brain-fever-in-the-19th-century/381139.md?page=1)