Patients with nervous and mental disorder, paralysis, semi-paralysis, neurasthenia and other forms of insanity had been cured through the power of fasting and prayer.
Many names, including muscular rheumatism, fibrositis, psychogenic rheumatism, and neurasthenia were applied historically to symptoms resembling those of fibromyalgia.
In the 1920s and 1930s, new theories of the cause arose, with physicians proposing a combination of nervous system and psychological disorders such as nerve weakness (neurasthenia) and female hysteria.
Some 6080% of shell shock cases displayed acute neurasthenia, while 10% displayed what would now be termed symptoms of conversion disorder, including mutism and fugue.
