HYPOCHONDRI'ASIS (so called from its supposed connecti?in with the hypochondriac regions of the abdomen), a disease characterized by extreme increase of sensibility, pal pitations, morbid feelings that simulate the greater part of diseases, exaggerated uneasi ness and anxiety, chiefly in what concerns the health, etc. In extreme cases it becomes a species of insanity (see below). The disease is intimately connected with, if not caused by, disorder of the digestive functions. See INomEsTmoN.
Hypoehoariacal Insanity.—Whon somberness of disposition and anxiety concerning personal comfort become exaggerated, and attention is directed chiefly to the state of the health, it amounts to common hypochondriasis. When it passes beyond the control of the will, when the whole mind is directed to the state of the system, or to particular organs, and exalts and misinterprets sensations, the condition is designated hypochon driacal iusanity. The disease may be described as the engrossment of the attention by false impressions couveyed, or conceived to be conveyed, from internal organs. These sensations may, in many instances, be real, and proceed from actual alterations in the structure or functions of the parts supposed to be affected; but they con sist of ordinary sensations, excited and intensified by the act of attention which makes them known to the patient. Neither the experience nor the sufferings of the victims are imaginary, however absurd their errors, and however groundless their apprehensions may be; the disease consists in the exaltation of sensibility and attention, and in the delusions which originate in that morbid state. A man lives in constant fear of death; he is firmly convinced that he labors under cancer, consumption, disease of the heart, and lives upon drugs; that his stomach, or bowels, are contracted, or the abode of frogs, a fetus, or au army of soldiers; that his legs are transformed into glass or ice; that his whole body has assumed the shape of a teapot, or the magnitude of a hippopotamus.
It is often a precursor of melancholia, as in the case of Cowper the poet, and other kinds of alienation; but it must likewise be regarded as a distinct and independent affection, traceable, generally, to dyspepsia, or disorder of the digestive and assimila tive apparatus. It is probable that shades and degrees of this malady may constitute those links which connect partially healthy from, absolutelyunsound minds. In females. there are often added to the phenomena already described many of the symptoms of hysteria and great Impressionability, and even convulsive affections: there is likewise encountered the simulation of diseases, time tendency to deceive others after having deceived themselves into the belief that they are invalids, and laboring under grievous and incurable disorders. They crave sympathy and support, as subject to affections of the spine, the joints, the lungs. They abstain from food. or devour inedible and dis gusting substances: they writhe in what appears excruciating pain, and they voluntarily sustain great suffering during the treatment of their fancied ailments. A patient of Dr. Page, Carlisle, underwent amputation of the finger, wrist, forearm, and ultimately of the arm, in order to be relieved of sores which she produced. Certain of the maladies which are pretended, or feared, or fancied, appear to be called into existence under time morbid influence of volition: and there are strong grounds for believing that the con centration of attention upon a particular function, not merely interferes with its exer cise, but disturbs the physical condition, and leads to degeneration of the tissue of time organ with which it is connected by capillary congestion, or evolution of nerve-force.— Falret, De I'llypochondrie et du Suicide (1822); Andrew Combe, On Hypochondriasis, Phrenological Journal, vol. iii. p. 51; Cheyne, The English. Malady (1733); Arnold, Obser vations on Nature, Kinds, etc., qf insanity (1782).