...seamen, accustomed by education and habit to adventure, and familiar with danger in every shape : 1 An inaptitude to muscular action, or some pain in...$ an irksomeness or dislike to attend to business or the common affairs of life ; a selfish desire of engrossing the sympathy and attention of others...

...by the terms nervous, spasmodic, bilious, indigestion, stomach complaints, low spirits, vapours, &c. An inaptitude to muscular action, or some pain in...engrossing the sympathy and attention of others to the narration of their own sufferings, with fickleness and unsteadiness of temper, even to irascibility,...

...for want of a better, I shall insert it here. "Nervous feelings, nervous affections, or weak nerves, though scarcely to be resolved into technical language,...engrossing the sympathy and attention of others to the narration of their own sufferings; with fickleness and insteadiness of temper, even to irascibility;...

...Thomas Trotter's^L View oftheNervous Temperament (1807), in which hysteria is said to be marked by "a selfish desire of engrossing the sympathy and attention of others to the narration of their own sufferings; with fickleness and insteadiness [sic] of temper, even to irascibility;...

...(16—17). According to Trotter, the hypochondriac's compulsion to speak about his symptoms is created by "a selfish desire of engrossing the sympathy and attention of others to the narration of their own sufferings" (xvi). The hypochondriac's "act of speech" is always an act of flawed...

...Introduction to a book called A View of the Nervous Temperament published by Dr. Thomas Trotter in 1807: An inaptitude to muscular action, or some pain in...engrossing the sympathy and attention of others to the narration of their own sufferings; with fickleness and unsteadiness of o ' temper, even to irascibility:...