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This exercise in biography centres on multiple meanings of ‘nerves’ during the years of Freud's gradual transition from neuro-anatomist to specialist in nervous diseases. Thanks to the ongoing publication of the correspondence with Martha Bernays from 1882 to 1886, his early life is now exposed in unprecedented detail. I focus on a mild attack of chickenpox reported in 1885 as an illustration of parallels between his day-to-day experience and the disputed relationship of nerves to mind. His illness reveals both anxieties about the state of his own nerves and about his relationship with Martha. At the same time, a questioning of ‘normal’ states of mind underlies his work on cocaine during that period. The blurred distinction between organic and functional disorders, revealed in his experience of chickenpox in 1885, is repeated during an episode of heart problems and migraine in 1894. Both instances, in confusing ‘nervous’ with ‘logical’ disorder, reflect contemporary efforts to reconcile physiology and psychology. Finally some of the paradoxes of illness and mental disorder are recapitulated in a passage from On Narcissism.