Dr. Montassut, highly recommended by his former teacher Professor Henri Claude, presents the result of ten years of research in the field of what was formerly called 'neurasthenia' (a term created by Beard in 1869). In an introductory chapter on the history of the concept of neurasthenia the author reminds us of Beard's first publication in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal which met with no success until Beard republished his observations.1 Since then innumerable papers have been published on the subject in all countries, some from Salpêtrière and by Charcot himself, until Raymond in 1898 rightly called the concept of neurasthenia the 'neuropathological giant'. We are shown how science began to demolish a concept which never was a satisfactory nosological