nervous fever, which confined me for several months
The major symptom of a nervous fever in the eighteenth century is a total
want of strength. Thus, Victor's confinement to his bed in an invalid state
for months would not necessarily have seemed extreme to a contemporary
reader. Still, by any measure his appears to be no ordinary illness.
Since medical terminology has changed radically since the novel was
written, it is not easy to transpose Victor's disorder into a modern
equivalent. Certainly, it would seem to originate in what is now called
a nervous breakdown: Victor's past record of constant fevers and what
appear to be anorexic symptoms suggest a systemic collapse of some magnitude.
