CASE STUDY: BRAIN-FAG AND SEXUAL IMPOTENCE

Posted: April 28th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Allergies | No Comments »

My original brain-fag case was that of Mr. Carrington. Carrington held a position of responsibility within the United States government. His job entailed a great deal of detail work and a profound knowledge of several unusual fields. His colleagues had looked upon Carrington as a kind of human computer in the days before computers had in fact taken over such arduous tasks.

Over a period of years, Carrington noticed that his capacity for work was diminishing. He kept a special file on his desk of difficult material. He found that he could only work on this material at the most once a week, when his brain was “in full gear.” During the rest of the time he suffered from what he himself dubbed “brain-fag”—a term he had come across in his wide reading. I was startled by his use of the term brain-lag to describe his illness. When I first heard this word, I thought it was pure slang, but on looking it up in dictionaries, I found that it has been in the English language for a century. 1 have continued to use it, because it is one of the few descriptive terms which has not been “redefined” in psychiatric dictionaries.

Associated with his brain-fag was sexual impotence and malaise. He had more or less lost his sexual drive. The only way he and his wife could have intercourse was if he took two stiff bourbons on a carefully timed schedule. The bourbon would restore his libido for a short while.

Carrington was in the Library of Congress one day, searching for a clue to his “brain-fag,” when he came across the book Food Allergy, which I had co-authored with Drs. Rinkel and Zeller in 1951 and in which I had described allergic fatigue. He went straight to a phone book, called me up, and within thirty-six hours had been admitted to the hospital under my care.

Carrington turned out to be violently susceptible to corn. This did not surprise me, since he was from the South and many of his fellow Southerners are similarly susceptible. This helped explain why he was stimulated by bourbon, in which corn is a principal ingredient. When Carrington avoided corn in all its forms, as well as a few other foods to which he was found to be susceptible, he underwent a transformation. Both his work output and his sexual ability improved immediately, and he was soon leading a normal and productive life.

Brain-fag may go untreated or unrecognized in those who lead a sedentary, noncompetitive life. For those in positions of responsibility, where they must compete with other relatively well individuals, brain-fag can be a disaster. Two cases will illustrate the course of treated and untreated ecologic illness.

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