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noun
Debility  n.  The state of being weak; weakness; feebleness; languor. "The inconveniences of too strong a perspiration, which are debility, faintness, and sometimes sudden death."
Synonyms: Debility, Infirmity, Imbecility. An infirmity belongs, for the most part, to particular members, and is often temporary, as of the eyes, etc. Debility is more general, and while it lasts impairs the ordinary functions of nature. Imbecility attaches to the whole frame, and renders it more or less powerless. Debility may be constitutional or may be the result or superinduced causes; Imbecility is always constitutional; infirmity is accidental, and results from sickness or a decay of the frame. These words, in their figurative uses, have the same distinctions; we speak of infirmity of will, debility of body, and an Imbecility which affects the whole man; but Imbecility is often used with specific reference to feebleness of mind.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Debility" Quotes from Famous Books



... streets. Night he spent till a late hour in reading and study, changing his bedroom frequently to avoid assassination. Religious functions that might disturb the public peace he forbade. Compelling the bishop of Asuncion to resign on account of senile debility, Francia himself assumed the episcopal office. Even intermarriage among the old colonial families he prohibited, so as to reduce all to a common social level. He attained his object. Paraguay became a quiet state, whatever might be said ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... reason to believe that such cases are numerous, and that they may perhaps arise not only from the debility of stomach brought on by excess in wine or spirits, which derangement often sensibly affects the eyes and sense of sight, but also because the mind becomes habitually predominated over by a train ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... regard to the power of this passion to contribute to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Those who have spent their youth in criminal excesses and have prepared for themselves, as the comforts of their age, corporeal debility and mental remorse may well inveigh against such pleasures as vain and futile, and unproductive of lasting satisfaction. But the pleasures of pure love will bear the contemplation of the most improved reason, and the most exalted virtue. ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... black meal along with the white, and appears to be pierced by insects, which were probably the cause of the disease. Mr. Duhamel ascribes it to this cause, and compares it to galls on oak-leaves. By the use of this bad grain amongst the poor diseases have been produced attended with great debility and mortification of the extremities both in France and England. Dict. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... a great advance today. The head is right, at least," but the doctor looked anxious and spoke low as he said, "I am not satisfied about her yet. That want of power over the limbs, is more than the mere shock and debility, as it seems to me, though Ward thinks otherwise, and I trust he is right, but I cannot tell yet as to the spine. If this should not soon mend I shall have Fleet to see her. He was a fellow-student of mine very clever, and I have more ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... (indigestion), habitual constipation, diarrhoea, acidity, heartburn, flatulency, oppression, distension, palpitation, eruption of the skin, rheumatism, gout, dropsy, sickness at the stomach during pregnancy, at sea, and under all other circumstances, debility in the aged as well as infants, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various

... pathologist. It might, perhaps, be set down as a disease of the heart, induced by corrupt morals, with the following complications: Softening of the brain from the study of State sovereignty; extreme nervous debility from the reproach of a guilty conscience; injury to the spine by suddenness of fall; weakness of the limbs from bad whiskey, and impurity of the blood from contamination. The child of secession is dead—as dead as the cause of the Southern Confederacy! ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... preserve; and the interest which I perceived others had in getting rid of me, increased my desire to recover. My recovery was, however, for some time doubtful. I was seized with a fever, which left me in a state of alarming debility. My old nurse, whom I shall henceforward call by her name of Ellinor, attended me with the most affectionate solicitude during my illness;[76] she scarcely stirred from my bedside, night or day; and, indeed, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... weakness; but in turning from the conduct of the Finances by the administration, to consider its management of Filibusterism, we pass from the consideration of acts of mere debility to the consideration of acts which have a color of duplicity in them. On the Filibusters, as on the Finances, the First Annual Message of the President was outspoken and forcible. It characterized the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... effects of alcohol on the cellular tissue of the brain—Opinions of high scientific authorities against its use—No need of resorting to stimulants either for refreshment, nourishment, or pleasure—Tea and coffee an extensive cause of much nervous debility and suffering—Tend to wasteful use in the kitchen—Are seldom agreeable at first to children—Are dangerous to sensitive, nervous organizations, and should be at least regulated—Hot drinks unwholesome, debilitating, and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the prosperous and the happy to be amiable. Hortense was in a state of great physical debility, and almost every hope of her life had been crushed out. The letters of Hortense to Josephine have not been made public. We can only judge of their character from the replies which her mother made. From these it would appear that scarcely did a ray ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... see or hear in fair reality that which is in our minds, is an old fact, and requires no confirmation. An ignorant or superstitious man fallen into this state, may find good reason to tell ghost stories to his neighbors. Disease, and the debility preceding death, make people on their death-beds very liable to plays of this kind on their failing faculties; and one solemnity or cause of dread, thus being added to another, seems to give the strength of reason to a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... Diarrhoea Dropsy Debility Fever and Ague Female Complaints Headaches Indigestion Influenza Inflammation Inward Weakness Liver Complaints Lowness of Spirits Piles Stone and Gravel ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw

... Barnardo, of London, who has had a most extensive experience among the poor, tells of a poor woman, with a husband lying disabled in the hospital, earning her living by charing and odd jobs, while she herself was receiving out-door hospital relief for physical debility. Driven at last to accept assistance from the relieving officer, she hastened home, placed the bread and meat on a table, and fell dead of exhaustion. Dr. Barnardo was sent for, and beside the dead body of the mother he was surprised, as well he might be, to find five well-fed, chubby ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... Father Hagoult suddenly appeared; and, being apprized of what was inside the box, insisted on its being opened. The papers were at once confiscated, and were never given back. Their loss caused the boy a serious shock, which, combining with debility of longer standing, brought on a malady that necessitated his leaving the school. The Principal himself advised the removal. In 1813, between Easter and prize distribution, he wrote to Madame Balzac asking her to come immediately and fetch ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... VIRTUE, than which even PLEASURE has not a greater friend, nor VICE a greater enemy. Thus temperance makes men lords over those pleasures that intemperance enslaves them to: the one, parent of health, vigour fertility cheerfulness, and every other desirable good of life; the other, of diseases, debility, barrenness, self-loathing, with only every ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... leisurely means: one is not shocked by the unseemly sights of a battlefield, and the wielder of the weapon has time to watch its effects as they develop: he can see the victim going through the successive stages of misery—debility, languor, exhaustion—until the final point is reached; and as his scientific curiosity is gratified by the gradual manifestation of the various symptoms, so his moral sense is fortified by the struggle between a proud spirit and an empty stomach—than which ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... majority of the visitors, I found, were ladies—Court ladies, most of them; all there for their complexions, but all anxious to assure me privately they had come for what they described as 'nervous debility.' I divided them at once into two classes: half of them never had and never would have a complexion at all; the other half had exceptionally smooth and beautiful skins, of which they were obviously ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... evasively, that she was perfectly well and had nothing to trouble her. The mother called in Doctor Rigaud, although she did not believe in the profession, and, after a long conference, took him to see Micheline. The doctor examined her, and declared it was nothing but debility. Madame Desvarennes was assailed with gloomy forebodings. She spent sleepless nights, during which she thought her daughter was dead; she heard the funeral dirges around her coffin. This strong woman wept, not daring to show her anxiety, and trembling lest Micheline should ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... of them to the army to accomplish which military impressment was resorted to in a most offensive degree. Congress was surrounded with difficulties, the several States were callous and dilatory, and affairs generally wore an aspect of debility and decay. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... whatever cost of pain it might be to herself, to explain to Dr. Gresham what she meant by the insurmountable barrier. Iola, after a continuous strain upon her nervous system for months, began to suffer from general debility and nervous depression. Dr. Gresham saw the increasing pallor on Iola's cheek and the loss of buoyancy in her step. One morning, as she turned from the bed of a young soldier for whom she had just written a letter to his mother, there was such a look of pity and sorrow on her face that ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... the occurrences of the morning, his debility and entire lack of appetite, and the long walk in the afternoon, followed by the attack of vertigo and palpitation, to which he alluded after his return. When she concluded her recital of the last terrible scene in the melancholy drama, Dr. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... houses, the lights from which might have tempted the drenched and hungry soldiers to stray, and take shelter. Then the hardy and energetic general of his matchless forces first felt the effects of this laborious march in unusual debility, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... a thing more vile and base Than, lacking Thee, I feel myself to be: For pardon prays my own debility, Yearning in vain to ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... during the oppressive heat of the afternoon, he felt himself unwell. He had paid a visit to a young man from Glasgow in the town, who was ill of fever; and it is not unlikely that this visit, at a time when he was in a state of debility from previous fatigue, was the immediate occasion of his own illness. He was very soon prostrated under the fever. But his medical attendant apprehended no danger, and advised him to proceed to Smyrna, in the belief that the cool air of the sea would ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... new climatic conditions. Negroes, for example,who have been for three or four generations acclimatized in North America, on returning to Africa become subject to the same local diseases as other unacclimatized individuals. He well remarked that the debility and sickening of Europeans in many tropical countries are wrongly ascribed to the climate, but are rather the consequences of indolence, sensual gratification and an irregular mode of life. Thus the English, who cannot give up animal food ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... skin of man. Roses bleach, the goats are dry, Lisbon quakes, the people cry. Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools, Gaunt as bitterns in the pools, Are no brothers of my blood;— They discredit Adamhood. Eyes of gods! ye must have seen, O'er your ramparts as ye lean, The general debility; Of genius the sterility; Mighty projects countermanded; Rash ambition, brokenhanded; Puny man and scentless rose Tormenting Pan to double the dose. Rebuild or ruin: either fill Of vital force the wasted rill, Or tumble all again in heap To ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... retained. My chest having now become very painful and weak, in consequence of so much reading aloud, as I was obliged to do on a somewhat poor diet, I was compelled to enter the hospital a second time, suffering from severe general debility accompanied by a cough, after having been about thirteen months in the prison. On my admission I received a change of diet and tonic medicines. For some weeks I was confined to bed, and not till six months had elapsed was ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... painful periods are various. Sometimes they depend on a tendency to rheumatism or to ague. Over-work, or excessive devotion to social duties and pleasures, is often their source. Cold and damp are common incidental causes. Green sickness and general debility are sometimes ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... and descent. The spirit of independence engendered by this system of feudality and unresisted oppression could only lead to one result—viz. the increase of local at the expense of the central authority. The increasing debility of the paternal government tended to strengthen the power of the provincial Magnates; and the Beys, the Spahis, and the Timariots, stars of lesser magnitude in their way, could not but be expected to adhere to the cause of ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... away, with all its flowers and verdure, but George remained so feeble and dejected, that he was not able to return to school that quarter. Mr. Hope was greatly alarmed at the increasing debility of his son, though equally delighted with his mental improvement; and was not behindhand in making handsome presents to Mrs. Shirley, for the kind attention she payed ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie

... uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the country where they happened, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... him. I had never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable combination of great muscular activity and great apparent debility of constitution, and—last but not least— with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood. This bore some resemblance to incipient rigour, and was accompanied by a marked sinking of the pulse. At the time, I set it down to some ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... grew more feeble, with the usual alternations of nervous strength and debility, but with no abatement of his chronic gloom. The struggles which he endured to conceal the approaches of decay did but accelerate that decay. He was restless, and again lethargic. Dropsical symptoms appeared in his discolored feet and swollen ankles. Still he insisted ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... virtue in a devotedness there is no lure to forego. There is no position he can covet, as politicians are said to bid for the Presidency. But one thing is indispensable: he must tell what he thinks; he is strong only in his convictions; the sacrifice of them he cannot make; it were but his debility, if he did; and the treasury of all the fortunes of the richest parish were no more than a cipher to purchase it from any one who, quick as he may be to human kindness, may have a more tremulous rapture for the approbation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... sell papers and black boots, to attend theatres, and, if possible, to stay all night on the pretence of waiting for the early edition of the great dailies. If a boy is once thoroughly caught in these excitements, nothing can save him from over-stimulation and consequent debility and worthlessness; he arrives at maturity with no habits of regular work and with a distaste for ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... delicacy, and on the delicacy of the hands and feet, the slender figure, and especially the slender waist. In the pictured representations of the women of that time, and in modern romantic imitators of the chivalric thought and feeling, the waist is attenuated to a degree that implies extreme debility. The same ideal is still extant among a considerable portion of the population of modern industrial communities; but it is to be said that it has retained its hold most tenaciously in those modern communities which are least advanced in point of economic ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... of the good news on poor Lady Glyde was, I grieve to say, quite overpowering. She was too weak to bear the violent reaction, and in another day or two she sank into a state of debility and depression which obliged her to keep her room. Rest and quiet, and change of air afterwards, were the best remedies which Mr. Dawson could suggest for her benefit. It was fortunate that matters were no worse, for, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... may be worth a remark that the word power is constantly used as a dissyllable; another note of archaic debility ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Labiesh and frazier on a hunting excurtion up the Kilhaw-a-nak-kle river which discharges itself into the head of Meriwethers Bay. no word yet of Sergt. Gass and party. Bratten is verry weak and complains of a pain in the lower part of the back when he moves which I suppose proceeds from debility. I gave him barks and Salt peter. Gibsons fever Still Continues obstinate tho not verry high; we gave him a dose of Dr. Rushes pills which in maney instancis I have found extreamly efficasious in fevers which are in any measure ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... the old mansion, waiting patiently the issue whatever it might be. Her health, I regretted to find, was not firm. She suffered a great deal from nervous debility; and I saw, plainly, that she had failed considerably during the past few months. Blanche, on the contrary, after recovering from the illness which followed immediately on her arrival in S——, had continued in excellent health; and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... ventilating openings wide open. Keep them open until winter storms make more protection necessary. During the summer months the pullets have had plenty of fresh air. To bring them into a warm, tightly closed house is to invite general debility and an epidemic of colds, catarrh, roup and other allied diseases. (Pratts Roup Remedy dissolved in the drinking water every few days, especially during changes of weather, will help ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... who had himself been tolerably educated, retained some taste for classical lore, and would gladly relax, after the drudgery of the school was over, by conning over a few pages of Horace or Juvenal with his usher. A similarity of taste begot kindness, and accordingly he saw Butler's increasing debility with great compassion, roused up his own energies to teaching the school in the morning hours, insisted upon his assistant's reposing himself at that period, and, besides, supplied him with such comforts as the patient's situation required, and his own means ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... forfeit the above amount if I fail to prove that I have the best remedy in the world for the speedy and permanent cure of *Indigestion, Dyspepsia, Biliousness, Liver Complaint, Sick Headache, Nervous Debility* and *Consumption*. I will gladly send a free bottle of this *wonderful* medicine, prepaid, to every reader of this paper, thus giving all sufferers a chance to test its merits, *free of cost*. Over 70,000 testimonial letters on file ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... to twenty grains as a tonic after fevers, in all cases of debility, and dyspepsia attended ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... Indians in that situation. If this appears strange, let us for a moment reflect, that every danger, and every calamity, after a time becomes familiar, and loses its effect upon the mind. If it were possible that a man should first be made acquainted with his mortality, or even with the inevitable debility and infirmities of old age, when his understanding had arrived at its full strength, and life was endeared by the enjoyments of youth, and vigour, and health, with what an agony of terror and distress would the intelligence be received! yet, being ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... on Saturday, where Lord Sefton is sinking to the grave in a miserable state of depression and mental debility. Up by the railroad and dined at Holland House for the first time for above a year; sat next to Lord FitzGerald at dinner, who lamented to me the loss of the Corporation Bill; he said he would not have consented to the lesser qualification, but would have agreed to all the other clauses ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... my capture, I could rend a broad linen band fastened tightly round my upper arm by bending the biceps: when I had been a month in Carroll place I had to halt, at least once, from absolute breathlessness and debility, on the stairs leading from the yard to the third story; my pulse was almost imperceptible. By this time my sight had become so seriously affected that I was absolutely unable to read the clearest print; even now, a month after my enfranchisement, though keen Atlantic breezes and home ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... his disorder was paralleled by similar disturbances instanced in pathological records, but that the contributing causes were different and that my husband's particular debility was not induced by his devotion to flowers ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... this year droop; Three zodiacs fill'd more, I shall stoop; Let crutches then provided be To shore up my debility: Then, while thou laugh'st, I'll sighing cry, A ruin underpropt am I: Don will I then my beadsman's gown; And when so feeble I am grown As my weak shoulders cannot bear The burden of a grasshopper; Yet ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... Kent," a poor country servant-girl, born in Kent, subject from nervous debility to trances, in which she gave utterances ascribed by Archbishop Warham to divine inspiration, till her communications were taken advantage of by designing people, and she was led by them to pronounce sentence against the divorce of Catharine of Aragon, which involved ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... connected with politics. This was a token, not of progress, but of an unnatural and degenerate state of things. Even in Athens the appearance of non-political pleadings among the forms of literature was a sign of debility; and it was doubly so in Rome, which did not, like Athens, by a sort of necessity produce this malformation from the exaggerated pursuit of rhetoric, but borrowed it from abroad arbitrarily and in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... the scenes of early life in which he had there been an actor, moved in melancholy succession over his mind. That day he grew more indisposed; he experienced an unusual languor, listlessness and debility; chills, followed by hot flashes, heavy pains in the head and back, with incessant and intolerable thirst. It was near night when he reached Killingsworth, where he halted, as he felt unable to go farther: he called for a bed, and through the night was racked with severe ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... guarantee for truth. A healthy skepticism is justifiable—but not an unhealthy skepticism!" Hirschfeld, also (Die Homosexualitaet, p. 164), whose knowledge of such histories is unrivalled, remarks that while we may now and then meet with a case of pseudo-logia fantastica in connection with psychic debility on the basis of a psychopathic constitution, "taken all in all any generalized assertion of the falsehood of inverts is an empty fiction, and is merely a sign that the physicians who make it have not been ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... conduce to the present irregularity in the catamenia, and insomnia at night; the poverty of blood in the liver, and the sluggish condition of that organ must necessarily produce pain in the ribs; while the overdue of the catamenia, the cardiac fever, and debility of the respiration of the lungs, should occasion frequent giddiness in the head, and swimming of the eyes, the certain recurrence of perspiration between the periods of 3 to 5 and 5 to 7, and the sensation of being seated on board ship. The obstruction of the spleen by the liver should ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... hitherto delayed answering your last letter because from what you said I imagined you might be from home. Since you were here Emily has been very ill. Her ailment was erysipelas in the arm, accompanied by severe bilious attacks, and great general debility. Her arm was obliged to be cut in order to relieve it. It is now, I am happy to say, nearly healed—her health is, in fact, almost perfectly re-established. The sickness still continues to recur at intervals. Were I to tell you of the impression you ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... a hundred several times to orders, statements, and certificates; depriving Englishmen of their liberty and their property with a gesture of her taper fingers; and venting the conventional terms, "Aberration," "Exaltation," "Depression," "Debility," "Paralysis," "Excitable," "Abnormal," as boldly and blindly as any male ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... The feeling of debility and depression which usually accompanies this time is a gentle warning by nature that the body should remain quiet ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... had been silently but inevitably tending. His health gave way, and great depression of spirits accompanied his bodily languor. He took more than one long journey in the vain effort to recruit his energies. He writes to a friend of being 'in a state of great and very uncommon debility, undoubtedly to be attributed to the protracted operation of distressing causes, both on mind and frame.' He also states, that, whilst absent from Hanover in accordance with the advice of his physician, he still hoped ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... young and pretty girl, Julie by name, the daughter of the king's attorney, Trinquant—Trinquant being, as well as Barot, an uncle of Mignon. Now it happened that this young girl fell into such a state of debility that she was obliged to keep her room. One of her friends, named Marthe Pelletier, giving up society, of which she was very fond, undertook to nurse the patient, and carried her devotion so far as to shut herself up in the same room with her. When Julie Trinquant ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... fine, is a sure indication of moral and physical debility. He who gawsters is like a show, which has enormous pictures and clanging cymbals, and gongs, and drums, and an obese showman, in his shirt-sleeves, lying through a speaking-trumpet at the top of his voice, outside, and little more than a three-headed ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... quite mistake her," said Mrs. Willoughby. "It has no reference to you whatever. It's a nervous affection, accompanied with general debility and neuralgia." ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... thanks, and tried to give all her attention to her father, whose efforts to rise were only counteracted by his debility. During the fearful minutes that succeeded, she was so much occupied with the care of the invalid that she scarcely heeded the clamor that reigned around her. Indeed, the uproar was so great, that, had not her thoughts been otherwise employed, confusion of faculties ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... effects which this variety in blood deficiency (dysaemia) produces, we distinguish certain groups of degenerations in the body, for which names were established at a time when the unity of these forms of disease had not yet been recognized. Thus, where dysaemia produces only general debility, we call it anaemia, which may gradually become destructive and develop into "pernicious" anaemia. When it affects girls with all kinds of disturbances in menstruation, perverting their appetite ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the royal spine! More especially as we had been impressed with a notion of their debility. But, sometimes these seemingly enervated young blades approve themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of very ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... great powers of conversation, but Pratt's anecdotes were of the fine old crusted quality to be procured only of Joe Miller; Pilgrim's had the full fruity flavour of the most recent scandal. Pratt elegantly referred all diseases to debility, and, with a proper contempt for symptomatic treatment, went to the root of the matter with port wine and bark; Pilgrim was persuaded that the evil principle in the human system was plethora, and he made war against it with cupping, blistering, and cathartics. They had both been ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... all turning upon the expression in the specification of "dry arsenic acid," and the disputes of scientists whether this expression meant arsenic acid with or without water. The public mind had been for some time previously exercised and alarmed by accounts of sickness and debility caused by arsenical paper-hangings; it was, therefore, easy for pseudo scientists to create an opinion that the magenta dye must be also poisonous, and that persons wearing materials dyed with this color were liable ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed: physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... too plainly stamped on the pallid lineaments of the wounded man. His eye alone seemed still to belong to earth; for, while all around it appeared already to be sunk into the helplessness of the last stage of human debility that was still bright, intelligent, and glowing—might almost have ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... feel remorse. It is, however, not always the fault of the immediate parents. It may be a far more remote inheritance that has started the degenerative psychosis that results in either insanity, feeble-mindedness, dipsomania, or "general debility of character." ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... a home for invalids. But this was too much like hard work, and he soon decamped with all the money he could lay his hands on. Returning to Paris he was admitted to the Hospital of Ste. Anne as suffering from mental debility, but this did not prevent him from running off one night with about $300 belonging to a dispenser. The police were put on his track and arrested him in May, 1895, when he tried to pass himself off as a lunatic; but he had become by this time ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... had further aggrandised every one of the three powers of which they were most jealous, I found them in a perfect phrensy of rage and indignation: not that they were hurt at the shocking and uncoloured violence and injustice of that partition, but at the debility, improvidence, and want of activity, in their government, in not preventing it as a means of aggrandisement to their rivals, or in not contriving, by exchanges of some kind or other, to obtain their share of advantage from ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... dumb-founded, and feared either to speak or to think. Biddy differed from either of her mistresses—the young or the old; she appeared to have lost all hope, and her physical energy was fast giving way under her profound moral debility. ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... the action of the muscles; and the heart, which is one of the strongest muscular organs, beats with augmented vigour, and propels the blood with accelerated quickness. After such a strong excitation the frame naturally suffers a proportional degree of depression, so that a state of debility and languor is the invariable consequence of intoxication. But though these circumstances are well ascertained, they are far from explaining why alcohol ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... causes are general and digestive debility resulting from the feeding of an insufficient or unsuitable ration, and general and parasitic diseases of the intestine. Nervous, well-bred horses are most susceptible to ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... attended him, little hopes of his recovery; but by the skill of his physician, joined to his youth, and the goodness of his constitution, the force of the distemper at last abated, yet could not be so intirely eradicated, as not to leave a certain pressure and debility upon the nerves, by some called a fever on the spirits, which seemed to threaten either an atrophy or consumption; his complexion grew pale and livid, and his strength and flesh visibly wasted; and what was yet worse, the vigour of his ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... mutual distrust, partnerships are almost unknown; we do not remember a single commercial firm, save a few made up of brothers, or father and son. With this moral debility is joined the procrastinating spirit of the oriental. Manana (to-morrow), like the Boukra of the Arabs, is the universal winding up of promises. And very often, if one promises a thing to-morrow, he means the day after that. It is impossible to start ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... promulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be cut short. During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: his symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and after lingering to the last stage of debility, he died on the 23rd of June, 1836. Until the last few days of his life there was no apparent abatement of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor did the approach ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... till their friendship is required in another and a lower region. They are a sovereign remedy against rheumatism, catarrh, bronchitis, dyspepsia, lumbago, nervous affections, headaches, loss of memory, debility, monomania, melancholia, botherolia, theoretica, and, in short, all the ills that flesh is heir to, if ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... if they survive and marry, their children will have small bones, small frames and sickly constitutions. It is therefore not strange that instinct should lead women to admire men not touched with these symptoms of physical debility. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... to be done? Are we to relinquish the hopes, which the present debility of the enemy affords us of expelling them by one decided effort, and compensating all our losses by the enjoyment of an active commerce? Are we to return to the wretched, oppressive system we have quitted? Are we to carry on a weak defensive war with an unpaid army, whose precarious ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... becoming easier after the suppuration begins, as is the case with a boil, the burning increases to an alarming and unbearable extent; cold chills, loss of appetite, great depression of spirits, general nervous and muscular debility come on. The tumor continues to discharge, turns purple; gangrene beginning in the carbuncle extends to ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... the real Bohemia I used to know one, named Jacques D. He was a sculptor, and gave promise of great talent. But poverty did not give him time to fulfill this promise. He died of debility in March, 184-, at the Saint Louis Hospital, on bed No. 14 in the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... Eglantine to sea, on board the Rover, and some equally pleasant rambles among the delightful scenery which surrounds the bay of Cowes, had in one week's residence banished all symptoms of dispepsia and nervous debility, and set the master of arts once more upon his legs again. Some idea of my condition, on leaving alma mater, may be obtained by the following effusion of my Muse, who, to do her justice, is not often sentimental, unless when sickness presses her ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... of impolicy and barbarity, is so fatally pregnant. He will be satisfied that the application of the restoratives prescribed, will both reintegrate the agricultural body, now in the last stage of debility and consumption, and impart fresh life and vigour into the commercial, which is equally impaired; and that while the parent country will by these means restore the tone and energies of the colony, she ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... opened the door, as if I expected to find one of the bodies I had formerly seen in its coffin, in this last abiding place above ground, of one dead. My sister was on the causeuse, literally unable to rise from debility and agitation. I shall not attempt to describe the shock her appearance gave me. I was prepared for a change, but not one that placed her, as my heart instantly announced, so near ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... much of his debility is politic.... He is one of our tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity, like John Randolph, who for forty years was always dying. Jackson, ever since he became a mark of public attention, has been doing the same thing.... He is now ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... of this extraordinary composition, the banker, escorted by a lean and cadaverous-looking doctor, arrived at our chateau, half strangled with a churchyard cough, and in a state of apparently hopeless debility. He was evidently very, very ill; and if it had not been for the sincere friendship my father had for him, I really do not know how we could have supported the dark cloud which his presence seemed to throw upon our house for nearly ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... provincial newspapers, and has delivered lectures on science to the district institutions. To Mr Joseph Paton, of Dunfermline, so well known for his antiquarian pursuits, he has been indebted for generous support and kindly encouragement. Mr Macansh labours under severe physical debility. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... dormant in them one and one, bursts into a flame, and becomes a constituent of their union. Even when faith exists in the whole people, even when religious men combine for religious purposes, still, when they form into a body, they evidence in no long time the innate debility of human nature, and in their spirit and conduct, in their avowals and proceedings, they are in grave contrast to Christian simplicity and straightforwardness. This is what the sacred writers mean by 'the world,' and why they warn us against it; and their description of ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... ample yards, thickly clad with green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate; in place of the customary geranium, calla lily, etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I saw luxurious banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of San Francisco's pleasure grove, the "Willows," I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... friend at hand, and he daily growing weaker and weaker. He began to totter in walking, clinging to the furniture and walls, when he thought he was unobserved (for he was not willing to acknowledge the extent of his debility), and his wan face was of a ghastly paleness. His sufferings too were sometimes fearfully intense, so that in spite of his habitual self-control, his groans would fill the house. At other times a kind of lethargy seemed to steal over him, and he would sleep almost incessantly for twenty-four ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... below his roomy cravat. These are the most conspicuous articles of his costume, but not the most striking points of his aspect. Over his huge, pallid, cadaverous, furrowed face there is an air singularly expressive of exhaustion and power, of debility and latent strength—an air that says to sensitive beholders, "This prostrate veteran was once a giant amongst giants; his fires are dying out; but the old magnificent courage and ability will never altogether leave him until the beatings ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... affected, and a general disturbance ensues. This is due to the action of a poison, called a toxin, which is set free as a result of the growth of the bacteria in some one part of the body, which poison is then carried by the blood throughout the entire system, inducing fever and a general debility. ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... of persons suffering severe paroxysms of pain over that of persons suffering from nervous debility has often been remarked upon, and attributed to the enjoyment of the former of their intervals of respite. I incline to think that the majority of cheerful cases is to be found among those patients who are not confined to one room, whatever their suffering, and that the majority of depressed ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... finding out the learned and venerable SCHWEIGHAEUSER, who had retired here, for a few weeks, for the benefit of the waters—which flow from hot springs, and which are said to perform wonders. Rheumatism, debility, ague, and I know not what disorders, receive their respective and certain cures from bathing in these tepid waters. I found the Professor in a lodging house, attached to the second hotel which we had visited on our arrival. I sent up my name, with a letter of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... calomel is taken at night, in a little apple honey, or other suitable substance, and followed up in the morning with a dose of castor oil, or salts, to produce a brisk purge. Sometimes an emetic is preferred. Either a cathartic or an emetic will leave the system under some debility. The mistake frequently made is, in not following up the evacuating medicine with tonics. This should be done invariably, unless the paroxysm of fever has commenced. A few doses of sulphate of quinine or Peruvian bark in its crude state, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... ceases to breathe, he should be slapped over the face and chest with a towel wet with cold water. Interference with sleep caused by coughing, and loss of proper nourishment through vomiting, lead to wasting and debility. Teaspoonful doses of emulsion of cod-liver oil three times daily, after eating, are often useful in convalescence, and great care must be taken at this time to prevent exposure and pneumonia. Change of air and place will frequently hasten recovery remarkably in the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... Belchigen, attributed the discovery of a number of new diseases to the debility born of daily tea-drinking. Dr. Paulli denied that it had either taste or fragrance, owing its reputation entirely to the peculiar vessels and water used by the Chinese, so that it was folly to partake of it, unless tea-drinkers could supply themselves with pure ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray

... his recovery. In fact, he feared that his unhappy patient had not many days to live. He ordered him wine, tonics, and light but nutritious food to be taken sparingly, and desired that he should be brought into the open air as often as the debility of his constitution could bear it. His complaint, he said, was altogether a nervous one, and resulted from the effects of cruelty, terror, want of sufficient nourishment, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... minds and passionate hearts of the people of this land. All these bloom on through the winter, for this is a winter but in name. With no frost, ice, or snow, it is more like an Eastern spring, but for the absence of that feeling of languor and debility which is so often felt in that season. True it rains a good deal, but by no means constantly, more often in the night; and it is this season of smiles and tears, this winter of flowers and budding trees, in which the glory of the California climate lies. Certainly nothing ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If persons perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and by, after I have spoken of accidental ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state of debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only by what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectly clear to Dr. Butts ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... recollection of what was said by anyone in the conversation that ensued. I was struck by the alteration in herself. She was very pale, her voice was weak and low, and there was about her a general appearance of debility and suffering; but I have been told that she never had much acute pain. She was not equal to the exertion of talking to us, and our visit to the sick room was a very short one, Aunt Cassandra soon taking us away. I do not suppose we stayed a quarter of an hour; and I never saw ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... my ever dearest Mr. Barron say, if you please, that I miss him more than I regret him—that I acquiesce in his retirement from Norwich, because I could ill brook his observation of my increasing debility of mind." This chosen companion of William Taylor must himself have been no ordinary man; and he was the friend besides of Borrow, whom I find him helping in his Latin. But he had no desire for popular distinction, lived privately, married a daughter of Dr. Enfield of Enfield's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... last drove over the baron's estate, he was a stout, respectable-looking man, a fresh, well-preserved man, who knew how to stick in his breast-pin to the best advantage, and cut a figure in ladies' eyes. Now the head that was constantly nodding in nervous debility was that of an old man, and the beard that hung down from his furrowed face had been untrimmed for weeks. He was a picture of that most lamentable decay, when the mind precedes the body on the way to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... to marry, and he confided his fear to Lincoln. Full of sympathy for the trouble of his friend, Lincoln tried in every way to persuade him that his "twinges of the soul" were all explained by nervous debility. When Speed returned to Kentucky, Lincoln wrote him several letters, in which he consoled, counselled, or laughed at him. These letters abound in suggestive passages. From what did Speed suffer? From three special causes and a general one, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... astonishing," he says, "how soon we are restored from fatigue caused by exercise in the open air. Debility is of much longer duration from labor in factories, stores, and in rooms warmed by stoves. Hail, snow, thunder storms, and drenching rains are all restoratives to health ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... "sooping 'er 'oop" should be avoided. Ice is proverbially slippery, and if you fall on to a friendly stone from excess of energy or from debility, your side is "huffed" that stone. This is a serious matter, and even if you are able to continue the game you are looked on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various

... from a brain-fever when he concluded to go to the mines; but, in spite of his excessive debility, which rendered him liable to chills at any hour of the day or night, he started on the seventh day of June—mounted on a mule, and accompanied by a jackass to carry his baggage, and a friend who kindly volunteered to assist him in spending his money—for ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... days' previous indisposition, was seized with a chill and other symptoms of fever. The next day pneumonia, with congestion of the liver and derangement of the stomach and bowels, was ascertained to exist. The age and debility of the patient, with the immediate prostration, forbade a resort to general blood letting. Topical depletion, blistering, and appropriate internal remedies subdued in a great measure the disease of the lungs and liver, but the stomach and intestines did not regain a healthy ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson

... pressure, before and after exercise. When he found albumin in the urine it was always accompanied by a falling of the blood pressure and a rapid heart, with loss of weight and a general feeling of debility. ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... week after this that a violent cold hastened the progress of debility into a confirmed malady. He sunk very fast. Aunt Sally, with the self-deceit of a fond and cheerful heart, thought every day that "he would be better," and Uncle Lot resisted conviction with all the obstinate pertinacity of his character, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... very dangerous poison, and if it gets into one's food in large quantities there is practically no antidote. A vigorous constitution, indeed, has a good chance of throwing it off; but, taking into consideration the state of the young lady's nerves and her general debility, I should say that her case was downright dangerous; anyhow she will be ailing for ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... he proceeded to issue rapid and precise orders. All given, staff hurried off, and the general spoke to Jim. "Call me when General Ewell comes." He stretched himself on a bench in the hut. "I am suffering," he said, "from fever and a feeling of debility." He drew his cloak about him and closed his eyes. It was but half an hour, however, that he slept or did not sleep, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... victim of the "boom years." Under the spell of that "get-rich-quick" impulse, it outgrew its strength. It is getting over that debility now (and perhaps, after all, the "boomsters" were right, if their method was anticipatory) and a fine strength is coming to it. When conditions ease and requisitioned shipping returns to its wharves, and its own building ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... popular Essay on the Concealed Causes of Nervous Debility, Local and General Weakness, Indigestion, Lowness of Spirits, Mental Irritability, and Insanity; with Practical Observations on their Treatment and Cure. By SAMUEL LA'MERT, Consulting Surgeon, 9 Bedford street, Bedford square, London; Matriculated Member ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... capacity for endurance, and sometimes a little beyond, which I have retained the greater part of my life. After the short time required to master the "Analytical Mechanics" which had been introduced as a text-book since I had graduated, and a short absence on account of my Florida debility, which had reduced me to 120 pounds in weight, I began to pursue physics into its more secret depths. I even indulged the ambition to work out the mathematical interpretation of all the phenomena of physical science, including electricity and magnetism. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... anxiety, and I was called upon for advice. In every respect except the weight-loss the improvement was wonderful. After much thought there was a sudden flash of the truth: there were an abnormal weight and bulk, due to the general dropsy of debility, similar in character to the swelling of the feet and limbs in the old and feeble. The thickened walls of the bloodvessels, toned with health, caused absorption; but the eyes of the friends would not open to the miracle for a very long time, and so render justice to the heroine, ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... compel them to eat, they looked up in the face of the officer, who unwillingly executed this painful task, and said with a smile, in their own language, "Presently we shall be no more." This, their unhappy state of mind, produced a general languor and debility, which were increased in many instances by an unconquerable aversion to food, arising partly from sickness, and partly, to use the language of the slave-captains, from sulkiness. These causes naturally produced the flux. The contagion spread; several ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... transpiring between the idiot boy and the slave, the Sultan had been talking with Mustapha concerning the latter. It seemed by his story that she had been very ill since she was brought from her native valley, and that she was hardly yet recovered from the debility that had followed her sickness. She would not write nor read one word of either the Turkish or Circassian tongue, and therefore could only express herself by signs; for which reason, neither those who sold her nor the purchaser knew ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray

... butler and footman she had left when she went away; she shook hands with each, and they almost rung her hand off. In the door-way stood her father, not bare-headed, but expectant, who received her with paternal warmth. Freda knew that he must for once have forgotten himself and his nervous debility to have thus exposed himself to the frosty air. In the hall was Lady Mary ready with smiles and embraces, with which Freda would gladly have dispensed; but she did her best to seem, if she could not feel, glad to ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... that bloody code which ignored his existence, and with regard to which Lord Clare, no friend to Ireland, thus expresses his views in his speech on the Union: "The Parliament of England seem to have considered the permanent debility of Ireland as the best security of the British crown, and the Irish Parliament to have rested the security of the colony upon maintaining a perpetual and impossible barrier against the ancient inhabitants of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... drink is taken hot, the vessels of the mucous membrane of the gums, mouth, and stomach are unduly stimulated for a short time; and this is followed by reaction, attended by a loss of tone, and debility of these parts. This practice is a fruitful cause of spongy gums, decayed teeth, sore ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... the voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions, and caused the sense to be forgotten ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... also to be noted that each great military family supported a body of armed retainers whose services were at all times available; further, we must remember that the long War of the Dynasties had educated a wide-spread spirit of fighting, which the debility of the Ashikaga Bakufu encouraged to action. The Onin disturbance had its origin in disputes about inheritance. It has been recorded that the high post of kwanryo (governor-general) in the Muromachi polity was filled by a member of one of three families, the Hosokawa, the Hatakeyama, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... Sometimes the decay begins in the side of the stem of the plant, in which case it should be cut away, and the wound exposed to a dry air. The cause of this decay at the base or in the side of the stems of Cactuses is no doubt debility, which is the result of the absence of some necessary condition when the plants are cultivated in houses or windows in ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... in violence. His last voyage had shattered beyond repair a frame already worn and wasted by a life of hardship; and continual anxieties robbed him of that sweet repose so necessary to recruit the weariness and debility of age. The cold ingratitude of his sovereign chilled his heart. The continued suspension of his honors, and the enmity and defamation experienced at every turn, seemed to throw a shadow over that glory which had been the great object of his ambition. This shadow, it is true, could be ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... melancholy happiness of seeing her husband incessantly busy and satisfied for nearly eight months. But the shock he had lately given her was too severe; she sank into a state of languor and debility which steadily increased. Balthazar was now so completely absorbed in science that neither the reverses which had overtaken France, nor the first fall of Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, drew him from his laboratory; he was neither husband, father, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... her to provide for the government of the kingdom after her decease, in case of the absence or incapacity of Joanna. [1] She seems to have rallied in some measure after this, but it was only to relapse into a state of greater debility, as her spirits sunk under the conviction, which now forced itself on her, of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... ever more profound, and a slowly increasing feebleness of vital action. It was an illness for which medical science had provided no cure; the physicians could prescribe only such drugs as arsenic and strychnia, to postpone as long as possible the climax of that fatal debility. The patient was already afflicted with an immense exhaustion, incapacitated from any but the slightest of muscular efforts, unable to carry on the simplest occupation. Yet despite his almost continuous attacks ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... some dark dream seemed now to absorb the senses of the old man. The debility to which sickness had reduced his mental and physical powers, and the overpowering efficacy of a first impression of pleasure and surprise, had entirely banished from his mind the dreadful image of a parent's just indignation. At first he only saw his lost child returned to his arms, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... impregnability, invincibility; security, validity, conclusiveness, cogency, efficacy; support, stay; intensity, vividness; virility; vehemence, violence, force, impetuosity; fortitude; robustness, lustiness, stoutness, brawniness, muscularity, thew, sturdiness. Antonyms: debility, delicacy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... professional habits, persons of a very nervous temperament, or those subject to much excitement in business and politics, sometimes show debility and languor, or agitation and nervousness, while they smoke and chew. Are there no other causes at work, sufficient in themselves to produce these effects? Are want of exercise, want of air, want of rest, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... remain in their solitude, came all to me for intelligence, for comfort, and for what, alas! I dare not give them—hope. All this, added to my separation from Sarah during my attendance to what I considered my duty, reduced me to a debility, arising from mental exertion, which changed ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... H. Williams, aged 21, 3d Virginia cavalry.-About as mark'd a case of a strong man brought low by a complication of diseases, (laryngitis, fever, debility and diarrhoea,) as I have ever seen—has superb physique, remains swarthy yet, and flushed and red with fever-is altogether flighty—flesh of his great breast and arms tremulous, and pulse pounding away with treble quickness—lies ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... strength of its lungs; so, too, is the calmness, dignity and power of a man in proportion to the depth and tranquility of his respiration. If the lungs are strong and active, there is courage and boldness; if feeble, there is cowardice and debility. To be out of spirits is to be out of breath. To be animated and joyous is to be full of breath." "Breathing," writes Dr. von der Deeken, "is an actual vivifying act, and the need of breath as felt ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... well of the fever, but a fever leaves the patient in a state of debility for some days. I have ordered him meat twice a day—that is, meat once ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... milkman of Walworth and his companion had at length disappeared. Maunsell, he said, had died some weeks before, after a couple of days' illness. No one seemed to know of what disorder—general debility, it was thought; no doctor had been called in; and not having left a will, his property went to some distant relative. With respect to the woman, she was last noticed, the evening of his death, sitting in the usual spot—within sight of the gateway leading to his house—where she generally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... he could do nothing more on the present occasion. Having heard so much of Trevelyan's debility, he had been astonished to hear the man speak with so much volubility and attempts at high-flown spirit. Before he had taken the wine he had almost sunk into his chair, but still he had continued to speak with the same fluent would-be cynicism. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... cannibal designs, I would not hesitate to throw him into the sea. Upon this he immediately seized me by the throat, and drawing a knife, made several ineffectual efforts to stab me in the stomach; an atrocity which his excessive debility alone prevented him from accomplishing. In the meantime, being roused to a high pitch of anger, I forced him to the vessel's side, with the full intention of throwing him overboard. He was saved from his fate, however, by the interference of Peters, who now approached ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... country is unhealthy, not so much from fever as from debility of the whole system, induced by damp, cold, and indigestion: this general weakness is ascribed by some to maize being the common food, it shows itself in weakness of bowels and choleraic purging. This may be ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... that which we prepare for eating are "medicinal messengers" bearing light to the eye, vigor to the limb, beauty to the cheek and alertness to the brain, as vitamines, or distorted in the misdirected process are the harsh heralds of pain and debility to the human system. How great then is the influence of the one ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... expected in her circumstances, it appeared that she had besought the host to sell some books for her, which he had done. One of these books it was which, with its forgotten mark, had fallen into the hands of Petrea. Sara, on account of her debility, had been compelled to remain several days in that place, but she had been gone thence probably a week; and they saw by the Day-book[21] that it had been her intention to proceed thence to an inn which ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... and afterwards, in some slight measure, supplied his wants. Feed this poor gentleman up, as these good people soon will, and I should not know him, nor he himself. We are all egotists in sickness and debility. An animal has been defined as "a stomach ministered to by organs;" and the greatest man comes very near this simple formula after a month or two of ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... general made more furious by every attempt to quiet them by force, on which account they were in general suffered to continue unmolested until nature herself brought on exhaustion. Those affected complained more or less of debility after the attacks, and cases sometimes occurred in which they passed into other disorders; thus some fell into a state of melancholy, which, however, in consequence of their religious ecstasy, was ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... year 1814, after an hemorrhage from the lungs, and consequent debility, I relieved my mind by writing a kind, serious, and faithful letter to my friend Southey, under an apprehension that it might be my last; to which Mr. Southey returned the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... decreases, and at sunrise on a cool morning forms just there a very pleasant bath. The baths, from which the place is named, having for long been little frequented by invalids, are now in a semi-ruinous state. In cases of debility they are said to be most beneficial, and the old Manilla doctor, Don Lorenzo Negrao, whose long experience of the country and of the diseases incidental to it is most valuable, in such cases sometimes recommends his patients ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... cautious of bleeding in distemper fits. I should be fearful of it even in an early stage, because I well know that the acute form of that general mucous inflammation soon passes over, and is succeeded by a debility, from the depression of which I cannot always rouse my patient. When the fits proceed from dentition, I lance the jaws, and give an emetic, and follow it up with cooling purgative medicine. When they are caused by irregular and excessive ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... answers: "With the excessive use of alcohol, functional disorder will invariably appear, and no organ will be more seriously affected, and possibly impaired, than the brain. This is shown in the inebriate by a weakened intellect, a general debility of the mental faculties, a partial or total loss of self-respect, and a departure of the power of self-command; all of which, acting together, place the victim at the mercy of a depraved and morbid appetite, and make him utterly powerless, ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... GOLDEN ROD. Flowers and Leaves. D.—The leaves have a moderately astringent bitter taste, and hence prove serviceable in debility and laxity of the viscera, and disorders ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury



Words linked to "Debility" :   unfitness, debilitate, cachexy, frailness, infirmity, astheny, frailty, debile, asthenia, valetudinarianism, softness, cachexia, feebleness



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