ADYNAMIA

ADYNAMIA (from Greek a - negative particle and dynamis - strength), loss of strength, extreme weakness. One can speak of A. in two senses: as general weakness of the organism, nervous and muscular, and, in a narrower sense, as weakness of certain individual organs (e.g., the heart). General A. is observed in severe infections and starvation; it is also sharply expressed in far-advanced cases of the so-called Addison's disease (see), depending on the damage to the adrenal glands, in which both parts of these glands - both the cortical and the medullary - apparently participate in its development: insufficiency of the first leads to nervous weakness due to the existence of some, as yet not fully elucidated, connection between it and the central nervous system, and insufficiency of the second - to muscular weakness from insufficient delivery of the sugar necessary for the vital activity of the adrenal glands, on the basis of insufficient production of the sugar mobilizer - adrenaline - by the medullary layer. A. of individual organs can occur as a result of the influence of factors acting destructively or depressively on the organs; such are: A. of the stomach due to atrophy of the gastric glands, A. of the heart - from degeneration of the heart muscle or its exhaustion, etc.