Erethism

ERETHISM (from the Greek erethiso-I irritate, excite), erethism, a term used primarily in relation to children. Its basic meaning is connected with the concept of the erethic habitus, characterized by delicate skin prone to various rashes, bright eyes, wide pupils, long eyelids, and deficiency of subcutaneous fat. Eretic children easily suffer from catarrhs of mucous membranes, are thin and slender, and while producing a general impression of fragility and easy vulnerability, are usually restless and irritable. E. is considered a manifestation of exudative diathesis and is caused primarily by the condition of irritative weakness of tissues and organs, arising as a result of abnormal activity of the endocrine glands and disturbed metabolism on the basis of both congenital constitution and past infections and intoxications (tuberculous, syphilitic). In particular, the extreme nervous-psychic excitability of erethic children, which is in close connection with the increased irritability of their motor-nervous apparatus and autonomic nervous system, in a number of cases comes so much to the forefront that it overshadows all other manifestations of E. Some psychiatrists (Gruhle, Scholz and others) use this term exclusively to denote the symptom of motor excitement in relation to a collective group of restless-psychopathic children (predominantly oligophrenics)—excited, fidgety and quarrelsome; they are called erethic in contrast to children who are torpid-languid, apathetic and immobile. In this latter sense, the concept of E., covering extremely diverse forms, is characterized by considerable indefiniteness: motor restlessness can be both a manifestation of nervous excitement and a consequence of weakness or absence of higher inhibitions (as is most often the case with excited oligophrenics).