London - The supposedly "modern" nature of stress-related medical conditions is about to be debunked by an academic study of Railway Spine, a nervous panic which swept Victorian Britain. Promoted by leading doctors and even Freud, who seized on the "erotic jolting and exquisite sexual symbolism" of train travel, the illness led to major compensation claims and turned thousands of victims into chronic invalids.
"It was symptomatic of a society and culture suddenly speeding up - as ours is today," said Dr Ralph Harrington, who has just finished a doctoral study of the condition at York University's Institute of Railway Studies. "The railways marked a leap in speed which has never really been paralleled. Here were people who had mostly experienced nothing faster than running, being carried at 40, 50 and by 1854 over 80 m.p.h.
"It seems clear that most sufferers were really affected by nervous anxiety," said Dr Harrington.