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I agree in a way, but was trying to make the point that referring to McE was never necessary or even relevant. It stirs up the physical/psychological antagonism. We want to focus on evidence and it doesn't matter whether it is physical or psychological (whatever one might intend that to mean)...

The popular term hysteria does not have much to do with the medical term, which in recent terms equates to 'conversion disorder' or 'psychosomatic'. But 'mass hysteria' is something different again. It is the spreading of a meme of false belief, whether at a far right lynching rally or a belief...

I agree with others. This is measuring whether or not a piece of string is too long. I think it reflects a failure to understand that diagnostic cateogories in medicine are always placeholders for questions about what treatments might be useful in a particular case now or later. 'Iron...

Yes, things may be pretty complicated over a longer period of say hours. And it may vary from person to person depending on whether they have a tendency to develop oedema, like my left leg and maybe @mango?, or maybe widened calf veins. So it would be useful to have some proper measurements...

That rings very true.

I think that is highly plausible. They thought they were studying the phenomenon of 'hysterical' chronic fatigue aka ME/CFS but made the mistake that everyone else has been making of equating that to the interaction between acute ill patients and doctors in 1955. Thinking back to discussions...

Compression socks wouldn't be that much use. It would need to be tights I think. Maybe the theory is wrong. But loading up with fluid and salt in hot weather would be expected to make people feel better, just by keeping hydration good. That isn't necessarily anything to do with blood volume. My...

Compression garments would seem to be a good place to start in validating ideas about relative blood flow with a therapeutic intervention. The physiological effect would be far easier to interpret with non-invasive methods than saline infusion or drugs. And if drugs made a big difference I think...

An interesting problem. You might be able to measure volume reduction to the lower limbs by compression garments using an entirely non-invasive optical method as used for building customised shoes. You scan the person in the compression tights using a LASER beam and compute the exact 3D shape...

Thanks very much for the pointer to that. It looks as if the same story as in the RCP advice is being spelled out in more detail here. It also demonstrates the complete confusion around 'hEDS', highlighting the problem that these people do not themselves have any understanding of the origin of...

I disagree. Enough was known about neurological pathways in the nineteenth century to identify patterns of signs that make no pathological sense. If you spend five years doing neurological examinations every day of the week you come to understand what the patterns are, just as you notice that...

Yes, it is (c) the people were sick, and it was 'mass medical hysteria' in the sense that the doctors told them it was neurological when it wasn't, in other words, mass misdiagnosis, but being suggestible and, at that point in history, reasonably terrified of 'atypical polio' the patients may...

But that does not invalidate hs observation. The account is of what was written in the notes at the time. McE and B identified patterns of findings that did not reasonably add up to structural neurological deficits. I think their findings are probably perfectly valid. The first key point...

Not sure I can answer those questions succinctly. There are too many options!

It is already published as peer reviewed in Qeios journal. Qeios is an official journal as well as a preprint site. But it also allows me to amend the article. The article version one remains a peer reviewed publication. Version 2 may get further reviews but as far as I know that doesn't impact...

It might still be relevant. I still think there is a small possibility that EACh signalling is central to ME/CFS. The Wust pictures may show something odd going on with acetylcholinesterase.

I think he either said or implied that either you have a non-functioning gut (the Crohn's situation) or you need sectioning (maybe anorexia nervosa). That may cover 95% of cases. I think it is possible that this gastroenterologist had no experience with people with neither. But I also suspect...

I suspect Jim White is some sort of GP BPS hanger-on chappy. Psychosomatic is quite different from psychiatric. We saw this piece before I think? I think it is time people stopped dredging up this stuff about McEvedy and Beard, as if it was relevant to ME/CFS, when it was about the acute RFH...

Yes, but when that happens you usually get some indication of bimodality. The reality, at least from my experience of research, is that when you hit on something that is causal it hits you back in the face as being slam dunk. That happens maybe once in twenty years, maybe once in a lifetime...

I have never heard of it and it has no merit. Another trendy garbage term to toss about at invited lectures and to work into grant proposals. A septic ingrowing toenail is an immune mediated non-communicable disease.