The Disease of “Modern” Civilization . . . Neurasthenia

Dr. Magda Havas, Ph.D

At the turn of the 20th century a mysterious illness emerged. The first people to be affected by it were the telegraph line installers and the telephone switch board operators. The symptoms of the illness included: nerve disorders, hence the name neurasthenia or nervous asthenia, depression, extreme anxiety, exhaustion, convulsions, unconsciousness, rashes, and a whole host of other malaise.

The afflictions became so bad that in 1907, the Bell telephone switchboard operators in Toronto went on strike. They demanded much shorter working hours and better working conditions.

In the 1950s with the invention of microwave frequencies, radar operators started suffering with similar symptoms that they called radio wave or microwave illness.

Now at the turn of the 21st century with the introduction of personal wireless technologies the general population seems to be plagued with the same symptoms, which we call electrohypersensitivity disorder or EHS.

What do these three events have in common? The introduction of chronic overexposure to electromagnetic fields.

In the telephone switchboard operator case, the personelle would manually place jacks into a switchboard panel to connect one telephone caller to another individual by the use of a switchboard cable. Their proximity to the switchboard caused them to be chronically exposed to hundreds of live telephone connections for up 8 hours each. They sat with electromagnetic fields on their head from the speakers in their headset and their bodies came in contact with voltage by the individual connections.

In the case of the radar operators, they worked near large radar antennas that were broadcasting and receiving wireless electromagnetic fields.

In the third case, we now wear microwave transmitters in the form of smart phones,wireless tablets that constantly emit Wi-Fi, blue tooth, and cellular data.

So basically, neurasthenia, radio wave illness and electrohypersenitvity are one and the same. However, neurasthenia is classified as an illness in the WHO list of diseases and EHS is relegated to idiopathic environmental illness, which basically means we don’t know the cause. In reality, the medical community knew it was a problem but in order to allow technology to progress the use of the word neurasthenia fell out of favour and is rarely used today as a diagnosis.

With the help of microsoft and the University of California, the Royal Commission document headed by the former Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King of the plight of the Bell Switchboard Operators was documented and digitized and I have made it available here. It is a fascinating read and the transcription of the hearing deserves to be turned into a feature film or at least an audio book.