The gerontologists, Nuland reports, now speak of the "compression of morbidity," by which they mean holding off serious debility until as late in life as possible — not necessarily to increase life span but to make the last years of living as enjoyable as possible.
A Pennsylvania chaplain noted a peculiar reason that two men in the regiment claimed for a discharge: "Both of them have been married for some years; and yet such are the pernicious effects of the early indulgences, that now they frequently have nocturnal emissions, foul dreams, etc. — besides rheumatism and general debility — such as renders them unfit for service".
The vast majority are ill because of a complex of debilities known as the Gulf War syndrome.
It is typically indolent initially, but then it can accelerate, causing debility and death as it clogs the liver, spleen, and bone marrow, choking off the normal production of blood cells.
Lust and disgust keep close company; in McEwan's hypnotic first novel, "The Cement Garden" (1978), another set of children left to their own devices, in another summer of unusual heat, experience the debility and putrescence of the body as well as its tabooed allure.
Salvia sp. has also been used for a long time in folk medicine as medication against fever, rheumatism, perspiration, sexual debility, and in the treatment of chronic bronchitis, as well as mental and nervous diseases [ 3].
All my life I have thought of shyness as a debility, an inadequacy, an absence.
Yet this form of inadequacy does not elicit the same horror as sexual debility.
The first clinical description was provided by the English physician Michael Underwood in 1789, where he refers to polio as "a debility of the lower extremities".
For instance, interpreting MCI to signify early dementia may lead one to feel subject to linear narratives of decline and debility; conversely, viewing MCI as an open-ended label which may or may not imply incipient dementia could promote an open-ended temporality.
