Prudence in Hell 004
On Philosophical Disease / The Three Da Costas
DA COSTA ONE
The somatoform disorder known as Soldier’s Heart was first observed during the American Civil War, and later described by Jacob Mendes Da Costa in 1871, whence its popular designation as Da Costa’s syndrome.1 Soldier’s Heart is a “cardiac neurosis” presenting the symptoms of heart disease without a physiological basis for it.
The affliction …