Introduction
chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), collection of persistent, debilitating symptoms, the most notable of which is severe, lasting fatigue. It is also known as systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID). It may have been first recognized as a syndrome in the 1860s by George Beard, who used the term neurasthenia to described what he believed to be a neurosis with a fatigue component. Definitions and theories of its cause have changed over the years; many cases have been misdiagnosed as imaginary because doctors could find no cause. In the mid-1980s it came to the public's attention, as affluent women in their thirties began to seek treatment. (For unknown reasons, more women than men seek treatment for the disease.)
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