The major symptom of a nervous fever in the eighteenth century is a total want of
strength. Thus, Victor's confinement to his bed in an invalid state for months would
not necessarily have seemed extreme to a contemporary reader. Still, by any measure
his appears to be no ordinary illness. Since medical terminology has changed radically
since the novel was written, it is not easy to transpose Victor's disorder into a
modern equivalent. Certainly, it would seem to originate in what is now called a nervous
breakdown: Victor's past record of constant fevers and what appear to be anorexic
symptoms suggest a systemic collapse of some magnitude.