The rheumatologist observing diffuse muscle pain diagnoses myalgias. The neurologist hearing head pain and nausea diagnoses migraine headaches. The pulmonologist finding airway reactivity diagnoses asthma. The psychiatrist seeing chronic malaise diagnoses depression. The gastroenterologist noting GI complaints diagnoses irritable bowel syndrome.
Most ill veterans have symptoms involving several organ systems simultaneously.
For them there is no unifying diagnosis, no known etiology, and no identified disease process. This is not the first time doctors have found themselves baffled by wartime disease. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died. The doctors did what good epidemiologists do today. They classified the cases.