Cabin Fever

This articles describes the psychological conditions. For the horror film see Cabin Fever (movie); for the television show see Cabin Fever (TV Show).

Cabin Fever is a condition to describe restlessness and irritability caused from being in a confined space.

It possibly originated from the United States at the time when settlers would be snowed in frequently, in remote unsettled lands, with no communication with the outside world.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms dates this phrase as late 1800s, and the Online Etymology Dictionary says it was first recorded in 1918.

A possible source for this phrase could be that during an outbreak of some disease, people who had a fever were confined to a cabin as a quarantine. Hence the phrase 'Cabin Fever'.

Similiar in meaning, but with a different origin, is the phrase Stir crazy.

Some fictional stories are based around this idea of a small group of people getting restless and irritable from being in a confined space, for example exploring the minimum sizes of Generation ships.

See also

• Mad as a Hatter
• Stanford prison experiment
• Stir crazy

References

• http://www.mail-archive.com/japanese_language%40yahoogroups.com/msg00215.html Retrieved 2005/03/01
• http://www.answers.com/topic/cabin-fever Retrieved 2005/03/01
• http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cabin Retrieved 2005/03/04