The street corkscrewed endlessly. Sometimes it seemed to stop; then it found a hole in the opposing masonry and edged its way in.

Kevin finally got to snog his girlfriend and fool around once his roommates went to bed.

When in this sad hangtail mood, even the healthy bites of aggressive fleas could not distract him, so deeply was he immersed in despondency.

Nowadays, it suggests more of a kind of 'proto-professionalization': the internalization of professional attitudes towards one's own body and acting as a kind of 'proto-professional' in cases of the treatment of a predisease.