Читать книгу On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females онлайн

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To these symptoms in the single female will be added, in the married, distaste for marital intercourse, and very frequently either sterility or a tendency to abort in the early months of pregnancy.

These physical evidences of derangement, if left unchecked, gradually lead to more serious consequences. The patient either becomes a confirmed invalid, always ailing, and confined to bed or sofa, or, on the other hand, will become subject to catalepsy, epilepsy, idiotcy, or insanity. In any case, and more especially when the disease progresses as far as these latter stages, it will almost universally be found that there are serious exacerbations at each menstrual period.

On personal examination, the peculiar straight and coarse hirsute growth; the depression in the centre of the perinæum; the peculiar follicular secretion; the alteration of structure of the parts, mucous membrane taking on the character of skin; and muscle having become hypertrophied and generally tending towards a fibrous or cartilaginous degeneration; will all be recognized by the practitioner who has once had his attention drawn to these subjects.