468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing the female much more excitable and more easily affected by exter- 

 nal agencies ; especially those which suddenly produce strong mental 

 or moral emotions. Hence the importance of preventing, as far as 

 possible, pregnant women from being exposed to causes likely to dis- 

 tress, or otherwise strongly impress their minds." 1 These objective 

 mental conditions described by the author must not be regarded as 

 exceptional ; on the contrary, they are classed among the usual symp- 

 toms of that condition. Still more marked mental disturbances may 

 occur and are not rare, as in the following quotation from Dr. Storer : 

 " Strange appetites, or longings, as they are called, and antipathies, 

 are well known as frequent attendants on pregnancy in many per- 

 sons." 8 And further: "The evidence that I have now presented 

 proves that the state of pregnancy is one subject to grave mental and 

 physical derangements, giving rise to serious anxieties, and requiring 

 judicious treatment." 3 These mental effects are of minor importance 

 in the relation we are studying, when we consider the fact that abso- 

 lute insanity may be an accompaniment of either gestation, or follow 

 parturition. Dr. Maudsley refers to this as explaining the excess of 

 female insane over that of the other sex.* 



Dr. Forbes Winslow draws a startling picture of this catastrophe: 

 "When, after numerous struggles to repress them, the propensities 

 excited into such fearful and almost supernatural activity by ovarian 

 irritation burst forth beyond all control, and the pet of the family 

 is seen to be the opposite, morally, in every respect to what she had 

 been irreligious, selfish, slanderous, false, malicious, devoid of affec- 

 tion, thievish in a thousand petty ways, bold, maybe erotic, self-willed 

 and quarrelsome ; and if the case be not rightly understood, great and 

 often irreparable mischief is done to correct what seems to be vice, 

 but is really insanity." 6 



We have but one other sexual accident to consider which may act 

 as a bar to woman's progress in the professions. These accidents are 

 incident to the climacteric period of life. This period includes the 

 years between forty and fifty, and, judging from men, a professional 

 woman ought then to be most actively engaged in her occupation. It 

 is during the functional changes then taking place that women are 

 exposed again to the dangers which attend the advent of puberty. It 

 is the second and last crisis in the functional life of woman. We will 

 let the mere bodily diseases of this period pass unnoticed, and refer to 

 those of cerebral origin, as mind forms the working organ of the pro- 

 fessional woman. Dr. Bedford regards the varieties of nervous irrita- 

 tion peculiar to this period as " beyond calculation." 8 In fact, it is upon 



1 "Signs and Symptoms of Pregnancy," p. 17. 



2 " The Causation, Course, and Treatment of Reflex Insanity in Women," p. 139. 



3 Ibid., p. 148. 4 Op. tit., p. 20*7. 



6 Journal of Psychological Medicine, January, 1851, p. 43. 



6 " Clinical Lectures on Diseases of Women and Children," p. 374. 



