Читать книгу The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspects - E. Heinrich Kisch - Страница 17

Fig. 47.—Horizontal section through the female breast. (From Toldt: Atlas of Human Anatomy.—Rebman Company, New York.)

Thus it becomes comprehensible that even in healthy girls, the first appearance of the catamenia and likewise the expectation of the flow induce a certain modification and alteration in the whole nature and disposition. Girls often lose their previous cheerful and lively character, becoming quiet, self-absorbed, sometimes even melancholy; they are disinclined for study, have a repugnance to all sustained physical or mental activity, become annoyed and snappish on slight occasion, are restless at night, consider themselves to be ailing, and so on. During the first menstruation girls commonly appear pale and anxious, they have blue lines beneath the eyes, the face has a tired aspect, the movements lack energy, and a general want of tone combined with an abnormal irritability may be noticed. Some days before the first menstruation, the vulva, the labia majora and minora, and the vaginal mucous membrane, are swollen, the clitoris becomes conspicuous in consequence of erectile processes, a slight secretion appears in the genital passage, and the breasts become sensitive and slightly turgid. The urine deposits a thick sediment, and occasionally severe strangury is observed. In many cases, also, digestive disturbances occur, loss of appetite, constipation, or a tendency to diarrhœa.

The first menstruation usually lasts four or five days. On the first day the discharge is blood-stained mucus, thereafter becoming sanguineous. In some cases, the bleeding at the first menstruation is profuse and of long duration.

It is not always after the first menstruation that the subsequent discharges follow at the regular intervals of four weeks. In delicate, anæmic girls the second menstruation may not occur till several months have elapsed after the first; less often the second menstruation ensues a fortnight after the first, or even earlier.

At the time of the menarche the sexual impulse, which has hitherto been dormant, becomes strongly developed. It is evoked at this time of life by the anatomico-physiological changes undergone by the reproductive glands; the stimulus aroused by these processes in the ovary, being conducted to the brain, awakens passion. At the same time the observation of the growth of the hairy covering on the genital organs, the development of the breasts, and the appearance of menstruation, tend to arouse erotic presentiments. The reading of romances, conversations with female friends, and observation of the conduct of full-grown persons, convert these presentiments into clear ideas, and excite the impulse to the production of passionate sexual sensations, the sexual impulse. How far these stimuli arising from the reproductive apparatus are encouraged and accentuated, on the one hand, or repressed and diminished, on the other, depends on external impressions of various kinds. The environment is the determinant for the further transformation of the as yet undifferentiated sexual impulse into the fully-developed copulative and reproductive impulses.

In his work on the Physiology of Love, Mantegazza describes the yearning and stress of the awakening sexual life, arising out of the presentiments, hazy sensations, and impulses, which are felt in the very earliest period of the developmental phase known as puberty.

In general, in a young girl during the menarche, the sexual impulse manifests itself rather in the form of semi-conscious reverie, of platonic love. The adolescent girl exercises her imagination with the circumstances of her chaste love, her mind turns to this subject when in solitude, her mood is apt to become melancholy, and it is the perusal of equivocal novels, or the educational assistance of sexually experienced female friends, that transforms the sexual impulse to a vivid flame.

Some authors believe that a sign of the awakening of the sexual impulse when directed toward some particular man is a change of color on the part of the girl when she sees this individual or hears him spoken of. Palpitation of the heart comes on, the pulse is increased in frequency, the respiration also, and the voice fails. In this manner, it is asserted, Galen discovered the love of a Roman lady, Justa, for the dancer, Pylades.

The psychological reaction of the sexual impulse at the time of puberty manifests itself, as von Krafft-Ebing points out, in manifold ways, common to all of which, however, is the emotional state of the mind, and the need that the strange and new feelings now experienced should find some objective centre of interest. Such objective and emotional interests lie ready to hand in religion and poetry, both of which, after the period of sexual development is at an end, and the originally incomprehensible desires and impulses have received an explanation, continue to have intimate relations with the world of sexual experience. Any one who doubts this must be reminded of the frequency with which religious fanaticism makes its appearance at the time of puberty. No less influential is the sexual factor in the awakening of æsthetic feelings. This world of the ideal opens itself at the time when the development of the sexual processes begins.*** The love of early youth, continues von Krafft-Ebing, has a romantic, idealizing tendency. In its first manifestations it is platonic, and willingly exercises itself in poetry and history. But as the sensibility awakens, the danger arises that this passion, with its idealizing power, will be transferred to persons of the opposite sex who in intellectual, physical, and social relations are by no means all that could be wished. Hence proceed misalliances, elopements, and seductions, with the entire tragedy of impassioned love, which conflicts with the dictates of morality and convention, and sometimes finds its bitter end in suicide or a double self-destruction. Love in which the senses play too prominent a part can never be a true and lasting love. For this reason, first love is as a rule very transitory, since it is in most cases no more than the first flare of passion.*** Platonic love is a thing without existence, a self-deception, a false description of sexual sensations.

Bebel remarks that the number of suicides among women of the ages of sixteen to twenty-one years is an exceptionally large one, and he refers this chiefly to unsatisfied sexual impulse, unfortunate love, secret pregnancy, and to betrayal by men.