Читать книгу The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspects - E. Heinrich Kisch - Страница 25

The extensive transformatory processes occurring in the genital organs of young girls at the time of the menarche, and the powerful impression which the new thoughts, hopes, and fears excited at this period of life cannot fail to exercise on the nervous and emotional life, will enable us to understand how it is that the appearance of the first menstruation may give rise, especially in neurasthenic or psychopathic subjects, to manifold nervous disturbances and also to disorders of the mind.

Amongst the severe neuroses and psychoses liable to occur at the menarche in those suffering from congenital nervous weakness, in those the conditions of whose life are very unfavorable, and in those affected by some sudden disagreeable and powerful influences, we may enumerate: Hemicrania, precordial pain, hysteria, and epilepsy; impulsive manifestations, such as bulimia, longings for various unsuitable things, kleptomania, and pyromania; severe feelings of anxiety; various forms of psychoses.

On the other hand, the first appearance of menstruation has sometimes a favorable influence in girls suffering from nervous or mental disorder. This is seen, for example, in cases of chorea in fully developed, rapidly growing girls who have not yet begun to menstruate; in such subjects the chorea sometimes disappears as soon as menstruation is regularly established.

Quite frequently, the first appearance of hemicrania in young girls coincides with the menarche. According to Warner, hemicrania made its first appearance:

In	1 girl of	3 to	4 years.
In	2 girls of	5 to	6 years.
In	1 girl of	6 to	7 years.
In	5 girls of	8 to	9 years.
In	5 girls of	9 to	10 years.
In	4 girls of	10 to	11 years.
In	2 girls of	11 to	12 years.
In	4 girls of	12 to	13 years.
In	15 girls of	13 to	15 years.

Toothache, according to Holländer, in the early days of puberty sometimes exhibits the twenty-eight-day type of menstruation. The same periodicity has been recorded in cases of vicarious bleeding from the gums in girls suffering from disturbance of the menstrual function.

In the period of the menarche and before this period, chorea minor occurs, as a functional disturbance of the motor region of the nervous system, and especially in girls is it associated with the processes of the period of physical development. The statistical data supplied by a number of authors, Hughes, Pye-Smith, Russ, Sée, and Steiner, show that the proportion of boys to girls affected with chorea minor is 1 to 2.8, and that of all ages 49 per cent. of the cases occurred at the ages of 6 to 11 years, 29.8 per cent. at the ages of 11 to 13 years. In several cases, in quite young girls suffering from chorea, pathological changes were found in the genital organs. Thus, in 24 out of 27 girls from the age of 9 to 15 years affected with chorea, Marie found the symptom-complex designated by Charcot as ovarie. Ovarian tenderness was manifested on palpation, and always on that side on which the chorea had first manifested itself. Leonard found in a girl aged eleven suffering from chorea, adhesion of the præputium clitoridis; after the separation of the prepuce, the chorea disappeared.