this sort
It may not be unprofitable to give the history of one more case of
this sort. Miss E---- had an hereditary right to a good brain and to
the best cultivation of it. Her father was one of our ripest and
broadest American scholars, and her mother one of our most
accomplished American women. They both enjoyed excellent health. Their
daughter had a literary training,--an intellectual, moral, and
aesthetic half of education, such as their supervision would be likely
to give, and one that few young men of her age receive. Her health did
not seem to suffer at first. She studied, recited, walked, worked,
stood, and the like, in the steady and sustained way that is normal to
the male organization. She _seemed_ to evolve force enough to acquire
a number of languages, to become familiar with the natural sciences,
to take hold of philosophy and mathematics, and to keep in good
physical case while doing all this. At the age of twenty-one she
might have been presented to the public, on Commencement Day, by the
president of Vassar College or of Antioch College or of Michigan
University, as the wished-for result of American liberal female
culture. Just at this time, however, the catamenial function began to
show signs of failure of power. No severe or even moderate illness
overtook her. She was subjected to no unusual strain. She was only
following the regimen of continued and sustained work, regardless of
Nature"s periodical demands for a portion of her time and force, when,
without any apparent cause, the failure of power was manifested by
moderate dysmenorrhoea and diminished excretion. Soon after this the
function ceased altogether; and up to this present writing, a period
of six or eight years, it has shown no more signs of activity than an
amputated arm. In the course of a year or so after the cessation of
the function, her head began to trouble her. First there was headache,
then a frequent congested condition, which she described as a 'rush
of blood' to her head; and, by and by, vagaries and forebodings and
despondent feelings began to crop out. Coincident with this mental
state, her skin became rough and coarse, and an inveterate acne
covered her face. She retained her appetite, ability to exercise and
sleep. A careful local examination of the pelvic organs, by an expert,
disclosed no lesion or displacement there, no ovaritis or other
inflammation. Appropriate treatment faithfully persevered in was
unsuccessful in recovering the lost function. I was finally obliged to
consign her to an asylum.
