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The Bodily and Mental Individuality of the Woman and her Insanities [L'Individualità somato-psichica della Donna e le sue Frenopathie]. (Il Manicomio, Anno xvii, Nos. 1, 2.) Del Greco

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Extract

This thoughtful paper treats of the different characters of nervous diseases manifested in women from those in man. It groups the mental alienations of women into six classes, distinguished by temperament, and profound alterations of constitution brought about by disease. In the mental derangements of the female, observes the professor, there is a more pervading change in the whole temperament, not only mental perversions, but a multiplicity of organic sensations which act upon the entire personality, inducing states of exaltation and depression, emotions of joy and grief, of fear and anger. These complex changes sometimes culminate in the reeling of altered personality. The structural differences between the male and female render the latter less able to react upon external nature. Her frame is adapted to maternity, conception, gestation, labour, lactation; then the renewal of the periods induces profound changes in her organism. These functions affect even the disposition of the bones and ligaments, the increase and diminution of the unstriped muscular fibres, the activity of the sympathetic ganglia, the vascularisation of organs, and the augmented cellular secretion and enlargement of the glands. The totality of changes, so diverse and profound, subject the feminine constitution to grave fluctuations, which alter its relations to the outer world and affect the psychical manifestations.

Type
Epitome of Current Literature
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1902 

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