Diseases of women : a clinical guide to their diagnosis and treatment / by George Ernest Herman.

  • Herman G. Ernest (George Ernest), 1849-1914.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of women : a clinical guide to their diagnosis and treatment / by George Ernest Herman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    30/918 (page 10)
    CHAPTER II. NEURASTHENIA. In the foregoing chapter I have referred to the frequent association of uterine disease with remote symptoms, which have been by some supposed to be reflex effects of local disease in an otherwise healthy woman. Such remote symptoms are due to weakness of the nervous system, which is denoted by the term “ neurasthenia.” In this cha])ter I consider more in detail this state of the nervous system, so commonly associated with disease of the generative organs. The diagnostic problem.—To interpret rightly the symp- toms associated with the minor diseases of the female repro- ductive organs, it is necessary to distinguish symptoms of nervous origin from those of local origin. Therefore a know- ledge of the common conditions of the nervous system which may cause symptoms referred to the pelvis is necessary for sound practice in gynaecology. There are two conditions with which the gynaecologist has often to deal—neurasthenia and hysteria. These conditions, although common in women, are not peculiar to women. A complete description of their causes and symptoms, and definition of their nature, would be out of place in a work of this kind. I shall only describe these diseases as they present themselves to the gyna3Cologist. The “Protean” reflex symptoms.—I have mentioned that in some books,* written when the minor changes in the female genitals were new to the profession, accounts will be found of “ reflex ” symptoms caused by such changes —symptoms so many and so varied that they were appro- priately described as “ Protean.” They were- said to be effects of trivial local changes, such as erosions of the cervix, anteflexion, cicatricial tissue in the perineum, tears of the cervix. According to the books referred to, however diflerent the local condition, the “Protean symptoms” are much the same. The reader of such works will find also * E.(/. llic writing's ui' Henry Rcnuctl, Tilt, Graily Hewitt, among- others.