Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1844-5 / [Sir James Paget].

  • James Paget
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1844-5 / [Sir James Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/64 (page 61)
    Cl Dr. Schweig* having ascertained in 60 women the length of interval between 500 occurrences of menstruation, finds that the mean length of the interval is 27*39 days; and that therefore the periodicity of menstruation corresponds, not with the phases of the moon, (for the lunar month marked by these is, on an average, 29*53 days) ; but with the nodes of the moon, the period from one of these to another of the same kind being 27*56f days. Dr. Guy’sJ tables, made from observations of 1500 women, show that 15 years is the age at which the greatest number of women (English, I suppose) first menstruate ; that the 14th year comes next in order, then the 16th, and that the 13th and 17th, 12th and 18th, 1 1th and 19th, present numbers which are succes¬ sively less, but respectively nearly equal. Of the 1500, 791 first menstruated at 14, 15, or 16. Of 400 women, 159 ceased to menstruate between 45 and 50; 140 between 40 and 45 ; 51 between 35 and 40; 41 above 50 ; and 9 under 35. As a general rule, also, it appeared that the earlier menstruation begins the longfer it lasts. Mr. Roberton,§ continuing his researches into the question of the age at which women in different climates begin to menstruate, has obtained information from Moravian missionaries on the coast of Labrador, which proves that among the Esquimaux of that region the average period of first menstruation is the same as in this country. The tecunditv of the Esquimaux women is also shown to be not less, but considerably greater, than that of the average of English married women; neither, since the introduction of Christianity among them, have early marriages been frequent. He has also obtained tables|| showing the average ages of puberty and first conception among Hindoo women. Among 71 at and near Bangalore, the average age at which menstruation first took place was 13 years and 2 months; the average age at the birth of the first child was 16 years and 5 months. Similar tables have been constructed for native women of Bengal, living in and rfear Calcutta, by B&bu Modusooden Gupta and Dwarkanath-das Bosu, the Demon¬ strator and Curator of the Calcutta Medical College.In 152 women the ave¬ rage age at first menstruation was 12*48 years ; two of these first menstruated when 8 years old; 2 when 9 years old; 2 when 17 ; 1 when 16. In 93 of these women the average age at which the first child was born was 14 years and 8 months; in 1 case only at 10; in 6 at 11 years; in 1 at 30; in I at 19; in 2 at 18. Yet the general result of the inquiries, though they show so early a period of puberty, is not wholly unfavorable to the opinion of Mr. Roberton, that the early puberty is the consequence of early sexual excitement; for girls are always given in marriage before their first menstruation, and it is customary to send them at as early an age as nine years to the houses of their husbands ; and it is stated that if distance hinders this, menstruation is generally delayed till the 13th year. Some analogous instances of early fecundity brought on in animals by premature sexual intercourse are mentioned by Dr. Berthold.** Among them is one of a kid only fourteen days old which was impregnated by an adult goat; at the end of the usual period of gestation it bore a kid, mature, though very * Gazette Medicate, 2 Aout, 1845; from Roser and Wunderlich’s Archiv fur Phys. Heilkunde, Heft ii, 1845. t So it is said in the original; but this period of 27*56 days is more nearly equal to the length of the anomalistic month of 27*5546 days, marked by the successive revolutions of the moon from perigee to perigee. The average interval between two menstrual periods, 27*39 days, is more nearly equal to the average length of the sidereal month, or 27*3216 days, in which the moon makes the complete circuit of the heavens. The true length of the nodical month is not 27*56 days, but 27*212 days. See Baily, Astronomical Tables. | Medical Times, Aug. 9, 1845. § Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ., Jan. 1845. || Ibid. October, 1845. India Journal of Med. and Phys. Science, February, 1845. ** Ueber das Gesetz der Schwangerschaftsdauer; Gottingen, 1844, p. 32. The accounts of the physiology of menstruation, by Raciborski and others, are examined by Dr. Alexander, in Oppen- heim’s Zeitschrift f. d. ges. Medicin, Dec. 1844.