Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First lines of the practice of physic (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![being such as, when arising at this period, are known from experience to be removed by the flowing of the menses. 998.] These disorders are, a sluggishness, and frequent sense of lassitude and debility, with various symptoms of despepsia ; and sometimes with a preternatural appetite.* At the same time the face loses its vivid color, becomes pale, and sometimes of a yellowish hue ; the whole body be- comes pale and flaccid ; and the feet, and perhaps also a great part of the body, become affected with oedematous swellings. The breathing is hurried by any quick or laborious motion of the body, and the heart is liable to palpitation and syncope.—A headach sometimes occurs; but more certainly pains of the back, loins, and haunches.f 999.] These symptoms, when occurring in a high de- gree, constitute the chlorosis of authors, hardly ever ap- pearing separate from the retention of the menses ; and, at- tending to these symptoms, the cause of this retention may, I think, be perceived. These symptoms manifestly show a considerable laxity and flacciditv of the whole system ; and therefore give rea- son to conclude, that the retention of the menses accompa- nying them, is owing to a weaker action of the vessels of the uterus ; which therefore do not impel the blood into their extremities with a force sufficient to open these, and pour out blood by them. 1000.] How it happens that at a certain period of life a flaccidity of the system arises in young women not ori- ginally affected with any such weakness- or laxity, and of which but a little time before, they had given no indication, may be difficult to explain ; but I would attempt it in this way. As a certain state of the ovaria in females, prepares and disposes them to the exercise of venery, about the very pe- riod at which the menses first appear, it is to be presumed, that the state of the ovaria and that of the uterine vessels are in some measure connected together ; and as generally symptoms of a change in the state of the former appear be- fore those of the latter, it may be inferred that the state of the ovaria has a great share in exciting the action of the uterine vessels and producing the menstrual flux. But ana- * This is a very extraordinary symptom, which has not hitherto been explained. It some- times accompanies every cessation of the uterine discharge, but frequently appears in the most violent degree, in pregnancy. In young women, the appetite for chalk, lime-rubbish, charcoal, and various absorbents, is the most prevalent. Stahl, and his followers, made great use of llii* circumstance in supporting their favorite opinion of the vis medicatrix naturae. + These pains are not properly symptoms of the disease, but prognostics of the efforts nature makes to remove the disease; Tbey are symptoms of the vis meditattix.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21112277_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
