Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the diseases of women / by Charles West. 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.
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![is mature or full grown. In the great majority of women this condition is not arrived at till between the ages of 20 and 25. This is shown by the increase of stature, the progressive ossifica- tion of bones, the increasing size of ovaries and uterus, up till the age of 20 or later. The evil results of premature breeding are well known to those whose interest is in the management of the lower animals; and they recognize the bad consequences in both the mother and her offspring. The same is true of woman, as was known to the ancients. But now we have a body of evidence proving not only a greater mortality of immature mothers and of their infants than among mature mothers and their children, but also a greater amount of disease and imperfection. Besides, immature women are specially liable, on the one hand, to be sterile, on the other, to have excessive families.*] Amenorrhea from imperfect formation of the sexual organs may depend either upon causes which altogether prevent the perform- ance of the menstrual function, or on such as merely interfere with the discharge of the menstrual fluid. Cases of the former kind are fortunately very rare, since, depending on the absence or defective formation of the uterus or ovaries, they are completely beyond the reach of remedy; those of the latter description generally admit of cure. In some of the former class of cases the sexual character has been altogether imperfectly developed, and the woman has never experienced any periodical occurrence of the symptoms such as usually prelude the appearance of the menses, while in others the women have been liable to periodical attacks of pain in the back and loins,, and to all those indications of suffering by which the menstrual flux is often attended, and have presented in their outward form all the indications of perfect womanhood. It is not easy to account for all of these differences, since, in some instances, where the sexual character was but im- perfectly marked, the ovaries were found after death sufficiently well formed, though the uterus was absent, or merely rudimentary. A few cases are on record of alleged absence of both ovaries, in spite of the otherwise natural formation of the sexual organs. Such cases, however, are excessively rare, and the probabilities are [* For a fuller discussion of this matter, see Matthews Duncan's Fecundity, Fertility, cvnd Sterility, 2d edition, p. 377.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21923796_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
