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.
67/720 (page 51)
![Any sudden shock, either acting locally on the uterine organs, as the application of cold to the vulva, or through the medium of the general system, as when a person gets wet-footed, or suffers during menstruation from exposure to wet or cold, will often check the menstrual flux. In many of these cases, too, the sudden arrest of the discharge is followed by extreme uterine pain and tenderness, by all the symptoms of intense uterine congestion, sometimes, indeed, by actual uterine inflammation. The mind, too, reacts upon the body, as we see perpetually illustrated in the case even of those functions that might be supposed most independent of its influence, and many instances might be related of sudden grief, or fear, or anger, at once arresting the menstrual discharge. But other causes acting through the mind tend, though less suddenly, to diminish the activity of the sexual functions, to lessen and at last to put a stop to menstruation; and a French physician, M. Pidoux,* notices this as a not infrequent occurrence among members of Eoman Catholic sisterhoods. That, however, which it imports us more to bear in mind is, that in young girls in whom menstruation has been but recently established, a return to school or a resumption of lessons at home is not very seldom followed by an interruption of the function. The accident is in many cases due entirely to the intellectual effort, not to the want of physical care; and this is shown by the fact that the mere removal from school, unless accompanied with the discontinuance of study, will not suffice to remove the amenorrhcea. But various though its causes may be, yet the treatment of suppression of the menses rests for the most part on very simple principles, and those the same in almost all instances. Two points require attention; first, to re-excite menstruation at once, if possible; second, to provide for its] re-establishment when the proper period once more comes round. If the hot hip or foot bath, or a warm bath, bed, and a cordial or diaphoretic, fail to reproduce the menses when suddenly checked by cold, or by any other cause, we must wait patiently till the next menstrual period comes round, unless indeed urgent symptoms supervene, betoken- ing great congestion, or inflammation of the uterus, and they may * Quoted by M. Martineau, in his Trait4 Clinique des Affections do V Uterus, 8vo, 1878, p. 41.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21923796_0067.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
