Part 3
Of great interest are the facts which have, in recent times especially, been scientifically established, pointing to a certain periodicity, to an undulatory movement of the general bodily functions of the female organism, dependent upon the sexual life. The observations of _Goodman_, _Jacobi_, _von Ott_, _Rabuteau_, _Reinl_ and _Schichareff_, have shown that in woman the principal vital processes pursue a cycle made up of stages of increased and diminished intensity, and that this periodicity of the chief general processes of vital activity finds expression also in the functions of the reproductive organs. _Goodman_ has compared this play of general vital functions to an undulatory movement. According to this writer, a woman’s life is passed in stages, each of which corresponds in duration with a single menstrual cycle. Each of these stages exhibits two distinct halves, in which the vital processes are respectively ebbing and flowing: in the latter we see an increase of all vital processes, a larger heat production, a rise in blood-pressure, and an increased excretion of urea; in the former we see, on the contrary, that all these vital processes display a diminished intensity. The moment when the period of increased vital activity is at an end, the moment when the ebb begins, corresponds, according to _Goodman_, to the commencement of the catamenial discharge.
_Goodman_ sought for verification of this undulatory theory of the sexual life of woman in certain data regarding the bodily temperature and the blood-pressure. A more extensive research was undertaken by _Jacobi_, who, as the result of her observations, came to the following conclusions. In eight cases she noticed in the premenstrual epoch a rise of temperature ranging from 0.05° C. to 0.44° C. (0.09° F.–0.79° F.); and during the catamenial discharge a gradual fall of 0.039° C.–0.25° C. (0.072° F.–0.45° F.), never less, that is to say, than a quarter of a degree Centigrade; but in the majority of cases the temperature did not, while the catamenia lasted, regain the normal mean. She further observed in the generality of cases an increased excretion of urea during the premenstrual epoch; and a notable fall in blood-pressure during menstruation.
_Reinl’s_ observations on healthy women, in whom menstruation ran a normal course, showed that in the great majority of cases in the premenstrual epoch the temperature was elevated as compared with that of the interval, that in eleven out of twelve cases the temperature gradually declined during menstruation, to fall in three-fourths of the cases below the mean temperature of the entire interval, and exhibiting in the post-menstrual epoch a still further depression, giving place, however, to a somewhat higher mean temperature during the first half of the interval. In the second half of the interval a higher mean temperature was observed than in the first half.
If we make a graphic representation of the mean differences in temperature commonly observed throughout the various stages of an entire menstrual cycle, we see that the curve does in fact take the form of a wave. That drawn by _Reinl_ is shown in the following figure: (FIG. 5.)
[Illustration:
FIG. 5. ]
The rising portion of the wave, the beginning of the tidal flow, corresponds to the second half of the interval; the height of the tidal flow, the crest of the wave, corresponds to the premenstrual epoch. As the flow gives place to the ebb, as the wave begins to decline, we come to the actual period of the catamenial discharge; later in the ebb is the post-menstrual epoch, and the lowest portion of the declining wave corresponds to the first half of the interval. Rhythmic changes corresponding to those observed in the temperature have been recorded—at least in isolated stages of the menstrual cycle—affecting the blood-pressure by _Jacobi_ and by _von Ott_, affecting the excretion of urea by _Jacobi_ and by _Rabuteau_, and affecting the pulse by _Hennig_. It is evident that the vital activity of the organism attains its maximum shortly before menstruation; and that with or immediately before the appearance of the catamenial discharge, a decline of that activity commences.
_Schrader_, through his researches on metabolism during menstruation in relation to the condition of the bodily functions during this process, has established that immediately before menstruation the elimination of nitrogen in the fæces and the urine is at its lowest, a fact which indicates that at this period of the menstrual cycle the disintegration of albumen in the body is notably diminished.
_Von Ott_ found in thirteen cases out of fourteen that at the beginning of the catamenial discharge or just before a considerable fall in blood-pressure occurred, and that throughout the flow the pressure almost always remained below the mean, no rise taking place till menstruation was finished; this fall in blood-pressure during menstruation was more considerable than could be accounted for by the moderate hæmorrhage. The same author, in conjunction with _Schichareff_, examined fifty-seven healthy women in respect of heat-radiation, muscular power, respiratory capacity, expiratory and inspiratory power, and tendon-reflexes. He found that the energy of the functions of the female body increased before the beginning of menstruation, but declined with or immediately before the appearance of the catamenial discharge. He exhibited this rhythmical variation in the vital processes by means of the following curve, in which the line _A B_ represents these physiological variations, whilst on the abscissa line _c e_, the days of observation are recorded, and the interval _m n_ represents the menstrual period. The degree of intensity of the united functions is indicated by the numbers 0–100 on the ordinate.
[Illustration:
FIG. 6. ]
Still another point of view from which the influences affecting the female organism as a whole may be regarded has very recently become apparent in consequence of the doctrine of _Brown-Séquard_ relating to the internal secretions of ductless glands. As regards the female reproductive glands, which in consequence of their structure must be referred to the group of ductless glands, and yet owing to their secretory function must be classed among secreting glands (so that the nature of the ovary is that of a secreting gland without an excretory duct), it would appear that these glands are not concerned only with the specific female reproductive functions of menstruation and ovulation, but that they also exercise a powerful influence on the nutritive processes, on metabolism and hæmatopoiesis, and on growth and development in their mental as well as their physical relations.
It is supposed that these glands under normal conditions enrich the blood with certain substances, which in part assist in hæmatopoiesis, and in part by regulating the vascular tone in the various organs are concerned in the normal processes of assimilation and general metabolism. According to _Etienne_ and _Demange_, ovariin possesses an oxidising power similar to that possessed by spermin. Thus it becomes easy to understand how disturbances in the functions of the ovaries give rise to disturbances in the processes of general metabolism and of assimilation. Some go even further, though in doing so they leave the ground of assured fact, suggesting that the ovary in certain circumstances produces toxins, or that the normal ovary possesses an antitoxic function, and speaking of an occasional ovarian auto-intoxication of the body or of a menstrual intoxication. Thus, chlorosis is by some regarded as a disturbance of hæmatopoiesis, dependent on an abnormal condition of the female reproductive organs during the period of development, and referable to a disturbance of the internal secretion of the ovaries (_Charrin_, _von Noorden_, _Salmon_, _Etienne_, and _Demange_). And it is now generally assumed, the assumption being based on the observations recently made concerning the organo-therapeutic employment of the chemical constituents of the ovary, that many of the disorders, and especially those connected with the vasomotor system, common during the climacteric period, are dependent on the deficiency of the products of the internal secretion of the ovary that accompanies the cessation of the menses.
Recent experimental investigations on this subject have shown that the interconnection between the female genital organs and the organism as a whole, between the functions of the reproductive organs and the functions of other organs, does not depend on nervous influences only, but that in this interconnection the blood vascular system and the lymphatic vascular system also play their parts. _Goltz_ has proved by actual experiment that the nervous influence on menstruation and ovulation is not the only determinant. In a bitch, he divided the spinal cord at the level of the first lumbar vertebra, and observed, as soon as the animal had recovered from the operation, the appearance of the usual signs of heat; the bitch was impregnated, and gave birth to one living and two dead puppies; lactation and sucking took place as in a normal animal. When the bitch was killed and the body examined it was found that no reunion had taken place in the severed spinal cord. The experiments of _Halban_ gave similar results. He found that in apes, if the ovaries are removed from their normal situation and successfully transplanted to some region remote from the genital organs, the animals remain capable of menstruating. But if the ovaries, which have been transplanted beneath the skin or beneath the peritoneum, are subsequently entirely removed, menstruation, which has continued regularly after the first operation, ceases altogether after the second. It follows from these experiments that the cessation of the menstrual process may be considered to be brought about through the intermediation of the lymphatic or blood-vascular system, by the absence of a kind of internal secretion.
_Loewy_ and _Richter_ have further proved by experiment that in spayed bitches the consumption of nitrogen is less by about 20 per cent. and the entire gaseous interchange less by about 9 per cent., as compared with what takes place in normal animals, and that this change in respiratory metabolism lasts for a long time after the oöphorectomy, for as much as nine to twelve months. If dried ovaries are given to such animals in their food, the gaseous interchange rises to the former level and even higher.
The undulatory movement of the vital processes in woman is apparently in some way dependent on ovulation, though the nature of the connection has not hitherto been fully elucidated. This view is confirmed by the fact that no such rhythmic variation in the bodily functions can be detected either in girls under thirteen years of age, or in women from fifty-eight to eighty years of age in whom menstrual activity has entirely disappeared. The menstrual rhythm begins at puberty and ends when ovulation ceases.
A further contribution to the doctrine of the undulatory movement of the vital processes in woman is to be found in my own observations that pathological symptoms which have become manifest before and at the time of the first onset of menstruation, and have given but little trouble throughout the period of developed and regular sexual activity, are apt when menstruation ceases to recrudesce, and to become as prominent as they were at the commencement of the sexual life. Women who at the time of puberty suffered from cardiac troubles, from digestive disturbances, or from various forms of nervous irritation, and in whom as they grew up these disorders passed more or less into abeyance, are apt at the climacteric period to exhibit, as I have frequently been able to observe, a violent return of these symptoms, in the form, as the case may be, of tachycardia, of dyspeptic troubles, or of psychoneuroses. In this connection we may mention an observation of _Potain’s_, who distinguishes a peculiar form of chlorosis, occurring in individuals of delicate constitution, which, though apparently cured, reappears at the menopause.
Related to the sexual life of woman is another attribute, one intimately connected with the idea of the female sex, and one which since the primeval days of humanity has filled men with delight and poets with inspiration—the attribute of beauty.
The beauty of woman, a prominent secondary sexual character, makes its first appearance at puberty, when the girl’s form, hitherto undifferentiated in its external bodily configuration, begins to assume a soft and rounded appearance, when the features become regular, the breasts enlarge, and the pubic hair begins to grow—when, in short, to the primary sexual characters already existing, the secondary sexual characters are superadded.
Feminine beauty continues to increase until the attainment of sexual maturity. In her third decade woman arrives at the acme of her sexual life and at the same time attains the perfection of her beauty.
The ensuing sexual phases, pregnancy, parturition, and lactation, entail a decline in beauty, not rapid indeed, but advancing gradually, with the slow yet sure-footed pace of time. The organic revolutions accompanying these processes leave traces recorded upon the surface of the body in conspicuous and indelible characters. The illnesses, also, which so often accompany the fulfilment of sexual functions, in injuring health impair also beauty.
A woman who has given birth to and nursed an infant begins to lay on fat, and this tendency to obesity becomes more pronounced as the climacteric period approaches. The breasts become inelastic and pendent, the abdomen becomes ungracefully prominent; the tonicity of the entire organism gradually declines, and, in consequence of the loss of elasticity in the subcutaneous cellular tissue, the dreaded wrinkles make their appearance and the features become wizened. Beauty is a thing of the past. With the cessation of the sexual life the external secondary sexual characters disappear, and the old woman is even farther removed than the old man from our conception of beauty.
As _Mantegazza_ insists, the beauties peculiar to women are one and all sexual; they depend, that is to say, upon the peculiar functions that nature has allotted to woman in the great mystery of procreation. One of the most vivid and poetical descriptions in ancient or modern literature of these secondary sexual characters on which feminine beauty depends is to be found in the Song of Solomon.
In the following figure (FIG. 7) the curve of beauty of woman is given as drawn up by _Stratz_. In one case it may rise very quickly, to decline with equal quickness—the so-called _beauté du diable_;[16] in other cases, again, the curve rises very slowly, and declines also very slowly, the culmination of the curve being in this case attained later, and when attained being absolutely higher, than in the case of the steeper curve.
[Illustration:
FIG. 7. ]
The age at which the maximum of beauty is attained is a very variable one. In the southern races this often occurs as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth year of life; but in the peoples of the Teutonic stock, Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians, and English, not as a rule before the twentieth year, and it may be even later. _Stratz_ has known cases in which women did not attain the prime of their beauty until the thirtieth and even the thirty-third year. The same author, a most competent authority as regards the subject of feminine beauty, affirms that a beautiful woman is most beautiful when the period of maximum beauty coincides in her case with the first month of her first pregnancy. With the commencement of pregnancy the processes of nutrition are accelerated, all the tissues are tensely filled, the skin is more delicately and at the same time more brightly tinted owing to the greater activity of the circulation, the breasts become firmer and more elastic. Thus the attractive characteristics of beauty at its fullest maturity become enhanced, but for a short time only, since the enlargement of the abdomen in the further course of pregnancy impairs the harmony of the figure. Finally we must point out, before dismissing this subject, that women of the so-called better classes arrive as a rule at maturity later, and remain beautiful for a longer period, than women of the working classes.
The degree to which the female organism as a whole is influenced by the processes of the sexual life that occur in the genital organ depends upon many of the characteristics that combine to make up the individuality. Inherited characteristics, temperament, and race, play a great part in this connection; and not less important than these are the social conditions, the environment, in which the women under consideration pass their life. Thus, among women belonging to the poorer, labouring classes, the reflex manifestations in other organs dependent upon the processes of the genital organs are less frequent and less intense than among women belonging to the well-to-do strata of society and to the cultured classes; less also in the country than in large towns. In phlegmatic individuals, such manifestations exhibit less intensity than in those of an active, ardent temperament; they are less frequent in persons with a powerful constitution than in those endowed by inheritance with an unstable nervous system. Finally, they are less often encountered among families whose upbringing has aimed at hardening the constitution and at inculcating the control of instinctive impulses, than among those in whom from early childhood sensibility and impulsiveness have been given a loose rein.
Extremely variable also are the sympathetic disturbances and morbid states which depend on the processes of the sexual life of woman. “Le cri de l’organe souffrant ne vient pas de l’utérus, mais de tout l’organisme,”[17] says _Courty_. And a large number of isolated observations has shown how complex are the relations between the healthy and unhealthy female genital organs and the other organs of the body as well as the organism as a whole. Precise and incontestable proofs exist of such relations between the female genital organs and morbid changes in the eye and ear, the skin, the respiratory organs, and the vascular and nervous systems.
The influence exercised by the reproductive system on the general vital processes of woman is indicated also by the general statistics of mortality and the incidence of disease. Mortality in women, the earliest years of childhood being left out of consideration, is at its highest precisely during the great sexual epochs, namely at the time of puberty, during pregnancy, during the puerperium, and at the climacteric period. The complete performance of the reproductive functions entails a higher proportion of illnesses and death; and statistical records show that the mortality of married women between twenty and forty years of age, during the period, that is to say, in which in consequence of marriage they fulfil the duties of sexual intercourse and procreation, and are exposed to the dangers connected with these sexual acts, is much higher than the mortality of unmarried women of corresponding ages. Infection with the gonococcus and with the virus of syphilis, chronic salpingitis, metritis, and parametritis, the manifold diseases of pregnancy, the diseases of the puerperium, the various displacements of the uterus, osteomalacia—all these are pathological states the dependence of which upon the sexual life of the married or at any rate sexually active woman is indisputable. But the complete renunciation of sexual activity appears also to exercise an injurious influence on the health, and to give rise or at least predispose to morbid manifestations. Hysteria, for instance, chlorosis, uterine myomata, and various neuroses, have long been supposed to depend in part upon such renunciation, though the causal connection cannot be regarded as yet fully established.
Especially true as regards woman, indeed, is that which _Ribbing_ says concerning the sexual life in general: “Since all human life and being has its origin in sexual relations, these sexual relations may be regarded as the heart of humanity. We may work day and night for the good of humanity, we may sacrifice for that good our time and our blood, but all this work and all this sacrifice appear to me to remain useless if we neglect and despise the sexual life, the eternally self-renewing elementary school of true altruism.”
From the vital phase in which, marked by the visible manifestations of puberty and by the first appearance of menstruation, ovulation is assumed to begin, the sexual life of woman continues to the period of life in which, marked by the climacteric cessation of menstruation, ovulation also ceases. The total duration of this sexual period in woman’s life is usually about thirty years; but it is subject to great variations, from six to forty-six years according to the available statistics, these variations depending upon climate, race, constitution, and the sexual activity of the person under consideration.
The duration and the intensity of the sexual life of woman depends upon a series of external conditions affecting the individual, but especially upon the inherited predispositions, upon the constitutional conditions, upon the varying vital power of the individual. My own observations have led me to formulate, as a general law, that the earlier a woman (climatic and social conditions being similar in the cases under comparison) arrives at puberty, the earlier, that is to say, that menstruation first makes its appearance, the greater will be the intensity and the longer the duration of sexual activity, the more will the woman in question be predisposed to bear many children, the more powerfully will the sexual impulse manifest itself in her, and the later will the menopause appear. It seems that in such women a more intense vitality animates the reproductive system, bringing about an earlier ripening of ova, a more favorable predisposition on the part of these ova to fertilization by the spermatozoa, a livelier manifestation of sexual sensibility, and a longer duration of ovarian functional activity.
My general views on this subject are embodied in the following propositions:
1. The duration of sexual activity is less in the women belonging to the countries of southern Europe than in those belonging to the countries of northern Europe. It would appear that in those climates in which ovulation begins sooner and menstruation first appears at an earlier age, the menopause also appears earlier; but that, on the contrary, in those climates in which puberty is late in its appearance, the decline of sexual activity is similarly postponed.
2. Women in our mid-European climates, in whom puberty appears at an early age, the first menstruation occurring between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, exhibit a more prolonged duration of the sexual life, of menstrual functional activity, than women in whom menstruation begins late, between the ages of seventeen and twenty. Extremely early appearance of the first menstruation—so early as to be altogether abnormal—has, however, the same significance as abnormally late onset of menstruation; both indicate that the sexual life will be of short duration.
3. Women whose reproductive organs have been the seat of a sufficient amount of functional activity, who have had frequent sexual intercourse, have given birth to several children, and have themselves suckled their children, have a sexual life of longer duration, as manifested by the continuance of menstruation, than women whose circumstances have been just the opposite of these, unmarried women, for instance, women early widowed, and barren women. Sexual intercourse at a very early age, however, accelerates the onset of the climacteric period and the termination of the sexual life. The same result follows severe or too frequent confinements.
4. The sexual life has a shorter duration in the women of the laboring classes and belonging to the lower strata of social life, as compared with upper class and well-to-do women. Bodily hardships, grief, and anxiety also hasten the onset of sexual death.
5. Women who are weakly and always ailing have a shorter sexual life than women who are powerfully built and always in good health. When irregularities and disorders have appeared in the various sexual phases, the decline of sexual activity occurs earlier than in women whose functions have in this respect been normal. Certain constitutional conditions, such as extreme obesity, certain acute diseases, such as typhoid fever, malaria, and cholera, and certain diseases of the uterus and its annexa, chronic inflammatory conditions for instance, bring about a notable shortening of the duration of the sexual life.