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INSANITY AMONG WOMEN. 149
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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In Directing His Attention To The Import...
of this remark it may be stated , that at Bethlera Hospital , Dr . Hood , out of 359 cases of insanity among the women , traced 238 , or
63 * 2 per cent ., to disorders more or less peculiar to the female sex . Againthe average weight of the female brain is less than that of
the male , by from four to eight ounces , ( or , as it would be more courteous here to sayit is not so dense _' ) from which it might ,
, , a priori , be supposed that women would be less able to cope with the turmoil and worry of life . Possibly these few ounces are taken
from that portion of the organism by which abstract and purely ratiocinative operations of the mind are performed—leaving the
portion devoted to emotional acts or states absolutely the same as in manbut relatively larger . To this relative excess of the
, emotions in women I shall return shortly . It must be admitted then , that there are causes acting
unfavorably upon the chances of insanity among women , the existence of which may be said to be native to the sex .
These causes , however , are , I think , fairly balanced by the immunity which woman enjoys from the countless exciting causes of
insanity to which man is exposed . Man ' s responsibilities- —his incessant struggle for positionor even existence , in the battle of
, civilized life—and his greater tendency to excesses of all kinds , endanger the integrity of his brain beyond _otir calculation , and- are
the never-ceasing occasions of its overthrow . The immunity of which I here speak must not be estimated
merely as one cause to set against the rest . Its operation is manifold . If we considered the abuse of alcoholic stimulants alone , we
should have one agent of prodigious importance , in regard to which woman is infinitely less exposed and tempted than
man;—notwithstanding the grave assertion of a recent French writer , that " towards forty years of age every well-bred English lady goes to bed
_intoxicated" ! Wild speculation in business also , and the gains and losses consequent thereon , produce , like intemperance , a large
amount of insanity , and here again women , as a class , are favorably _IDlaeed . _* And so we might go on enumerating very many
circumstances highly important in relation to the generation of mental diseaseto the influence of which man is daily exposed , and from
, which woman is in great measure exempt . IfthenI am right in suj > posing that the comparatively retired
life which , , women lead ought not only to neutralize but powerfully outweigh the unfavorable circumstances which I have mentioned ,
it is important that they should consider , whether there does not exist among them a larger amount of insanity than needs be , and
if so , wherefore ? There are various reasons , I believe , why there is more mental derangement develoj _> ed among women than there
should be . The observations which have already aj _> peared in the _English : Woman ' s _Jotjunai _, have touched upon most of these , and
le have nt systems , indeed , of almost education exhausted cannot be subject too strong . The ly insi errors sted of upon preva "b y -
Insanity Among Women. 149
_INSANITY AMONG WOMEN . 149
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1861, page 149, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051861/page/5/
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