Nervous Diseases and Pregnancy [Nervenerkrankungen und Schwangerschaft]. (Allgem. Zeitschr. f. Psychiat., B. xxxviii, H. 5.) Mongeri
He observes that the character of women is altered during pregnancy, and often in a pathological direction. He is of opinion that it has a favourable influence in hysteria when it is not complicated with some other affection of the nervous system. Marriage not only satisfies the sexual instinct, but it gives them some one on whom they can expend their tender feelings, and gains for them some one who will care for them and protect them. “I have known,” he says, “and treated several very hysterical young girls who are now married, and show no trace of nervous disease. Some of them have no longer the desire to satisfy the sexual feeling, and are averse to such intercourse, although they love their husbands and live happily with them. The physician need not hesitate to recommend hysterical women to marry if the other party have a healthy constitution, and is free from predisposition to nervous disease. On the other hand, he should never advise a woman to marry who has come through a severe attack of insanity, not only on account of the danger to the children, but because of the danger of relapse, often in an aggravated form.”