United States or Sweden ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Maudsley, Dr., on the influence of the sense of smell in man; on idiots smelling their food; on Laura Bridgman; on the development of the vocal organs; moral sense failing in incipient madness; change of mental faculties at puberty in man. Mayers, W.F., on the domestication of the goldfish in China. Mayhew, E., on the affection between individuals of different sexes in the dog.
There is a redirecting of the forces that mark the awakening of puberty and then start flowing through the entire personality.
The lower classes were chiefly attacked; the majority of those affected having been previously in bad health. The epidemic materially declined as the poor were better fed. The fever was frequently preceded by scurvy. Individuals at the age of puberty were chiefly attacked, females more generally than males.
Among the Chinook Indians who inhabited the coast of Washington State, when a chief's daughter attained to puberty, she was hidden for five days from the view of the people; she might not look at them nor at the sky, nor might she pick berries.
No young girl should feel alarmed if, owing to the negligence of her parents or guardians to prepare her, she is surprised by this first flow from the genital organs. Puberty is the proper time for the appearance of menstruation. Menstruation, in general good health, should occur about every twenty-eight days, or once in four weeks. This rule, however, is subject to great variation.
Pinel calls attention particularly to the analogy in this case by mentioning that if the captain were exposed to fatigue, privation, cold, etc., he exhibited the ordinary symptoms of amenorrhea or suppression. Fournier speaks of a man over thirty years old, who had been the subject of a menstrual evacuation since puberty, or shortly after his first sexual intercourse.
Usually, however, four, five, ten, or twenty days are thought enough; and even this, in a hot climate and under the close meshes of the curtain, is sufficiently trying. According to another account, a Cambodian maiden at puberty is said to "enter into the shade."
Countless numbers of boys are addicted to these vices for years. That they do not in the beginning of nascent puberty proceed to sexual intercourse with women, is generally due to youthful timidity, which dares not reveal its desire, or from want of experience for finding opportunities. The desire is there, for the heart is already corrupted.
Simultaneously with the overcoming and rejection of these distinctly incestuous phantasies there occurs one of the most important as well as one of the most painful psychic accomplishments of puberty; it is the breaking away from the parental authority, through which alone is formed that opposition between the new and old generations which is so important for cultural progress.
In favor of a connection we may allege: The well-known influence of puberty on the imagination of both sexes, expressing itself in day-dreams, in aspirations toward an unattainable ideal, in the genius for invention that love bestows upon the least favored. Let us recall also the mental troubles, the psychoses designated by the name hebephrenia.
Word Of The Day