No feature of menstrual difficulty shows so clearly the influence of the mind over bodily function, and especially over those genital functions that are supposed to be involuntary and spontaneous, as amenorrhea. Almost any kind of mental trouble may produce a cessation of the menstrual functions. Profound grief or a severe fright nearly always does. Every physician of large experience has seen cases of women who have missed their period because they were disturbed by a fire, or a runaway, or an automobile or railroad accident within a short time before their menstruation should normally occur. Even slighter shocks may have a similar effect, and a profound shock of any kind will seriously disturb menstruation. The most frequent effect is to inhibit it, but it may be anticipated or delayed, and where there is a tendency to too profuse a flow, it may produce menorrhagia.

Every physician knows that much less serious mental influences than a profound shock or fright may somewhat disturb menstruation and, in young women at least, this disturbance is nearly always in the direction of lessened flow and amenorrhea. Home-sickness, for instance, will often have this effect. Many of the foreign-born domestics who come to this country have serious disturbances of their menstrual flow, usually a diminution, during the first three or four months after they arrive in America. This may, of course, be due in part to change of climate, change of food and change of habits of life. These girls while in their European homes have often been accustomed to be much more out of doors and to have more exercise in the open air than they have here.

That the mental state has much to do with menstruation may be appreciated from the fact that serious changes of her state of life may be accompanied by amenorrheal symptoms even when the patient stays in the same climate and under conditions not different physically from those under which she has lived. Country girls who come to the city often suffer from such symptoms. Young women who enter convents sometimes have these symptoms for some months, and this is so well recognized as to be expected in a certain number of cases. Indeed, there is danger that it should be attributed too much to the change of mental state, and that other factors, such as incipient tuberculosis, or disease of the ductless glands, or anemic states, which are responsible for it, may fail to be appreciated because of the ready explanation afforded by the mental factor. General experience shows that the attitude of mind of a patient toward menstruation, the expectancy of it at a particular time, and a good general physical condition that predisposes to it, are quite as important for its regularity as the specific physiological conditions which naturally bring it about.

Fright and Amenorrhea.—Fright particularly may disturb menstruation in many ways. Occasionally the disturbance of menstruation consequent upon shock lasts for months or even years. At times when a woman between thirty-five and forty is seriously frightened, especially by terror that endures {438} intensely for some hours, the sort that is said to blanch the hair in a single night—and there are well-authenticated instances—menstruation never recurs or if it does recur it is vicariously from some other portion of the body than the genital tract. Among my notes is a case of a woman frightened by a revolver which a maniac had flourished for hours at her while she dared not make a move nor a sign. Her menstruation stopped completely for a time and then came back irregularly and usually from the ear. The bleeding was from the pierce in the lobule which had been made for earrings, and before it started a large swelling of this would come on in the course of an hour, often not subsiding for days. In another case a woman who was frightened during menstruation by an insane person flourishing a knife near her had for several years after an extremely irregular menstruation, and usually only the molimina in the genital tract, while the bleeding was from the nose. Deep emotion can very seriously affect menstruation.

Pseudocyesis.—The mind may bring about a cessation of menstruation in another way without any other factor interfering and in spite of the fact that physiological conditions would all seem to be favorable to its regular occurrence. We have many cases in medical literature in which married women anxious to have children have concluded that they were pregnant, and have had complete cessation of their menstruation for months with all the symptoms of beginning pregnancy, so as to deceive even careful physicians. The best known historical instance is that of Queen Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII of England, who, nearly forty when she married Philip II of Spain, was very anxious to have children. Not long after her marriage menstruation stopped and all the ordinary symptoms of beginning pregnancy developed. Her condition was widely heralded throughout the kingdom; then, after a time, to the intense disappointment of the Queen and her friends, it proved that she was not pregnant but that her mental attitude had produced the series of symptoms that proved so deceptive. These cases of pseudocyesis are so likely to occur that a physician in dealing with a woman, who being rather well on in years when she marries is anxious to have children, must be on his guard and he must always take into account the possibility of a pseudo-pregnancy and must be careful not to be deceived by symptoms that would ordinarily indicate beyond doubt the beginning of pregnancy. Even experts have been deceived in such cases, and it is in them that accurate rules for the certain detection of pregnancy are most needed.

These symptoms have reference not only to the uterus, but also at times to other organs. They are not merely subjective, but sometimes become so objective as almost to demonstrate the diagnosis of pregnancy, and yet a mental condition is the only source of the changes. For instance, cases of false pregnancy have been reported in which, besides the gradual enlarging of the abdomen with many of the signs of pregnancy accompanying that phenomenon, there has been an enlargement of the breasts and even the secretion of milk. In a few cases the enlargement of the abdomen has been accompanied by pigmentation and the areola of the nipple has also become pigmented. This is not surprising, since corresponding changes take place in connection with fibroid tumors, and the deposit of pigment is not a symptom of pregnancy, but only a result of the congestion which takes place in these structures during their enlargement.{439}

Amenorrhea from Dread.—In some cases all the symptoms of pregnancy develop, or at least there is complete cessation of menstruation, as a consequence of nervousness and dread of the occurrence of pregnancy. Unmarried women who fear that they may have become pregnant by indiscretion, sometimes become so worried over their condition that, without any physiological reason, they miss one or more periods and thus add to their nervous state and further inhibit menstruation, though usually two months is the limit of such amenorrhea and the menstrual flow commonly makes its reappearance shortly before or after the time of the third period. Occasionally, however, in the case of anxiously expectant married women further symptoms of pregnancy may appear and the case becomes more complicated. Every physician of considerable experience has seen such patients, and doubtless much of the harvest which advertisers reap from drugs that are supposed to produce abortion comes from nervous young women who are not really pregnant, but have inhibited their menstruation by worry, and who take these medicines with confidence and have the menstrual flow restored by trust in their efficacy.

Ductless Gland Disease.—Of course, in many cases of amenorrhea there are serious underlying constitutional conditions which may or may not be amenable to treatment, but the possibilities of which must always be thought of. One case of amenorrhea I saw in recent years proved to be due to a beginning acromegaly. There was no sign of enlargement of the hands, though there had been a coarsening of the face which was attributed to growth and to the fact that the girl was taking much horseback exercise in all weathers. She had a headache for which no remedy seemed to be of any avail, and when the amenorrhea developed it was naturally thought that the headache must be due to gynecologic conditions. Nothing was found on investigation, however, and eventually the gradual development of the symptoms of acromegaly showed what was really the basic cause. Occasionally diseases of other ductless glands, as the thyroid, may have amenorrhea as one of the first symptoms. It is seldom that any serious thyroid condition develops without disturbance of menstruation, but this is less frequently in the direction of diminution than toward profusion and prolongation. In some cases, however, one or more periods is missed in the early development of the disease. In this, however, others of the characteristic tripod of symptoms—rapid heart, tremor, exophthalmes—are sure to be present even though the enlargement of the thyroid is not noticeable.

Tuberculosis.—But more important than these causes of amenorrhea is the early development of tuberculosis. In some cases, even before there is any cough that calls attention to the condition, or when the cough has been considered to be one of those myths now fortunately passing, "a cold that hangs on," the cessation of menstruation may depend entirely on the weakness and anemia due to the growth of tubercle bacilli in the lungs.

Inanition Amenorrhea.—Sometimes indigestion, or what is supposed to be indigestion, may be at the root of the amenorrhea. In many cases it really is not true indigestion that is present, but a disinclination for food which has increased to such a degree as to bring about a lowered state of nutrition. In nervous young women and, above all, in nervous spinsters beyond forty, disturbances of menstruation consequent upon lack of nutrition are not infrequent. Often their indigestion is considered to be a reflex from their genital {440} organs, when, on the contrary, whatever disturbance of their genital organs is present is due to the inanition which has developed because they have not been eating enough. Many of these women literally starve themselves, and they, must be persuaded to eat once more and taught what to eat, and their weight must be watched until it gets up to what is normal for their height.

Psychotherapy and Treatment.—The treatment of amenorrhea on psychotherapeutic principles will be readily understood from the fact that there is a distinct psychic element in practically all the cases touched on in this chapter. This psychic element is generally appreciated and admitted. If a woman is accustomed to connect certain physical incidents with disturbances of menstruation, then those disturbances are almost sure to recur. As a rule, many an incident said to be disturbing to the function would probably have no influence upon it but for the dread connected with it and the anticipation of some interference. In all cases of amenorrhea, then, the patient's mind must be put into a favorable state and suggestions must be made that will lead to the expectancy of menstruation at the next regular period. If the mind can cause menstruation to cease, as is clear from experience, any inhibition from this source must be removed and its power set to bring relief to these patients. Drugs should not be neglected, and general physical conditions must be improved, but if the patient's mind continues to be unfavorably affected towards her menstruation, its satisfactory return will be delayed until somehow mind as well as body are co-ordinates for the resumption of the function.

The best testimony to the value of psychotherapy in amenorrhea is found in the success of many of the remedies used for the condition, which, in the successive phases of medical development, have included all sorts of home treatments, many types of quack medicines, and innumerable proprietary combinations. Many of these have acquired a reputation for efficacy not justified by any direct pharmaceutic effects which we now know them to possess. From the familiar gin and hot water, through the various combinations of aloes and the tonic remedies of a later time, only the most general and obvious effects could have been produced by the medicines, yet apparently specific reactions have followed them in the menstrual cycle. But this was because the mind of the patient was prepared by the taking of the remedies and unfavorable suggestions as to menstruation were removed. Above all, with amelioration of the general health, constipation being relieved, the appetite restored and the whole tone of the system improved, nature became capable of taking up once more the menstrual function. What was accomplished by indirect psychotherapy in the past can now be done much better by direct mental suggestion, when at the same time various remedial measures in other therapeutic departments are employed as auxiliaries. But the physician must be sure that the mind of the patient is properly disposed or remedies may fail and symptoms continue.