The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspects

by E. Heinrich Kisch

The important influence which the genital processes exercise on the female organism as a whole is established not only by the anatomical relations just described but also by a number of physiological investigations and experiments and by the result of operations on the female genital organs.

Thermic and mechanical stimulation of the female genitals has, as my own experiments have shown, a notable influence on the heart and the general circulation. In these experiments, when uterine douches were given at temperatures of 4° C. (39° F.) and 45° C. (113° F.), the reflex nervous impulse which resulted from these manipulations had a two-fold influence on the circulation, manifesting itself first by an immediate and considerable augmentation in the functional activity of the heart, the frequency of which was increased in a degree proportional to the nervous sensibility of the individual, and secondly by a notable rise in blood pressure.

With a view to determining the influence of stimulation of the ovary on blood-pressure, Röhrig carried out some experiments on bitches, from which it appeared that electrical stimulation of the ovary invariably produced a remarkable increase in the general blood-pressure, an increase ranging from twelve to twenty-four millimeters of mercury. It further appeared in the course of these experiments that toward the end of the period of stimulation the rise in blood-pressure was always followed by a decline; to which, however, a renewed rise of blood-pressure succeeded after the stimulation was discontinued, provided the duration of this had not been excessive. Only after this second rise was the normal mean blood-pressure regained. Finally it was established that the pronounced phenomena of vagus-irritation exhibited by the curve during and immediately after the stimulation of the ovary were invariable concomitants of the rise of blood-pressure produced by such stimulation.

According to the observations of Federns, the blood-pressure undergoes a rhythmical change between one menstrual period and the next, the pressure curve being normally at its lowest at the time of the commencement of the flow, and at its highest at some time during the two days immediately preceding the flow. This rhythmical change of blood-pressure manifests itself also some time before the first onset of menstruation, when the approach of puberty is indicated only by the menstrual molimina.

Observations made by Kretschy in a patient with a gastric fistula have proved the influence exercised on gastric digestion by the physiological processes occurring in the female reproductive organs. In this patient, his attention was especially directed to determining at what period of digestion the secretion of acid by the stomach attains its maximum, and how that secretion increases and diminishes. He observed that the digestion of breakfast was completed in four and one-half hours, the acid-maximum occurring in the fourth hour, and the reaction of the gastric contents becoming neutral one and one-half hours later. This apparently constant acid-curve began, however, to become irregular as soon as the first symptoms of the approach of menstruation became apparent. When the flow had actually begun, he found that the reaction of the gastric contents remained acid throughout the entire day. As soon as the flow was over, the normal acid-curve was immediately reëstablished.

These observations have been confirmed by Fleischer. This investigator carried out his researches in menstruating women with normal stomachs, and found that with the appearance of the catamenia the process of digestion was almost always notably retarded, but that with the diminution and cessation of the flow digestion returned to the normal.

By stimulation of the central segment of the divided hypogastric or great uterine plexus, Cyon was able to provoke vomiting, a confirmation of the well-known physiological fact that irritative disturbances of the female reproductive organs have a reflex influence on the vomiting centre.

It is also clearly established that diverse stimulation of peripheral nerves, those for instance of the mammary gland, of the internal genitals, or of the epigastrium, is capable of affecting the motor centre of the uterus.

Worthy of note also are Strassmann’s experiments, showing that rise of pressure in the ovary causes swelling and structural changes in the uterine mucous membrane.

Striking also are Neusser’s discoveries that during menstruation there is an increase in the eosinophil cells of the blood, and that by the intermediation of the sympathetic nervous system the ovaries exercise an influence on the hæmatopoietic function of the red marrow of the bones. Most noteworthy is the connection between the functional activity of the ovaries and osteomalacia. In this disease of metabolism we have to do, according to Fehling’s now generally accepted assumption, with a trophoneurosis of the bones, a stimulation of the vasodilator nerves of the osteal vessels, dependent on a reflex impulse from the ovaries. The connecting path between the ovaries and the bones Neusser finds in this case also in the sympathetic nervous system.