Women’s Diseases

Diseases of women discussed in the texts of this era include problems of pregnancy and childbirth, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, hypomenorrhea, hyper- menorrhea, oligomenorrhea, prolapsed and inverted uterus, cancers, and hysteria.

Abnormal conditions in pregnant women seem to have included eclampsia, unusual mental condi­tions, pyelonephritis, dysentery, malaria, and pain due to expansion of the heart and chest. After child­birth, women were susceptible to five kinds of fever due to the following: (1) excessive loss of blood lead­ing to anemic fever; (2) uterine fever; (3) high fever caused by food poisoning; (4) high fever due to wind and cold; and (5) fever caused by inflammation of the mammary glands.

Other symptoms associated with diseases of women suggest painful disorders of the bladder and urethra, hernia, ovarian varicocele, and elephantia­sis vulvae. A condition associated with inflamma­tion, pus, and pain in the urethra and the surround­ing muscles, said to come from “perverted” sexual acts, was probably due to gonorrhea. A condition called “poisonous urine” was associated with the dis­charge of pus and blood.