Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
THE
SEXUAL LIFE OF WOMAN
IN ITS
PHYSIOLOGICAL, PATHOLOGICAL AND HYGIENIC ASPECTS
PREFACE.
The sexual life of woman—the appearance of the first indicationsof sexual activity, the development of that activity and itsculmination in sexual maturity, the decline of that activity and itsultimate extinction in sexual death—the entire process of the mostperfect work of natural creation—has throughout all ages kindledthe inspiration of poets, aroused the enthusiasm of artists, and suppliedthinkers with inexhaustible material for reflection.
In the following pages, this sexual life of woman will be consideredboth in relation to the female genital organs, and in relationto the feminine organism as a whole; in relation both to the physicaland to the mental development of the individual; and in relationalike to the state of health and to the processes of disease. Thusfrom the standpoint of clinical investigation and of practical experience,the book will be a contribution towards the solution of thesexual problem, nowadays recognized as one of supreme importance.
It is thirty years since I published a work on the histologicalchanges that occur in the ovaries during the climacteric period(Archiv. für Gynecologie, Vol. xii, Section 3); and ever since thattime, the influence exerted upon the general health of women by thephysiological and pathological processes occurring in their reproductiveorgans, has been to me a favourite subject for observationand experiment. The result of these studies is incorporated in mymonographs, “The Climacteric Period in Women” (Erlangen,1874), “Sterility in Women” (2nd Ed., Vienna, 1895), “TheUterus and the Heart” (Leipzig, 1898), and in various contributionsto medical peri