It should be observed that insanity in pregnancy, – whether arising in connection with the hysterical condition or not, – has two distinct sources; in the one, the disturbance of the intellectual faculties appears to result rather from the physical condition, and to be dependent upon pregnancy physically considered; in the other, the mental powers manifestly give way and the reason loses its balance under the depressing influence of the melancholy and settled gloom which belong entirely to the moral sphere. And at the same time it should be remembered that a certain constitutional dyscrasia may be the real cause of the physical condition which leads up to insanity on the one hand, and even of the profound moral and spiritual dejection which leads down to it on the other. There are, however, numerous unfortunate cases, especially of young women who become pregnant while yet unmarried, in whom the agony of disappointed hopes, of affections misplaced and cruelly abused and betrayed, the present scorn of society, and the apprehension of a still increasing shame, suffice to hurl reason form its throne, to destroy the better judgment, and induce such madness as finds its necessary crisis in suicide. These are cases in which the grief of irreparable affliction, the mental anguish and moral suffering, can scarcely fail to derange the soundest mind in the soundest body, and destroy both together.
But while time alone can effectually mitigate the more poignant forms of affliction, the Homoeopathic remedies are yet remarkably efficacious in “ministering to a mind diseased, -whether the mental derangement result from physical dyscrasia, from moral suffering, or from both combined. And the physician should most carefully explore all the symptoms, circumstances and conditions, in respect to the physical system, to the sensorial, the intellectual, and the affectional faculties, in order to discover, in the Materia Medica, the exact simile of his patient’s case. And the serious responsibility which rests upon the physician to do all that human science can accomplish in such cases, is not limited to the present condition or future well being of the mother; regarded must also be had to the unborn child, to prevent the predisposition to insanity from being perpetuated in the infant, and in a still greater degree developed in succeeding generations.
DISORDERS OF THE AFFECTIONS, EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS. – In addition to the disturbances of the intellectual faculties already mentioned as incidental to the condition of pregnancy, there are frequently seen certain anomalous variations of the spirits, temper and affections, – for which the physician will be called upon to prescribe, – either in connection with other, physical symptoms, or in their absence. And the special adaptability of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica to abnormal conditions of the sensational, intellectual, emotional and affectional faculties of the mind and spirit, give the Homoeopathic physician an immense advantage in this class of cases.
The settled gloom, the profound melancholy, to which allusion has already been made as occasionally productive of insanity, is sometimes seen to appear without any other assignable cause than the general one of pregnancy. When this depression of spirits assumes some particular phase, as, for example, that of a disposition to commit suicide, the appropriate remedy is at once suggested. The limits of the present work restrain us from doing more in this connection than merely to mention some of the most prominent forms of mental and moral derangement; and to indicate the principles upon which they should all be treated. For a fuller exposition of the various mental and moral diseases, and a more detailed statement of the numerous Homoeopathic remedies applicable to them, the reader is referred to Dr. Franz Hartmann’s very excellent work on Mental Diseases, (*Special Therapeutics, according to Homoeopathic Principles, by Dr. Franz Hartmann. Third volume, Mental Diseases. Edited by Dr. G.H.G. Jahr, Translated by J.M. Galloway, M.D. Manchester: Henry Turner, 1857.) which, unfortunately, has not yet been reprinted in this country.
Remarkable changes of temper also appear, and in a still more numerous class of pregnant women. “Few women are quite as self- possessed, or in as even spirits, during pregnancy as at other times; little things annoy them; trifles depress them. Sometimes the most sweet-tempered women become irritable, cross and quarrelsome. The husband of a patient of mine, whose wife was remarkably good tempered and attached to him, told me that the earliest symptom of pregnancy in her case, was a disposition to quarrel with him especially. Dr. Montgomery mentions the case of a lady who, for the first two or three months of her pregnancy, was so irritable that, to use her own words, “she was a perfect nuisance in the house. – Churchill.
Sometimes women whose ordinary dispositions have been soured by the trials of life, or who are characterized by a habit of fault- finding and complaining, experience very happy change of temper on becoming pregnant. But more often, those usually of a cheerful, lively disposition, become sad, depressed, and even morose; refuse all comfort or encouragement, and persist in the fixed belief of a fatal termination of their labor. Except in a very few and remarkable cases, such gloomy anticipations of impending evil are happily disappointed by a successful delivery, which is therefore succeeded by the restoration of the accustomed cheerfulness. And in those few instances in which the foreboding of a fatal termination of the labor proved prophetic, it is believed that some deep-seated dyscrasia of the physical system gave rise to this instinctive fore-consciousness; such as is sometimes seen in a similar fulfilment of such predictions in cases of ordinary illness.
The feelings and affections in many instances undergo a distressing transformation in pregnancy. It is related of one young woman that she was seized at about the fifth month with an unconquerable aversion to her apartment; so that, after much effort of reasoning and persuasion had been tried in vain, it became necessary to leave her in the country during the remainder of her pregnancy. Another case is recorded of a young lady for the first time pregnant, whose former lover her husband was replaced by an almost invincible antipathy to him. Similar to his is the moral state of those, who from imagining, in their hypersensitive, nervous condition, that they do not receive proper and necessary attention from their husbands and their friends, turn against them and conceive for them a strong dislike. In most cases all such morbid changes of the affectional sphere disappear with the termination of the pregnancy under whose influence they were developed. But it becomes no less important for the physician to do all in his power to relieve such moral disorders may become permanent and even ultimate themselves in disturbances of the intellectual faculties, in subsequent puerperal mania, and finally in some dangerous forms of physical disease. These disorders of the feelings, emotions and affections may be connected with an hereditary predisposition to insanity, – or with some deeply- seated and even malignant dyscrasia; which if not remedied at its most serious mischief in the present and in future generations.
In concluding the general subject of disorders incident to pregnancy, it may be proper to remark:-
I. While pregnancy serves in many cases to develop in some form, – physical, mental or emotional, – whatever latent tendency to disease had existed in the system, it does not render the body more liable to be attacked by external diseases; and in some instances, as if often seen in the phthisis of those enceinte, it actually retards the development and prevents the fatal termination of pre-existing disorders, until after delivery.
II. The disorders of the mental and moral or emotional and affectional spheres, which so often accompany pregnancy, will always speedily disappear with the successful delivery of the child, unless based upon and representative of some profound constitutional dyscrasia; in this latter case such affections not only tend to perpetuate themselves after parturition, but to become developed in puerperal mania, – and even ultimated in some malignant form of bodily disease.
CHOREA. This peculiar affection is as perfectly amenable to Homoeopathic treatment as any other disorder.
Belladonna. When the tongue is partially paralyzed. Difficulty of articulation. Right side more particularly affected. Red eyes. Much debility. Rather stupid.
Calcarea c. Chorea from a fright. In leucophlegmatic temperaments.
Causticum. If the upper eyelids are particularly affected, so that they hang down, cant keep them up. She is worse in the open air, and in the evening.
Cocculus. She is always worse for a while, after drinking, eating, sleeping or talking.
Crocus. She is worse every evening, with alternations of excessive, happy, affectionate tenderness and rage.
