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In addition to these important distinctions, it is easy to grasp the fact that the bodies of women differ very widely from those of men, both in respect to the dissimilarity of their diseases and in respect to one’s hopefulness or despair of a cure. For the bodies of men are well-knit and sinewy, since they have been trained by toils and exercises, and by an open-air life; but those of women are weak and soft from being reared indoors, and white for lack of blood, deficiency of heat, and an excessive supply of the moist humour. They are therefore more susceptible than those of men, prone to diseases, intolerant of medical treatment, and above all, more liable to attacks of insanity; for since women have much bad temper, frivolity, and instability, but little physical strength, they easily fall into this affection.
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It is not right, then, to ask of the physicians the same treatment for both, when we know that there is a great gulf between them, dissociated as they have been from the very first in their entire mode of life, and in all their activities and all their pursuits. So when you say “It is a case of insanity,” add, “insanity in a woman,” and do not confuse all these variations by subsuming them under the title of insanity, which seems always one and the same thing, but distinguish them, as is right, in their nature and see what can be done in each case. That is what we do, for, as I remember telling you in the beginning of my speech, the first thing that we consider is the constitution and temperament of the patient’s body, what quality predominates in it, whether it is inclined to be hot or cold, whether it is vigorous or senile, tall or short, fat or lean, and everything of that sort. In short, if a man examines into these matters to begin with, he will be very trustworthy when he expresses any doubt or makes any promise.
