" "The monthly
activity of the ovaries, which marks the advent of puberty in women,
has a notable effect upon the mind and body; wherefore it may become
an important cause of mental and physical derangement."[22] With
regard to the physiological effects of arrested development of the
reproductive apparatus in women, Dr. Maudsley uses the following plain
and emphatic language: "The forms and habits of mutilated men approach
those of women; and women, whose ovaries and uterus remain for some
cause in a state of complete inaction, approach the forms and habits
of men. It is said, too, that, in hermaphrodites, the mental
character, like the physical, participates equally in that of both
sexes. While woman preserves her sex, she will necessarily be feebler
than man, and, having her special bodily and mental characters, will
have, to a certain extent, her own sphere of activity; where she has
become thoroughly masculine in nature, or hermaphrodite in
mind,--when, in fact, she has pretty well divested herself of her
sex,--then she may take his ground, and do his work; but she will have
lost her feminine attractions, and probably also her chief feminine
functions.
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