[200] Bianchi terms this fairly common condition the neurasthenia of
pregnancy.
[201] Vinay, _Traite des Maladies de la Grossesse_, 1894, pp. 51, 577;
Mongeri, "Nervenkrankungen und Schwangerschaft." _Allegemeine Zeitschrift
fuer Psychiatrie_, bd. LVIII, Heft 5. Haig remarks (_Uric Acid_, sixth
edition, p. 151) that during normal pregnancy diseases with excess of uric
acid in the blood (headaches, fits, mental depression, dyspepsia, asthma)
are absent, and considers that the common idea that women do not easily
take colds, fevers, etc., at this time is well founded.
[202] Founding his remarks on certain anatomical changes and on a
suggestion of Engel's, Donaldson observes: "It is impossible to escape the
conclusion that in women natural education is complete only with
maternity, which we know to effect some slight changes in the sympathetic
system and possibly the spinal cord, and which may be fairly laid under
suspicion of causing more structural modifications than are at present
recognized." H.H. Donaldson, _The Growth of the Brain_, p. 352.
[203] The state of menstruation is in many respects an approximation to
that of pregnancy; see, e.g., Edgar's _Practice of Obstetrics_, plates 6 6
and 7, showing the resemblance of the menstrual changes in the breasts and
the external sexual parts to the changes of pregnancy; cf.
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