title: [The gynacological treatment of mental illnesses: a response to the psychiatric nihilism of the 19th century].
abstract: This study analizes differents gynacological treatments of mental illnesses throughout the 19th century. The autor reaches the conclusion, via the professional activity of the English surgeon Isaac Baker Brown, that these gynological treaments were really the result of the confluence of a series of factors: the development of the insanity reflex theory, the consideration of Woman as the pathological prisioner of her genitality, the pessimistic vision of mental illness based on the theory of degeneration, the lack of therapeutic resources in mental medicine and, finally, the marked competition of Victorian doctors amongst themselves and also their profit motive, disguised and hidden under the welcoming cloak of a hypocritical medical morale.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Historia de la Ciencia, UCM.
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Balbo
mesh_terms: D006176:Gynecology / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000266:history*; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom
vernacular_title: El tratamiento ginecologico de las enfermedades nerviosas: una respuesta al nihilimo psiquiatrico del siglo XIX.