‘A Crisis of Transition’: Menstruation and the Psychiatrisation of the Female Lifecycle in Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh

Abstract

Through a psychiatric case study, this article seeks tohighlight the historical resonance of two prominent features of the recentPeriod Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) bill debates: the enduring tensionbetween perceptions of menstruation as a normal or pathological process, andthe deleterious impact of menstruation upon female education and, by extension,women's status. By 1900, psychiatry had achieved professional status. Asylumswere recognized as the officially approved response to insanity, and massinstitutionalisation allowed the medical profession unparalleled opportunitiesto observe, classify and treat those deemed insane. As they consolidated their bodiesof knowledge, a distinct 'feminisation' of madness seemed apparent, the femalesex depicted as more vulnerable to insanity due particularly to the perceivedinstability of their reproductive system. This article will examine whatpsychiatry commonly depicted as the biological 'crises' of the female lifecycle,and the extent to which menstruation wasconceptualised as a pathological process, whether as cause or symptom ofinsanity. It will also reflect on the consequences of such a depiction.The prolific doctor, Thomas Clouston - physician-superintendent of the RoyalEdinburgh Asylum (1873-1908), Scotland's largest and most prestigious asylum - was an advocate of managing mental health in a holistic manner, and advisedsociety on the subject of healthy living through adherence to respectableVictorian standards. In his policing of social norms, he was to become aprominent spokesman for the prevention of female education in order to protect womenfrom their 'dangerous' transition from child to womanhood.