Amenorrhea

Abnormal absence or cessation of menstruation. Primary amenorrhea refers to nonappearance of menstruation at puberty, secondary amenorrhea to the same phenomenon after normal puberty. Anatomical causes sometimes occur as in surgical or X-ray removal or destruction. Otherwise the principal causes are anemia and tuberculosis. Occurrences have been reported in avitaminosis, insanity, shock, exposure, phantom pregnancy, and many other conditions of an endocrine character, as thyroid hyperfunction or subovarianism. The endocrinological type has been treated with some success by the use of the anterior pituitary sex hormone extracts.