A. Amenorrhoea (absent menstruation) from _a_, anatomical conditions: want of development of organs, atresia of passages; _b_, physiological influences: delayed puberty, idiopathic; _c_, pathological causes: constitutional diseases, disease of the sexual organs, the cachexiæ. B. Amenorrhoea (secondary or suppressed menstruation): _a_, anatomo-pathological: atresia of passages, atrophy of organs; _b_, physiological: pregnancy, nursing, premature change of life; _c_, pathological: besides those given above--A-_c_--are psychical influences and exposure or taking cold during menstruation. {184} Absence or want of due development of some of the sexual organs is not of very infrequent occurrence. The ovaries are very rarely found wanting; they are more often checked in development and present the characteristics of early life. This condition may be the cause of delayed, irregular, or scanty menstruation, making a more or less near approach to amenorrhoea. Absence of the uterus is often combined with absence or with an undeveloped condition of the vagina, but this canal may be perfect and no change of the external organs be present to indicate that the uterus is wanting. It may also exist in a rudimentary form, and may be found corresponding in size and shape to the uterus of any period of early life. Absence of the ovaries not only causes amenorrhoea, but checks the progress of the bodily development and prevents the sexual changes of puberty. When the ovaries are wanting there is almost always absence of the Fallopian tubes, uterus, and vagina. The symptomatology of absence of the uterus is not generally striking, the lack of menstruation being the principal sign; exceptionally, however, it is otherwise. In some cases where the ovaries are present and the uterus wanting, the most aggravated affections of the nervous system show themselves.