How did the 19th-century medical preoccupation with a particularly feminine link between reproductive and nervous function reflect Victorian-era social and scientific ideals and anxieties?

How did the 19th-century medical preoccupation with a particularly feminine link between reproductive and nervous function reflect Victorian-era social and scientific ideals and anxieties? What new diagnostic categories and therapeutic regimes emerged as a result of this emphasis on reproductive and mental health? To what extent did the Victorian emphasis on scientific explanation and the growing participation of women as practitioners affirm or challenge these ideas or practices by the end of the century?
Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll and Rosenberg, Charles The Female Animal: Medical and Biological Views of Woman and Her Role in Nineteenth Century America. Journal of American History. 1973, vol.60(2): p.332-356. Read text online
Braun, Lundy Spirometry, Measurement, and Race in the Nineteenth Century, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 2005, vol.60: p.135-169. Read text online.
Brandt, Allan N. Racism and Research in Leavitt and Numbers Sickness and Health in America p.392-404.
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine 2nd ed. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. p.203-231. Read text online.
Porter, Roy The Greatest Benefit to Mankind p.397-42Rogers, Naomi Dirt, Flies, and Immigrants in Leavitt and Numbers Sickness and Health in America p.543-55

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