Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Lutz SauerteigORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
During the nineteenth century, puberty was explained within the context of the neural understanding of the body, presenting puberty as a psychologically dangerous transition phase that could lead to serious mental illnesses. The neural concept of puberty contributed to the biologization of “gender characteristics”, which were used, for instance, for excluding women from higher education. This paper sketches out the development from this psychological and neural understanding to a chemical model of puberty controlled by “puberty glands” (Steinach) around 1900. By the 1920s, this endocrinological model had become widely accepted in medical thought, but also posed new research questions. The endocrinological puberty model also took longer to enter the general public’s understanding of puberty.
Author(s): Sauerteig L
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Medizinhistorisches Journal
Year: 2025
Volume: 60
Issue: 2
Pages: 111-137
Online publication date: 07/08/2025
Acceptance date: 03/03/2025
Date deposited: 05/03/2025
ISSN (print): 0025-8431
ISSN (electronic): 1611-4477
Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH
URL: https://biblioscout.net/article/10.25162/mhj-2025-0005
DOI: 10.25162/mhj-2025-0005
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/5bf9-m563
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
