PMS Doc Dies

Courtesy The New York Times:

Dr. Katharina Dalton, a British gynecologist who did early work establishing a link between fluctuations in the menstrual cycle and changes in behavior and who advocated using progesterone to treat premenstrual syndrome, died on Sept. 17 in Britain, The Associated Press reported. She was 87.

Beginning in the early 1950's, Dr. Dalton led pioneering studies of premenstrual syndrome, challenging the widely accepted view that the condition was a figment of the imagination. She led one of the first clinics to specifically treat the symptoms, at University College Hospital in London.

She is largely credited with developing the use of menstrual charts for the diagnosis of the disorder, and argued that the timing of PMS in women was associated with higher rates of suicide attempts, alcohol abuse and violent crimes.

PMS is rarely referred to in pop culture except as a punchline, but it's no joke for millions of women every month. (Yours truly included.) It's amazing that only a generation ago, the standard medical response was "it's in your head." Thank you, Dr. Dalton, for realizing that it wasn't.