Look up the history of syphilis. Sometimes it was reported as dementia precox or catatonia but often simply as a nervous disorder or a nervous breakdown. Non-compliant and depressed women were also “medically” diagnosed as hysterical or suffering from nervous breakdown. Sometimes dipsomania was described politely as a nervous breakdown, and things like depression and epilepsy or simply demonstrating/expressing female libido or acting on a homosexual orientation were also labeled as “nervous breakdowns”. But what you are looking at specifically is mainly symptomatic episodes of untreated syphilis.