»'AimV/W\ w QWfchf^Fsfa&faN \A.AAAf^' ,^^^A^^A^^^^^55^^0^ hnu 1 rmm^mrw\ W^tmmmmM miM^&^m^, \fawHnfi \i LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. dljap. / . ©tijajrigijt l|xr, Shelf...K:.G-n. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. /va.aav, ^:"' MaM a An A A VA . » Aa aaA^A^A^AAAa^^ mt^w^^i ^mm^^^^mmmm KA&ft ^AAAAAAAaK ^^^w/^^v^ »i. , , , |^ ^ , n , TwU^iifta aaAAHa AAAfiA/a ABwM pfTfiHAk * ^AAi'ftftAi ::•" P ti^ftmmnMMm ^aAAAAAAAAAAAAa^AAa^'^ AA^ArS^i WOMAN'S doi\fidei)tikl SdYi^ef ON THE HEALTH AND DISEASES OF WOMEN. KNOW THYSELF! ON WHICH Health, Happiness, and Life Depend ! BT HORACE KNAPP, M.D. PEOVIDENCE, E.I. 1873. * NN" Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1873, by HORACE KSTAPP, M. D., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. It is a lamentable fact that most women are more or less invalids. It is to be regretted, not only on their account, because of their sufferings ; but because their diseases unfit them for wives and mothers and the duties of home, render them incapable of making their homes pleasant and happy, and unfits them for the pleasures and hap- piness of life. Women are sick so much, they seem to think that pains, sickness, and sufferings are their lot, the penalty for being women ; consequently, they try to bear them as best they can, with Christian fortitude. There is nothing else like disease that so dis- courages wives, and so paralyzes the energy and discourages their husbands, as a sick wife. These facts, and the suffering of women, make their health the first and most important thing of life ; and yet, their health receives the least thought and care of anything. Even when they are sick, they seldom consult a physician so long as they can keep about the 4 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. house, when, as a general thing, it is too late to save them from a premature grave. They may live a few months in physical suffer- ing and mental misery, after it is too late to cure them. What reasonable excuse, or moral right, have women to delay so important a matter as being restored to health, and saving their lives ? Their first duty is to take care of their health and lives, for the neglect of which God will hold them responsible. They should attend to the first symptoms of disease, which prevents suffering, and saves expense, health, and life. There is no natural cause why women should be more sickly than men. God has not been partial with health — the greatest earthly blessing. It is within the reach of all, and can be had by simply obeying the laws of health, which all may do. No class of people can monopolize health. It may be enjoyed by the poor as well as by the rich. While there are no naticral causes why women are so sickly, there are many good reasons for it. First. They do not dress so warmly in cold weather, especially their arms, limbs, and feet, as men do. And until they do, they can never have health, and enjoy in full the pleasures of life, and fulfil their mission in life. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps speaks as follows : on, THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. "WHY WOMEN ARE WEAK. "When we consider what intricate system of defiance to all known physiological laws a woman's dress has become ; the tender age at which this defiance begins, and the relentless pressure of it upon the formative and recuperative energies of the constitution • the murderous thinness and scantiness of her under-dress ; the effect of the absence of flannels, and the custom of baring the neck and arms, upon the sensitive tissues of the lungs and heart ; the check to all even circula- tion of the blood and healthy condition of the skin inflicted by the imperfect and compressed covering of her feet and hands ; the unhealthy heat of the head, consequent on the manner in which custom requires her to collect her hair into a wad of pad- ding at the base of the brain ; the clasp of a rack of steel and whalebone about all the vital organs of the body; the straight-jacket snap with which the seams of her dress meet about her shoulders, arms, and chest ; the results inevitable upon making the hips the pivot upon which her heavy clothing is hung, and the fulcrum upon which all the motion of her body must swing in walking, — if, indeed, we apply that term to the infantile toddle with which women are driven to get about the world ; above all, the unreasonable and cruel cus- tom which compels her to drop heavy skirts about 6 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. her lower limbs and feet, thus endangering her life on all occasions, her health on any but a dry sum- mer day, and her self-reliance forever ; when we consider the extent to which the common occupa- tions of a woman deprive her of the open air, of exercise, of change of scene, of acquaintance with the world ; of the extent to which they are adapted to produce all the varieties of sedentary disease ; when we consider the unlimited influence of the mind upon the body, of happiness upon health, and the brooding morbidness and acute suffering which the lives of women so largely induce in them, shall we find it a matter of surprise that women as a race are diseased and feeble, and are bestowing upon the world a future legacy of dis- eased and feeble children? Shall we wrap this ruined creature away in a shawl to die, and say, with sorrowful assurance : Behold woman ' as God made her ' ? " Woman as God made her ! As man and the devil and her own cowardice have made her ! God never made such women as are cradling the next generation in this land to-day. Side by side with 6 female illiteracy/ female feebleness is running a race among us. Neglected brains and tortured bodies are working their own way upon our actual and possible mothers. Thoughtful physicians are perplexed and alarmed. We are a beautiful, use- ful, and elevated order of animals ; the world has THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. *] done the right thing by us ; it has stalled and fed us ; it has petted and praised us ; who can com- plain ?" The following from the " Waverley Magazine," on the dress of women, has the true ring : — "Woman, while striving to reach a broader plane which places the sex on a level with man, yet fails to display good taste and sense in the one province strictly under her management — her own dress. We are told that dress is an index of character ; in that case, how few minds among the fairer portion of our community are properly bal- anced ! Grace, propriety, delicacy, simplicity, fit- ness, and proportion are each and all outraged in the fashions now in vogue. The belle of the time is one panorama of awful surprises from top to toe. Her clothes characterize her. She never charac- terizes her clothes. She is upholstered, not orna- mented. She is bundled, not draped. She is puckered, not folded. She struts ; she does not sweep. She has not one of the attributes of Nature nor of proper art. She neither soothes the eye like a flower, nor pleases it like a picture. She wearies it like a kaleidoscope. She is a meaningless dazzle of broken effects. Custom has reconciled us to these barbarous styles in dress, but fifty years hence they will seem to our children as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentots now seem to us. The dictum of our 8 THE QrSEASES OF WOMEN, great-grandchildren upon, for instance, what has been termed the kangaroo style of dress, will con- tain new and severer elements of criticism than any which go to form our judgment upon fashions which repel us only because they are out of date. How endless our ingenuity in sowing the seeds of this criticism ! If we have a pretty foot, we wear our heels beneath our insteps, and cripple it. If we have abundant hair, we cover it with the hair of some uncleanly dead grisette, or twine with it an Indian weed which is namelessly horrible, and ex- , poses the wearer to nameless horrors. If we have a pretty dress, we cut it up, we slash it off, we twist it hither, we snip it yon, we bolster it here, we stuff it there, we mutilate it everywhere. We pay no attention to artistic effect, to harmony of any sort ; and yet the thought expended on her dress by the modern belle is equal to that be- stowed by an author on his writings. If ( exertion of intellect' stands censor on the beauty of our costume, Heaven save the mark!" Secondly. The hard work of women brings on many diseases, and breaks down their constitution, . and sends them to an untimely grave. They not only work too hard, but too many hours in a day. They work nearly double the hours that men do, who are always clamoring for less hours of work and more pay. And yet most husbands consider them troublesome family dependences, especially THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. Q when they ask for money to go shopping with. Most men consider that their wives ask favors, instead of their rights, when they ask for money. Whereas, they only ask for their God-given rights, f#r money due them for a life of hard labor. And it is time that this right was acknowledged and conceded, both by public opinion and the laws of the land. As things are now, the relation- of many hus- baids and wives, is too much that of master and sla-e, which is one of the most degrading things on earth. And it makes man more or less a tyrmt, and woman a trembling menial, hanging upcn the smiles and frowns of her would-be lord, whose will is her destiny. This destroys her womanhood, grace, and noble bearing, and all the pleasures of home and society. Nkhing else calls louder for a reform than in the libor and pay of women. Justice and humanity dem^id that the mass of married women, who do the w?rk for their families, and young women, who depeitl on their daily labor for support, work less and rave more pay. And justice requires that wives share equally with their husbands in the money§he helps earn and save ; and that she has the rig/t to invest it in her own name, and use it as she leases, as does her husband. If this was the law tf the land, as it should be, many families 10 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. would be living in comfort, if not in luxury, who aie now living in poverty and misery. The fact is, too many men estimate their wives, as formerly did the slave-master of the South hs slaves, — by the roundness of their limbs and tie amount of work they can get out of them. The following from a woman's paper, the "Reso- lution," may be deserving of consideration : — "warning to husbands. "The great want of women at the presen; is money — money for their personal wants, and money to carry out their plans. I propose that they shall earn, that they shall consider it as lon- orable to work for money as for board, aid I demand for them equal pay for equal wok. I demand that the bearing and rearing of chidren, the most exacting of employments, and invdving the most terrible risks, shall be the best paic work in the world, and husbands shall treat their wives with at least as much consideration, and acknowl- edge them entitled to as much money, as wet nurses. The meaning of this is, that wives are tbout to strike for greenbacks ; so much for evey baby born. No greenbacks, no more sons am daugh- ters. No greenbacks, no more population, no more boys to carry on the great enterprises c the age. THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. I I /The scale of prices for maternal duties are as fol- lows : — Girl babies $100 Boy babies 200 Twin babies 300 Twins (both boys) 400 Triplets 500 Triplets (all boys) 1,000 Terms : C. O. D. No credit beyond first child, the motto being, " Pay up, or dry up." Husbands who desire to transmit their names to posterity will please notice and take a new departure." Nothing else would so improve the health, and increase the hope and cheer of women, as less work, and more leisure and society ; as less kitchen, and more amusements. When we con- sider how many wives are dwarfed in mind and soul by the tread-mill of a kitchen, where they are compelled by the wants of their families to.work themselves to death, and to breathe its pestilential air, polluted with the effluvia of cooking, it is no wonder that they are soon broken down in body, mind, and spirits, and become prematurely old, and lose their beauty, grace, vivacity, and cheer, and become sickly. It is only a wonder they have any health, and live so long as they do. Men often wonder why girls lose their cheer, grace, and charms in a few years after marriage, 12 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, and become peevish and uninteresting. They will find the reason in the kitchen, where their wives work themselves to death. Another reason why mothers have to work so hard is, too many of them bring up their daughters in idleness ; because they and their daughters think that work, for a young woman, is disreputa- ble, and lessens their chances for a good match or profitable marriage, — than which nothing is fur- ther from the truth. Every young man worth marrying, no matter what his wealth, not only appreciates a girl's knowing how to work and to keep house, but they consider it a necessary ac- complishment to a good wife, even if she never has any occasion to show her skill in these, since most wives have to oversee their houses, hence it is necessary that they k?iow when their servants do their work right. The following shows that I am not alone in my opinion in this matter: — " Qne great fault of American housekeeping at present is, that wives and daughters know too lit- tle about its details. They cannot cook, chamber- work is too much of a drudgery, a seamstress must be employed to do their sewing, while they live a life of fashion or of quiet ease, with no special duties to occupy their time. Family com- fort depends too much upon the efficiency of 'help.' They dominate in our households be- cause they know that they are absolutely necessary THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. 1 3 to the maintenance of family unity. While the mothers of the present generation are acquainted with all the departments of domestic service, the daughters are left untaught in this most necessary branch of female education. Music, botany, the languages and dancing, constitute the fund of knowledge which it is thought necessary for them to possess, and they undertake the care of a house- hold without knowing the first rudiments of its duties. It is no wonder that young men with limited in- comes shrink from marriage which is followed of necessity by a retinue of servants for the house- hold, disturbing that comfort and serenity which should pertain to the first years of married life, and compelling expenses which are hard to be borne. It is not extravagance in dress that alarms, it is the useless expense of servants. Two ser- vants in a family of two or three persons is com- mon, yet it is in most cases a foolish parade of indolence or of ignorance on the part of the mis- tress. This is the reason why marriages among respectable, honest, and ambitious young men are becoming so unfrequent. They cannot at the beginning undergo the expense of maintaining such a body of servants as are required to perform the common duties of housekeeping, when the mis- tress herself does not know how to do them. This error is sapping the foundations of national life 14 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. and virtue. The country. is filling with children of foreigners instead of children of the native born. If young men who would do better under different circumstances become vicious, the mothers who have failed to educate their daughters so that they may become useful and helpful wives, have them- selves to blame in part. Most young men prefer a home of their own ; they long for it with intense desire. But they fear debt and bankruptcy. They know that they cannot live according to the pre- vailing style, so they choose to live single and be honest. The error can be remedied, and the women of the country can show no truer patriotism than by correcting the fault so deplorable in its consequences." Our young women are educated more for show than for usefulness, like some furniture ; and to deceive, in keeping their true character and dispo- sitions securely covered beneath smiles and agree- ableness until after marriage, if they are so fortu- nate as to marry, when they pour out their long pent-up vials of wrath upon the head of their de- voted husbands. Too many of them are mere fashionable walk- ing figures for advertising the wares of milliners and dry-goods men. Such young women will do for flirtations with young men, but no sensible young men wants them for w r ives. Of such young ladies the " Waverley Magazine " says : — THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. 1 5 " Ladies — caged birds of beautiful plumage but sickly looks — pale pets of the parlor, who vege- tate in unhealthy atmosphere, like the potato ger- minating in a dark cellar, why do you not go into the open air and warm sunshine, and add lustre to your eyes, bloom to your cheeks, elasticity to your steps, and vigor to your frames ? Take exercise ; run up the hill for a wager, and down again for fun ; roam the fields, climb the fences, leap the ditches, wade the brooks, and, after a day of exhilarating exercise and unrestricted liberty, go home with an appetite acquired by healthy enjoyment. The beautiful and blooming young lady — rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed — who can darn a stocking, mend her own dress, command a regiment of pots and kettles, feed the pigs, milk the cows, and be the lady when required, is a girl that young men are in quest of for a wife. But you pining, screwed-up, wasp-waisted, doll-dressed, consumption-mortgaged, music-murdering, novel-devouring, daughters of fashion and idleness, you are no more fit for mat- rimony than a pullet is to look after a brood of fourteen chickens. The truth is, my dear girls, you want less fashionable restraint and more liberty of action ; more kitchen and less parlor ; more leg exercise and less sofa; more pudding and less piano ; more frankness and less mock modesty. Loosen your waist-strings, and breathe the pure 1 6 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN* atmosphere, and become something as good and beautiful as nature designed." This is all wrong, for which mothers are more to blame than their daughters. And they will repent of their course when it is too late ; for nothing else is more ruinous to young women than idleness, which leaves them to the prey of improper thoughts and temptations, which never trouble the industri- ous. Such young women may pride themselves on their soft hands, but nobody prides themselves on the soft brains, addled with fashions, of such young women. The following selection has more truth than poetry : — "It is a painful spectacle, in families where a mother is the drudge, to see the daughters, elegantly dressed, reclining at their ease with their drawing, their music, their fancy work, and their reading, beguiling themselves of the lapse of hours, days, and weeks, and never dreaming of their responsibilities ; but as a necessary consequence they neglect duty, grow wear}' of their useless lives, lay hold of every newly-invented stimu- lant to arouse their drooping energy, and blaming their fate, when they dare not blame their God, for having placed them where they are. These individuals will often tell you, with an air of affected compassion (for who can believe it real ?), THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, I J that poor mamma is working herself to death ; yet no sooner do you propose that they should assist her, than they declare she is quite in her element ; in short, that she would never be happy if she had only half as much to do." At the meeting of the American Public Health Association at Cincinnati, Dr. Jarvis, of Massa- chusetts, is reported as having made the following remarks, which are as comprehensive, practical, and vital as any tract for the times need be : — " Dr. Jarvis said that much of the ill-heaith of families was the result of the culpable foolishness of bringing up girls with no idea of household work. A girl is married when she knows how to talk and sing, and play indifferently on the piano. She is full of poetry, joyousness, aesthetic tastes, but she knows' literally nothing about the details of the house-work. But there she is. She may not know the difference between a raw and boiled potato, between flour in the barrel and in the loaf on the table. A serving woman has to be hired, and very few of them know really how to cook. A dressmaker has a regular course of training to fit her for her work, but it is supposed that any one can cook. She says to-day 'We are lucky ; our bread is light and sweet.' Would any woman tolerate a dressmaker who should say : ' We are lucky to-day ; the dress fits well ' ? To-morrow the cook says : ' We are unlucky to-day ; the bread is 1 8 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, sour and heavy.' If a dressmaker should cut her dresses by luck rather than by system, she would quickly get her discharge. But, no ; husband must sit down to the sour bread and ill-cooked meat. He will not say anything, and the guests will overlook defects and sit down in sorrow and eat their bread in bitterness. We are more sure of being well dressed than of being well fed. The outer man is tolerably sure of comfort, but the inner man must sit down to the table with fear and trembling. The Irish girl in the kitchen is very often the cause of damage and loss in the count- ing-room. The Irish girl makes sour bread, which makes bad blood and weak brain. The merchant goes down to the counting-room weak, head ach- ing, and enervated. He does not know what is the matter ; but a Mephistopheles, could he look into his stomach, would see the sour bread there. He believed that poverty ran through the whole man. It became part of his moral and intellectual elements. Poor food made a poor man, and the poor elements went down to his posterity. He believed strongly in hereditary transmissions, but even if they did not occur, there was a fact to be noticed, namely, that if a man had nothing to transmit, the child would have nothing. This would apply to the moral and intellectual elements, as well as to the physical condition." If men who complain of their wives losing their THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. 1 9 beauty, grace, and vivacity, and being prematurely old, will give them more leisure, society, and amusements, they will find them as cheerful, pretty, and lovely as Mrs. B., whom they so much admire. It is very strange that women, who are such great imitators, have not imitated men in their strikes, and long ago struck for less hours of work, and more pay. If men had to do women's work, cook, sew on buttons, wash and do up their shirts, they would not hold out long against such a strike before they would gracefully yield, and grant all women asked, and more. In no other way could women better and sooner make themselves appre- ciated than by such a step. True, it would cause a row in many homes ; but there would be more happiness in them, after the storm had passed, than before ; for the wife would be more appreciated and loved, and the men would be as pleased with the change as their wives. It is time that the mission of women in the world was better understood. Her mission is well expressed in the following extract from a writer in " Blackwood's Magazine." He says : — " Great, indeed, is the task assigned to women ! Who can estimate its dignity ? Not to make laws, not to lead armies, not to govern empires ; but to form those by whom laws are made, armies led, and empires governed ; to guard against the slight- 20 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, est taint of bodily infirmity, the frail, yet spotless creature, whose moral, no less than physical being, must be derived from her ; to inspire those princi- ples, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments which generations yet unborn, and na- tions yet uncivilized, will learn to bless ; to soften firmness into mercy, and chasten honor into refine- ment; to exalt generosity, into virtue, by a soothing care to allay the anguish of the mind ; by her tenderness to disarm passion ; by her purity to triumph over sense ; to cheer the scholar sink- ing under his toil ; to console the statesman for the ingratitude of a mistaken people ; to be com- pensation for friends that are perfidious, for happi- ness that has passed away. Such is her vocation. The couch of the tortured sufferer, the prison of the deserted friend, the cross of the rejected Saviour : these are the theatre on which her great- est triumphs have been achieved. Such is her destiny : to visit the forsaken, to attend the neg- lected when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when injustice persecutes, when brethren and disciples flee, to remain unshaken and un- changed, and to exhibit in this lower world a type of that love, constant, pure, and ineffable, which in another we are taught to believe the test of virtue." Another reason why women are so sickly, and so many die prematurely, is, because the diseases THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, 21 which are peculiar to them are so little understood by the profession generally. There is a criminal ignorance among general practitioners in regard to the diseases of women. Indeed, there are but few physicians who thoroughly understand them, and can treat them successfully. In consequence, God and women only know what they suffer from the useless and dangerous experiments of physicians. Often they suffer more from the malt7-eatment of their family doctor than from their disease. In fact, they would be better off, as a general thing, and suffer less and live longer, if they did not doc- tor at all with common physicians, whose greatest sins are their ignorance of the diseases of women, their bad treatment of them, and want of good faith with them. This, with the fact that most physicians believe, or pretend to believe, that an examination of the generative organs of women is necessary in almost every case of their diseases, is one of the principal reasons that most women, especially young women, neglect to consult a physician until on the verge of the grave, when their diseases are past the skill of physicians and the aid of medicine. How many women are compelled to undergo unnecessary and useless examinations, which out- rages their modesty, — women's greatest and best protector to their person, virtue, and purity, — and most revolting and disgusting to their husbands ; 22 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, and they are subjected to cauterization every few days for weeks, months, and even years, which is most painful and destructive to the nervous system, health, and mind. Most of these examinations are unnecessary, hence they are a great imposition and insult to women's credulity and confidence in their physi- cian. Because husbands do not like to submit their wives to such personal examinations, know- ing the unpleasantness of it to themselves and wives, and the danger of it to their virtue and purity, they rightly object to such examinations, ex- cept it is unquestionably necessary ; and hence they are unwilling to put their wives and daughters under the. care of such examining doctors, which causes delay in their treatment, till they suffer much, or it is too late to cure them. They dislike to pay a physician for visiting their wives and daughters for weeks and months, to make these revolting, unnecessary examinations, and unnecessary, cruel, and torturing applications of caustics to the parts. It is true that there is now and then a case which requires such aji examination, but they are rare. A physician who has made these diseases and their treatment a special study for years, can tell more what diseases women have by asking them a few questions, than common practitioners can with all the examinations they can make. There is no more necessity for seeing and feeling of THE DISEASES OF WOMEN, 2$ the generative organs of women, in order to know their disease, than of the stomach, heart, or lungs ; for if we understand the disease, we can tell one disease by its symptoms as well as another. In fact, such physicians know no more about the case after such an examination than before, for they know nothing about it any way, as their want of success in their treatment//w a specialty, and have lectured on them for years, which, with an extensive and successful practice in this class of diseases, has given me a knowledge of them and an experience in their treatment, unsurpassed by any other physician in this country. Women know they feel badly, tire easily, and are nervous, irritable, and despondent; but they do not know that the cause of all this may be a dis- ease of the organs of generation. And they can get no information, nor satisfaction, by consulting their family physician, who knows no more about the cause of their trouble than they do. Therefore, they suffer for months and years for the want of proper medical treatment, which would soon restore them to health. Such treatment they cannot receive from general practitioners ; hence they become discouraged, lose confidence in all physicians, and conclude that there is no help for them, and that their disease and suffering are the penalty for being women • and hence they bear their affliction with Christian fortitude, as best they can. Yet they feel that their lot is a hard one, and that life, and all its joys, are embittered by their sufferings ; and that they could make their homes more pleasant, and their family more happy, 26 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. and themselves enjoy life much better, if they were well. And although women suffer so much from dis- ease peculiar to their sex, I know that all their suf- fering can be prevented, and all their diseases aired, if properly treated in the early stages of them. In order to assist women in understanding their diseases, and to induce them to have them treated in their first stage, I will here give the principal diseases most common with them, and their symp- toms ; while they will find the diseases of the lungs, heart, liver, stomach, etc., described in my pamphlet, "The Invalid's Friend," for which they had better send. MENSTRUATION, AND DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS OF WOMEN. Menstruation is a very important function of woman ; and yet, there are but few women who have natural menses. Perhaps there is no other matter pertaining to women, of which they are more ignorant, and of which they have such fool- ish ideas, as in regard to their u monthly periods. " The reason of this ignorance of themselves, is the idea that a knowledge of themselves, of the mechanism of their bodies, and the function of the different organs of their system, is not only unne- cessary, but vulgar. MENS TR UA TION. 2 J Therefore, women give no attention to anat- omy and physiology, nor the laws of health and life. The result of such ignorance, which is en- couraged by many physicians, is fearful to contem- plate. It has made most women invalids, turned our homes into family hospitals, and filled them with puny, sickly children. It seems strange that intelligent, educated wom- en should be so criminally ignorant of this most important science, on which health, happiness, and life depend. The appearance of the menses, which usually takes place in this country at the age of fourteen or fifteen, is evidence that the sexual system of woman is maturely developed. If the woman is healthy, the menses occur every four weeks, and continue until the age of forty-five or fifty ; and with some women, they have continued to the age of sixty. If the menses are regular, they appear every twenty-eight days, and continue three or four days ; but with many women, owing to the diseased condition of the generative organs, or other organs of the system, they continue from five to ten days, and reappear every two or three weeks, and in cases where the system is much reduced, they con- tinue all the time, more or less, for weeks and months. And it is very common, with sickly wom- en, that the menses cease altogether for months, and even years. 28 THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. In such cases, women are generally much troubled with leucorrhoza, and more or less bloat- ing of the bowels ; yet the menses may be sup- pressed, and the woman have neither of these symptoms. While it is natural for the menses to continue until the ages of forty-five or fifty, yet they frequently stop at any time after twenty years. This is often owing to poor health \ and yet there have been cases when they have stopped, when the woman seemed to be in good health, for which we cannot account. There are but few women, com- paratively speaking, who have natural menses. With most women it is only a severe hemorrhage of the womb, which is very debilitating, and results in other diseases, and the breaking down of the constitution. It is truly a wonder that such women live so long, and lose so much blood monthly. In natural menstruation there is but little flood. Most women think that their menses regulate their health, and hence nothing alarms them more than any irregularity in menstruation, and conse- quently they spend much time and money in trying to regulate them. And this idea is encouraged by the medical profession generally, in order that they may make it the scapegoat for their ignor- ance of the diseases of women. While no woman can be in good health, whose menses are irregu- lar, poor health is the cause of all irregularities in the monthly periods. MEN'S TR UA TIO N. 2 9 In consequence of the false idea, that the health of women depends on the regularity of their menses, all treatment is directed to this function, and thousands of women are killed or die annu- ally by such malpractice. All such cases, in the hands of a skilful physician, who understands the cause of the menstrual irregularity, and diseases of other parts of the body, could be cured, and thus save many precious lives. If there is any irregularity in the menses, the cause will generally be found in some disease of the system, other than in the generative organs. Restore the patient's health, and her menses will become right. But, certain diseases of the gene- rative organs, such as severe prolapsus, or falling of the womb, and chronic inflammation of it, con- gested or swollen womb, displacements, tumors and cancers of the womb, cause menstrual irregu- larities. Yet it is true, as I have said, that most cases of irregular menses are caused by sickness and poor health, and hence the medical treat- ment should be for the restoration of the general health. And in no case should women take any of the thousand-and-one advertised pills and other nos- trums, for "regulating and bringing on the menses under all circumstances" as they seldom or never produce the results they promise, while they are very injurious to health. 3