Civilization has brought many unnatural effects upon the monthly period of women, and ignorance of how to care for the body has made matters worse. It is with these unnatural disturbances that you are mostly concerned. The inability to understand certain symptoms of your menstrual flow, the consequent neglect of these symptoms or ignorantly taking drugs and medicines for the troubles, are the causes for so many girls and women being miserable and invalids struggling on under most distressing conditions.
There is always a good cause for any irregularity or stoppage of the monthly period; some reason why the flow is scanty or too profuse. These causes can readily be discovered when the girl knows herself and all that pertains to that self.
In the healthy girl the flow should come and go without any marked pains or distress. Of course during four or five days there will be a feeling of weakness, lassitude, a “please-let-me-alone”[33] attitude, and in many girls, a desire for pure love and caresses. These various feelings are natural and only go to show that you are a full-blown woman.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in this feeling for love and caresses, this peculiar desire to want protection and a something that you cannot exactly explain to yourself. It is really an awakening of all your womanly desires, and these are your greatest powers over man, children and the best of everything in the world. These feelings should not be suppressed, but kept under control. They should be carefully saved, for they are the feelings which bring future happiness, and you want to give them as little attention as possible except that attention which keeps them pure and holy.
Avoid all women who scoff at motherhood, who deride the domestic life for women, who stand and shout their demands in public places instead of sweetly using their influence for a better condition for men and women so that the future babies will have a proper birthright. No discussion or knowledge which will make better fathers and mothers can be wrong, but every attempt to ignore the subject is sinful.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in maternal feeling and impulses; what a girl is to be blamed for is a want of control over these natural instincts and giving way to them. The[34] care of the company she keeps, the kind of thoughts she lets get into her mind and the way she cares for her body, are the factors which make for a good and chaste girl or otherwise.
But how can we blame all those girls who accidentally go wrong? I certainly do not. They have never been told just what to do, where the danger lurks and all the consequences. Should we blame and shun the girls who have been sent out into the world amid the dangers and snares laid for them; young women who see chastity mocked, virtue a thing to bargain for, the glitter of gold pouring into the laps of those thousands who find “the easiest way” out of their poverty and struggles?
Yet the truth is, hard as it may seem and as often as it has been told to you, that virtue and chastity in deeds and thoughts DO bring rich awards. These awards may be a long and tedious time in coming and the struggle is hard, but in the end all this will be proven to have been worth while.
As I have told you, the monthly period should come and go without much physical pain. It should last from four to five days and be regular in recurring about every twenty-eight days. But it is seldom so normal in the average American girl, the girl who has been[35] left alone to solve her own mysteries and go her own way. This is equally true of the high-school girl or the working girl. And why? Because she has been brought up through her early developing days to go on and disregard all her sex functions—the greatest factor in all life. The high-school girl has been mixed up with all kinds of youths and not kept away from tantalizing and embarrassing conditions. The shop and working-girl has been forced to do her work, day in and out, standing upon her feet or working at a machine while the sensitive and full-blooded womb was trying to empty itself.
Let us first consider the girl whose monthly flow is scanty or entirely absent. She has arrived at the age of sixteen years and has not “seen anything.” But every month, for a year or so, she has had headaches, felt extremely nervous, had some pains, the breasts have felt tender and sore, and altogether she has had a miserable twelve months of these symptoms, but no relief from a flow. What is the matter with such a girl?
Remember I told you that the womb was pear-shaped, the small end hanging down. Here is a little opening, through which the menstrual blood flows, and then out of the body. The womb is in reality only a big bunch of muscles so arranged that it can relax and[36] empty itself and then tightly close. In the unmarried woman, or before one has given birth to a child, this little opening is completely closed except during the period. Even then it is only very slightly opened, but open and shut it must if a girl is to be in good health.
A girl may have over-exercised or injured herself when she was twelve years of age or thereabouts, and brought about a little inflammation, which at the time she knew nothing about. The womb was already getting prepared to do its monthly work, and as the weeks went on the inflammation increased. Inflammation always means some kind of an extra growth at the injured spot; like a scar, for example, after a wound has healed up.
The womb itself is not a sensitive organ to the touch or to slight inflammations at the lower end, hence the little girl does not, at the time, feel any pain. She may feel uncomfortable in that region, but as she has been brought up NEVER to mention any matters concerning her sex organs, of course she keeps silent while the injury goes on. The little inflammation heals up, but in healing what does it do? Leaves a scar, of course. Now this scar may be big enough to have CLOSED the outlet for the monthly flow—to have made the entrance of the womb grow together. It is under these[37] circumstances a sealed bag; nothing can come away from it.
The girl’s time comes, but the blood does not. All the other signs being present, she watches and worries. Sometimes, alas, too many times, she has never been told just what should happen. Backache troubles her, headaches often drives her to take some harmful drug, she becomes fretful, loses control of her temper in the simplest things and finally loses friends because she “is so horrid, says so many cutting things.”
Yet she does not mean to be disagreeable; she simply cannot help it. How could she? There is a clot of blood in her womb that cannot come away; it remains and hardens and each month is added to by the banked-up blood.
It is a very sad condition, and one that often continues until a tumor is formed, or some other complication makes an invalid of her in the prime of her life—or what should be her prime.
This condition is frequently the cause of hysteria, of desperation, of a gradual mental failing.
There is another condition which goes to ruin a girl’s health and happiness, for the effects are the same as in a closed womb. There is a membrane in all chaste girls called the hymen.[38] This closes the entrance to the vagina. Now there should always be a little opening, or several little openings in this membrane to let out the blood. In some girls this is closed from birth; so completely closed and tough that the weight of the first monthly blood cannot break through it. Then we have all the symptoms of the stoppage we have in the closed womb, only the blood packs and hardens in the lower parts instead of the womb. Often this produces greater distress than when the same conditions exist in the womb. Here great bloody tumors form and the state of the poor girl is certainly pitiable.
From birth also the womb may be closed, grown together. Then there are some girls so nervously constituted that the least touch on the muscles of the womb will shut it up spasmodically. Such a girl’s womb is not grown together, but when the first drops of blood are trying to ooze away, the womb shuts tightly. In all these cases the results to the girl is the same as I have described.
The remedy for all this misery is simple, almost painless, and will not detain you from your duties but a few days; sometimes not at all. By simply cutting or snipping apart the growth at the entrance to the organ, or opening it by a little stretching instrument, the fault is remedied; the girl cured. And all this simple[39] knowledge could have saved thousands of suffering girls and women. No, it does not interfere with your proof of virginity. The snipping is too slight. But supposing it should? What of it, as long as you know in your own heart that your are a chaste girl? Do you want to be a miserable wreck of a woman just on account of an ancient superstition, a foolish and harmful idea of a lot of old women and medieval theologians?
It is a sad condition—this closed womb—and should not be allowed to sicken a girl for one hour—IF SHE KNOWS.
Alas! she has not been allowed to know these things—just allowed to suffer and be blamed.
If you have reached the age of fifteen years or thereabouts and for a year or so have had all the nervous and mental symptoms of a period occurring every month and no blood comes, then go at once to a reputable physician. Be certain you go to one in good standing. Never go to one who advertises “women’s troubles,” or to one whom you do not know by the best of repute. Remember that honest and true physicians do not advertise in the papers. So whenever you see an advertisement of a doctor who says he can cure you of THAT trouble, keep away from him. Never mind what the other girls tell you about a doctor or some medicine that cured them, probably the[40] cause for their trouble was an entirely different one.
Naturally, your mother is the first one to consult, but I fear that if you have a mother who has allowed you to suffer month after month, and constantly said, “Oh, don’t bother about such matters; it will come out all right when you get older;” such a mother will not exactly be the one to go to—go to a RELIABLE physician.
Never, under any circumstances, take medicines for this trouble. Let “regulating pills” alone as you would a rattlesnake. Now that you know the cause, common-sense will tell you that pills, or any and all things of the kind, are not only useless, but harmful.
“But, Doctor, how about the girl who has had several good periods and then stops for several months, or even skips a month and only flows every other month? There can be no closing of the mouth of the womb under these circumstances?”
No, in such cases the cause is entirely different, or rather the causes, for there are many. Most of you can find out for yourself just what YOUR cause is for being irregular, after I point out to you some facts.
Many times it is only Nature’s way of preserving your health. For instance, if you have not sufficient blood in your system to allow[41] you to lose a certain amount every month, Nature will prevent it going to the womb to be thrown away. Some girls will have “nose bleeds” once or twice a month and this takes the place of the monthly flow. This is not a sign of good health, just a sign that something is wrong—see a good doctor, he will know and tell you what to do. If you are troubled with headaches (especially in the back of the head and neck), if your appetite is poor, if you lost too great an amount during your last flow, or if your nervousness increases, it means that you are in poor condition. Perhaps you have danced too much and lost too much sleep, been unduly excited or had some great grief; any of these things will affect in some way your menses. Anything, in fact, which lowers the tone of your general health will affect the menses.
If you are over-fat and growing fatter every day, this unhealthful condition will stop your menses. I don’t mean a plump, jolly, happy amount of fat,—this is a good state for a growing girl,—but I mean an overplus of fat with white cheeks, flabby flesh, swollen ankles and big stomach. Such a condition indicates some disease.
There are many diseases which leave you in a condition of suppressed or irregular menstruation; such as typhoid fever, kidney affections,[42] chlorosis—lack of red blood—consumption, scarlet fever. If you have gone through any one of these illnesses and your periods are irregular or scanty, don’t worry; time will put this matter right as you recover from the general effects of the disease. If you have reason to fear consumption, be grateful that Nature is preserving your blood to help you get well; for, as you know, you can get well—can completely recover from consumption—if you WILL EAT AND SLEEP IN THE OPEN AIR—LIVE IN THE OPEN AIR.
Most of the causes for irregularities and scanty flows are due to your unhygienic methods of living and playing. Sleeping in rooms where fresh air only gets in through a crack, insufficient and improper food and too much tea and coffee, will soon cause irregularities and other menstrual troubles. Catching cold or getting wet feet, damp skirts flapping around thinly-clad ankles just before or during the time of your monthlies, will also bring you to some womb trouble.
Then the influence of the mind upon all these matters plays a very important part in your health. Evil suggestions from girls or youths, seeing plays which you ought not to see, reading all that rotten stuff put out for young women and girls to read and dream over—I don’t mean the nasty ones, but all those[43] which unduly excite the imagination and throw a false light upon life—the Duke, the Prince and Villain kind—the virtuous blonde maiden and the hard-working hero stuff, you all know what I mean. There is plenty of good literature, exciting stories, to be read without reading a lot of cheap tinsel and ready-made romances which have no more to do with real life than a mask has to do with the human features.
You can over-exercise, become too much excited over contests in the gymnasium, use up force to such an extent that your growing womanly functions become weakened and sometimes dried up. No girl of a nervous temperament should go into any athletic contest, team or personal. Such a girl should not play basketball, attempt any stunts on horizontal bars or flying rings; nothing, in fact, which calls for a strain upon the nervous system. The function of the womb, as well as of all the sex organs, are directly affected by the nervous system. You can never be a strong woman, complete in all that belongs to a woman and her career, if you, as a young woman, over-strain the nervous system.
Hundreds of girls who are playing contests of basketball, to see which team is to be the champion of the state or the town, are going to suffer from all this excitement. Your[44] teachers do not take into serious consideration your growing sex organs. They do not seem to know what it means for a girl to get over-excited at any time during her development, that there is nothing except alcohol which will arouse dangerous impulses more than athletic excitement. So do be careful of your exercise.
On the other hand, no exercise will also produce some disturbance of the menstrual period. If you do not take some form of useful exercise, poisons accumulate in your system. This causes unnatural fat to pile up around your ovaries and kidneys; in fact, it will bring you to a sad state in middle life if you have neglected to exercise in a careful and regular manner when you are growing.
The girl who works in the shop, the department store, or follows any of the numerous careers which are open to her, as a rule gets plenty of exercise. To be sure it is not the best kind of exercise by any means, but as she has to be on her feet almost all the day, for her to take any gymnasium work at night is harmful. She needs the fresh air, to eat proper food and to obtain plenty of sleep—all she can get or steal. The girl who is so situated that she can walk to and from her place of employment, is fortunate; the girl who cannot, must get walking exercise in the open air[45] some way if she wishes her periods and general health to be perfect.
Profuse menstruation, that is, too much blood flowing and for too long a time, is always a sign that something is wrong with the womb as well as with your general health. It is not a sign that “you have too much blood in your system,” but a symptom that the womb is weak, has lost its tone and does not close up tightly at the finish as it should. The cause is one of the many I have told you about; too long standing on the feet, going to parties or dances when you should have been in bed, improper food or too little of it, undue excitement at a time when you should have been quiet. Search well your own heart, and some of the causes you will be able to discover yourself. In other words, any irregularity or little errors in your conduct will bring about irregularity in your menstrual functions.
No girl should use the sewing machine when she is unwell, or do any work which involves the movement of the thighs and legs.
Food, nourishment and clothing have a lot to do with all the irregularities and disturbances of the sex organs, but we shall have to chat about these important matters when dealing with the skin and complexion, so leave them here. It will save repeating.
[46]
One great curse—for that is what it really is—of all American girls and women, is constipation. False modesty, ignorance and not drinking enough water are the principal causes for this injurious state. But never mind the causes, let us get at the effects.
Every portion of your body, including the bones, can be in a state of good health only when constantly supplied with fresh water. Coffee, soda water, chocolate or other makeshifts do not take the place of pure water. You should get the water into you daily, by the quart. I wish I could go into this matter so thoroughly as to make you all see and understand the importance of this fact. However, I can show you in these Chats how necessary it is even to your sex organs and what they throw off, to make you, I hope, drink plenty of water throughout all your lives.
The bowels must be emptied every day. Any keeping of the cast-off material of the intestines in the bowels means an odorous skin, foul breath and other disagreeable odors, no matter how clean you may be OUTWARDLY. Then there is another very important feature of this dried-up state. As you grow older the arteries harden, they cannot expand and contract as the blood pressure demands they should, and when any strain comes upon the heart or blood[47] vessels, these latter burst and apoplexy is the result.
But before this takes place there has been a failing of the memory, perhaps of the intellect, because the proper amount of blood needed to nourish the brain cannot pass through the tiny, but important arteries of the brain. So some kind of softening of the brain follows. “She died from apoplexy” is said. No, she died because, when a young woman, she would not drink water in sufficient quantities to keep her organs flushed and clear of accumulated material. Now, if this absence of water in the system so affects the brain, its arteries and veins, just imagine what trouble the womb will have in getting enough water for all its needed blood.
But there is a more important effect that the absence of plenty of water in the system has upon the girl. It is a very serious matter to her, as it affects her attractiveness and happiness, and this is what we want to get at in these Chats.
You all know that at certain times girls will have more or less an odor from their skins and breaths. It is very noticeable in some girls, and in others of the most careful cleanliness and habits it will be detected. Perfumery only makes matters worse; the attempt to cover the natural odors is too marked.
[48]
These odors are all caused by acids and other chemical materials which exist in the natural secretions of the body; the perspiration, breath and other secretions. The less water there is in the human system, the more will these chemical odors pervade the atmosphere surrounding the girl.
It is the lack of plenty of water that causes the skin to give forth odors. If you have exercised to the extent of bringing on profuse perspiration and have not drank plenty of water before, during and after the exercise, no amount of bathing will prevent an odor coming from the skin. If you are going out to a dance or any place where you will be in a warm room, you will not be able to disguise the chemical odors coming from the skin.
But if you have filled your system with water two or three hours before going out, your skin will have a delicious, natural odor.
During the menstrual period every gland in the growing girl is very active. The skin throws off an extra amount of perspiration, the glands under the arms are very, extremely, active. Then at this time the breath comes faster than usual and throws off its poisons in large quantities. All these off-castings of the body are loaded with material that must leave the body if we are to keep in good health. But here is the point. You can so saturate your[49] system with pure water that all these fatty and acid odors become highly diluted and scarcely any of them will make their presence known to those around you.
Drinking water will make you fat? Nonsense. That is some old woman’s tale—some old woman who tries to excuse herself from drinking water. Water will not make you fat nor make you lean; just keep you in the good health and state you were born to be in. Then it helps keep the bowels clean, gives a good flow to the blood and keeps the womb free from any little clots being left over from your last menstruation.
How much water shall I drink? Two tumblerfuls every morning before breakfast, two between each meal and as much at meals as you want. Don’t bother yourself about the fads of drinking water, such as none at meals, for instance.
Look at a horse; he drinks when he is thirsty and he drinks all he wants. Take water away from a horse, keep it away from him as it has been kept away from girls and young women, and you would soon see his coat become dull, sticky, and the light go from his eyes.
Remember that a horse’s coat of hair corresponds to your skin; it is his complexion. Deprive yourself of water and your skin becomes[50] dull, sticky and malodorous. But we shall have a lot to say about the skin, so nothing more now.
With all this good habit of drinking plenty of water must go the application of water to the outside of the body. This you must do to wash away the dried crystals of all the chemical materials sent out from the skin and glands. Warm SPONGE baths, while you are menstruating, are necessary. I know that you all have been told never to take a bath while your period was on, but you see that you must get rid of these tell-tale odors now that you are out in the world. Of course you must be careful not to take cold; you should not use any but warm water, and then jump into bed warmly covered. Use no scented soap, not even under the arms, just plain castile or a similar PURE soap. After the flow has ceased be certain to wash your external parts with a soft sponge and pure soap. You want to consider this part of your toilet just as important as washing the teeth or ears, and it should be done in the same unconcerned and unthinking manner.