MENSTRUATION. 375 



decidedly marked just after the cessation of the menses, and in many, it really exists at 

 no other time. Still, mercenary or other considerations may induce women to admit 

 intercourse at any time, and the sexual orgasm, and even fecundation, may at any tinu- 

 occur. As a rule, the female yields to advances made by the male and is reputed to 

 experience a less degree of sexual desire and ardor, although this has marked exceptions. 

 It is probably true that, eliminating, as far as we can, all considerations except those 

 of a purely sexual character, there is less of a promiscuous feeling for the opposite sex in 

 females than in males, and that sexual desire, aside from feelings of fatigue or satiety, is 

 sometimes markedly periodical in women. If we may take certain individual cases as 

 representing physiological conditions, it appears that, in some women, there is a period 

 of comparative indifference to the opposite sex ; as the menses approach, there is more 

 or less irritability of temper and disinclination for society, which disappear as the flow is 

 established ; and, at or following the cessation of the menses, sexual desire is manifested 

 to an unusual degree, this continuing for only a few days. 



Although there is a periodical condition of heat in the lower animals, connected with 

 ovulation, a sanguineous discharge from the genital organs is not often observed. It is 

 only in monkeys that we have a counterpart of what occurs in the human female ; and 

 observations upon these animals have shown that they are subject to a monthly discharge 

 of blood, at this time giving evidence of unusual salacity. 



In the human female, near the time of puberty, there is sometimes a periodical sero- 

 mucous discharge from the genital organs, preceding, for a few months, the regular estab- 

 lishment of the menstrual flow. Sometimes, also, after the first discharge of blood, the 

 female passes several months without another period, when the second flow takes place, 

 and the menses then become regular. In a condition of health, the periods recur every 

 month, until they cease, at what is termed the change of life. In the majority of cases, 

 the flow recurs on the twenty-seventh or the twenty-eighth day; but sometimes the 

 interval is thirty days. As a rule, also, utero-gestation, lactation, and most severe dis- 

 eases, acute and chronic, suspend the periods ; but this has exceptions, as some females 

 menstruate regularly during pregnancy, and it is not very uncommon for the menses to 

 appear during lactation. 



As we should naturally expect, from the connection between menstruation and ovu- 

 lation, removal of the ovaries, especially when this occurs before the age of puberty, is 

 usually followed by arrest of the menses. It is a well-known fact that animals do not 

 present the phenomena of heat after extirpation of the ovaries. Raciborski has quoted 

 cases of this operation in the human subject, in which the menses were arrested ; but 

 this rule does not appear to be absolute, as Dr. H. R. Storer reports at least one case, in 

 which menstruation continued with regularity for more than a year after removal of both 

 ovaries. Dr. T. G. Thomas, of New York, in three cases of removal of both ovaries 

 from menstruating women, which he followed for from five and a half months to two 

 years and eleven months after the operation, noted no return of menstruation. In one 

 case, nearly six months after the operation, the patient had " a bloody discharge from 

 the vagina and all the symptoms accompanying the menstrual function." When a cow 

 brings forth twins, one a male and the other apparently a female, the latter is called a 

 free-martin and generally has no ovaries. Hunter, in his paper on the tree-martin, 

 gives a full description of this anomalous animal and states that it dors not Lived or 

 show any inclination for the bull. In 1868, we had an opportunity of examining th. 

 generative organs of a free-martin raised and killed by Prof. James R. Wood, 

 this animal, the uterus was rudimentary and there were no ovari.-. 



A menstrual period usually presents three stages : first, invasion ; second, a wngtrim 

 ous discharge ; third, cessation. 



The stage of invasion is variable in different females. There is usually, anterior to 

 the establishment of the flow, more or less of a feeling of general w -e >f ful- 



ness and weight in the pelvic organs, accompanied with a greater or less increase in tho 



