THE RE PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM. 64:7 



admit the males, and never become impregnated, except at those 

 periods. 



Relation of Menstruation to the Discharge of Ova. The human 

 female is subject to the same law as the females of ether mammiferous 

 animals; namely, in her as in them, ova are matured and discharged 

 from the ovary independent of sexual union. This maturation and dis- 

 charge occur, moreover, periodically at or about the epochs of menstrua- 

 tion. 



The evidence of the periodical discharge of ova at the menstrual pe- 

 riods is that in most cases in which signs of menstruation have been found 

 in the uterus, follicles in a state of maturity or of rupture have been 

 seen in the ovary; and although conception is not confined to the periods 

 of menstruation, yet it is more likely to occur about a menstrual epoch 

 than at other times. 



The exact relation between the discharge of ova and menstruation is 

 not very clear. It was formerly believed that the monthly flux was the 

 result of a congestion of the uterus arising from the enlargement and 

 rupture of a Graafian follicle; but though a Graafian follicle is, as a 

 rule, ruptured at each menstrual epoch, yet several instances are re- 

 corded in which menstruation has occurred where no Graafian follicle 

 can have been ruptured, and on the other hand cases are known where 

 ova have been discharged in amenorrhceic women. It must therefore be 

 admitted that menstruation is not dependent on the maturation and dis- 

 charge of ova. 



It was, moreover, formerly understood that ova were discharged 

 towards the close or soon after the cessation of a menstrual flow. Obser- 

 vations made after death, and facts obtained by clinical investigation, 

 however, do not support this view. Kupture of a Graafian follicle does 

 not happen on the same day of the monthly period in all women. It 

 may occur towards the close or soon after the cessation of a flow; but 

 only in a small minority of the subjects examined after death was this 

 the case. On the other hand, in almost all such subjects of which, there 

 is record, rupture of the follicle appears to have taken place before the 

 commencement of the catamenial flow. Moreover, the custom of the 

 Jews a prolific race, to whom by the Levitical law sexual intercourse 

 during the week following menstruation was forbidden militates 

 strongly in favor of the view that conception usually occurs before and 

 not soon after a menstrual epoch, and necessarily, therefore, for the view 

 that ova are usually discharged before the catamenial flow. This, to- 

 gether with the anatomical condition of the uterus just before the cata- 

 menia, seems to indicate that the ovum fertilized is that which is dis- 

 charged in connection with the first absent, and not that with the last 

 present menstruation. 



Though menstruation does not appear to depend upon the discharge 



