83 



CHAPTER II. 



Functions of the Sexual Organs. 



ARTICLE 1. 

 Of Menstruation, or the Catamenial Discharge. 



207. Puberty, or the marriageable age, is announced in girls, a? 

 it is in boys, by numerous changes. The general organisation, 

 which, until that period, had progressed alike in both beings, seems 

 suddenly to take an opposite direction in each. The young girl be- 

 comes more timid and reserved; her form becomes more rounded, 

 her voice alters, but to take on a softer and more harmonious tone; 

 her bosom is developed; the cellular tissue extends from the front 

 of the breast and the hypogastrium, as from two centres, towards the 

 neck, while it at the same time proceeds to form a soft cushion for 

 the upper part of the limbs. Her eyes, which are at once brilliant 

 and languishing, express commingled desires, fears, and tenderness; 

 the sensations she experiences, and the sense of her own weakness, 

 are the causes why she no longer dares to approach the companions 

 of her childhood but with a downcast look. On the other hand, the 

 gentle modesty that animates her countenance, and the seductive 

 graces of her demeanor, soon disclose a power whose existence 

 she never suspected, and which renders it true to say that the mar- 

 riageable age in the softer sex is the spring tide of nature and the 

 season of the pleasures; but a new function, the catamenial, the abso- 

 lute compass of good or bad health in women, is established with 

 more or less difficulty in the midst of this great revolution, and by 

 the disorders or accidents which it involves, sometimes dashes with 

 bitterness those happy seasons to which it should naturally serve as 

 the prelude. 



208. Definition. Menstruation consists in a sanguineous dis- 

 charge from the sexual parts. It is a natural function, to which 

 women have in all ages of the world been subject. The supposi- 



