86 OF MENSTRUATION. 



at nineteen, eight at twenty, one at twenty-one, and one other at 

 twenty-four years of age. 



Preceded, commonly, by a sense of general lassitude, of uneasiness 

 in the limbs, of weight in the loins, of heat, of tension in the epigas- 

 trium and perineum, by a slight pruritus of the sexual parts, by a 

 mucous discharge, that is clear or yellow, and more or less abundant, 

 it happens also that the first eruption of the menses is in many women 

 effected without its being announced by any precursory symptoms; it 

 is then rarely abundant, nor does it commonly last more than two or 

 three days. In general they do not become regular until after three 

 or four periods; in the succeeding appearances, the discharge lasts 

 variously from a few hours to a week, but the average term is four 

 or five days. 



212. The quantity of blood that escapes amounts, according to 

 Hippocrates, to two colylse, or to eighteen ounces according to 

 Galen. Haller computes it at six, eight, or twelve ounces, and Bau- 

 delocque at only three or four ounces; in general it is more profuse 

 in persons and places where its appearance is most precocious, so 

 that European women who go to inhabit a warm climate, as for 

 example Batavia or Java, often perish in consequence of their pro- 

 fuse menstrual evacuations. M. Desormeaux has remarked, and I 

 have also had occasion to observe it, that country girls who come to 

 Paris to go to service, not unfrequently find that their menses are 

 stopped or considerably diminished. As the different periods are not 

 always alike in the same woman, as they are sometimes more abund- 

 ant or less so every second or third period, alternately, it is impossi- 

 ble to have any certain data on this subject. Again, as the blood 

 that flows from the organs can only be collected on cloths or in 

 vpater, it is manifest the observer must frequently make up an erro- 

 neous opinion, and that he ought to count upon obtaining merely ap- 

 proximative results. 



213. Nature. The minds of the ancient physiologists were 

 strongly exercised in regard to the catamenial blood. It is similar, 

 says Hippocrates, to that of a slaughtered animal; or again, accord- 

 ing to Aristotle, to that which flows from a simple wound. There 

 are now but few opponents of this system among medical men. But 

 very different ideas prevailed at Rome in the time of Pliny, and are 

 still very commonly upheld among the public. If we might believe 

 the celebrated Roman naturalist, the menstrual fluid, endowed with 

 the most noxious qualities, would be considered as a dangerous poison, 

 whose exhalations alone are sufficient to turn all the sauces of a whole 

 kitchen, the cheeses of a whole dairy, to make a whole family sick, and 

 wilt all the flowers of a parterre; travellers inform us that even now, 



