486 



require for them a new emunctory ? Bat is not this taking the effect for 

 the cause ? Does not this smaller quantity of fluids, proceeding from the 

 blood, arise from the purification which the blood undergoes in the ute- 

 rus ? Let it be remarked, in the mean time, that this periodical discharge 

 seems to exempt the sex from many inconveniences, from which our's 

 suffers ; such as gout, stone and gravel, so unfrequent with them, and so 

 common with us. Nor con we avoid recognizing, in this discharge, a 

 utility relative to conception; does it not seem to dispose the uterus to 

 that function*? (CCIV.) - Was it not requisite that this organ should be 

 accustomed to receive a great quantity of blood, that pregnancy, which 

 calls for this afflux, might not be injured, by bringing on a sudden cahnge 

 in the system, and the whole of the vital functions. 



Menstruation is suspended during pregnancy: it is so during the first 

 month of suckling ; though this rule admits of many exceptions. Its 

 cessation, in our climate, is from the fortieth to the fiftieth year some- 

 times before, seldom later; though 1 have now before me the instance of 

 a woman of seventy, who has not yet ceased jto menstruate; a fact, which, 

 after all, is nothing more surprising, than that of menstruation beginning 

 at an early period of life. When menstruation ceases, the breasts col- 

 lapse, plumpness goes off, and the skin shrivels, and loses its softness, 

 colour, and suppleness. This cessation is the cause of a great many dis- 

 eases which break out, at this season of life, called the turn of life, and 

 are fatal to many women; but then, it is observed, that when this period 

 is past, their life is more secure, with more hope of prolonging it than a 

 man has, at the same age. 



CCXXX. Of manhood. To youth succeeds manhood : which may 

 be considered as beginning from the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth year. 

 Then, all increase of the body, in height, is at an end. The processes 

 are completely united to the body of the bones; but still, growth goes on 

 in other dimensions. All the organs acquire remarkable hardness, so- 

 lidity, and consistency. It Is the same with the intellectual and moral fa- 

 culties. To the empire of imagination, succeeds that of judgment. 

 Man is capable of fulfilling all the duties of family and society. This 

 period of life, to which we give the name of mature age, extends to the 

 fiftieth or fifty-fifth year for men: it scarcely goes beyond the forty-fifth 

 for women, with whom it begins also a little sooner. During this long 

 interval, men enjoy the whole plentitude of their existence. 



Although, in general, it is not difficult to distinguish, at first sight, 

 a man of twenty-five, from one of fifty, the differences which mark them, 

 depending on the quantity and colour of their hair, and on their muscu- 

 lar strength, are neither many nor very essential. 



Let us avail ourselves of this age, during which the characters of the 

 human species, merely sketched, in childhood and youth, take a more 

 defined and lasting form, to trace the features of individuals and of 

 races. 



CCXXXL Of temperaments and idiosyncrasies. We give the name 

 of temperaments to certain moral and physical differences in men, which 

 depend on the various proportions and relations among the parts that make 

 up their organization, as well as upon different degrees, in the relative 



* The greater part of the female quadrupeds have the parts of generation batbetl in 

 a reddish Jymph, during 1 the time of being" in heat. Author's JVotev 



