The patient of B. de B., who has been already mentioned, agreed to allow a portion of menstrual fluid to be collected in such a manner as to prevent any admixture of vaginal mucus. This was done, as I said, by adjusting the mouth of a speculum uteri upon the cylinder of the cervix. The fluid passing through the tube was collected from the other end. It yielded to the one hundred parts of

Rindskopf (vide Simon's Chemistry of Man, 337), found the

Dr. Letheby, Lancet, May 2, 1845, analyzed menstrual fluid

delivered from an imperforate hymen. It contained

Now that I have laid before you these statements of analysis both of pure blood, and of the fluid of the catamenia, I leave you to judge whether the menstrual discharge is a mensual hemorrhage or a menstrual secretion. I presume you will feel inclined to look upon it as a periodical hemorrhage, like a periodical epistaxis, exhibiting modified appearances according to the quantity of epithelial scales and mucus that happens to be combined with it. For my part, I follow Madame Boivin, and I prefer her au- » thority even to that of the chemists and micrographers. I beg leave to repeat that although, in the course of a long practice, a physician does meet with occasions, where, upon some difficult diagnosis, he must ask the privilege to examine the napkin, it remains true that a woman in health never calls in the doctor upon that point at least, and that when he does find a necessity to examine it, there is disorder or suspicion of disorder. Wherever you shall see it, you are to suspect its quality to be abnormal.

Now that I have laid before you the analysis, and shown you what the material is, and hinted at the difficulty of examining it, I hope you will allow me to say a few words that are germain to those hints, and will not much interrupt the regular course of our studies of the subject. I wish you again to consider how difficult it is for us to be sure that such portions as we see are not diseased, or at least abnormal specimens. Let me beg you, in order to show how modest women are upon this subject to remark, that while in this populous city, of more than 250,000 souls, half of whom are females, multitudes of them thronging the streets and the markets, you never saw one of them, no, not one, who allowed a single drop to stain her stocking, or spot the thin dress that she wore. You never met with such an horreur at the cotillon party, nor with those who waltz or move in the Polka or Cachuca. I know not how I could give you a more striking proof of the regard, the respect, I was going to say the superstitious veneration, with which the sex observe all the obligations of a perfect convenance on this subject. The fact is, that the sex have learned by a time-honored tradition handed down through the mass of mind from age to age, that their life, health, comfort, fruitfulness, and beauty, have a strong alliance with, and dependence upon this office. It has become, therefore, a public sentiment—a female vox populi-vox dei, that commands it to be respected. Take good heed, then, that you always treat it with respect in your con

versations, inquiries and directions addressed to your patients and their friends and nurses.

If I had time, I could give you an account of many superstitious observances and opinions relative to the catamenia that still linger even among some of the better informed people. To show you how ancient is the respect with which it is still regarded, you should advert to the story of Jacob and Laban. You remember that when Jacob fled with his beloved Rachel, they carried off a part of the worthy father-in-law's images.

In the 31st chapter of Genesis, the story is told in the following words:"And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey; and they overtook him in the Mount of Gilead. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the Mount, and Laban with his brethren pitched in the Mount of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, what hast thou done, &c., &c.-yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? And Laban went into Jacob's tent, and into the two maid servants' tent, but he found them not. Then went he out of Leah's tent and entered into Rachel's tent. Now Rachel had taken the images and put them in the camel's furniture and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent but found them not. And she said unto her father, let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me," &c. Here you see at how ancient a period it was a custom of women to be unwell-and what is more, you see a man who, with an armed force, had pursued his runaway family for seven days' journey, manifestly with the most violent anger, and eagerness to recover his idols. Yet, for the simple words, custom of women, he went out of the tent without making the lady violate the convenances belonging to her sexual custom. If she had not made this pretence, do you doubt that he would have dragged her from her seat to find the precious gods in whom he put his trust!

The Hebrew Lawgiver doomed every Israelitish man to death that should lie with a woman at such conjuncture.

The 15th chapter of the 7th book of Pliny, contains the following passage, showing what impression existed as to this discharge among a polished people. "But woman is the only menstrual animal; (solum animal menstruale,) and therefore the only one whose womb produces what is called a mole. A mole is an

amorphous mass of inanimate flesh, which can neither be cut with the edge, nor pierced with the point of a knife."

"There is, perhaps, nothing in the world more monstrous than the menstrual fluid. Wine turns sour in its presence; seeds, when touched with it, lose their germinative power; hedges die; and seeds planted in a garden where it falls are burned up in the ground. If a woman with the menses sits upon a tree, its fruit falls. Mirrors lose their polish, knives their edge, and ivory its brightness by its contact. Bees perish in their hives, and brass and iron are seized with sudden rust, and acquire a horrid odor if touched with the fluid. A dog that tastes it goes mad, and his bite is mortal," &c. The 7th chapter of his 28th book contains very copious details of the superstitious notions held concerning the menstrua centuries ago.

The periodical discharge is an indispensable attribute of the sex-I mean the healthful part of them; and no faith is to be given to the idle reports of travelers, who pretend that certain nations or tribes in the interior regions of South America are devoid of it. Nor is greater regard due to the oft-quoted notion of Roussel, that the habit of this discharge is not a natural one, but one acquired in past ages, and now become a settled and regular attribute. Roussel is celebrated chiefly for his small volume, entitled, Système Physique et Morale de la Femme, a work praised greatly beyond its deserts, although it must be admitted to be written in a very pleasing style. In Chap. II., of the second part, where he alludes to the hemorrhagies, by means of which men escape from the evils with which they are menaced in the shape of rheumatism, hypochondriasm, gout, and apoplexy, &c., he proceeds as follows:

"Women, from their sedentary and inactive mode of life, are less able to avoid them: the nature of their occupations favors the superabundance of humors which they possess in common with the male, instead of diminishing them, as is the case with the avocations of men; but then they have an excretory organ, by means of which they can be freed from the superabundant, and thereby hurtful humors. Animals that are not withdrawn from the empire of nature's laws, and who act under the guidance of instinct, have no need of this resource; they are not, like men, liable to hemorrhagies, nor, in consequence of such liability, to the morbific affections which they serve to introduce. These hemorrhagies have

become a necessary function, intimately connected with the human constitution; so that, in the present state of things, a woman is born with a tendency to have her menses at a certain age, as she is born with a tendency to take the small-pox; for we can contract a new necessity as we can contract a new malady. Were it possible to review all the changes through which the human race have passed since their origin, we should, perhaps, discover that they have not been always the subjects of the same necessities, the same functions, and the same diseases as at the present day. Having once contracted some vice of the constitution, or some new disease, which, beyond doubt, happens in all the species of animals, such vice, or such diseases, are transmitted from generation to generation, and are perpetuated until some contrary cause arises to destroy them. This is the reason why races degenerate, and become changed in the lapse of ages. Thus the menstrual evacuation, being once introduced into the species, is communicated by an uninterrupted filiation, so that we might say that a woman has her courses at the present era solely because her mother had them, just as she would have been consumptive if her mother had been so. And further, she may be subject to the menstrua even though the primitive cause that established this necessity of the female no longer subsists in her constitution. In fact, many women are regular who are not subject to plethora, nor a surcharge of humors. In these women the menstrual flow depends solely upon the habitual direction of nature's movements, like the periodical hemorrhagies that occur in men whose constitutions are already exhausted."

Such are the views of the celebrated Roussel. You will readily perceive that if such modifications of the human nature, as he therein supposes to be possible, can actually take effect, there are no bounds to be set to the range of modifications possible; and that, if Roussel's views are just, then the doctrines of the "Vestiges of Creation" are equally true, as to the gradual evolution of new specific and generic forms of creatures.

It is not to be believed that Roussel would have entertained the opinion if he could have been acquainted with the functions of the ovaries, and the history of the early stages of the reproductive

act.

Having already drawn out this letter to a considerable length, I shall adjourn to the next a further consideration of the subject. I am, &c., C. D. M.