until, to their sorrow, they discovered the unwelcome truth. This membrane may be destroyed by accidents of various kinds, also disease; precipitation in the consummation of the marriage rites often causes exquisite pain, contusion and laceration of the parts; these evils result in many instances from the gratification of sexual desire, at all events it cannot be the effect of inordinate affection.

Mothers should never permit young inexperienced females to be married immediately before or after menstrual discharge; if just before this period, much distress and annoyance might be caused to a delicate woman; and if within a few hours after the menses have passed off, the parts may be so relaxed by the discharge as to give rise to suspicions by no means favourable to the reputation of the woman, nay, it might be the means of embittering matrimonial happiness. The female should be cautioned, when retiring on the bridal night, to lubricate the sexual organs with some emollient, as oil of almonds, cold cream, or white of eggs; by such simple means much pain may be avoided. These remarks may be deemed unnecessary, but as I have pledged myself to notice every fact worth recording, I shall not shrink from

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the task. The only disease to which the hymen is liable is imperforation, in consequence of which the menses are retained, the womb becomes distended, and pains are produced resembling those of labour, especially about the menstrual period; such a case, by an inexperienced person, might be mistaken for pregnancy, and the woman's character thereby be endangered. The sufferings on these occasions are frequently aggravated by retention of urine, and pain in evacuating the bowels, which may induce convulsions and other severe disturbances of the system. Imperforate Hymen is by no means uncommon; the treatment is perfectly simple and safe, the part being readily divided; the patient has not unfrequently been her own operator; the membrane has occasionally been found so firm as to prevent the consummation of marriage, this may be also remedied by a trifling surgical operation.

DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS. DISORDERS of these organs are few and rare in the female, owing, possibly, to the greater simplicity in their structure than in men. Stone is seldom found, when it does occur, it requires no formidable opera

tion, and is never attended with those dreadful sufferings so frequently met with amongst the opposite sex. Retention of urine, the most frequent affection, is generally an attendant on pregnancy, or from sympathy produced by the presence of some other af fection; when it takes place, besides inaking use of emollient fomentations, enemas, and mild aperients, the patient should drink freely of some bland fluid, as barley-water, gruel, or linseed-tea, in which a little sweet spirits of nitre are to be introduced; a pill, containing from a quarter to half a grain of opium, or the third of a grain of muriate of morphia, may be administered at bed-time. In some cases it may be requisite to introduce an instrument called a catheter to draw off the urine, and whenever this is necessary may be done without difficulty, pain, or exposure of the woman's person, provided it is performed by an experienced practitioner; the instrument should have a bladder (which has been previously soaked in water) attached to one end, and the other, well oiled, is to be introduced under the bed-clothes, and carefully passed into the bladder. Occasionally, after a protracted or severe labour, the woman may, for a short time, experience a difficulty in retaining her water; should it

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not pass off as the parts regain their tone, from ten to fifteen drops of the tincture of Spanish flies administered in barley-water, night and morning, and the use of any cold application to the parts by means of the bidet, will soon effect a cure. The urine of those who live moderately and use regular exercise, if examined in the morning, after rising from a quiet repose, is thin, clear, of a straw colour, inclining to yellow, with a white, light, and uniform sediment rising in the middle, makes no froth but what immediately disappears, and has no disagreeable odour; when it corresponds to this description, it is symptomatic of a good digestion and a healthy state of the system; the quantity of this secretion depends on the constitution, diet, fluids drank during the day, season of the year, and weather. It is less in warm than in cold climates, on account of the increase of perspiration, both sensible and insensible; in winter more urine is passed than during summer; according to the higher or more faint colour of this secretion in an ordinary state of health, the body may be considered as being more or less vigorous; if after long standing no sediment be deposited, great debility is indicated. It is less dangerous to suppress evacuations by the bowels than by

urine; many maladies may arise from too little being voided, and though the quantity through the day cannot be exactly confined to rule, it ought always to be proportioned to the quantity of fluid drank, on an average, from thirty-two ounces to forty are voided in twenty-four hours. Women are able to retain it

longer than men, without suffering inconvenience; should it deposit a sediment resembling brickdust, we may suspect that the digestive organs are in a disordered state; and when this occurs, the tongue, on first waking in the morning, will be found white, with a yellowish tint, covered with a viscous matter.

STERILITY OR BARRENNESS

Is an inability to conceive offspring from an imperfection or abolition of the conceptive power; in many instances this arises from direct imbecility, or want of tone, rather than absence of desire. The causes are, a life of intemperance of any kind, especially indulgence in sexual pleasures, a long debilitating course of whites, injury done to the loins by falls, blows, violent exertions in walking, dancing, &c., &c. Sometimes there is a paralytic affection of the generative organs, organic structural defects; the vagina may be