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Updated: June 10, 2025
Believing menstruation to be the natural means of exit of the feminine bodily impurities, the ancients always thought a menstruating woman was to be shunned; her very presence was deleterious to the whole animal economy, as, for instance, among the older writers we find that Pliny remarks: "On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grass withers away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits."
Amongst the Maoris, if a man touched a menstruous woman, he would be taboo 'an inch thick. An Australian black fellow, who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her, and died of terror himself within a fortnight. In Uganda the pots which a woman touches while the impurity of childbirth or menstruation is on her, are destroyed.
Scanty menstruation is often seen to occur in fevers, in the later stages of consumption, in advanced Bright's disease, in malaria, or in any other very serious disease. In these cases it seems to be a conservative process on the part of nature in the run-down state of the system.
If, therefore, small bits of this tissue are removed and studied under the microscope, a definite conclusion can be reached. Physicians may resort to such an examination when the significance of a discharge is not clear without it; but other evidence usually enables them to decide the matter. The secretion of milk often exerts an influence upon the reestablishment of menstruation.
Without them, below a certain minimum, the reproductive organs and their secretions will remain infantile, causing a persistent infantilism or delay of puberty. Formerly there was ascribed to the ovaries, in a lump and without qualification, an absolute despotism over the specifically feminine functions of menstruation, gestation, parturition, and lactation.
In pregnancy these are needed for building the skeleton of the foetus, and at delivery go to the breasts to assist in lactation. Bell states that there is a noticeable connection between early menstruation and short stature, and vice versa.
For three days she remains shut up in a dark room, and has to undergo certain penances. Fish, flesh, and sweetmeats are forbidden her; she must live upon rice and ghee. Among the Tiyans of Malabar a girl is thought to be polluted for four days from the beginning of her first menstruation.
In a very small separate group the physical and mental functions were stronger during this period, but in half of these cases there was distinct disturbance during the intermenstrual period. Tobler concludes that, while menstruation itself is physiological, all these disturbances are pathological.
The menses appeared at the fifteenth year, lasted eight days, with great loss of blood, but there was no subsequent menstruation, and no vicarious hemorrhage. Afterward the right half of the face became red for three or four weeks, with a disturbance of the sensibility of this part, including the right half of the mucosa of the mouth and the conjunctive of the right eye.
Disease and debility are thus propagated from one generation to another and the American race becomes woefully deteriorated. TIME. Menstruation in this country usually commences at the ages of from thirteen to sixteen, sometimes earlier; occasionally as early as eleven or twelve; at other times later, and not until a girl be seventeen or eighteen years of age.
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