is not so, as
I will endeavor to show. The dominating reason which renders diseases of
women an exception to this rule may be mentioned here, however, so that
the reader will keep its supreme significance prominently in mind while
considering the subject in its various other aspects. "Diseases of
women" rank first as a eugenic problem. They have a direct and
far-reaching influence on posterity. They affect the environment of the
home and thereby the health and the efficiency of all concerned.

The diseases which form the basis of the statements in this article are
as follows: leucorrhea, displacements, or malpositions of the internal
organs; lacerations, ulcers, tumors, sexual incompetency, and the
venereal complications.

It is not possible or desirable to tabulate the symptoms which result
from these conditions. They would not convey to the average individual a
just picture or an intelligent summary of the life of a victim of these
ailments. An actual description of the life of a patient will be more
effective because it will depict the incidental domestic atmosphere in
which most of these patients live.

THE BEGINNING OF FEMALE DISEASE.--When a woman first begins to feel the
effects of so-called "female weakness" she is conscious of not feeling
"fit." She wonders what the matter is. She may not have actual pain at
this time, simply the consciousness that "she is not what she used to
be." Her work seems harder and more tedious, she worries without cause,
she begins the day with less energy and ambition than she used to, her
disposition is more uneven, more irritable and she tires easier and is
more willing to retire earlier than formerly. After a time she has more
or less undefined pains. It may be an occasional headache, or backache,
or she may have various severe neuralgic twinges. She gets nervous and
moody; her appetite is not good and she is troubled with constipation. A
little later, the general condition growing worse, her nervous system
suffers most. So she drifts into neurasthenia and has fits of crying and
periods of melancholia. She is more irritable, more impatient, more
dissatisfied with herself, her family, and her friends. She loses faith
in herself, in the future, and even in her religion, and she may
contemplate self-destruction.

There are thousands and thousands of just such women in the world, and
the pity is that many of them are mothers. It is surely self-evident
that these women must be fai