The pangs of travail
are almost unknown to them. The cause of this has puzzled even
physicians. We can tell them. It is because it is an inviolable, a
sacred rule among all those tribes, for the woman, when having her
monthly sickness, to drop all work, absent herself from the lodge, and
remain in perfect rest as long as the discharge continues.

Traces of this wide-spread custom among primitive people, extended
themselves, are discoverable among civilized lands. The famous general
council of the Christian Church held at Nice in the fourth century,
passed a rule disapproving of women coming to church at the times of
their menstrual sickness. The cold and dampness of large edifices, the
mental excitement and its unfavourable effects and the exertion
requisite for long walks to and fro, would justify this rule on purely
hygienic grounds, and such may have caused its adoption.

A moderate and uniform temperature favors health at such epochs; while
exposure to heat or cold, and the drinking freely of iced water or
stimulants should be shunned.

The popular belief that bathing is hurtful, is correct so far as either
cold or hot baths are concerned; but it is well to know, in the
interests of comfort and cleanliness, that a moderately warm-bath, about
80 deg. Fahr., _will do no injury_. Such a bath can be taken without any
hesitation.

We sanction, also, another well-known rule, and that is, that no
purgative medicine should be taken immediately before or during the
change. If called for by some other disorder, a mild laxative is all
that should be administered, unless by the direction of a physician.

PRECAUTIONS IN THE INTERVALS OF THE MONTHLY CHANGES.

If girls suffer from irregularities in this respect, the causes can
generally be found either in some affection threatening the general
health, such as scrofula, consumption, green sickness, etc., or else in
their mode of life. For the former, the family physician must be
consulted; but if it is the latter which is at fault, the remedy is in
the hands of the parents.

Boarding-school life, city life, mental troubles--these are the three
fertile sources of disturbances in the sexual functions of girlhood.

No one rates at higher value than ourselves the training of the mind;
but we do not hesitate a moment to urge that if perturbations of the
functions become at all marked in a girl at school, she should be _taken
away_. Better live at home in seeming idleness a ye