ffective for cleanliness, and
also for the reduction of congestion. If you have no sitz bath-tub,
an ordinary wash-tub can be made to answer by raising one side an inch
or two by means of some support. Have the water at a comfortable
temperature, say about 98 degrees, and if you have no thermometer you
can gauge the heat by putting in three gallons of cold water and add
one gallon of boiling water. Sit down in the tub and cover yourself
with a blanket. In about ten minutes add by degrees a gallon of cold
water. Remain sitting a minute or two longer, then rub dry.

Many people are afraid to use cold water after hot, in bathing, for
fear they will take cold, but that is just the way to prevent such a
result from the hot bath. The hot water has caused all the pores on
the surface of the body to open, and the bodily heat is rapidly lost
through this cause. The cold water, quickly applied, causes the pores
to close, leaves the skin in a tonic condition, and conserves the
bodily heat. One should never take a hot bath without following it
with a _quick_ cold application to the surface. It should continue,
however, but for a moment.

This kind of a bath is very useful for all chronic congestions of the
abdominal and pelvic viscera, such as piles, constipation, painful
menstruation, leucorrhea, or other affections of the reproductive
organs. It is also very helpful in headaches due to congestion of the
brain. If there is too little blood in the brain it might produce
wakefulness, but when the brain is too full of blood this bath tends
to produce sound and refreshing sleep.

A foot bath may be taken at the same time as the sitz bath, and in
this case the water should be warmer than that in the sitz bath, and
as the person rises from the sitz bath she should step into it, so
that her feet will get the tonic effect of the cold water.

The average age at which menstruation first appears is fourteen, but
some girls menstruate as early as eleven, while others may not develop
till some years later. Frequently, when the girl does not manifest
this symptom of womanly development, the mother becomes anxious and
begins to give forcing medicines. She knows that girls often die with
consumption in their early young womanhood, and has heard that it was
because they did not physically develop, and she fears that such
danger threatens her daughter, and imagines that if something can be
done to "bring on her courses," as she expresses it, th