Menstruation (The Monthly Sickness)
Menstruation is often delayed beyond the period at which we have reason to expect it in healthy females, or when it does appear, it is frequently preceded by much suffering, and followed by hysterics and other complaints. Complaints attendant on the cessation of the menses are still more serious. These complaints are generally produced by diseases which existed previously, and can only be cured by the continued attendance of a homeopathic physician. Affections of this class frequently find their origin and support in the mode of living; we can often trace them to insufficiency of clothing which, especially in a variable climate like ours, is very injurious; many of the attendant complaints arise from other causes, which medicine alone can remove.
The age at which this function first makes its appearance, in temperate climates, is about the fifteenth year; though in some instances it occurs at a much earlier age, and in others again it is protracted several years later. In warm climates it generally appears as early as the ninth or tenth year, and in cold ones not often earlier than the twentieth.
The average duration of a menstrual period is about five days; it varies considerably, however, in different individuals, in some continuing for seven or eight days, and in others not more than two or three. It generally returns regularly in healthy females, every twenty-eight days, and usually continues until about the forty-fifth year, when its final cessation takes place, which is usually attended with a good deal of disturbance of the general health, as well as of
Irregularity of this function; hence this period of life has been called the “critical age,” or “change of life.”