The education and general habits of our present social condition too frequently produce such a pressure upon life that its successive stages are hurried through, and the testes and peculiarities of one period are anticipated in that which should precede it. Thus, mere boys in age and physical development become young men, and girls young women, before they leave school. Such is the precociousness which the habits and fashions of the present generation engender.
On the other hand, regular healthy occupation of both the body and the mind; the daily use of cold baths, or cold sponging over the entire surface of the body; free exercise in the open air; cool, well-ventilated rooms; plain, digestive diet, and abstinence from hot tea, coffee, and alcoholic stimulants, tend to the healthy and highest development of the female form and constitution.
SUDDEN MENSTRUATION. – It is not always, however, that this function advances gradually and in harmony, with the changes described. Menstruation may occur for the first time prematurely, and be caused by a several fall, violent jumping, great mental emotion, etc. In such cases there may be a considerable flow, amounting in some instances to absolute flooding, and lasting for several days. It is important that these facts should be known by mothers, so that in sudden and extreme instances they may not only maintain their own composure, and inspire it in others, but efficiently carry out the following important.-
TREATMENT – A few doses of Aconitum, if resulting from mental emotions, or of Arnica, if occasioned by injury or severe physical exertion, together with rest in the recumbent posture, light covering, a cool and well ventilated apartment, and cool drinks, will often be sufficient to modify the discharge; but if they should not do so, they will at least suitably precede the application of the more detailed treatment suggested in subsequent parts of the Manual, and prepare the way for the attendance of a homoeopathic practitioner if required.
In other cases, the occurrence of the menses may be long delayed, and the delay attended with excessive languor, drowsiness, periodic sickness, fretfulness, irritability or frequent change of temper, violent pain in the head or along the spine and in the region of the bowels, a feeling of weight or fulness in the pelvic region, with bearing-down or dragging sensation, tenderness or heat; and these symptoms may alternate with feverish reaction, with nervous symptoms, or even with spasms. The local symptoms, and their periodicity, are the most characteristic.
The establishment of menstruation is sometimes accompanied by derangements of the venous, digestive, or lymphatic system, and unless these are successfully treated at the period they may be present, in a greater or less degree, during every subsequent recurrence of the menstrual discharge.
If the catamenial function be well and healthily established, new impulses will be given to every nerve and organ, and the system will acquire superior forces for resisting influences adverse to health. But carelessness, or constitutional delicacy, may render this period extremely dangerous by the propagation of new forms of disease, or by the development of any latent germs of disorder which have existed from birth. Hence the first appearance of the menses should be looked for with some care and anxiety on the part of the mother or guardian, and when it is long retarded, the general health disturbed, and the remedies suggested in this work appear inoperative in developing the desire change, professional advice should be sought without delay. False delicacy and improper treatment have needlessly undermined the health of thousands.
The mother should, for some months at least, keep an account of dates and other particulars, and prevent all unusual exposure for a few days before the expected flow, such as not night air, damp linen, thin dress, wet feet, balls, and evening entertainments. When the function has once become healthily established, it is satisfactory to know that extreme precautions need no longer be observed.
8. – DELAY OF THE FIRST MENSTRUATION (Amenorrhoea)
DEFINITION. – The term Amenorrhoea is used to describe absence of the menstrual discharge, and is usually considered under three divisions, – namely, (1) Emansio mensium, delay of the menses, although the person has attained the proper age; (2) Suppressio mensium, in which they have appeared, but, as the consequence of cold or some other cause, are arrested; and (3) Retentio mensium, in which they accumulate in the uterus and vagina, from what is technically termed imperforate hymen; or more frequently, from occlusion of the vagina by the healing of ulcers, in consequence of sloughing after difficult labours. This condition usually requires surgical measures for its relief.
This Section is devoted to the first form, or Delayed menstruation. As before stated, the period at which the “change” first takes place varies in difficult constitutions, climates, and under different circumstances, and no active medicinal means should be used so long as the health continues good. Emmenagogues, or forcing medicines, such as herb-tea, and other allopathic expedients, must be entirely and imperatively eschewed.
SYMPTOMS – When all the external signs of womanhood have appeared, but without menstruation, there are aching, fulness and heaviness of the head, bleeding from the nose, palpitation of the heart, shortness of breath on slight exertion, weariness of the limb, pains in the small-of-the-back, in the lower part of the bowels, and down the inside of the thighs-and these symptoms may be regarded as so many indications that nature is seeking to establish this important function, and that the administration of one or more of the following medicines according to the indications present may be called for.
CAUSES – It is important, first of all, that the cause should, if possible, be definitely ascertained. The immediate cause is probably an inability of the nervous centres to stimulate the ovaries. Delay of the menses from this cause rarely occurs in healthy and vigorous persons, but usually follows as a consequence of original delicacy of constitution, or of some long-standing affection. The very common notion that a patient suffers because she does not menstruate is very fallacious. Except of Retentio mensium, the patient does not suffer from an accumulation. Hence the impropriety of giving forcing medicines, which is frequently done, often to the permanent injury of the, as yet, imperfectly developed organs. We have known instances of extreme periodic suffering, continued for many years, traceable to this injurious treatment. In many cases, too, it will be found that the disturbances supposed to be due to delayed menstruation really arise from the patient having taken too little, or innutritious food, or from her habits having been too sedentary or artificial, or from too little out-of-door air and exercise; or, in brief, from her being subjected to influences inimical to her general good health, during a critical period of her physical development.
Tardy menstruation is especially significant in those girls who are predisposed to any form of Consumption. In this class of person it implies a depraved habit of body in which the menses may not appear at all, or in which a vicarious flow of blood is very apt to take place from one or another of the mucous surface, more especially from those which line the respiratory passages. If the young girl who has not menstruated, although she may be fourteen or fifteen years of age, has a cough or difficulty of breathing, a sore throat, hoarseness, or pain in her side, it should be taken as a symptom of ill-health, and measures immediately instituted for its relief. The quaint old rule should, however, not be lost sight of: “she is not sick because she does not menstruate because she is sick.” – Ludlam.
TREATMENT – If no congenital deformity or mechanical obstruction exist, the delay being evidently due to constitutional causes, one of the following remedies, the most important of which are Cyclamen, Ferrum, Pulsatilla, and Sepia, together with the accessory measures afterwards referred to, may be expected to be successful.
EPITOME OF MEDICINAL TREATMENT :-
1. For the constitutional Condition. – Calcarea carb., Calc-Phosphorus, Cyclamen, Ferrum, Phosphorus, Sepia, Sulphur
2. For Indigestion – Bryonia, Lycopodium, Nux., Pulsatilla, Sulphur
3. Consumptive Tendency – Calcarea, Phosphorus, Phosphorus
4. Anaemic Patients – China, Ferrum, Helonias, Natrum muriaticum
5. Various other Conditions – Aconite (disturbed circulation); Belladonna, Sepia (Headache); Cim. (Pain in left side; rheumatic tendency).
LEADING INDICATIONS FOR THE PRINCIPAL REMEDIES. –
Arsenicum. Poor appetite: great prostration and emaciation; swelling of the ankles, feet, or face, and corrosive leucorrhoea.
Bryonia. Bleeding from the nose, or spitting of blood instead of the menstrual discharge; hard, dry cough, stitches in the chest, constipation, and muscular rheumatism.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."