EFFECTS OF WATER-TREATMENT.
There is one remarkable fact concerning the effects of water-treatment, as affecting menstruation, which should here be spoken of. Where a vigorous course of hydropathy is practiced for chronic disease, the menstrual function, in some cases, ceases for months, and even a whole year or more. I had first to learn this fact for myself, no other practitioner ever having promulgated the doctrine, so far as I know. And it is a remarkable fact, that in such cases no injury arises from the circumstance; but the individual’s health grows, month by month, in all respects better. No inconvenience is experienced from the suppression, nor need the slightest alarm be felt. The probable reason why menstruation thus ceases is, that a vigorous action of the skin is caused by the water process; elimination, or the throwing off of the waste, morbid, and impure matters, is made to go on so rapidly and vigorously, that there is no need of the purification of menstruation at the time. This doctrine, however, is conjecture and mere speculation, and one that does not appear to be susceptible of positive proof. That the occurrence does takes place, and that women have, at the same time, been remarkably benefited in health; cured, as we may say, of long-standing and most obstinate chronic diseases, we know to be a fact.
But whenever retention of the menses occurs, and is not caused by pregnancy, or by the age of the individual, at which the function ceases naturally, or by a course of water-treatment, we are to suspect some derangement of the general health. This is a natural function, and if we find it ceasing when it ought to go on, we may safely conclude, that the efforts of nature are by some means thwarted; otherwise she would do her work.