Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

The great boon that medical science will confer upon humanity, in the future, will not be so much in improved methods of treatment, as in the means and methods which medical science will devise for preventing disease. One ounce of prevention will always be worth a pound of cure. When we look back fifteen or twenty years, we must even now acknowledge that preventive medicine has accomplished greater results than curative measures, because the former can be made in the very nature of things absolute, while curative agents are only relative. Puerperal, or childbed fever, which is an infectious disease, was at times a pestilence, which destroyed women by the score, in maternity hospitals, or in certain neighborhoods, by the infection being carried by midwives or accoucheurs from house to house, yet no one had the least suspicion that it was possible to carry the germs of this disease under the fingernails of the attendant, or on the clothing or a syringe, or on some other little instrument, from one patient to another, and, indeed, there are a great many to-day who are practicing midwifery who are still ignorant of the importance of refined cleanliness.

But for this ignorance, there is no longer an excuse, because the infectiousness of this and other diseases is so positively established, and even the physical characteristics of the micro-organisms have become familiar to the microscopists. This knowledge of the causation of puerperal fever has been applied to the employment of preventive measures, so that this dreadful malady is becoming a rarity, particularly in countries where scrupulous care and cleanliness are enforced by governmental rules and regulations. I refer to this particular fever, because it is, to my mind, one of the most brilliant illustrations of the efficacy of preventive or antiseptic medicine.

There is a gynecological hygiene with which women should become familiar; it is based on the principle of antiseptic precautions applied to the daily lives of their sex. The object of this is to keep the body and reproductive organs that are exposed to contamination or infection from the outer world in the most refined and scrupulous cleanliness. The vaginal douche or syringe is as important an auxiliary to a refined woman’s toilet case as her tooth brush, because the cleanliness of the genitals is as essential to the preservation of health and comfort, as the possession of a sweet breath and the preservation of the teeth. I am therefore convinced of the hygienic value of familiarizing little children with washing or sponging their external genitals; in a few years this will have become second nature, and they are thus protected for all future time from contracting diseases which have their origin in personal uncleanness. It behooves mothers to avoid all delicacy on this subject, so that their little ones may grow up with the sentiment that to the pure in heart all things are pure. It is false modesty and ignorance which degenerate into vice and excesses; the scientific truth is always pure and holy, because it is based on reason, while abnormal delicacy is only emotional, and is quite likely to shoot into the other extreme, namely, licentiousness.

As the world grows wiser, the physiology of the reproductive organs should form a part of its wisdom, and in proportion to this knowledge, will their functions become questions of sense, instead of sentiment and nonsense.

The vagina is a membranous canal. It is situated in the cavity of the pelvis, below and behind the bladder, and in front and above the rectum. Its direction is curved from before backwards and a little upwards; its walls are flattened and ordinarily in contact with each other. Its length is about four inches along its anterior wall, and an inch or two longer along its posterior wall. In introducing a nozzle of a syringe it must always be remembered, that the tube is to be introduced directly backward on a horizontal plane with the body in the erect posture; by attempting to introduce it directly upwards, you meet with resistance from the anterior wall of the vagina.

In this cavity the secretion is susceptible of decomposition, owing to the accessibility of air laden with germs, which excite fermentation. A day or two after the cessation of the menstrual flow, there still lingers a little blood in the cavity of the vagina; this becoming infected with the germs in the vagina, a decomposition is the result, which is recognized by an offensive smell. The naturally soothing and harmless secretion is now changed into an acrid, irritating fluid, which not only may cause an inflammation of the membrane of the vagina, but also excoriate the skin at the orifice of the canal.

Leucorrhœa, or what is commonly called whites, is the most distressing symptom of this condition. In the course of months or in some instances a few years, the inflammation spreads from the vagina to the mouth and lining membrane of the uterus. Inflammation of the endometrium or lining of the womb will excite another complication, the so-called ulceration, but more correctly termed erosion. Who will deny the usefulness of any advice that will teach girls or women to avoid all these diseases? It is all contained in the simple phrase, Keep clean. Young girls must be taught by their mothers or guardians, not only the necessity of keeping the external genitals clean by daily ablutions, but a few days after menstruation, upon the slightest indication of offensiveness, she must resort to the employment of the vaginal douche or syringe, so as to wash out the seeds of disease, that are rapidly multiplying themselves, and if allowed to remain will entail the consequences to which I have already referred.

As an antiseptic wash, there is nothing so simple, efficacious and healing, as a solution of borax in previously boiled water, that has been allowed to cool to the proper temperature, which is between 103 and 106 degrees Fahr., one teaspoonful of the powdered article to the half gallon of water, to be used as a rinsing for each time.

Directions for administering vaginal douches will be given elsewhere. The proper time of the day for the employment of the wash is always at bedtime; and once or twice a week is quite often enough in the majority of instances.

Married women are more exposed to infectious contamination than single ones, because they are constantly liable to have infectious microbes introduced into the vagina during the ordinary course of marital relations. Men, as a rule, are neither cleanly nor careful in their habits, and approach their wives without any thought of serious consequences in their sexual relations. I had a married woman under treatment for an offensive discharge from her vagina which I traced to her husband, thence to a suppurating wound on his horse, which the husband had under his treatment. This can happen, of course, only through carelessness. By getting some of the matter or pus on the fingers, which incidentally contaminates his person, or not washing and brushing the finger nails, the husband may directly convey the infection to his wife, and thus inaugurate, unconsciously, an inflammation of the vagina, which becomes complicated, as the primary disease is neglected, leading to inflammation of the womb and ovaries, and often to abscesses, that compromise not only the health but the life of the sufferer.