Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

CHAPTER IX.

MENSTRUATION AND MENSTRUAL DISORDERS.

The first appearance of the menses marks an epoch in the life of the girl which ushers in womanhood. It is the harbinger of the fruitfulness of the maiden, whose limbs now become rounder, and her hips widen out, while the breasts increase in size and the entire aspect undergoes peculiar changes, which all point to the approaching condition of maturity.

The term is derived from the Latin plural menses, meaning month, from moon, and it is an actual fact that the lunar forces seem to influence this physiological function, inasmuch as it recurs every four weeks; most women menstruate during the first quarter, and only a very few during the new or full moon.

During infancy and childhood, the sexual system of the female is inactive. The menstruation begins, in a temperate climate, about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of life, and ceases at the age of forty-five or a little later.

The climate exerts a marked influence in determinating the first appearance of menstruation, which is further influenced by the conditions of life and society in which the child is brought up.

The diversity in the ages at which children menstruate in different countries cannot be laid to any constitutional peculiarities of the races. Observation has established that, when children of the same race and family are brought from a hot to a colder climate, the advent of the first menstruation changes. These girls menstruate not so young as their older sisters, but begin about at the same age as those who are born in the colder climate.

In hot countries, for instance in Africa, the negroes and girls in East India begin to have their periods at the age of ten to twelve years. In Sweden and Norway the average age for the first menstruation is sixteen, while further north, in Lapland, the ages vary from eighteen to twenty years. Next in order of importance, influencing the menstrual epoch, are the surroundings and food.

In the same climate there are differences in the ages of children that are entirely due to these causes. Children who are pampered and who are nurtured in ease and luxury menstruate earlier than those of the poor or even of the middle class, who are brought up in habits of industry.