Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

The first symptom that is generally perceived by the patient is a sense of heat and burning in the vaginal canal; this is also reflected in the neck of the bladder during micturition. As the disease develops, there is a constant desire to pass water frequently, and this becomes sometimes a prominent sign. A dull aching weight is felt between the vagina and rectum. After these have lasted for some days, an offensive discharge from the vagina ushers in the second stage, excoriating the skin around the vulva, and if the disease should spread itself to the neighboring organs, there is a violent throbbing pain in the whole pelvis.

Women who are suffering with acute painful vaginitis should take to bed; all pelvic diseases of any acuteness at all are treated at a great disadvantage when the patient is running around and on her feet. The disturbance in the circulation, the exposure to cold from cold floors or damp sidewalks, and the impossibility of preserving an equable temperature of the body, when out of bed, only aggravate the malady.

The vagina is to be douched several times a day with half gallon of warm water, in which a half teaspoonful or one tablet of Femina antiseptic uterine lotion has been dissolved, and when the canal is rinsed, a Femina vaginal capsule should be introduced, but only once a day, and that is preferable at bedtime. The feet and extremities should be kept warm, and in married women total continence should be observed while the slightest irritation and soreness exists. By the non-observance of this precaution, the best directed efforts will often be frustrated and many female diseases which are readily curable in the beginning become chronic, and a moment’s reflection ought to make this clear to any person of ordinary intelligence.

If there is the slightest suspicion that the disease is of a specific nature, the treatment must be antiseptic in its nature. Your physician should be reminded of the possible nature of the disease, for doctors as a rule are ignorant of the dangers that ordinarily accompany gonorrhœal infection.

Oppenheimer in Germany made experiments for testing the germicidal properties of various drugs on the specific germs of gonorrhœa, and he proved that a corrosive sublimate solution of 1 part to 20,000 will kill the gonococci. Corrosive sublimate is the corrosive chloride of mercury, one of the most powerful of the mineral poisons, and while it is perfectly safe in the dilutions that it is employed in, the greatest precaution must be constantly exercised to keep the drug isolated and out of the reach of children, especially the “antiseptic tablets,” of which mention will be made below, because little children and adults also might at first sight believe that they were candy.

I am accustomed to employ the corrosive sublimate much stronger than the Oppenheimer experiments demand, a practice which I base upon practical observations, while in the Berlin clinics, and that is in the proportion of 1 to 2,000. John Wyeth & Bro., of Philadelphia, and other manufacturing chemists, make compressed tablets or wafers, which are very convenient and easily handled by any person of average understanding. These are sold by the druggists in little wide-mouth bottles, properly labeled, so that the required strength, 1 to 2,000, is obtained by dissolving one or two according to their strength in a half gallon of warm water. Whenever gonorrhœa is suspected, the vagina should be thoroughly rinsed out several times a day with the corrosive solution. If the patient fears mercurial poisoning, the antiseptic irrigation can be followed by plain warm-water rinsings as a safe precaution against mercurial absorption.

CHRONIC CATARRH, LEUCORRHŒA OR WHITES.

An acute inflammation of the mucous membrane of any organ may drift into the chronic or subacute form, so that any of the causes which give rise to the acute variety are among those that are to be looked for in chronic catarrh. The general characteristics of catarrh are the same, whether acute or chronic or whether located in the nose, throat, bronchial tubes or vagina. This fact greatly simplifies the whole subject of catarrhal inflammations, so that the general reader will find no difficulty in acquiring the necessary information for successful home treatment of this very common class of diseases.

Chronic vaginal catarrh has been divided into two varieties, vaginal and uterine. The distinction depends upon its origin or complication. Vaginal catarrh has its origin in and is limited to the vaginal canal. I have already called attention to a purely physiological catarrh that accompanies the menstrual flow and which subsides with the cessation of the menses; in addition to this, there is probably no woman who goes through life without at some time during her natural existence having this disease or symptom. Often the discharge is so scant that it entirely escapes her notice, and not until it becomes annoying by its constancy and abundance do women seek assistance.