What the Woman With Female Disease Should Do.—To those wives who are suffering with "female weakness," or who are in poor health without apparent or known cause, I would strongly advise a visit to their family physician or to an expert in diseases of women. Tell him exactly how you feel and submit to a thorough examination. Most of the diseases of women are readily curable, and if treated right all the symptoms which have rendered life miserable will disappear. It may be stated with the strongest emphasis, however, that no treatment from an advertising concern, or any patent medicine ever made, will in any sense cure any of these ailments. Every cent invested in any of these nostrums is money wasted. Medicine by the mouth is never necessary to affect a cure of the actual ailment. A physician will doubtless prescribe a tonic for your general rundown condition. But even this would totally fail if the cause of the ill health was not removed, and this necessitates an examination and special local treatment. For any advertising concern to assert that it can tell what ails a patient by simply filling out a symptom blank is utter nonsense. It is worse. It is obtaining money under false pretenses, and should be punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for a long term.
CANCER IN WOMEN
My only object in referring to this disease is to direct the attention of women to its symptoms.
The only cure for cancer at the present time is the knife. If the disease can be reached it can be cured, if taken in hand early.
In women, cancer occurs most frequently in the breast and in the womb.
Cancer of the Breast.—Of all the tumors which affect the breast, cancer is the most frequent. Any tumor in the breast of a woman forty years of age or more is quite likely to be a cancer. A tumor (or lump) which has remained small for years and then begins to grow rapidly has changed its type and become cancerous. Many such tumors change in this way during the "change of life." Any tumor of the breast, at any age, which remains despite effort to dissipate it should be removed by operation. A physician is not justified in assuring a woman that a lump in the breast is harmless. It should be cut into and examined to positively decide its character. Early operation of tumors of the breast has greatly reduced the percentage of deaths from cancer.
Cancer of the Womb.—Occasional slight hemorrhages becoming more frequent, and later more abundant and offensive, constitute one of the first symptoms of cancer of the womb. Between the actual bleedings there is a discharge resembling dish-water. This discharge has a foul odor. Pain is as a rule a late symptom. Sometimes a severe pain extending into the hip or abdomen is an early symptom but it is very infrequent. Every woman over thirty who has a persistent leucorrhea, or any irregularity of the menstrual function, should be examined for cancer.
What Every Woman Should Know About Cancer.—Inasmuch as cancer is curable if taken early, every woman should take steps to be on the safe side.
If cancer is not taken early, it is certain death. A very large number die who could have been saved.
Every lump in the breast should be positively diagnosed by cutting into it and examining it. It would be safer to remove every tumor of the breast at an early date.