Amenorrhoea is perhaps more common than menorrhagia. It often happens,
however, during the first critical epoch, which is isochronal with the
technical educational period of a girl, that after a few occasions of
catamenial hemorrhage, moderate perhaps but still hemorrhage, which
are not heeded, the conservative force of Nature steps in, and saves
the blood by arresting the function. In such instances, amenorrhoea is
a result of menorrhagia. In this way, and in others that we need not
stop to inquire into, the regimen of our schools, colleges, and social
life, that requires girls to walk, work, stand, study, recite, and
dance at all times as boys can and should, may shut the uterine
portals of the blood up, and keep poison in, as well as open them, and
let life out. Which of these two evils is worse in itself, and which
leaves the largest legacy of ills behind, it is difficult to say. Let
us examine some illustrations of this sort of arrest.
