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Read an early report about the advantages of and misconceptions about menstrual tampons.
Washable pads | Underpants & panties directory | Tampon directory | Patent medicine |
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CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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Words and expressions about menstruation |
Would you stop menstruating if you could? |
What did women do about menstruation in the past? |
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Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site.
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.


MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH

What is menstruation?
"Status of Menstruation"
by Dr. E. C. Gehrung
From Medical News, June 22, 1901, about the proceedings of the
26th meeting of the American Gynecological Society, May 30 - June 1, 1901.

"Pathologic waste of the very essence of life"
(wrote Dr. Gehrung)

Why do women menstruate? People have wondered at least since the time of the ancient Greeks and certainly before then. Only in the past 100 years or so has the connection between the endocrine and reproductive systems provided the answer.

A Dr. Gehrung, in 1901, read a paper to the American Gynecological Society, saying that menstruation was "brought about by the necessities and results of the social, moral, and connubial life of mankind, as well as through the transmission by inheritance of certain debilities of the generative apparatus, and more especially by the erect posture and its natural consequences, assumed by the human species." Whoa! Sounds like an angry man!

The doctor recommended vaginal tampons to stop the bleeding in cases where the woman has "depressed vitality." But a tampon would either (rarely) dam the bleeding or absorb it, not stop it from happening at all (more about this).

A debate using similar words happens today here.

I thank the kind donor!

Below: Today's definition of menorrhagia is excessive and prolonged menstrual bleeding rather than just menstrual bleeding, which is the way the writer seems to use it.
In the third sentence from the bottom you see "secundum artem," which is Latin for "according to the accepted practice."
Commercial menstrual tampons women could buy in a store almost certainly didn't exist in 1901 but commercial pads did, both disposable and reusable. Commercial tampons seem to have appeared in the late 1920s or early 1930s.
Read an early report about the advantages of and misconceptions about menstrual tampons.
End | Washable pads | Underpants & panties directory | Tampon directory | Patent medicine |
Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory | Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |

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