The Sexual Question in Women

"Now that woman has left the life of idleness and seclusion at home and gone down into the field of work.... she must form for herself a correct idea of what happens to her at certain times...."

Beginning with this issue, Dr. Philip Ashkar undertakes the publication of a series of articles treating the sexual question in women, as one of the foremost of our physicians specializing in women's diseases and obstetrics.

Talk of the physiology of woman's private organs, anywhere outside scientific journals, was a thing frowned upon; so the girl found no source from which to draw what she wished to know other than her mother and her companions, and the knowledge of these could not be relied upon. Thus the picture girls formed for themselves contained much obscurity and was mixed with many fears and delusions. But now that the girl has cast off her old garment and freed herself from worn-out traditions, thanks to the learning she has received, she has become able to understand what concerns her body from the standpoint of health. And The Woman's Voice, a magazine that attends to what concerns ladies, has wished to devote one of its fields to speaking of the physiology of menstruation — not merely out of love of inquiry, but in the belief that the girl, having left the life of idleness and seclusion at home and gone down into the field of work, spending her day whether at study or at work, in offices or in workshops, must form for herself a correct idea of what happens to her at certain times, so that she may be better prepared to meet the circumstances in which she finds herself without ill effect upon her health or upon the course of her work.

In the eyes of the ancients — and even in the eyes of some physicians too — menstruation was a poisonous secretion which the woman discharged to rid herself of harmful wastes coursing in her veins. On this basis they looked upon the woman in her menses as an unclean being: if she passed through the field and touched the fruit, it fell, and if she took hold of meat, it turned putrid. During her menses she was obliged to wear a special garment, or to carry a sign by which her condition might be known, so that people would avoid her until the period of her uncleanness was over. And though the greater part of these superstitions has vanished with time, a halo of superstition and aberrant belief still surrounds the physiology of menstruation. Modern science, however, has lifted the veil from its truth. Its appearance in the girl is a sign that the growth of her reproductive organs is complete, together with the growth of all the organs directly connected with them;

the girl then becomes ready, from the sexual standpoint, to perform her function as a future mother.

The woman's two ovaries release an ovum every month, and thanks to the joint work performed by the endocrine glands of the body, the state of the inner lining of the womb changes so that it may receive the fertilized ovum, which lodges in its folds and grows until it becomes an embryo. If fertilization does not take place, no work remains for the uterine lining; it breaks down, and menstruation appears. Its appearance, then, is a sign that the ovum has not been fertilized. And since fertilization is an optional contingency, menstruation is a natural physiological occurrence. Several factors affect the appearance and regularity of menstruation, among them heredity, environment, general health, the degree of the girl's culture and refinement, emotional agitations, nervous states, and psychological influences.