It is a thorny subject, one we have not been accustomed to treating openly, and one we turned away from in the past despite its importance and the necessity of understanding it. Like every modern girl, you accept the sexual changes as natural events and as part of your life, but at times you ask yourself: how do I take care of myself? And what must I do?

Ever since primary school you have looked forward to the day of your diploma; you spend the days and years awaiting this new event. And this is exactly what the organs of your body do: they watch for the hour when you pass out of the life of the "little girl" into the world of the "grown woman." Then your feelings begin to change, and you take to pondering matters you never thought of before; for from now on you are a new woman, and on this basis you will think.

In this study you will find some guidance on how to conduct yourself, on your social relations, and on your understanding of the new things happening around you. Let us study together, frankly, the continuous cycle carried on by glands that secrete the hormones which carry their messages slowly to the other organs of the body: this is the menstrual cycle.

During childhood the pituitary glands secrete the maturing hormones that carry the message of growth to the bones and to the tissues scattered through all parts of the body. From the age of 11 to 17 new hormones come forth and play their part, for the pituitary glands begin to supply the blood vessels with a new kind of hormone that develops your body. The pituitary glands lie at the base of the brain, and they are the mainspring of the action of the important organs gathered in a basin standing at the lower part of the body, where we find the two ovaries. These are two glands the size of an almond, each of which contains thousands of minute egg cells invisible to the naked eye, each one lined with a membrane called the follicle. The ovaries stand at the two sides beneath the two tubes, which open out on either side in the mature girl; they are less than five inches long, the size of a pencil, and through them the egg cells pass on their way to the womb, which is a roughly three-cornered body about three inches in size, its lower end joining the vagina, which serves as an outlet through which the child passes at birth. This passage, then, lies through the two tubes, runs on to the womb, and then to the vagina outside the body.

When the pituitary glands secrete their hormones to