than criminal to allow girls to reach the age of puberty without the
slightest knowledge of the menstrual function; young women to be
married in total ignorance of the ethics of married life; women to
become mothers without any conception of the duties of motherhood;
other women, as the time approaches, to live in dread apprehension of
"the change of life;" and many women unnecessarily to succumb to
disease at this time.

The masses of women have at last awakened to a sense of the awful
penalties which they have paid for their ignorance of all those laws
of nature which govern their physical being, and to feel keenly the
necessity for instruction at least in the fundamental principles which
underlie the various epochs of their lives; and it is in response to a
widespread demand that this small volume has been written.

This is preeminently the day of preventive medicine; and the physician
who can prevent the origin of disease is a greater benefactor than the
one who can lessen the mortality or suffering after the disease has
occurred.

ANNA M. GALBRAITH.

15 WEST NINETY-FIRST STREET, NEW YORK.
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CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION