years and five months she was 42 1/2 inches tall; her features
were regular, the complexion rosy, the hair chestnut, the eyes
blue-gray, her mamma the size of a large orange, and indications
that she would be able to bear children at the age of eight.
Prideaux cites a case at five, and Gaugirau Casals, a doctor of
Agde, has seen a girl of six years who suffered abdominal colic,
hemorrhage from the nose, migraine, and neuralgia, all
periodically, which, with the association of pruritus of the
genitals and engorged mammae, led him to suspect amenorrhea. He
ordered baths, and shortly the menstruation appeared and became
regular thereafter. Brierre de Boismont records cases of
catamenia at five, seven, and eight years; and Skene mentions a
girl who menstruated at ten years and five months. She was in the
lowest grade of society, living with a drunken father in a
tenement house, and was of wretched physical constitution, quite
ignorant, and of low moral character, as evinced by her specific
vaginitis. Occurring from nine years to the ordinary time of
puberty, many cases are recorded.

Instances of protracted menstruation are, as a rule, reliable,
the individuals themselves being cognizant of the nature of true
menstruation, and themselves furnishing the requisite information
as to the nature and periodicity of the discharge in question.
Such cases range even past the century-mark. Many elaborate
statistics on this subject have been gathered by men of ability.
Dr. Meyer of Berlin quotes the following:--

28 at 50 years of age,
3 at 57 years of age,
18 " 51 " " "