effort of nature
still-born. But nature is quite used to its disappointments and
returns placidly to the daily grind. The four phases of a woman's
twenty-eight day cycle succeed each other as the premenstrual,
the menstrual, the postmenstrual and the intermenstrual, with the
precision of pistons moving in a motor, when no interfering factor
as disease, profound emotion or climate disturbances are present,
affecting the endocrines.

The sequence of events appears to be about as follows: The amount of
post-pituitary secretion reaches a certain concentration. This in turn
stimulates the thyroid and adrenal medulla. They in turn activate the
ovarian cells, which congest the uterine glands and lining membrane.
The follicle bursts, the ovum is discharged and wanders, the uterus
waits and wonders. Nothing happens, the curtain is lowered, the
scenery is removed, the actors revert to civilian clothes. That is the
story of menstruation, the central phenomenon of woman's pre-pregnancy
life. One sees it clearly as a play of an internal secretion
syndicate.

THE PREMENSTRUAL MOLIMINA

The premenstrual molimina is the traditional title accorded symptoms,
sensations, feelings, observations of women in the premenstrual phase.
In the light of endocrine analysis, they become exceedingly important
indicators of the underlying constitution of the individual concerned.
Indeed, the premenstrual period furnishes a direct clue to the
dominating internal secretion in a woman. Moreover, these premenstrual
phenomena are the shadows cast by coming events. For they mimic and
prophesy the events of the last crisis of feminine sex life,
the cessation of ovulation which goes by the name of menopause,
gonadopause, or change of sex life. The premenstrual phenomena provide
a positive film, so to speak, of the latent negative picture of the
endocrine system of the girl or woman.

Thus, there is the sub-pituitary or pituitary insufficient type, in
whom the excessive swelling of the gland causes headache, and a dull,
heavy, tired feeling, a definite depression. Drowsiness, sleepishness,
indifference to surroundings, general sluggishness of thought, feeling
and reaction, a phlegmatic frilosity, all go with it. It is due to
an overweighing of the pituitary, controller of good brain tone, and
alive wakefulness, by the demands of the organism.

On the other hand, the hyperthyroid type of woman reacts with an
exaggeration of her tendency. When the posteri