of God. Now we know they are due to carelessness and lack of
sanitation. It is the same with the sufferings of women. We used to
think it was a dispensation of Providence if a woman were compelled to
undergo an operation. Now we know it usually is due to someone's lack of
care, to a desecration of Nature's teachings.

I remember when I was quite young hearing mention made of a "bad
disease." Concerning the nature of this disease I was ignorant but I
gathered the idea that it was some terrible disease which was contracted
only by the most depraved of mortals. How little I suspected its
widely-spread distribution, and how little I dreamed that among my
acquaintances might be any afflicted with these diseases! nor did I
dream of the danger of innocent contagion. Since then I have learned
what these diseases were. Now we call them the black plagues, because,
owing to the prejudice of the majority, we dare not use their correct
names generally. I have no doubt you will be as surprised and shocked as
I was at the things I am going to impart to you.

By black plagues we mean the two diseases spoken of by physicians as the
venereal diseases, because they usually are contracted during sexual
intercourse.

The most common of these diseases is gonorrhoea, or clap, as it often
is called by men. How common it is may be judged by a statement made by
a professor to his class in the medical college that at least eighty per
cent. of the men in the world have contracted it sometime during their
lives. Even the most conservative give the estimate as sixty per cent.

The prevalent idea common among men that it is no worse than a cold--a
mere annoyance that all men must expect and endure sometime--is
lamentable. The persistence of the disease in the deeper structures long
after it outwardly is cured leads to unexpected communication of it to
women, among whom may be the young wife. As a result she enters upon a
period of ill-health that ultimately may compel the mutilation of her
body by a surgical operation to save her life. Much of the surgery
performed upon the female organs has been rendered necessary by disease
contracted from the husband.

A few little germs of this disease left on even the external organs may
find their way up through the vagina to the uterus or womb. Here they
may produce an inflammation of the lining of the womb, causing severe
pain and other symptoms, such as profuse discharge. The germs may go
farther, or t