ms which
frequently occur at the change of life, we could turn back to the
previous pages where we discussed the dangers of puberty, and repeat
much that we there said as of equal application here. For instance, the
green-sickness, _chlorosis_, is by no means exclusively a disease of
girls. It may occur at any period of child-bearing life, but is much
more frequent at the _beginning_ and the _end_ of this term. Hardly any
one has watched women closely without having observed the peculiar tint
of skin, the debility, the dislike of society, the change of temper, the
fitful appetite, the paleness of the eye, and the other traits that show
the presence of such a condition of the nervous system in those about
renouncing their powers of reproduction. The precautions and rules which
we before laid down, can be read with equal profit in this connection.

In addition to these symptoms, which in a measure belong to the
individual's own history, there are others of a general character which
betoken the approaching change. One of them is an increasing
irregularity in the monthly appearance. This is frequently accompanied
with a sinking sensation,--a 'feeling of goneness,' as the sufferer
says--at the pit of the stomach, often attended by flushes of heat,
commencing at the stomach and extending over the whole surface of the
body. The face, neck, and hands are suffused at inopportune moments, and
greatly to the annoyance of the sufferer. This is sometimes accompanied
by a sense of fulness in the head, a giddiness, and dulness of the
brain, sometimes going so far as to cause an uncertainty in the step, a
slowness of comprehension, and a feeling as if one might fall at any
moment in some sort of a fit.

This is not the worst of it. These physical troubles react upon the
mind. An inward nervousness, intensely painful to bear, is very sure to
be developed. She fears she will be thought to have taken liquor, and to
be overcome with wine; she grows more confused, and imagines that she is
watched with suspicious and unkind eyes, and often she worries herself
by such unfounded fancies into a most harassing state of mental
distress. Society loses its attractions, and solitude does but allow her
opportunity to indulge to a still more injurious extent such brooding
phantasms. Every ache and pain is magnified. Does her heart palpitate,
as it is very apt to do? Straightway she is certain that she has some
terrible disease of that organ, and that