, free from strong desire or fear, and to hold
all our emotions in the firm leash of reason.

Physicians attach great importance to the _character_ of the discharge.
It should be thin, watery, dark-coloured, and never clot. If it clots,
it is an indication that something is wrong.

THE DANGERS OF PUBERTY.

We have shown that there are constantly individual deviations, quite
consistent with health, from any given standard. They only become
significant of disease when they depart decidedly from the average,
either in the frequency of the illness, its duration, the amount of the
discharge, or the character. More or less pain, more or less prostration
and general disturbances at these epochs, are universal and inevitable.
They are part of the sentence which at the outset He pronounced upon the
woman, when He said unto her, 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception.' Yet with merciful kindness He has provided means by
which the pain may be greatly lessened, and the sorrow avoided; and
that we may learn and observe these means, their neglect often increases
a hundred-fold the natural suffering.

At this critical period, the seeds of hereditary and constitutional
diseases manifest themselves. They draw fresh malignancy from the new
activity of the system. The first symptoms of tubercular consumption, of
scrofula, of obstinate and disfiguring skin diseases, of hereditary
insanity, of congenital epilepsy, of a hundred terrible maladies, which
from birth have lurked in the child, biding the opportunity of attack,
suddenly spring from their lairs, and hurry her to the grave or the
madhouse. If we ask why so many fair girls of eighteen or twenty are
followed by weeping friends to an early tomb, the answer is, chiefly
from diseases which had their origin at the period of puberty.

It is impossible for us here to rehearse all the minute symptoms, each
almost trifling in itself, which warn the practised physician of the
approach of one of these fearful foes in time to allow him to make a
defence. We can do little more than iterate the warning, that whenever,
at this momentous epoch, any disquieting change appears, be it physical
or mental, let not a day be lost in summoning _skilled_, _competent_
medical advice.

There is, however, a train of symptoms so frequent, so insidious, so
fruitful with agony of mind and body, that we shall mention them
particularly. They illustrate, at once, how all-important is close
ob