|
|
CONTINUED to next
earlier News & Notes
"Each [MUM] site
page peels off a thin layer of the thick
crimson-colored shame I've developed about
this issue." Read the e-mail a Hungarian
woman sent me after I posted her comments on
stopping menstruation.
Rest in peace,
Meds.
(1998-2006)
She belonged to the first litter of feral
cats I adopted from my back yard and
helped me with the pictures of a folding
bidet (here).
I
named her after an early
tampon.
She died today, Saturday, 10 June, sweet
to her last hour.
You meet the darndest people in
menstruation!
Like Huey Long, assassinated former
governor of Louisiana and its senator in
the 1930s. The colorful crook even had a
colorful pre-political life: "For several
years he worked as a travelling salesman,
first for a company that made a lard
substitute called Cottolene, and later for
a company that sold a concoction for
relieving menstrual cramps known as the
Wine of Cardui." (The New Yorker magazine,
12 June 2006, in a review of a new
biography of the character.) See what that
was here.
Another is Diane Arbus, genius creator
of eerie photographs of mostly odd people.
Before that final career she and her
husband were commercial photographers and
shot some of the classy "Modess . . . .
because" ads in a series that ran for
decades. See some.
And of course you'll meet several famous
women in ads for menstrual hygiene
products, starting with beautiful Lee Miller, later a
famous photographer. An even more famous
photographer, Edward Steichen, took her
photograph and sold it to Kotex, to her
huge (but temporary) embarrassment. See her and more such (but willing)
ladies.
And speaking of nurses: at least this
one is smiling - but see the next one!
Compare the German Nurse Thekla, below the
green sign.
The generous contributor of the scan of
the top sign writes that it's for American
sanitary napkins, probably from the early
1940s. The nurse meant to inspire
confidence, as did the cross - I wonder if
the name, M-D, sneaked in the idea of
M.D., medical
doctor. Nurse
Thekla, pitching the 1926 German
disposable menstrual pad, Camelia, stands
above the cross on the box, which almost
looks as if it bears a religious image -
the Virgin Mary? Professor Domenico
Pecorari, University of Verona, Italy,
kindly sent Nurse Thekla. Read more.
"Secret" tampon
sample added to the "Secret" page,
U.S.A.,1930s-40s
They won't let the Pope see ads
for tampons and
contraception when he visits
Poland!
Salon.com reports
that
"Zbigniew Badziak, the state-run TV
network's head of advertising, told
the Associated Press that 'there is
always the risk that the faithful may
feel hurt if programming devoted to
the Pope's visit is interrupted by
frivolous ads.' Not that they banned
all advertising -- just frivolous ads
for contraception and feminine hygiene
[and lingerie, booze and certain
desserts]. Still OK: useful, important
advertising like car commercials."
Read the whole story (if you're a member
of Salon premium).
Think about this, anti-artificial
contraceptive believers:
"'Rhythm Method' May
Kill Off More Embryos Than Other Methods
Of Contraception"
"... the rhythm method may well be
responsible for massive embryonic death,
and the same logic that turned pro-lifers
away from morning after pills, IUDs, and
pill usage, should also make them nervous
about the rhythm method," writes a
professor in the Journal of Medical
Ethics. Read a summary
in ScienceDaily.com.
Instruments for gynecology and
obstetrics (childbirth) in this museum:
The Sims
vaginal speculum
And read a little history of The Touch method
of gynecological examination.
Read an article about stopping
your
menstrual period. Another article
mentions approved or on-the-horizon
menstrual period suppression products Seasonale, Seasonique,
Lybrel, Implanon, and Yaz. Read what
other people think about stopping menstruation.
The puzzled graduate is actually redesigned
from a Kotex
menstrual pad ad from the 1940s,
which is here.
Kotex menstrual pad
ad, U.S.A., July 1942
Kotex menstrual pad
ad, U.S.A., 1923
San-Nap-Pak
menstrual tampon, U.S.A.,
1930s-1940s
Menstruation
supplies, 1923, U.S.A., Montgomery
Ward catalog
Why DO women
menstruate?
Some ancient
Greeks felt it was a way to purify the
blood (a few writers to the stop menstruation page feel the same
way), some people in the European Middle
Ages thought that menstrual blood
nourished the fetus and was expelled
when there was no fetus, and today we -
we really don't know a purpose for it. C.A. Finn, in
"Why Do Women and Some Other Primates
Menstruate?" (Perspectives in Biology
and Medicine, 30, 4 - Summer 1987)
concluded that a few primates, a bat and
a shrew menstruate because the tissue
that hormones build in the uterus cannot
revert to a previous stage when the
hormone levels decline and so must die
and be discarded: menstruation. But we
knew that. Why these animals (including
us) have developed this is not known.
Lotus: Early
American menstrual tampon?
Comic strip: A
conservative American family visits the future
Museum of Menstruation (Chapter 1)!
"Study
Shows Rapid Return To Menstruation Once
Oral Contraception Stopped" (headline from
ScienceDaily)
Women - 99 percent of them - returned to normal menstruation or
became pregnant with in 90 days
after stopping it long-term with drugs,
finds a Columbia study.
This might be good news for women worried
about stopping their periods with hormones
for a long time but later wanting to have
children or resume menstruation. Read
the
story on ScienceDaily.com.
Meds & Modess menstruation ads, 1946
Dear Harry,
I just saw this email, thank
you for replying personally (and for
featuring my comment [read her comments],
too)!
By the way, I'm a 28-year-old Hungarian
woman. I feel that we have less information
and less options here than women in the U.S.
What I know about Mirena, the Depo Provera
and the menstrual cups, I know from the Web.
Your site has been a great
source of information and comfort for me! I
can't begin to tell you how thankful I feel.
For the first time in my "adult"
(=menstruating) life, I feel like I have a
right to voice my feelings and consider my
options. I feel like I can do so without
being judged, patronized and hushed. Instead
of suffering silently, I feel like I have
choices, even in this sensitive area.
While most men just enjoy
their biological luck and make cruel jokes
about womenís menstrual problems, you make
every effort to understand the female cycle
and share a wealth of information about it.
Wow. Thank you, not only for the
information, but for being objective and
sympathetic.
Each
site page peels off a thin layer of the
thick crimson-colored shame I've developed
about this issue.
The experience is like an
"intellectual menstruation" that I can
welcome and cherish. Forgive the parallel :)
In two little words: THANK
YOU.
Warm regards,
****
Do good mothers get PMS worse than the other ones?
The author of a recent book and study,
Professor Jane M. Ussher, presents her views
at the University of Leichester, United
Kingdom. Read about it from an article on
ScienceDaily:
"Premenstrually, when many
women feel more vulnerable, and their
repressed frustration or anger comes to
the fore, their self-control is ruptured,
and they can lash out, or want to withdraw
from the caring role. Yet this is followed
by increased self-surveillance, leading to
guilt, shame, and blaming of the body.
"As women in lesbian relationships were
found to report less distress associated
with premenstrual changes, greater
acceptance on the part of their partner, and
less self-policing, Professor Ussher
concludes that the identification of
self-policing is of particular concern for
heterosexual women." Read the ScienceDaily article.
Mmm, Kellogg's Corn Flakes - right?
And have you ever had naughty
feelings "down there"? Yes, I think
you have. Well, Dr. Kellogg recommended pouring
undiluted carbolic acid on your clitoris
to stop them! I betcha it worked!
And avoid intense mental excitement
during menstruation!
Douche-bag
nation:
Tupperware-like parties
to sell Dainty Maid douches and
menstrual cups
Yes, gather your friends and party on! "Dainty
Maid"
once - does it still? - put women's kids
through college and bought them cars if they
sold enough douche bags. Read testimonials and
see what else they sold. No, no snapshots
from the parties.
Argentine and Nigerian poets send their
poetry:
María
García and Isiaka
Abiodun Tiamiyu. Ms. Garcia has also
graciously translated several pages of this
site into Spanish (Anticoncepción
y religión, Breve
reseña - Olor -
Religión
y menstruación - Seguridad
de productos para la menstruación).
German kids maturing
earlier - Fast food the reason?
The online edition of the
German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reports that
German girls and boys continue the trend of
earlier first menstruation (menarche) and
first ejaculation.
Emeritus Professor Norbert
Kluge of the Universität Koblenz-Landau
wrote in der Internet publication "Beiträge
zur Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpädagogik"
that girls in 1992 had their first menstrual
period on average at 12.2 years old and in
2010 will have it around 10 or 11 years of
age.
Researchers noted the trend
140 years ago. In 1860 the average menarche
happened at 16.6 years, in 1920 at 14.6, in
1950 at 13.1 and 1980, 12.5 years.
Kluge (by the way, klug means
smart in German) attributed the early
maturation mostly to obesity caused by
fast food. Lack of fat can also stop
menstruation, which is what happens with
anorexia.
Read the story
(in German). Read more about the age of first menstruation
here.
A French woman writes
that the Sudanese
government censors this site:
"I just wanted to mail
you some information I got from a friend
of mine who is also French and has spent
two years in Sudan in an archeological
institute.
"I sent her the address
of your site by email, since I thought
she might find it interesting. Here is
(translated into English) how she
answered me:
'Can't! It's censored
by the Sudanese government. I find a
sentence which tells me it's haram
(sin), and a verse from the Koran
which promises me Hell if I go on this
site.' Later on she added, 'I talked
about it with a Sudanese friend who
told me, "They put that site with porn
sites." 'Then I explained to her that
I found that kind of censure on almost
every medical site that I tried to go
on and she was very upset.'"
You are known by the
company you keep: along with Sudan at
least one American feminist group tells
its members not to visit MUM. My comic
strip in part plays with this.
Women call tell just by
looking at his picture if a man
likes children (in a fatherly way, not
sexually) and if he has a high
testosterone level. Read the summary
of Proceedings of the Royal Society B
article at sciencedaily.com
(scroll to second item):
The men who had expressed an
interest in children were identified by
the women as those they thought would be
interested in children. Those men who had
shown high levels of testosterone were
identified by the women as physically
attractive.
"The study provides the first direct
evidence that women's attractiveness
judgements specifically track both men's
affinity for children and men's hormone
concentrations," the researchers concluded.
Pill to stop
menstruation indefinitely in Brazil
is not new at all,
writes Dr. Nelson Soucasaux, your MUM's
gynecologist.
New contribution to expressions
for menstruation in England:
"My friends and I sometimes say 'The sock is here'
because when I first started, I once
complained that it felt like I had a sock
trapped in my underwear," writes an English
14-year-old. See many more expressions for
menstruation from around the world
that YOU contributed.
Are you a victim of those special
weaknesses to which womankind is so apt to
fall?
I have something.
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
"Here is what I would like to
say in answer to your question.
"If I could have it my way, I
would never stop menstruating. I love
menstruating. I hate the thought that
somedayI will stop menstruating. I love
having a monthly cycle, and feeling how I
change during it. I love that I perceive and
deal with things differently during
different stages of my cycle. I do get
pretty bad cramps and acne and all of that,
but I don't mind. There are few things that
give me such a deep, intense sensation, even
if it is uncomfortable. I also love the way
menstruating feels. It feels warm and
slippery and lovely. I also love my
menstrual fluid. Sometimes I sit in a bath
and watch it swirl around me. I hate the
term 'bleeding' because it really is not
like bleeding at all. I think what I love
the most is that menstruation gives me a
special, close connection to my body. My
cycle is sometimes irregular, but I've come
to enjoy that about my period. I really
would like to go on a form of birth control,
but I dread the idea of losing my natural
cycle." (More of your answers)
College student, age 19
Does dress length
have anything to do with menstrual pain?
A interesting
woman thought so.
And women are not
as capable as men in science?
A 100-year-old (almost) message to
(outgoing) President Summers of Harvard:
"If any one cares to claim that the brain of
woman is inferior to or in any essential
respect different from that of man he must
seek the evidence for his belief in his
personal experience or the archives of
history - certainly not among the sober
records of science. . . . [I]n the matter of zeal
for work and of intelligence in grasping
facts and principles [women] have shown
themselves, on the average, quite as
capable as the men students, while in one
respect, namely the ability to express
what they know in clear and logical
English, I have found them as a rule to be
superior to men." (Dr. William H.
Howell, professor of physiology at Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine, in
the New York Times, February 15, 1915. Two men and four
women led that Johns Hopkins medical
school class of 80 men and 10 women.)
More.
Women like more masculine-looking men
during ovulation
- and their partners get jealous. But not
when The Pill stops her ovulation!
Darn it, life is so
complicated.
Anyway, read this from the
University of Liverpool: "Images of male
faces that were either high or low in
dominant features, such as a strong jaw
lines and thinner lips, were shown to male
participants who provided ratings of
dominance for each image. A dominant person
was defined as someone who looked like they
could 'get what they
wanted'." Wow!
Hot stuff! Now you want to read the
whole
thing, don't you?! But please be
gentle with the guy(s). I've been through
this.
The famous Marie Stopes showed
in the early 20th century that women's
sexual desire peaks about the time of
ovulation - see her chart.
What did mothers
tell their daughters about
their first menstruation in 1932?
Are you kidding? They left it to
Kotex!
"Marjorie May's
Twelfth Birthday"
Dutch o.b. ad showing
nudity, 2005
Did menstruation
knock out kick boxers?
In the 1970s, a woman TV announcer
circled inside a ring in a boxing stadium in
Thailand. "That night, every fight ended in
a bloody T.K.O. [technical knock out] owing
to cuts. The female announcer was held
responsible, on the strength of a murky
associative link between women, menstrual
blood, and T.K.O.s, and women were banned
from entering a boxing ring." Even though
women box professionally today in
Thailand, they don't in THAT ring,
according to the "New Yorker" magazine
article "Cool Heart," 16 January 2006.
And guess what
cures warts!
"The Filth Pharmacy"
(Dreckapotheke in German) cured all diseases
"from head to feet" employing people's and
animals' excretions and secretions - use
your imagination! - including, of course,
menstrual blood, which drove away warts.
(Try it.)
This pharmacy, actually a German book,
helpfully (for you) contained many recipes
from antiquity to 1693, when it
appeared in Frankfurt am Main. The
disgusting medicine drove away disease
demons and reactivated the living "Stoff"
clinging to the excrement - at least that
was what Christian Franz Paullini believed,
who wrote it. History rewarded him with the
term Paullinism. The Dictionary of German
Folklore writes that not only do some
Germans still use the wart treatment, they
treat chilblains - inflammation and sores on
the feet and hands caused by cold - with
urine. The Dictionary (actually "Wörterbuch
der deutschen Volkskunde," Stuttgart, 1981,
from which I translated the information
here) lists Paullini's book as
"Neuvermehrte, heylsame Dreckapotheke, wie
nämlich mit Kot und Urin fast alle, auch die
schwerste, giftigste Krankheiten u.
bezauberte Schäden vom Haupte bis zu den
Füßen innerlich und äußerlich glücklich
curiert worden; Mit allerhand raren, so wohl
nutz- als ergötzlichen Historien" - or, "Expanded, beneficial filth
pharmacy, how in particular one can
successfully cure almost all, even the
most difficult, most poisonous diseases
and bewitched injuries from head to feet,
inside and out, with filth and urine; with
all sorts of rare as well as useful and
entertaining stories." Whew! Phew!
Anticoncepción y
religión, Breve reseña, por Kathleen
O'Grady
(Spanish translation, by Maria Garcia, of
Kathleen O'Grady's "Contraception
and Religion" on this site.
By the way, I am
proud to have such an accomplished
Spanish translator of this site: visit
Maria Garcia's beautiful Web site www.maria-garcia.com.ar
The Art of
Menstruation: Kate Goldwater
What causes menstrual odor?
You're not going to like
this.
Bacteria from the anus - oh,
I'll just say it: they're from feces, and
are the famous Escherichia coli (E.
coli) bacteria - eat the blood, cells
and tissue running from the uterus and
vagina and produce the characteristic smell
of menstruation.
Sorry.
You say you don't have fecal
bacteria in your vagina? Oh, ho, ho, yes you
DO!
Your anus is about an inch
(2.54 centimeters) from the entrance to the
vagina and it's a snap for bacteria to creep
that teensy distance - or ride on a tampon,
cup, pad or inside panties (imagine how a
thong might do this) or get wiped there with
a swipe of toilet paper (a good reason to
wipe the anus toward the back, not toward
the front of the body, to minimize the
number that do make the trip).
Now, for most of the month
the acid in the vagina - yes, helpful
bacteria there make lactic acid - ties the
hands and feet of those little devils by
hardly allowing them to reproduce and grow.
They and many other disease-causing bacteria
cannot thrive in the acid.
But for a few days each month
the vagina, and outside, on the vulva, are
the perfect places to raise a family! You
guessed it: during menstruation! Blood,
cells and secretions from the uterus and
vagina make the vagina more alkaline and the
bacteria feel right at home. Oh, girl! And
they gorge gourmet whenever they want!
So what about female folks
who don't menstruate, like prepubescent
girls and postmenopausal women? Fecal
bacteria can live in their vaginas without
producing that characteristic smell because
the bacterial and hormonal setup is
different from that of menstruating women.
O.K., if there are so many
bacteria in the vagina during menstruation is it safe to have sex?
If by sex you mean a penis
doing his job, and if both people have no
infectious diseases, for example HIV and
hepatitis, then it's generally safe.
But there is one huge
exception: women who get urinary tract
infections. The entrance to the bladder is
right above the opening of the vagina and
the penis can rub the swarming bacteria
right into the tube that leads to the
bladder, which is much shorter than a
male's, one reason women get UTIs much more
often than men.
Douches and deodorants can
also change the environment of the vagina
and allow dangerous bacteria to grow there.
(Read about not
douching.)
MUM board
member Dr. Philip Tierno Jr.'s book
"The Secret Life of Germs" supplied most of
the information for my essay, although he
wrote with more restraint.
Mmm, Kellogg's Corn Flakes - right?
And have you ever had naughty
feelings "down there"? Yes, I think
you have. Well, Dr. Kellogg recommended pouring
undiluted carbolic acid on your clitoris
to stop them! I betcha it worked!
And avoid intense mental excitement
during menstruation!
Douche-bag
nation:
Tupperware-like parties
to sell Dainty Maid douches and
menstrual cups
Yes, gather your friends and party on! "Dainty
Maid"
once - does it still? - put women's kids
through college and bought them cars if they
sold enough douche bags. Read testimonials and
see what else they sold. No, no snapshots
from the parties.
Argentine and Nigerian poets send their
poetry:
María
García and Isiaka
Abiodun Tiamiyu. Ms. Garcia has also
graciously translated several pages of this
site into Spanish (Anticoncepción
y religión, Breve
reseña - Olor -
Religión
y menstruación - Seguridad
de productos para la menstruación).
German kids maturing
earlier - Fast food the reason?
The online edition of the
German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reports that
German girls and boys continue the trend of
earlier first menstruation (menarche) and
first ejaculation.
Emeritus Professor Norbert
Kluge of the Universität Koblenz-Landau
wrote in der Internet publication "Beiträge
zur Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpädagogik"
that girls in 1992 had their first menstrual
period on average at 12.2 years old and in
2010 will have it around 10 or 11 years of
age.
Researchers noted the trend
140 years ago. In 1860 the average menarche
happened at 16.6 years, in 1920 at 14.6, in
1950 at 13.1 and 1980, 12.5 years.
Kluge (by the way, klug means
smart in German) attributed the early
maturation mostly to obesity caused by
fast food. Lack of fat can also stop
menstruation, which is what happens with
anorexia.
Read the story
(in German). Read more about the age of first menstruation
here.
A French woman writes
that the Sudanese
government censors this site:
"I just wanted to mail
you some information I got from a friend
of mine who is also French and has spent
two years in Sudan in an archeological
institute.
"I sent her the address
of your site by email, since I thought
she might find it interesting. Here is
(translated into English) how she
answered me:
'Can't! It's censored
by the Sudanese government. I find a
sentence which tells me it's haram
(sin), and a verse from the Koran
which promises me Hell if I go on this
site.' Later on she added, 'I talked
about it with a Sudanese friend who
told me, "They put that site with porn
sites." 'Then I explained to her that
I found that kind of censure on almost
every medical site that I tried to go
on and she was very upset.'"
You are known by the
company you keep: along with Sudan at
least one American feminist group tells
its members not to visit MUM. My comic
strip in part plays with this.
Women call tell just by
looking at his picture if a man
likes children (in a fatherly way, not
sexually) and if he has a high
testosterone level. Read the summary
of Proceedings of the Royal Society B
article at sciencedaily.com
(scroll to second item):
The men who had expressed an
interest in children were identified by
the women as those they thought would be
interested in children. Those men who had
shown high levels of testosterone were
identified by the women as physically
attractive.
"The study provides the first direct
evidence that women's attractiveness
judgements specifically track both men's
affinity for children and men's hormone
concentrations," the researchers concluded.
Pill to stop
menstruation indefinitely in Brazil
is not new at all,
writes Dr. Nelson Soucasaux, your MUM's
gynecologist.
New contribution to expressions
for menstruation in England:
"My friends and I sometimes say 'The sock is here'
because when I first started, I once
complained that it felt like I had a sock
trapped in my underwear," writes an English
14-year-old. See many more expressions for
menstruation from around the world
that YOU contributed.
Are you a victim of those special
weaknesses to which womankind is so apt to
fall?
I have something.
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
"Here is what I would like to
say in answer to your question.
"If I could have it my way, I
would never stop menstruating. I love
menstruating. I hate the thought that
somedayI will stop menstruating. I love
having a monthly cycle, and feeling how I
change during it. I love that I perceive and
deal with things differently during
different stages of my cycle. I do get
pretty bad cramps and acne and all of that,
but I don't mind. There are few things that
give me such a deep, intense sensation, even
if it is uncomfortable. I also love the way
menstruating feels. It feels warm and
slippery and lovely. I also love my
menstrual fluid. Sometimes I sit in a bath
and watch it swirl around me. I hate the
term 'bleeding' because it really is not
like bleeding at all. I think what I love
the most is that menstruation gives me a
special, close connection to my body. My
cycle is sometimes irregular, but I've come
to enjoy that about my period. I really
would like to go on a form of birth control,
but I dread the idea of losing my natural
cycle." (More of your answers)
College student, age 19
Does dress length
have anything to do with menstrual pain?
A interesting
woman thought so.
And women are not
as capable as men in science?
A 100-year-old (almost) message to
(outgoing) President Summers of Harvard:
"If any one cares to claim that the brain of
woman is inferior to or in any essential
respect different from that of man he must
seek the evidence for his belief in his
personal experience or the archives of
history - certainly not among the sober
records of science. . . . [I]n the matter of zeal
for work and of intelligence in grasping
facts and principles [women] have shown
themselves, on the average, quite as
capable as the men students, while in one
respect, namely the ability to express
what they know in clear and logical
English, I have found them as a rule to be
superior to men." (Dr. William H.
Howell, professor of physiology at Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine, in
the New York Times, February 15, 1915. Two men and four
women led that Johns Hopkins medical
school class of 80 men and 10 women.)
More.
Women like more masculine-looking men
during ovulation
- and their partners get jealous. But not
when The Pill stops her ovulation!
Darn it, life is so
complicated.
Anyway, read this from the
University of Liverpool: "Images of male
faces that were either high or low in
dominant features, such as a strong jaw
lines and thinner lips, were shown to male
participants who provided ratings of
dominance for each image. A dominant person
was defined as someone who looked like they
could 'get what they
wanted'." Wow!
Hot stuff! Now you want to read the
whole
thing, don't you?! But please be
gentle with the guy(s). I've been through
this.
The famous Marie Stopes showed
in the early 20th century that women's
sexual desire peaks about the time of
ovulation - see her chart.
What did mothers
tell their daughters about
their first menstruation in 1932?
Are you kidding? They left it to
Kotex!
"Marjorie May's
Twelfth Birthday"
Dutch o.b. ad showing
nudity, 2005
Did menstruation
knock out kick boxers?
In the 1970s, a woman TV announcer
circled inside a ring in a boxing stadium in
Thailand. "That night, every fight ended in
a bloody T.K.O. [technical knock out] owing
to cuts. The female announcer was held
responsible, on the strength of a murky
associative link between women, menstrual
blood, and T.K.O.s, and women were banned
from entering a boxing ring." Even though
women box professionally today in
Thailand, they don't in THAT ring,
according to the "New Yorker" magazine
article "Cool Heart," 16 January 2006.
And guess what
cures warts!
"The Filth Pharmacy"
(Dreckapotheke in German) cured all diseases
"from head to feet" employing people's and
animals' excretions and secretions - use
your imagination! - including, of course,
menstrual blood, which drove away warts.
(Try it.)
This pharmacy, actually a German book,
helpfully (for you) contained many recipes
from antiquity to 1693, when it
appeared in Frankfurt am Main. The
disgusting medicine drove away disease
demons and reactivated the living "Stoff"
clinging to the excrement - at least that
was what Christian Franz Paullini believed,
who wrote it. History rewarded him with the
term Paullinism. The Dictionary of German
Folklore writes that not only do some
Germans still use the wart treatment, they
treat chilblains - inflammation and sores on
the feet and hands caused by cold - with
urine. The Dictionary (actually "Wörterbuch
der deutschen Volkskunde," Stuttgart, 1981,
from which I translated the information
here) lists Paullini's book as
"Neuvermehrte, heylsame Dreckapotheke, wie
nämlich mit Kot und Urin fast alle, auch die
schwerste, giftigste Krankheiten u.
bezauberte Schäden vom Haupte bis zu den
Füßen innerlich und äußerlich glücklich
curiert worden; Mit allerhand raren, so wohl
nutz- als ergötzlichen Historien" - or, "Expanded, beneficial filth
pharmacy, how in particular one can
successfully cure almost all, even the
most difficult, most poisonous diseases
and bewitched injuries from head to feet,
inside and out, with filth and urine; with
all sorts of rare as well as useful and
entertaining stories." Whew! Phew!
Anticoncepción y
religión, Breve reseña, por Kathleen
O'Grady
(Spanish translation, by Maria Garcia, of
Kathleen O'Grady's "Contraception
and Religion" on this site.
By the way, I am
proud to have such an accomplished
Spanish translator of this site: visit
Maria Garcia's beautiful Web site www.maria-garcia.com.ar
The Art of
Menstruation: Kate Goldwater
What causes menstrual odor?
You're not going to like
this.
Bacteria from the anus - oh,
I'll just say it: they're from feces, and
are the famous Escherichia coli (E.
coli) bacteria - eat the blood, cells
and tissue running from the uterus and
vagina and produce the characteristic smell
of menstruation.
Sorry.
You say you don't have fecal
bacteria in your vagina? Oh, ho, ho, yes you
DO!
Your anus is about an inch
(2.54 centimeters) from the entrance to the
vagina and it's a snap for bacteria to creep
that teensy distance - or ride on a tampon,
cup, pad or inside panties (imagine how a
thong might do this) or get wiped there with
a swipe of toilet paper (a good reason to
wipe the anus toward the back, not toward
the front of the body, to minimize the
number that do make the trip).
Now, for most of the month
the acid in the vagina - yes, helpful
bacteria there make lactic acid - ties the
hands and feet of those little devils by
hardly allowing them to reproduce and grow.
They and many other disease-causing bacteria
cannot thrive in the acid.
But for a few days each month
the vagina, and outside, on the vulva, are
the perfect places to raise a family! You
guessed it: during menstruation! Blood,
cells and secretions from the uterus and
vagina make the vagina more alkaline and the
bacteria feel right at home. Oh, girl! And
they gorge gourmet whenever they want!
So what about female folks
who don't menstruate, like prepubescent
girls and postmenopausal women? Fecal
bacteria can live in their vaginas without
producing that characteristic smell because
the bacterial and hormonal setup is
different from that of menstruating women.
O.K., if there are so many
bacteria in the vagina during menstruation is it safe to have sex?
If by sex you mean a penis
doing his job, and if both people have no
infectious diseases, for example HIV and
hepatitis, then it's generally safe.
But there is one huge
exception: women who get urinary tract
infections. The entrance to the bladder is
right above the opening of the vagina and
the penis can rub the swarming bacteria
right into the tube that leads to the
bladder, which is much shorter than a
male's, one reason women get UTIs much more
often than men.
Douches and deodorants can
also change the environment of the vagina
and allow dangerous bacteria to grow there.
(Read about not
douching.)
MUM board
member Dr. Philip Tierno Jr.'s book
"The Secret Life of Germs" supplied most of
the information for my essay, although he
wrote with more restraint.
Above: Very early Dutch Tampax
ads: 1938
Early German
adhesive sanitary napkin (Monatsbinde) ad,
1973
So THAT's what causes it!
Quick, call the Westboro Baptist
Church in Kansas!
Midol ad, 1960
More
letters to your MUM:
"Put briefly: I work in a
building that is predominantly men. And
yesterday, my period decided to surprise me
at work and I had forgotten my faithful
Keeper at home. So what's a woman to do?" (more)
"A Woman's Kit of Necessary
Items. c. 1700 -1919. $45.00 Contains a
dozen absorbent, layered cotton clouts and
four linen wraps packaged together neatly in
a drawstring bag that may be discreetly
carried to events for truly feminine
"experimental archaeology." From original
sources, including oral histories and
careful study of an original linen
clout-wrap found in the wall of a
house c.1830 that was being demolished in
Mecklenburg County, N.C." (more)
ANNOUNCING!
A God-fearing
American family makes
"A Visit
to the Museum of Menstruation and
Women's Health"
Graphic novella starts 10 May on a site near you,
namely this one!
New Words and expressions about menstruation:
A woman sends 41 entries
for Finland!
New
Would you stop menstruating if you could? (2/4/2006)
Allergy
might cause some PMS
ScienceDaily
reports today that
"Some women with menstrual
cycle disorders like asthma and migraine
headaches may be experiencing allergies to
their own estrogen and progesterone
hormones" and "[I]t was found that symptoms
could be diminished by very low
concentrations of progesterone, which served
both as a diagnostic feature and for
symptomatic relief when needed." More.
(31/3/06)
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