There are a few drugs known as emmenagogues from the reputation they have of promoting the menstrual flow. They all are powerful stimulants or irritants, and as they are also nearly all abortifacients, their reputation is probably well founded. Modern physiology, by exploding the doctrine of peccant humors to be carried off by menstruation, and by establishing the doctrine of ovulation, has greatly diminished their importance, while the varied conditions and causes of amenorrhoea already given show at a glance how restricted is the field for their administration. To give them when the anatomical conditions are unknown is blind work; to force a function relating to reproduction when the general system is struggling for existence is folly; and to goad diseased organs with special stimulants is certain to do injury. Now and then, however, special stimulants of this class and of the class next to be considered are required. There are some cases which fail to respond to the measures already detailed; there are others, generally recognized by writers, when menstruation is absent without any deterioration of health, known as cases of sexual atony or torpor; and others in which the flow fails or disappears earlier than the usual age. In these latter atrophy of the ovaries may be suspected, but cannot be verified during life, and treatment should be faithfully continued so long as there is reasonable probability of success. One case occurred in the experience of the writer in which the menses appeared occasionally during two years, each time apparently brought on by special stimulants, but ceased at thirty-two, the general health remaining excellent. The principal emmenagogue drugs heretofore relied on, besides iron, are saffron, apiol, rue, and savin. The first, from impurity and costliness, is rarely prescribed, yet Trousseau says it is a fact of public notoriety that women engaged in picking saffron suffer from frequent attacks of uterine hemorrhage. Apiol may be given in capsules in doses of five or six {191} drops twice daily for a week before the expected flow, or fifteen drops may be administered in the course of the few hours immediately preceding. The oils of savin and rue are generally prescribed in doses of minim ij-v, three times daily. Ergot and iodine figure sometimes as emmenagogues. The efficacy of the former is denied by very high authority. The latter was esteemed very highly by Trousseau. Its influence upon the scrofulous constitution may possibly explain its action in promoting menstruation.