A little explanation gives the patient insight into the workings of her own mind, and usually causes the pain to disappear in short order. Astonished, indeed, and filled with gratitude have been some of my young-women patients who had all their lives been unable to plan any work or social engagements for the time of this functioning. Many of them were the worst kind of doubters when they were told that to go to bed and center their attention on the generative organs only made the muscles tighten up and the circulation congest. They could not conceive themselves up and around, pursuing their normal life during such a time. However, as they have found by experience that this point of view is not an optimistic dream, they have broken up the confidence-game which their subconscious had been playing on them, and have gone on their way rejoicing. There was one young girl, a doctor's daughter, who suffered continuously from pain in the abdomen, and from back-pain which increased so greatly at the time of the menses that she was in the habit of going to bed for several days, to be waited on with solicitous care by her family. In an attempt to cure the trouble she had undergone an operation to suspend the uterus, but the pain had continued as before. When she came to me, I explained to her that there was no physical difficulty and that her trouble was wholly nervous. I made her play tennis every day and she had just finished a game when her period came on. She stayed up for luncheon, went for a walk in the afternoon, ate her dinner with the family, and behaved like other people. Her mother telephoned that evening and when I told her what her daughter had been doing, she gasped in astonishment. She had difficulty in believing that the new order was not miracle but simply the working out of natural law. Since that time her daughter has had no more trouble. =The Ounce of Prevention.= If young girls had wiser counselors in their mothers and physicians, the misconception would never occur, and such an indirect outlet would not be needed; the organic sensations incident to puberty and the recurring menstrual period would have something of the significance of the annunciation to Mary, bringing wonder and a sense of well-being. When your little daughter arrives at maturity, give her a joyous initiation into the noble order of women. She will welcome the new function as a badge of womanhood and as a harbinger of wonderful things to come.