In modern Europe, as seems fairly evident from the early realistic dramatic literature of various countries, no special horror of speaking plainly regarding the sacro-pubic regions and their functions existed among the general population until the seventeenth century. There is, however, one marked exception. Such a feeling clearly existed as regards menstruation. It is not difficult to see why it should have begun at this function. We have here not only a function confined to one sex and, therefore, easily lending itself to a vocabulary confined to one sex; but, what is even of more importance, the belief which existed among the Romans, as elsewhere throughout the world, concerning the specially dangerous and mysterious properties of menstruation, survived throughout mediæval times. (See e.g., Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Bd. I, XIV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth ed. Ch. XI.) The very name, _menses_ ("monthlies"), is a euphemism, and most of the old scientific names for this function are similarly vague. As regards popular feminine terminology previous to the eighteenth century, Schurig gives us fairly ample information (_Parthenologia_, 1729, pp. 27 et seq.). He remarks that both in Latin and Germanic countries, menstruation was commonly designated by some term equivalent to "flowers," because, he says, it is a blossoming that indicates the possibility of fruit. German peasant women, he tells us, called it the rose-wreath (Rosenkrantz). Among the other current feminine names for menstruation which he gives, some are purely fanciful; thus, the Italian women dignified the function with the title of "marchese magnifico;" German ladies, again, would use the locution, "I have had a letter," or would say that their cousin or aunt had arrived. These are closely similar to the euphemisms still used by women. It should be added that euphemisms for menstruation are not confined to Europe, and are found among savages. According to Hill Tout (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1904, p. 320; and 1905, p. 137), one of these euphemisms was "putting on the moccasin," and in another branch of the same people, "putting the knees together," "going outside" (in allusion to the customary seclusion at this period in a solitary hut), and so on.