DRESS AND MENSTRUATION.--It is also an opportune time to demonstrate to what extent serious results may follow mistakes in dressing. The habit of permitting growing girls to constrict the waist, to bind and pull the abdomen by too tight garters, or too tight corset, is wrong, and no mother should permit it. In another part of the book, this matter is taken up more fully, but if it is explained to the girl while she is considering the subject of menstruation, she may more quickly and more fully appreciate its significance. ABSENCE OF MENSTRUATION--AMENORRHEA.--The absence of menstruation after it has been established, does not, as a rule, indicate any disease of the womb or female sexual organs. It is to be regarded merely as a symptom and can be, as previously stated, safely ignored if the general health is good. If the general condition is poor, and the quantity and quality of the blood deficient, it is a provision of nature to suppress menstruation in the interest of the general health. For this reason it is safe to disregard the amenorrhea and build up the bodily strength. This explains why some girls pass the usual age of puberty and show no signs of menstruating. They are poorly developed sexually, through deficiency of blood. If, on the other hand, a girl should have all the symptoms of menstruation every month, but no flow, she should be examined by a physician to determine if there is any obstruction to the escape of blood. Total absence of any symptoms of menstruation extending into adult life, may indicate an absence of the sexual organs. During the first year after puberty it is quite natural for menstruation to be irregular; after the function is thoroughly established there are many causes that may be responsible for its temporary absence. CAUSES OF AMENORRHEA.--Any condition or circumstance which reduces the general health or impoverishes the quality or quantity of the blood and weakens the nervous system, will result in a stoppage of the monthly periods. Among these are insufficient food and exercise, overwork, overstudy, exposure to cold, sitting on cold steps or gold ground, wearing damp clothes, bathing in cold water at the beginning of menstruation, powerful emotions, as great fright, anger, anxiety; acute diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, the infectious skin diseases; chronic diseases such as Bright's disease, heart disease, consumption; anemia and chlorosis are very common causes. Obesity or an overfat condition will cause an early suppression of the menses which may result in a fruitless marriage. Displacement of the womb and other local disorders frequently result in scanty or delayed menstruation. Anxiety lest pregnancy may occur in the newly married may cause a delay in the periods. A radical change of climate or sometimes a visit to the country, or changed circumstances may stop the flow for the time being.