It is, in general, a very proper rule not to administer any very active medicines, at this time, unless some violent symptom absolutely requires them. Opiates, for instance, are, in many cases, necessary to allay spasmodic affections, or abate pain; and they are, in such circumstances, uniformly safe. They give speedy relief to hysterical feeling or suffocation, or to spasm of the stomach or bowels. Dancing, exposure to much heat, or making any great or fatiguing exertion, are improper. These causes may increase, to an improper degree, the quantity of the evacuation, and in certain circumstances may give a disposition to a falling down of the womb. RETENTION OF THE MENSES. _Description._ The menstrual discharge is liable, from many causes, to become obstructed at the period when it ought to appear; when this takes place it is attended with very painful or serious effects; and, if nature is not assisted, the health is impaired or the constitution undermined, inducing consumption or some other complaint. _Causes._ The remote cause of this complaint is most frequently suppressed perspiration; and it may arise, in part, from an inactive sedentary life, and such habits as are peculiar to the higher classes of society, particularly in cities and towns. The proximate cause of it seems to be a want of power in the system, arising from inability to propel the blood into the uterine vessels with sufficient force to open their extremities and to allow a discharge of blood from them. _Symptoms._ Heaviness, listlessness to motion, fatigue on the least exercise, palpitation of the heart, pains in the back, loins, and hips, flatulence, acidities in the stomach and bowels, costiveness, a preternatural appetite for chalk, lime, and various other absorbents, together with many other dyspeptic symptoms. As it advances in its progress the face becomes pale, and afterward assumes a yellowish hue, even verging upon green, whence it has been called green sickness; the lips lose their rosy color; the eyes are encircled with a livid areola; the whole body has an unhealthy appearance, with every indication of a want of power and energy in the constitution; the feet are affected with swellings; the breathing is much hurried by any great exertion of the body; the pulse is quick, but small; and the person is liable to a cough, and to many of the symptoms of hysteria. Sometimes a great quantity of pale urine is discharged in the morning, and not unfrequently hectic fever attends. In cases of a more chronic character there is a continued, though variable, state of sallowness, yellowness, darkness, or a wan, squalid, or sordid paleness of complexion, or ring of darkness surrounding the eyes, and extending perhaps a little toward the temples and cheeks. _Treatment._