Sometimes it seems very distasteful to us that the sex or generative organs should be placed so near to what we might call our “sewerage system.” We do not like to have to connect in our thought anything so sweet and nice as a baby or so happy and precious as the sex embrace with the waste of our bodies, which we want to be rid of with as little thought as possible, as it is disagreeable at best, and we wonder why we were created this way. But we have to remember that the sex organs are very delicate and they are probably placed where they can best be protected from injury. It would be hard to think of any other part of the body that would be safer than just this place. At any rate there they are, and our duty is to understand them as best we can, and take mighty good care of them as our most wonderful possession. Looking at Plate I, you will see that the woman's body provides the egg or ovum. These grow, many thousands of them, in two small sacs called ovaries, and every little while (usually every four weeks, but not always) an ovum ripens and passes out from the ovary through the fallopian tube (there are two of these, one leading from each ovary) into the uterus or womb, a process which takes several days. Here it may be met by the male life element, and if so, it becomes fertilized and remains in the uterus to grow into a baby. This is called fertilization, fecundation, impregnation or conception. But if the egg is not fertilized, it passes from the uterus through the vagina and out of the body. The ovaries take turns in developing the ovum. Every twenty-eight days or so a woman, from the time she is about thirteen or fourteen till she is about fifty, has a slight flow of blood from the uterus, which is called menstruation. The reasons for this are not wholly understood, but it is supposed there is an extra supply of blood provided periodically for the growth of a baby, but when there is no baby starting to grow, the blood is not needed so it flows away (about once in four weeks). Often the unfertilized ovum is carried away with it, but the two things do not necessarily happen at the same time. Menstruation lasts from three to five days and young girls sometimes have pain then and feel languid and “unwell.” If so they should be quieter than usual and avoid cold baths and getting their feet wet. But menstruation is not an illness, and a girl in perfect health finds it only a slight inconvenience. The ovaries not only produce the egg, but they also produce a secretion that is absorbed by the blood and which is most necessary in the development of a girl into a woman. It has an almost magical effect in adding the specially womanly qualities to the body and character.