Produced by Bryan Ness, Stephanie Eason, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. This Treatise on the Diseases of Women Is Dedicated to the Women of the World. Yours for Health Lydia E. Pinkham This entire book copyrighted in 1901 and 1904 by the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co., of Lynn, Mass., U. S. A. All rights reserved and will be protected by law. List of Lydia E. Pinkham's Remedies. +Illustration of Products+ LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S VEGETABLE COMPOUND. Put up in three forms: Liquid, Lozenge, and Pills Price, $1.00 LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S LIVER PILLS, per Box " .25 LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S BLOOD PURIFIER " 1.00 LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S SANATIVE WASH, per Packet " .25 ALL THE ABOVE, EXCEPTING THE LIQUIDS, CAN BE SENT BY MAIL ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. ALL DRUGGISTS SELL MRS. PINKHAM'S REMEDIES. CHAPTER I. A WOMAN BEST UNDERSTANDS A WOMAN. =Experience a Perfect Teacher.=--Do you know what it is to suffer pain? Have you had your body racked and torn with intense suffering? Have you ever experienced that indescribable agony which comes from overworked nerves? Have you ever felt the sharp, stinging pain, the dull, heavy pain, the throbbing, jumping pain, the cramping, tearing pain, the sickening, nauseating pain? Then you know all about them. Nobody can tell you anything more. Experience is a perfect teacher. =Book-Learning Alone Not Sufficient.=--Suppose you had never experienced pain, but had just read about it in a book, do you think you would have any kind of an idea of what genuine suffering was? Most certainly not. Book knowledge is valuable. It teaches the location of countries, the use of figures, and the history of nations; but there are some things books cannot do, and the greatest of these is, they cannot describe physical and mental suffering. These are things that must be experienced. =Personal Experience Necessary.=--After you have once suffered, how ready you are to sympathize with those who are going through the same severe trials. If a member of your own home or a friend is passing through the trying ordeal of motherhood, and you have suffered the same, how you can advise, suggest, comfort, guide! If you have had a personal experience of intense agony once every month, do you not think you are in a far better position to talk with one who is suffering in the same way than you would be if you had never gone through all this? =You Best Understand Yourself.=--But let us go a little farther in this study. When you listen to an eminent orator, you have but little idea whether he is nervous or not, but little idea whether he is undergoing a severe strain or not; for you have never been in his place, cannot understand just that condition.