A great many girls and women are spending large sums of money in being doctored for these difficulties who need not suffer with them at all if they had known how to dress healthfully; and many are bearing much anxiety over the possibility of becoming sufferers with these distressing diseases who could have their burden of fear removed by the knowledge that "female diseases," in the great majority of cases, are the results of wrong habits of dress and life. Leucorrhea is not a disease. It is a symptom of abnormal conditions, and to be cured it is needful that the conditions shall be understood. Dr. Kellogg says, "Leucorrhea may result from simple congestion of the bloodvessels of the vaginal mucous membrane, due to improper dress. It may also be occasioned by taking cold, and by a debilitated condition of the stomach." Leucorrhea is merely an abnormal increase of a normal secretion. All mucous membrane secretes mucus in small quantities--enough to keep the membrane moist. When from any cause this secretion is increased, we have what is called a catarrhal condition. As all cavities that communicate with the air are lined with mucous membrane, this catarrhal condition may exist in the nose, the throat, the eyes, the ears, the bowels, or the reproductive organs, and will be named according to the location. A natural increase of this secretion takes place just before and after menstruation, and should occasion no anxiety, but if continued during the remainder of the month, especially if very profuse, of offensive odor, or bloody in character, it needs the attention of the skilled physician. I do not wish to make you think constantly of yourself as diseased, and so I do not give you directions as to local self-treatment. Many symptoms can be overcome by general care of the health-habits of the girl, and if they do not yield to this general care it is better to consult a responsible physician than to tamper with yourself. And here let me give you a word of warning. If you need medical care, never consult the traveling doctors who advertise to do such wonderful things. They charge big fees and give a little medicine and then move on, and you have no redress if they have not accomplished all that they have promised. They live off the gullibility of people. Again, never take patent medicines. Wonderful discoveries, favorite prescriptions and the like may be harmless, and they may not. And even if they are, how can you judge that they are suited to your special case? That they cured some one else is not proof that they will benefit you, and you run a risk by taking them as an experiment. One very serious danger in the taking of patent medicines is the fact that they are so largely alcoholic in composition, and girls and women have all too often been led into the alcohol habit and become habitual drunkards through taking some advertised remedy.