Another has correctly said: "If you need the consultation and advice
of a physician go to your family physician, or, if you prefer, go to
some other physician; but always select one whose moral character and
acknowledged ability render him a suitable and safe adviser in such a
time of need. Above all things avoid quacks. The policy they pursue is
to frighten you, to work upon your imagination, and to make such
alarming and unreliable statements as will induce you to purchase
their nostrums and subject yourself to such a series of humiliations
and impositions as will enable them to pilfer your purse and without
rendering you in return any value received, but likely leave you in a
much worse condition than they found you."
You will probably be advised by your personal friends, who may know of
your ailments, to take hot douches, and perhaps you may wonder why I
do not prescribe them for leucorrhea, and kindred difficulties.
I do not commend them for the fact that I do not want you to be
turning your constantly anxious thought towards yourself in these
matters. If you need such treatment, let it be prescribed by your
physician, who knows exactly your condition. As far as possible turn
your thoughts from the reproductive system. Take care of your general
health, dress properly, obey all the rules of hygiene in regard to
diet, sleep, bathing, special cleanliness, and care, and then forget
as far as possible the physical facts of womanhood.
An excellent addition to your general bathing can be taken once a week
in the form of a sitz bath, which is effective for cleanliness, and
also for the reduction of congestion. If you have no sitz bath-tub,
an ordinary wash-tub can be made to answer by raising one side an inch
or two by means of some support. Have the water at a comfortable
temperature, say about 98 degrees, and if you have no thermometer you
can gauge the heat by putting in three gallons of cold water and add
one gallon of boiling water. Sit down in the tub and cover yourself
with a blanket. In about ten minutes add by degrees a gallon of cold
water. Remain sitting a minute or two longer, then rub dry.
Many people are afraid to use cold water after hot, in bathing, for
fear they will take cold, but that is just the way to prevent such a
result from the hot bath. The hot water has caused all the pores on
the surface of the body to open, and the bodily heat is rapidly lost
through this cause. The cold water, quickly applied, causes the pores
to close, leaves the skin in a tonic condition, and conserves the
bodily heat. One should never take a hot bath without following it
with a _quick_ cold application to the surface. It should continue,
however, but for a moment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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