This is only one case, but there are thousands of syphilitics who are wandering around unable to pay the prices which the physician asks to treat this disease. The same can be said of gonorrhoea, and the same physician who clamors against the prices of the so-called quack, forgets that the price he asks of the public is exorbitant in the extreme. So the only course for the individual to take, if he cannot pay the price, is to remain a menace to society. The physician assumes no responsibility toward society to find out if the patient is under treatment elsewhere; the patient can do as he pleases with his disease when he closes the doctor's door. This, then is the situation as regards society's attitude toward the venereal subject: Society seems to take a different attitude towards other contagious and infectious diseases, such as measles, chicken pox, diphtheria, etc. In these diseases, a physician has some responsibility toward society; he must report each case as it comes to his attention, to the Board of Health, who in turn assume some responsibility by isolating the disease. If this is necessary in these comparatively simple diseases, how much more important should it be to register and isolate patients suffering from the venereal diseases. CHAPTER VII. MENOPAUSE OR CHANGE OF LIFE In the previous chapter on Puberty, it was stated that the menstrual function began in the average girl at fifteen years of age and continued until the forty-fifth or fiftieth year. At this later age it ceases, together with her sexual or child-bearing capabilities and is known as the Menopause or Change of Life. This constitutes a period from the beginning of irregularities in the appearance of the menstrual flow, until it has actually ceased, which period usually lasts two and one-half to three years. Thousands of women know nothing of the period which, like puberty, they must pass through, but are entirely ignorant of the process. It is usual for them to look toward this age with dread and foreboding; where a little knowledge of the nature of the process would enable them to enter upon this period physically prepared, which would insure their safe arrival through this dreaded and much-feared period. The greatest change occurring in the woman at this time is that which goes on in the ovaries. They cease to do their work and ovulation stops. The first indication that the woman has, that this is likely to occur, is by the ceasing of the menses or monthlies. Ovulation, however, very often continues for several months, even a year after menstruation has entirely ceased. The glandular tissues of the uterus, tubes and ovaries degenerate, which is said to account for the Menopause, and that of the ovaries occurs later than the tubes and uterus, which explains the continuance of ovulation after the menses have stopped.