Dr. John Thorburn, in his “Lecture introductory to the Summer Course on Obstetric Medicine,” Victoria University, Manchester, 1884, says:—“Let me briefly remind you of what occurs at each menstrual period. During nearly one week out of every four there occurs the characteristic phenomenon of menstruation, which in itself has some temporary _impoverishing effect_, though, in health, nature speedily provides the means of recuperation. Along with this we have a marked disturbance in the circulation of the pelvis, leading to alterations in the weight, conformation, and position of the _uterus_. We have also tissue changes occurring, _not perhaps yet thoroughly understood_, but leading to ruptures in the ovary, and to exfoliation of the uterine lining membrane, _a kind of modified abortion, in fact_. These changes in most instances are accompanied by signs of pain and discomfort, which, if they were not periodic and physiological, would be considered as symptoms of disease.” (The italics are not in the original.) Here is certainly cogent evidence of “abnormal fruit of birth,” and the learned doctor seems to be on the verge of making the involuntary discovery. But he follows the usual professional attempt (see Note XXX., 4) to class menstruation as a physiological and not a pathological fact; as a natural, painful incident, and not an acquired painful consequence. His half-declared argument, that, because an epoch of pain is periodic it is therefore not symptomatic of disease, is a theory as unsatisfactory as novel. _Id._... Some of the facts connected with parthenogenesis, alternate generation, the impregnation of insects, &c., passed on through more than one generation, would show by analogy this class of phenomena not extranatural or unprecedented, but abnormal and capable of rectification or reduction to pristine normality or non-existence. The fact of occasional instances of absence of menstruation, yet with a perfect potentiality of child-bearing, indicates this latter possibility. That the male being did not correspondingly suffer in personal physiological sequence is explicable on the ground that the masculine bodily function of parentage cannot be subjected to equal forced sexual abuse; though in the male sex also there is indication that excess may leave hereditary functional trace. And that, again, a somewhat analogous physical abnormality may be induced by man in other animals, compare the intelligent words of George Eliot in her poem, “A Minor Prophet”:— “... milkmaids who drew milk from cows, With udders kept abnormal for that end.”