This inefficient treatment, like the examination, is conjectural and mechanical and therefore incomplete and unscientific. The cause of her entire trouble is never approached. The woman suffers for years from constipation, which also inclines her to piles, because the pressure of the hardened feces on the hemorrhoidal veins obstructs the flow of venous blood and the same pressure on the uterine veins congests the mucous membrane of that organ and gives rise to the symptoms of endometritis. All these conditions should be inquired into, and many others, before local treatment is decided on; simply running to the doctor’s office and having these medical applications made to the cervix or canal of the womb amount to nothing; this, as a general rule, does only harm, and is as superfluous as if one were to take a nasal douche of salt water or some other catarrh remedy, whenever he feels a little cold in the head. The proper course to pursue in this and similar cases is to prescribe an appropriate diet, and regulate the bowels. It is precisely in this way that women who have made the rounds of the doctors, happen to take some patent laxative or nostrum that relieves their constipation, and accomplishes the _wonderful cures_ of which we often hear and that were no doubt Godsends to the sufferers that were cured, after all the _first-class_ doctors failed. By far the greatest proportion of cases of uterine catarrh are of a simple and transient nature and are only intensified by probing and local treatment. When I first began the practice of medicine, I made the same mistake in following the advice of books and those who should have known better, for they have had ample opportunity to be convinced of the _fallacy_ of these local measures in the great majority of cases, but some minds are incompetent to learn from experience, for that requires close observation, and logical reasoning.