Femina, A Work for Every Woman — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Femina, A Work for Every Woman
John Stuart Mill · en
There is a gynecological hygiene with which women should become
familiar; it is based on the principle of antiseptic precautions
applied to the daily lives of their sex. The object of this is to keep
the body and reproductive organs that are exposed to contamination
or infection from the outer world in the most refined and scrupulous
cleanliness. The vaginal douche or syringe is as important an auxiliary
to a refined woman’s toilet case as her tooth brush, because the
cleanliness of the genitals is as essential to the preservation of
health and comfort, as the possession of a sweet breath and the
preservation of the teeth. I am therefore convinced of the hygienic
value of familiarizing little children with washing or sponging their
external genitals; in a few years this will have become second nature,
and they are thus protected for all future time from contracting
diseases which have their origin in personal uncleanness. It behooves
mothers to avoid all delicacy on this subject, so that their little
ones may grow up with the sentiment that to the pure in heart all
things are pure. It is false modesty and ignorance which degenerate
into vice and excesses; the scientific truth is always pure and
holy, because it is based on reason, while abnormal delicacy is only
emotional, and is quite likely to shoot into the other extreme, namely,
licentiousness.
As the world grows wiser, the physiology of the reproductive organs
should form a part of its wisdom, and in proportion to this knowledge,
will their functions become questions of sense, instead of sentiment
and nonsense.
The vagina is a membranous canal. It is situated in the cavity of
the pelvis, below and behind the bladder, and in front and above the
rectum. Its direction is curved from before backwards and a little
upwards; its walls are flattened and ordinarily in contact with each
other. Its length is about four inches along its anterior wall, and an
inch or two longer along its posterior wall. In introducing a nozzle
of a syringe it must always be remembered, that the tube is to be
introduced directly backward on a horizontal plane with the body in the
erect posture; by attempting to introduce it directly upwards, you meet
with resistance from the anterior wall of the vagina.
In this cavity the secretion is susceptible of decomposition, owing to
the accessibility of air laden with germs, which excite fermentation.
A day or two after the cessation of the menstrual flow, there still
lingers a little blood in the cavity of the vagina; this becoming
infected with the germs in the vagina, a decomposition is the result,
which is recognized by an offensive smell. The naturally soothing and
harmless secretion is now changed into an acrid, irritating fluid,
which not only may cause an inflammation of the membrane of the
vagina, but also excoriate the skin at the orifice of the canal.