In some women who have flexion or a bent womb there is no obstruction,
because the probe passes the canal freely; in these cases dysmenorrhœa
must be traced to some other cause. If it is clearly established that
flexion is the cause of the obstruction, the most successful treatment
is the electrical current. I have often had cases where little mucous
growths no larger than a small marble, grew in the canal and obstructed
the free escape of blood; after these were removed, the dysmenorrhœa
ceased at once.
Other obstructions may be due to a stricture of the vagina or some
deformity of the hymen; a very slight surgical operation will
permanently relieve both of these hindrances.
There is a much larger proportion of cases that suffer from painful
menstruation in whom the uterine organs are perfectly healthy, but who
are systematically injured by dishonest or hungry specialists, by being
subjected to _local treatments_. I have had cases of this nature fall
into my hands very often. They had made the rounds of the specialists
and had been made the innocent prey of avaricious professional
competition, so that it is of the greatest importance to distinguish
this class of cases from those in which the pelvic organs are the seat
of the difficulty.
Nervous and congestive dysmenorrhœas are particularly adapted for the
hygiene of home treatment. Nervous or neuralgic dysmenorrhœa is very
often overlooked, and treated as a local lesion of the womb.
The psychical exaggeration which many women experience at the approach
of the menses is abnormally heightened in dysmenorrhœa. The pains in
the back, in the hips, and in the lower part of the abdomen disturb
the normal operations of the mind. The irritation of the nerves of the
womb is often reflected to distant organs, and pain is felt in remote
regions. Some women suffer only just a day or two preceding the flow,
while others suffer severely during the entire period, so that they are
forced to keep to their bed the greater part of the time.
Professor William Goodell, one of the most profound and original female
specialists in America, has this to say in a recent publication: “I
have learned to unlearn the idea— and that was the hardest task of
all—that uterine symptoms are not always present in cases of uterine
disease; or that, when present, they necessarily come from uterine
disease. The nerves are mighty mimers, the greatest of mimics, and
they cheat us by their realistic personations of organic disease and
especially of uterine disease. Hence it is that even seemingly urgent
uterine symptoms may be merely nerve counterfeits of uterine disease.
I have, therefore, long since given up the belief, which, with many,
amounts to a creed, that the womb is at the bottom of every female
ailment.