2.  In young girls and women who are not married, thirty drops of the fluid extract of Ergot three times a day.  This medicine will cause the womb to contract.  Hot douches can be given to married women.  If the bleeding is severe it may be necessary to pack the vagina with sterile gauze.  Ergotin ten to twenty drops, may be needed, given hypodermically.  If it is due to constitutional causes, like anemia, a played-out feeling, paleness. weakness, etc., a tonic treatment is needed.

3.  Blaud’s pills will do well.  This is the formula: 

Dried sulphate of iron       2 drams
Carbonate of potash          2 drams
Syrup                enough to make a mass

Mix and make forty-eight pills.  Take one to three, three times a day after meals.

4.  If the appetite is poor, bitter tonics such as gentian, quassia, cinchona, or nux vomica are needed.

Compound Tincture Cinchona      2 ounces
Compound Tincture Gentian       2 ounces

Mix.  Take one teaspoonful before meals, in a little water.

5.  Tincture of nux vomica in doses of two to three drops after meals is a good stomach and bowel tonic.

6.  Golden seal root made into a tea is good in some cases, especially if the tongue is much coated.

7.  Oil of Erigeron or flea-bane is good for oozing bleeding.  Dose:  Three to five drops in a capsule every four hours.

8.  Oil of cinnamon in one dose of one-half dram is good where flea-bane oil cannot be used or obtained; usual dose, one to five drops.  An infusion can be made of the cinnamon bark and drank freely.

[Woman’s department 507]

9.  Cranesbill (Geranium maculata).  The fluid extract is splendid when diluted three or four times with boiled water, used locally for bleeding from the womb, or as an injection for the same; or an infusion can be made of the plant and injected into the vagina.  The local cause mentioned should be treated.  The displacement should be corrected.

Dysmenorrhea or Difficult Menstruation.—­This term means difficult and painful monthly periods.  The pain may occur before, during or after the periods.

Causes.—­It may be caused by a narrow cervical canal, the canal from the inner womb to the vagina.  This is often very narrow and almost closed.  Again it is produced by the womb being turned back and bent on the canal, thus partially closing it.  This causes the blood to be retained in the womb and then the womb contracts to expel the blood, pains being the natural result.  Diseases of the womb and ovaries also cause it.  Sometimes the membrane of the womb is cast off in the form of shreds or even a cast of the inner womb.

Symptoms.—­The flow may be scanty, moderate or profuse, often clotted.  The pain varies.  It may be slight before the flow, or the first day or two, or it may be severe, agonizing and continuous for one or two days, or during the whole period and sometimes for some days after there may be pains.