Discreet inquiry revealed that the mysterious malady was one common to all women, and the girl was restored to her insufficiently punished parents.
Half a century ago the sexual life of girls was ignored by their parents and teachers from reasons of prudishness; at the present time, when quite different ideas prevail regarding feminine education, it is ignored on the ground that girls should be as independent of their physiological sexual life as boys are.

The fact that this mischievous neglect has prevailed equally under such different conditions indicates clearly that the varying reasons assigned for it are merely the cloaks of ignorance.

With the growth of knowledge we may reasonably hope that one of the chief evils which at present undermine in early life not only healthy motherhood but healthy womanhood generally, may be gradually eliminated.

The data now being accumulated show not only the extreme prevalence of painful, disordered, and absent menstruation in adolescent girls and young women, but also the great and sometimes permanent evils inflicted upon even healthy girls when at the beginning of sexual life they are subjected to severe strain of any kind.

Medical authorities, whichever sex they belong to, may now be said to be almost or quite unanimous on this point.