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This Treatise on the Diseases of Women
Is Dedicated to the Women of the World.
Yours for Health
Lydia E. Pinkham
This entire book copyrighted in 1901 and 1904 by the Lydia E. Pinkham
Medicine Co., of Lynn, Mass., U. S. A. All rights reserved and will be
protected by law.
List of Lydia E. Pinkham's Remedies.
+Illustration of Products+
LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S VEGETABLE COMPOUND.
Put up in three forms: Liquid, Lozenge, and Pills Price, $1.00
LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S LIVER PILLS, per Box " .25
LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S BLOOD PURIFIER " 1.00
LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S SANATIVE WASH, per Packet " .25
ALL THE ABOVE, EXCEPTING THE LIQUIDS, CAN BE SENT BY MAIL ON RECEIPT OF
PRICE. ALL DRUGGISTS SELL MRS. PINKHAM'S REMEDIES.
CHAPTER I.
A WOMAN BEST UNDERSTANDS A WOMAN.
=Experience a Perfect Teacher.=--Do you know what it is to suffer pain?
Have you had your body racked and torn with intense suffering? Have you
ever experienced that indescribable agony which comes from overworked
nerves?
Have you ever felt the sharp, stinging pain, the dull, heavy pain, the
throbbing, jumping pain, the cramping, tearing pain, the sickening,
nauseating pain? Then you know all about them. Nobody can tell you
anything more. Experience is a perfect teacher.
=Book-Learning Alone Not Sufficient.=--Suppose you had never experienced
pain, but had just read about it in a book, do you think you would have
any kind of an idea of what genuine suffering was? Most certainly not.
Book knowledge is valuable. It teaches the location of countries, the
use of figures, and the history of nations; but there are some things
books cannot do, and the greatest of these is, they cannot describe
physical and mental suffering. These are things that must be
experienced.
=Personal Experience Necessary.=--After you have once suffered, how ready
you are to sympathize with those who are going through the same severe
trials. If a member of your own home or a friend is passing through the
trying ordeal of motherhood, and you have suffered the same, how you can
advise, suggest, comfort, guide! If you have had a personal experience
of intense agony once every month, do you not think you are in a far
better position to talk with one who is suffering in the same way than
you would be if you had never gone through all this?
=You Best Understand Yourself.=--But let us go a little farther in this
study. When you listen to an eminent orator, you have but little idea
whether he is nervous or not, but little idea whether he is undergoing a
severe strain or not; for you have never been in his place, cannot
understand just that condition.
Men become greatly interested in political matters; perhaps it often
seems to you that they become too much disturbed; and yet how can you
judge, for you have never been in their place? And so we might go on,
giving illustration after illustration as additional proof to this one
great fact.
IT TAKES A WOMAN TO UNDERSTAND A WOMAN.
=Man Cannot Know Woman's Suffering.=--What does a man know about the
thousand and one aches and pains peculiar to a woman? He may have seen
manifestations of suffering, he may have read something about these
things in books, but that is all. Even though he might be exceedingly
learned in the medical profession, yet what more can he know aside from
that which the books teach? Did a man ever have a backache like the
dragging, pulling, tearing ache of a woman? No. It is impossible.
=Even Medical Men Cannot Understand These Things.=--To a man, all pain
must be of his kind; it must be a man-pain, not a woman-pain. Take, for
instance, the long list of diseases and discomforts which come directly
from some derangement of the female generative organs; as, for instance,
the bearing-down pains, excessive flowing, uterine cramps, and
leucorrhoea. Do you think it possible for a man to understand these
things? Granting that he may be the most learned man in the medical
profession, how can he know anything about them only in a general way?
You know, we know, everybody knows that he cannot.
A WOMAN CAN BEST PRESCRIBE FOR A WOMAN.
=Relief First Offered in 1873.=--Away back in '73 these thoughts came to
Lydia E. Pinkham. She saw the most intense suffering about her on every
hand, and yet no one seemed able to give relief. Her thorough education
enabled her to understand that nearly all the suffering of womankind was
due to diseases and affections peculiar to her sex.
The whole question resolved itself into just this: If a remedy could be
made that would relieve all inflammations and congestions of the
ovaries, Fallopian tubes, uterus, and other female organs, the days of
suffering for women would be largely over.
=First Made on a Kitchen Stove.=--Could this be done? Mrs. Pinkham
believed with all her heart that it was possible. So on a kitchen stove
she began the great work which has made her name a household word
wherever civilization exists. Without money, but with a hopeful heart,
she made up little batches of this remedy to give to neighbors and
friends whom she felt could be relieved by it.
The story soon spread from house to house, from village to village, from
city to city. Now it looked as if a business might be established upon a
permanent basis, a basis resting upon the wonderful curative properties
of the medicine itself.
="We Can Trust Her."=--By judicious advertising the merits of this
remarkable remedy were set forth; and before she was hardly aware of it,
she found herself at the head of one of the largest enterprises ever
established in this country.
That face so full of character and sympathy, soon after it was first
published, years ago, began to attract marked attention wherever it was
seen. Women said, "Here is one to whom we can tell our misery, one who
will listen to our story of pain, one whom we can fully trust." And so
the letters began to arrive from every quarter. Now hundreds of these
letters are received every day. More than a hundred thousand were
written in a single year. Everyone is opened by a woman, read by a
woman, sacredly regarded as written strictly in confidence by one woman
to another. Men do not see these letters.
=Men Never See Your Letters.=--Do you want a strange man to hear all about
your particular disease? Would you feel like sitting down by the side of
a stranger and telling him all those sacred things which should be known
only by women? It isn't natural for a woman to do this; it isn't like
her, isn't in keeping with her finer sense of refinement.
=No Boys Around.=--And then, how would it be when some boy opens the
letters, steals time to read a few before they are handed to some other
boy clerk to distribute (and probably read) around the office to the
various departments? It makes one almost indignant to think how light
and trivial these serious matters are so often regarded.
=You Write to a Woman.=--But when you know your letter is going to be seen
only by a woman, one who sympathizes with you, feels sorry for you,
knows all about you, how different all this seems.
=Confidence Never Violated.=--Although there are preserved in the secret
files of Lydia E. Pinkham's laboratory many hundreds of thousands of
letters from women from all parts of the world, yet in not a single
instance has the writer accused Mrs. Pinkham of violating her
confidence.
=The Largest Experience in the World.=--The one thing that qualifies a
person to give advice on any subject is experience--experience creates
knowledge. No person can speak from a greater experience with female
ills nor a greater record of success than Mrs. Pinkham. Thousands of
cases come each month, some personally, others by mail; and this has
been going on thirty years, day after day, and day after day, thirty
years of constant success--think of the knowledge thus gained. Surely
women are wise in seeking advice from a woman with such an
experience--especially when it is free. If you are ill get a bottle of
Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound at once--then write Mrs. Pinkham,
Lynn, Mass.
What medical man has ever lived who has prescribed for so many women?
What whole corps of physicians in any hospital or medical college has
answered so many letters, or treated in any way so many patients?
=She Helps Everyone.=--No woman ever writes to her for advice without
getting help. No matter how rare you think your case may be, she is
almost certain to find letters on file asking advice for other cases of
the same kind. By special permission of the writers I print a few of the
letters showing what cures have been effected. But if the reader could
go through these secret files which are never shown, she might hour
after hour, day after day, week after week, spend her whole time reading
letters, each one telling some special story of rescue from serious
illness, intense suffering, or impending death.
=The Largest Record of Cures.=--The writers of these letters are found in
every clime and there is hardly a country in the world without its
multitude of grateful women cured by Lydia E. Pinkham's medicines. They
have the largest record of absolute cures from female ills known to have
been effected by any physician or his medicines.