A Visit From Auntie

Featured website for this article is the Museum of Menstruation. Special thanks goes to Harry Finley for allowing me to glean information from his site for use throughout my article. Every woman should make a pilgrimage to the Museum of Menstruation.

What could be more curious than a person who bleeds on average every 28 days and does not die? That one ability put women in a whole different category since the beginning of time. Let us look at the history of how women dealt with their menstrual cycles through the ages.

The embarrassment surrounding menstruation developed many code phrases to refer to it. You may have heard your grandmother tell someone about "a visit from auntie" or the time she was "on the rag." "Falling off the roof" and "riding the white horse" are examples of other slang phrases.

According to The Red Spot, "only humans, apes and some monkeys menstruate. Mammals like dogs and cats sometimes bleed a little when they are in heat, which is when they ovulate and mate, but they do not have menstrual cycles."

On average, a woman loses about four tablespoons of blood each month. To deal with the mess of it, women used grass, sponges, cotton wads and other absorbent materials to catch the blood. What is hard for us to imagine, however, is that the custom of some in history was to bleed into their clothing with nothing to catch it. In earlier times, open-crotch undergarments allowed secretions to pass away from the body and provided ventilation. It was not all "lavender and lace" under those long skirts! Today's "crotched" underwear is a fairly modern invention.

Nothing is written about the practices of American pioneer women other than hints about it in diaries where dark colors were recommended for wearing. Therefore, pioneer women may have bled into their clothing as well since they would have done the same as women in their homelands. In some cultures, women still bleed into their clothing today.

Records indicate that historically, menstruating women left a trail of blood. Factories where women worked used rushes on the floor to catch it. One might imagine that the odor was terrific, but during the 18th century at least, menstrual odor was considered seductive. At certain times in history, odor was evidence of a young girl's ability to have children. At other times, it spoke of a woman's infertility.

When considering the average woman in early history, poor nutrition, the lack of birth control, and the fact women breastfed their children, make it entirely possible that she did not menstruate very many times during her life, if at all. We must remember that the norm was not even to live until menopause.

In the period of roughly 1700-1900, washing or changing underclothing was considered unhealthy. Women feared blocking the flow or causing intense bleeding. Then around 1880-1890, German doctors began proposing menstrual devices for women to wear to improve their health. American patents for menstrual devices began in 1854 for a belt with steel springs to hold a pad, but the products really didn't start gaining in popularity until the 1870's.

What is in menstrual blood? The answer to that question is subject to debate. One opinion is reported at the Museum of Menstruation which states that "laboratory tests have found a certain toxin (appropriately called "menotoxin") in the various body fluids of a menstruating woman. This toxin is believed to manifest itself in large quantities, just before and during the first few days of the onset of the monthly period. Research has revealed that menotoxin has an inhibitory effect on the growth of roots, stems, living seedlings, yeast and affects the geotropic properties of seedlings."

I emailed my doctor and got his opinion on menotoxins. He said, "Menstrual flow is simply blood and tissue sloughed from the endometrium, or lining of the uterus. There are no more toxins in that blood than in any other blood; nor does it contain any bacteria except 'good bacteria' found naturally in the vaginal canal as the blood exits. The existence of any sort of 'menotoxin,' or toxin in the menstrual flow, has never been proven by any reproducible studies. Certainly, menstrual blood, like any bleeding, can harbor viruses like HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C. However, most transmission of blood-borne disease comes not from contact with the menstrual blood but from contact with blood either from the cervix or from microscopic tears in the vaginal wall. Almost every time a pap is done (removing cervical mucus for cells), the scraping action on the cervix causes some bleeding from the cervix (not the endometrial lining)."

In certain myths, menstrual blood was believed to be life-giving and to have healing properties. It was included in the recipes for drugs and ointments and was also supposed to be cleansing in nature.

Petra Habiger presents a wealth of information in her article, Menstruation, Menstrual Hygiene and Woman's Health in Ancient Egypt. She writes that one example of a "negative" career was a laundry worker who had to wash the "loincloth of a menstruating woman." Be sure and read this fascinating article.

Pieces of cloth, called "Granny Rags," made from old sheets, pillowcases or other surplus material, then folded and pinned into underwear, served the average woman for years before the advent of commercially made disposable pads. Sears, Robuck sold sanitary aprons in their catalog for those with the money to buy them. Rags were washed after each use, hung out to dry, and used over and over. When odor became an issue, the remedy was to boil the rags 5-10 minutes to get rid of the problem. Women travelers either took their cloth pads home to wash them or burned them in the fireplace. England had special portable burners in the 1890's specifically to burn menstrual pads.

Tampon-like materials have been around since ancient times. Hippocrates wrote of their usage. Egyptians probably used grass or papyrus as tampons. An interesting fact is that the letters "O.B." in modern-day OB Tampons means ohne binde or "without a pad."

Timeline for important developments of disposable pads and tampons:

* 1890 - could buy disposable pads - "Lister's Towel" by Johnson & Johnson
* late 1920s-early 1930s - 1st commercial tampons
* 1920 - Curads disposable
* 1921 - Kotex disposable
* 1970 - adhesive pads
* 1996 - menstrual cup - first popular model after several unsuccessful products

Kotex pads (cotton-texture pad) came from bandages made in WWI for American soldiers in France by Kimberly-Clark. American nurses tried the bandages and liked them. These sold well after women were allowed to put money in a container on the store counters without speaking to a clerk. They then selected their boxes and took them home.

Other brand names for menstrual products included Fax, Fibs, Holly-Pax, Moderne Women, Nappons, Nunap, Slim-Pax, Tampas, and Wix. See pictures of these products at the Museum of Menstruation.

Attitudes about menstruation varied greatly. One way of dealing with it was to put women in seclusion in special menstrual huts. These are still in use today in some cultures.

The ability to bleed and not die equated to control of life powers in some religions. In goddess worship, a woman's menses determines the status of her power in the maiden, mother and crone figures. Menopausal women are sometimes revered and looked to for a wealth of knowledge and experience.

The Roman author, Pliny, in his Natural History wrote that a woman can turn wine sour, cause seeds to be sterile, wither grafts, cause garden plants to become parched and fruit to fall from a tree she sits under.

Jewish tradition regards a woman as ritually impure during menstruation and anyone or anything she touches becomes impure as well. As time went on, more items were added to include her breath, spittle, footprints, voice and nail clippings. Read about one Jewish tradition in The Tradition of Slapping Our Daughters.

Under Islamic law, a menstruating woman is not allowed to pray, fast or have sex. She is not allowed to touch the Koran unless it is a translation (the Koran is only a Koran if it is in Arabic).

A Hindu woman abstains from worship and cooking and stays away from her family.

Is there any scientific evidence that a woman becomes physically different during her menses, other than bleeding? One report hints at it. Pictures taken in Kirlian photography, which photographs the energy flow of the body, shows that the aura or personal atmosphere of a menstruating woman becomes darker and denser.

If you are worried about attracting sharks with menstrual blood, read Blood in Belize's Blue Hole before going into the water.

Where would mankind be without those regular visits from auntie? Long gone, I'm afraid, yet I am one thankful woman to be living in this day and writing about how they used to handle it rather than living that way. Let's celebrate this part of women's history, too.