Puberty, or the era of fertility, commences, in woman, with a series of physiological processes in the ovaries, which prepare the female for the fulfillment of the law of procreation.
The time when the ovaries come to a life of activity^ differs in girls, according to climates, and personal constitu- tions and habits. Thus it is that warm climates, residence in cities, and the habits of reading romance or conversing on amorous subjects, together with a robust constitution, contribute to an early development of puberty; while a climate of low temperature, residence in the country where girls are more innocent, or constitutions of a feeble or of a lymphatic nature, allow this process to appear later.
It is equally true that those who so early usher in the period of ovarian evolutions and menstrual functions are more liable to disorders of menstruation, and to an early cessation of those functions, than those who, through liv- ing in purer atmospheres, morally or physically, attain a considerable development of the body and mental faculties before they enter into this second sphere of vital exuber- ance.
Collectively, girls arrive at puberty from the tenth to the eighteenth year of their life; but this period begins, in the great majority, from the twelfth to the fifteenth year.
At puberty, the ovaries awaken from a dormant state into a life of activity and production. The ovaries contain a conglomeration of vesicles, called Graafian, from their discoverer. Each of these vesicles contains the germ of an egg embedded in a fluid within the wall of the vesicle. For analogy, imagine the yelk of an egg surrounded by its albumen (the white), with this difference only, that the yelk of the Graafian vesicle is so small as to be impercepti- ble to the naked eye. Each one of these Graafian vesicles
