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Hekate

(90,202 posts)
16. Very interesting! I like primary sources as well, & after reading quite a few mentions of Franklin's
Mon Jul 25, 2022, 01:58 AM
Jul 2022

…. book, I set out to find it. To my dismay I could not locate it in the usual places — and it was only after getting into Google search and then the Internet Archives that I realized the book was not by Franklin, but several others. Apparently he edited and emended freely upon the original from England, in order to adapt it to the (then) Colonies.

Franklin’s “recipe” is in a book called “Every Man His Own Doctor, the Poor Planters Physician,” by John Tennent. There is no slapdash “brew some tea” or “chew that root,” but a meticulously prepared and measured-out medicine. Very appropriate, given the toxicity of some of the ingredients. Also, housewives for centuries were accustomed to brewing beer, distilling liquor, and distilling medicines, so this was not alien to most.

The larger book to which Tennent’s was appended is called, “The American Instructor, or, Young Man’s Best Companion,” by George Fisher, an all-purpose self-guided education for a man or woman of those times.

And, now that I know to look for it under some other name than Ben Franklin’s, I have been able to find facsimile copies at Amazon, Abe, and elsewhere — and I downloaded it from the Internet Archives totally free of charge.

Regarding your comment on the “timeline”: the average for the menstrual cycle is 28-days from beginning to end, and the average for the days of menstruation is one week within that cycle. You can see why the ancients closely associated women and their cycles with the Moon itself.

This 28/7 arrangement varies among individual women depending on various factors, such as inheritance, age (young teenagers and perimenopausal women), severe stress, and malnutrition, such as that which accompanies poverty, famine, or anorexia.

But as an average it works pretty well, so girls are taught early on to mark their calendars so as to be prepared for the next onset — because there is nothing like being away from home without supplies when your period starts — altho truth to tell it happens to all of us sooner or later.

More sophisticated trackers assist with charting ovulation in order to either get pregnant or to avoid it. It can be done without an app, believe me, and these days I would recommend that.

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