17), the decorous guest could not ask for it by name, but
only by a snap of the fingers (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p.
174).
In modern Europe, as seems fairly evident from the early
realistic dramatic literature of various countries, no special
horror of speaking plainly regarding the sacro-pubic regions and
their functions existed among the general population until the
seventeenth century. There is, however, one marked exception.
Such a feeling clearly existed as regards menstruation. It is not
difficult to see why it should have begun at this function. We
have here not only a function confined to one sex and, therefore,
easily lending itself to a vocabulary confined to one sex; but,
what is even of more importance, the belief which existed among
the Romans, as elsewhere throughout the world, concerning the
specially dangerous and mysterious properties of menstruation,
survived throughout mediaeval times. (See e.g., Ploss and Bartels,
_Das Weib_, Bd. I, XIV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_,
fourth ed. Ch. XI.) The very name, _menses_ ("monthlies"), is a
euphemism, and most of the old scientific names for this function
are similarly vague. As regards popular feminine terminology
previous to the eighteenth century, Schurig gives us fairly ample
information (_Parthenologia_, 1729, pp. 27 et seq.
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