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Micajah's Medicated
Wafers
Small boxes of old American patent medicine
for women's diseases,
headache, stomach illness, menstruation, and
birth control
SarahAnne
Hazlewood generously donated the
medicine to this museum, part of her
huge gift of medical instruments,
books and advertising material about
women's health.
Harry Finley
created the images.
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The pH - the degree
of acidity or alkalinity - of a
healthy vagina is around 3.8-4.4,
fairly acid. Numbers greater than
that - which happens with
menstruation - allow harmful
organisms to thrive, such as
Candida albicans and Trichomonas
(both forms of vaginitis). Neutral
is 7 and above that, alkaline. And
as a reader pointed out, the main
use for these suppositories might
have been to kill sperm,
which sufficiently strong acid -
under pH 3.5 - can do. See the odor page for another
effect of low vaginal acidity.
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Cellophane
covers the box - or covered, since
it's beaten up.
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What typical
consumer knew what the posterior vault
of the vagina was? Do you?
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© 2005 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute any of the work on
this Web site in any manner
or medium without written permission of the
author. Please report suspected violations
to hfinley@mum.org
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