Imagine the plight of a young woman, some time during the thousands of years before th the mid-18 century, who, soon after a dif? cult childbirth, ? nds she can no longer keep from leaking urine. She is standing in the chill winter wind, her urine-soaked clothes clinging wet against her thighs as she comforts her crying baby knowing that she faces a life of misery, shame and social ostracism. Or imagine the middle-aged wife of a tenant farmer on the remote central Illinois plain, straining with her husband to lift a heavy log that has fallen on their only milk cow only to feel a deep tearing sensation and discover a large mass protruding between her legs. Gripped by fear, she cannot know what has happened to her or how she will care for her family if she can no longer help with the dif? cult tasks needed to live. We must be grateful to the generations of physicians before us who have pioneered treatments and developed preventions for the pelvic ? oor disorders that have affected women throughout time. Each decade during the last 150 years has brought new insights, new operations, and new medicines to help women who suffer from these debilitating conditions. At ? rst, surgical treatments were so dangerous that they could only be s- gested for the most severe of cases, but advances in anesthetic and surgical safety now make them available to the majority of women.
