Pushing back boundaries is it?
Around the start of 2006 some UK TV shows have been aired where diet has been linked to excretion.
This has brought to the surface the statistic that a normal menstrual flow is between twenty and fifty ml - cubic centimetres.
There are all sorts of basic ideas such as the idea that women should not have sex if they are not of child bearing age.
Most religious texts were written in a time when the idea was that each sperm - not that anybody had actually seen a sperm the most primitive of microscopes being a millennium in the future - was a tiny little person and that the function of the woman's body was to nurture that baby as it simply grew in her womb.
Women experience what is sometimes known as hidden ovulation. They may behave differently at different times in their monthly cycle but there is no physical sign of being 'on heat' as in domesticated animals.
There are three issues here. Blood mixed with rather a lot of water - like the amount of blood in a period mixed into the amount of water in a toilet bowl - looks like blood.
Sanitary wear may be able to absorb a lot of blood but if you have a female dog as a pet she will probably go on heat between twenty and thirty times in her lifetime.
You will 'know' she's on heat because her 'pussy' will become enlarged and smeared with blood.
Here we have two functions of menstruation - the period. On the one hand a dog on heat wants to advertise the fact to the rest of her pack. On the other hand her womb has to change to be ready to make babies - get bigger and stronger - and then it has to change back again.
Thus there are two elements to menstrual flow in animals such as dogs. Part of the flow is an advertisement that she is on heat and the bulk of the flow is associated with the changes - build up and break down - in the womb. Thus there will be 'spotting' even if there is conception but there will be no slightly later 'flow' if there has been conception.
Dogs do spotting to attract a mate and then they do flow if they don't find a mate or he is unsuccessful.
The flow doesn't run down all over their back legs. They dispose of it during urination.
In women a heavy period may be a sign of endometriosis - too much build up and release of womb tissue during the period - or it may be a failure of the sphincter which normally holds back the flow but lets out the spotting.
Thus the taboo on women not of childbearing age - too young, too old barren, already pregnant - kangaroos can conceive whilst pregnant but most females can't, not menstruating was based on the idea that ejaculate was 'people soup' and it should not be wasted in any way and should only ever be expelled from a man into a menstruating woman - but not actually during menstruation.
Any problems associated with this should be taken to a medical practitioner but the first answer to a 'excessive flow' problem is to ensure that you are drinking enough water to be able to flush your menstrual flow away. The human period is so intense - over two to three days that flow could run down yer legs simply 'cos you ain't had a pee to flush it away since yesterday.