HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
BY 
IRENiEUS P. DAVIS, M. D. 
NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 
1883. COPYRIGHT BY 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
1883. TO 
J. MARION SIMS, M.D., 
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 
IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY AID, 
IN SOME MEASURE, 
TO AVERT FROM THE WOMEN OF TO-MORROW 
THE SUFFERING THAT IT IS 
HIS GRACIOUS MISSION TO ALLEVIATE FOR THE 
WOMEN OF TO-DAY. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER PAGE 
Introduction . . . . .5 
I. Nerves and Nervousness . . _ , 8 
II. Habit and Association . . . .44 
III. Sympathy and Imagination ... 70 
IY. Organs peculiar to Women . . .95 
Y. Feminine Employments . . 114 
YI. Amusements . . . . .133 
YII. Social Customs . . . .161 
YIII. Harmony and Elements op Beauty . . 183 
IX. Hygienic Morals . . . .197 HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Health is not a thing of chance, but is 
governed by certain fixed laws. These laws 
are but imperfectly understood, and onr knowl- 
edge of them is continually progressing. In 
the present state of medical science a com- 
prehensive study of them is the labor of a 
life, and should therefore be undertaken only 
by those who are able and willing to, devote 
their lives to the subject. Necessarily, such 
individuals constitute but a small portion of 
mankind. It is to them that all others must 
look for special instruction as to the preser- 
vation of health, and the most probable means 
of regaining it when it has been lost. 
Yet, while the intricacies of the science of 6 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
health must be left to those who make that 
science their province, some of the plainer 
and simpler laws relating thereto may be un- 
derstood by any person of ordinary intelli- 
gence, at a very small expense of time. It 
is plainly the duty of every one who can, to 
acquire this elementary knowledge, as, if 
acted upon, it will certainly save a great 
deal of suffering, not only to the individual, 
but to those with whom the individual comes 
in contact, and will also greatly augment the 
power for work and for enjoyment. 
Especially is it desirable that girls should 
have this knowledge, since their future rela- 
tions in life will associate them more nearly 
with the physical welfare of others, and their 
own present and future are attended with 
more danger from the deplorable effects of 
ignorance than in the case of their brothers. 
Many a woman whose childhood was bright 
with promise endures an after-life of misery 
because, through a false delicacy, she re- 
mained ignorant of her physical nature and 
requirements, although on all other subjects 
she may be well-informed; and so at length INTRODUCTION. 
she goes to her grave mourning the hard 
fate that has made existence a burden, and 
perhaps wondering to what end she was born, 
when a little knowledge at the proper time 
would have shown her how to easily avoid 
those evils that have made her life a wretched 
failure. 
Most of the suffering in this world arises 
directly from ignorance, and much of it from 
ignorance that is criminal because unneces- 
sary. CHAPTER I. 
NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
The brain, the spinal cord and the nerves 
comprise what is known as the nervons sys- 
tem. In general, it may be said that the 
brain is the part which thinks, feels, and 
directs. The spinal cord, or spinal marrow, 
as it is sometimes called, consists of nerve 
material running through the spine from its 
commencement at the base of the brain to 
the lower end. The nerves are soft, whitish 
cords, running from the brain or spinal cord 
throughout the various parts of the body. 
Many people, otherwise intelligent, suppose 
nerves to be of invisible structure, or too 
small to be perceived by the unaided senses. 
The former supposition is incorrect, and the 
latter is only true of the extremities of 
nerves after they have become minutely di- NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
9 
vided in the organs to which they are dis- 
tributed. At their origin from the spinal 
cord or the brain the different nerves vary in 
size from about the thickness of the thumb 
to that of a knitting-needle or less. After 
leaving the brain or spinal cord the nerves 
branch like trees, the branches growing small- 
er with each division until they finally sepa- 
rate into filaments too small to be seen by 
the naked eye. These filaments are distrib- 
uted to all parts of the body. Every little 
muscular fiber has its nervous supply in this 
way, and so has each part of every organ. 
We can not thrust the finest needle into the 
body at any point without striking some 
nerve - filaments and thus causing pain. As 
the nerves spring either from the brain or 
the spinal cord, and as the spinal cord itself 
comes directly from the brain, every part of 
the body is under the influence of the brain, 
through the means of the nerves. The nerv- 
ous system has been aptly compared to the 
electric telegraph, with the brain for cen- 
tral office, the subtile nerve-force for the in- 
visible current, and the nerves themselves 10 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
for the conducting wires. But, as in a tele- 
graph system there are many offices, each 
one having its own battery and connecting 
link whereby the operator is enabled either to 
put himself in connection with the entire line, 
or to send his own messages independently 
of the central office, so in the nervous system 
there are many stations or “nerve-centers,” 
as they are called, each of which is capable 
of communicating impulses received from the 
brain, or of originating its own impulses and 
causing acts with which the mind has nothing 
to do. This secondary and independent exer- 
cise of nerve-power is called reflex action, be- 
cause it never occurs except in response to 
some impression received from without the 
nerve-center in which the action originates, 
and is thus, as it were, an impulse conveyed by 
the nerves from some external point, and re- 
flected by the nerve-center back again through 
the nerves to the point from which it started. 
Thus, if the finger comes into contact with 
flame, an impression is conveyed by the nerves 
of the finger to a nerve-center situated in the 
spinal cord, and by that center reflected back NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
11 
through, the same nerves in the form of a 
motor impulse at the same time that the in- 
telligence of the injury is being communicated 
through the spinal cord to the brain, so that 
the finger is withdrawn before we are con- 
scious of suffering, and before the will has 
time to act. In the same way, if any object 
approaches too near to the eye, we close the 
eye, or wink, involuntarily, and, unless pre- 
pared for it and able to oppose the impulse 
by great force of will, we do so even in spite 
of a strong desire to keep the eye open. 
This reflex action may occur without any 
brain, as has been often proved on animals 
from which the brain has been removed and 
on animals that have been beheaded. Nearly 
every one is familiar with the fact that fowls, 
after their heads are cut off, will flutter and 
throw themselves about for a considerable 
time, and this is often regarded as an indica- 
tion of pain or of some definite purpose on the 
part of the fowl. It is neither. When the 
nervous connection with the brain is severed, 
it is as impossible to feel pain or form a con- 
scious purpose in that part which is sepa- 12 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
rated from the brain as it would be to re- 
ceive telegraphic dispatches at New York from 
Washington if the wires were broken. The 
motions are purely reflex, being excited by 
contact of the surface of the body with the 
ground, or with other objects. If a fowl af- 
ter its head is cut off is held carefully by 
the wings until the motions excited by the 
first touch have ceased, and is then gently 
laid upon a bed of down and all currents of 
air are excluded, it will remain without mo- 
tion until it resolves into its chemical ele- 
ments. But, if, soon after becoming quiet, it 
is touched by the finger or by a stick, or 
even blown upon, reflex action will be again 
excited. So it is with people in whom the 
function of the brain is suspended. In some 
cases of injury to the spinal cord, in which 
there is complete loss of communication be- 
tween the brain and the lower part of the 
body, patients will kick when the soles of 
their feet are tickled, although they are en- 
tirely unconscious of the touch and also of 
the motion. In sleep the same thing often 
occurs. A touch of the hand is sometimes NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
13 
sufficient to make a sound sleeper change po- 
sition or even turn completely over. 
The brain itself is also subject to reflex ac- 
tion. We know that the brain is capable of 
several different kinds of action, such as 
thought, memory, passion, motion of the 
body, etc. From what we see of the diver- 
sity of functions in the brain it will readily 
be understood that its reflex actions may 
be much more intricate than those of the 
spinal cord, which as a nervous center has 
comparatively limited functions. All volun- 
tary muscular movements originate in the 
brain. Like the spinal cord, however, the 
brain is capable also of producing reflex 
muscular movements, as is shown by the 
reflex motions of the eye which have been 
described, the nerves controlling which are 
derived directly from the brain. But it is 
capable of many other forms of reflex action, 
some of them closely related to thought and 
feeling. Indeed, it is probable that by far 
the larger proportion of the acts performed 
by the brain are of a reflex character. Some 
even go so far as to suppose that there is no 14 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
such thing as an original action of the brain, 
but that all its motions are reflex, being ex- 
cited by some external cause or by the impres- 
sion produced by some previous mental act. 
It is not always easy to decide between direct 
and reflex actions, yet it is doubtless true that 
such a difference exists. The spinal cord, too, 
though far less complex than the brain in its 
operations, has probably some other forms of 
reflex action besides that of muscular motion. 
The study of reflex action opens a very wide 
field of observation and research. Our pur- 
pose is served, however, by the knowledge 
that reflex action depends on a peculiar nerv- 
ous influence operating independently of will 
and sometimes of consciousness, and never 
operating except in response to some previous 
action or nervous impression; that it occu- 
pies a very large place in the sum of life, 
and makes much of the happiness and mis- 
ery of existence, being in some of its mani- 
festations beneficial or absolutely necessary 
to the maintenance of life, and in others very 
injurious. 
The terms “nerves” and “nervousness” NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
15 
are often misused and much misunderstood. 
It is not uncommon to hear people assert of 
certain others, or of themselves, that they 
“have no nerves,” and many even become 
indignant at the suggestion that they are in 
any degree nervous. The idea of such would 
seem to be that nerves are a hindrance to 
the cool command of one’s faculties, and 
that to be nervous is to be weak, fanciful, 
and silly. Yet we know that without nerves 
one wrould have no faculties to command, 
and that some kind and degree of nervous 
influence enters into every act of onr lives. 
Indeed, we often hear a man of great cool- 
ness and self-command spoken of as “a man 
of nerve,” and one who displays a quick 
and eager energy in all things is frequently 
described as a nervous person. It is un- 
fortunate that so much confusion exists in 
regard to these terms, which are thus made 
to stand both for that state of the nervous 
system in which the highest health exists 
and the largest use is possible, and that in 
which weakness and disorder exist to a pain- 
ful degree. Even if we limit onr use of the HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
16 
term nervousness to conditions in which there 
is disorder of nervous action, these conditions 
are so varied that the term still fails to have 
the special significance attached to it by many. 
It is difficult to avoid so using it, but its limi- 
tations and extensions should always be kept 
in view sufficiently to prevent us from doing 
mental injustice to others or to ourselves in its 
use. 
Nerves are actual tilings and nervous dis- 
orders are real disorders. True, some sup- 
posed nervous complaints are imaginary, but 
the same may be said of all forms of disease. 
In few other diseases, however, does so much 
depend on the patient in the way of prevent- 
ing or removing the disorder as in many of 
those of a nervous character. The exercise 
of self-command is a very essential point to 
the maintenance of a healthy nervous organi- 
zation, or to the recovery of healthy nervous 
action when it has been impaired. Nervous 
disorders arise in large part from some im- 
proper or excessive reflex action, and, though 
such action is involuntary and therefore can 
not be directly controlled by the will, yet NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
17 
often it can be indirectly, either by avoiding 
those conditions which are liable to excite 
such reflex action, or by means which will 
strengthen the general system and enable it 
to resist the action. For instance, it often 
happens that a school-girl, either from severe 
study, or more often from the ill effects of 
irregularity in the matters of food, sleep, and 
exercise, from the strain of social dissipa- 
tions or other fatigues added to her school- 
work, or from some other neglect of the or- 
dinary rules of healthful living, becomes so 
far exhausted that her nervous system suf- 
fers, and, though by strong force of will she 
may still regularly perform all the accus- 
tomed voluntary acts of mind and body, 
some of the reflex motions become excessive 
or perverted. She starts violently at trifles. 
She is irritable, and slight things annoy or 
excite her. She may give way to unreason- 
able fits of laughing or crying. Sometimes 
she is without cause despondent, and per- 
haps at other times, equally without cause, 
exhilarated and vivacious to an unusual de- 
gree. In short, she is “nervous.” Probably 18 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
she has more or less headache, and very 
likely suffers at times from various unclassi- 
fied aches and pains or uncomfortable sensa- 
tions. Now, this is a real condition. She can 
no more dispel her nervousness directly by 
force of will than she can in the same way 
dispel her headache. But indirectly she can 
control it to a very great degree. She can 
avoid many of the direct causes of the nerv- 
ous manifestations. She can not avoid start- 
ing at trifles, but by seeking quiet and rest 
she can avoid many of the trifles that would 
make her start. She can not always check 
herself midway in a fit of nervous laughing 
or crying, but she can usually avoid the ap- 
proaches to it by an effort of will. She can 
not, perhaps, when nervously irritable or 
despondent, make herself amiable and cheer- 
ful by willing to be so, but she can withhold 
herself from the excitements which result in 
these conditions. Nor will these restraints 
be of only momentary benefit. All such nerv- 
ous manifestations increase in force and fre- 
quency by their own exercise, and diminish 
by restraint, so that by avoiding the exciting NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
19 
causes the nervous conditions themselves will 
be permanently improved. In many cases, 
too, and probably in all such cases, the di- 
rect force of will has much power in aiding 
to repress the nervousness, even when it is 
not sufficient to wholly effect it without the 
use of the means already suggested. The 
direct exercise of the will in this way is ex- 
ceedingly important, for every victory thus 
gained is a long step toward recovery. Of 
course, the first thing to be done is to cut off 
all the causes which, in the first place, led 
to the nervous condition. Many who are in 
that condition suppose that some nervous ex- 
citement is a necessary stimulant to restore 
the lost strength, and with this idea indulge 
in social amusements that are really dissipa- 
tions, and that are similar in character and 
effect to the dissipations which first caused 
the exhaustion. Sometimes these seem at the 
time beneficial, from the feeling of exhilara- 
tion which they produce, but this appearance 
is deceptive, the reaction being always disas- 
trous. Take an illustration: A girl in this 
condition finds herself comfortable only when 20 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
under the influence of some excitement. It 
need not be very great, but there must be 
some slight nervous tension, something to 
stir the pulse and stimulate the waning ener- 
gies of the nervous system. In the interven- 
ing hours of quiet and relaxation she suffers 
from a nervous weariness that manifests it- 
self by a feeling of unrest, of ennui, of vague 
dissatisfaction with self and with things in 
general, sometimes by an aversion to socie- 
ty and a disinclination to effort, especially 
in one’s accustomed employment. To avoid 
these hours of misery she perhaps occupies 
all her leisure with severe reading or study 
on some special topic, or with hard practice of 
music, drawing, or something similar. More 
often she seeks diversion at the theatre and 
ball-room, or in some other form of amuse- 
ment that has sufficient excitement to dis- 
tract her mind for a time from herself. In 
either case the result is much the same. The 
concentration of the faculties upon the study 
or amusement causes a pleasurable thrill, per- 
haps all the keener because of the irritable 
condition of the nerves, but for that very NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
21 
reason unhealthful, and this lasts until the 
attention is turned away from the subject, 
or until exhaustion becomes so great that 
further concentration is impossible, and then 
comes the reaction in the shape of a depres- 
sion of the nervous forces and of the entire 
powers of the individual, in proportion to 
the degree of exhilaration which has been 
experienced. Relief from the painful effect 
of this depression is sought in a new round 
of mental or social dissipation, with similar 
and accumulating result; and so matters go 
on from bad to worse, until at length the girl 
either dies from some incidental disease that 
would have had little effect upon her had 
she not been in an exhausted condition, or 
she becomes prematurely old and haggard, 
unfit for society, a burden to her friends, 
and a plague to herself. Instead of such a 
course, one in which rest is the main feature 
should be pursued. By this it is not meant 
that one should spend most of the time in 
bed, or that all social intercourse and all 
useful or pleasurable employment should be 
interdicted. It is not always, and perhaps HYGIENE FOE GIELS. 
22 
not generally, necessary to interrupt the reg- 
ular course of school studies, though some- 
times it is, and it is very important that 
neither should the multiplicity of studies be 
sufficient to confuse the mind, nor should the 
attention be fixed upon any one study, at 
any one time, long enough to produce ex- 
haustion or great fatigue of mind or body. 
Social intercourse in the family or among 
pleasant friends and acquaintances is desir- 
able ; but balls, parties, theatrical entertain- 
ments, and all amusements or occupations 
that cause nervous excitement or necessitate 
late hours, should be strictly avoided. Ir- 
regular hours are especially to be guarded 
against. Change of scene and of associations 
is frequently beneficial by providing subjects 
for mental and physical occupation that in- 
terest by their novelty, and yet are not suffi- 
ciently engrossing to fatigue the faculties, 
but such change is never beneficial when it 
involves continuous, fatiguing travel, or the 
whirl of a watering-place in summer and of 
city society in winter. 
Another form of nervousness, not always NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
recognized as such, is of an emotional char- 
acter, and depends rather on constitution and 
habit than on any general impairment of 
health and strength. Many persons of not un- 
kindly disposition and generally fair health 
yet suffer from a nervous irascibility of tem- 
per. It seems as if the friction of daily hap- 
penings was exaggerated for them, and small 
things rasp painfully upon their feelings, ren- 
dering them querulous and unreasonable, un- 
comfortable themselves and disagreeable to 
others. Or it may be that on slight occasion 
they burst into uncontrollable passion, saying 
and doing things that are absurd as well as 
wicked, repenting perhaps almost immediate- 
ly, but none the less repeating the offense on 
the very next occasion. This state of things 
is not commonly regarded as a disorder of 
health, yet it is certainly a departure from 
that sound mind in a sound body which 
constitutes perfect health. Many conditions 
come to be well-marked diseases that in their 
beginnings are but vicious habits, and indeed 
every habit which in its exercise involves a 
change for the worse in some nervous or other 24 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
function must be considered, in so far, a de- 
parture from health. Perfect health has rela- 
tion to the moral as well as to the mental and 
physical functions. Notwithstanding this, the 
responsibility for such outbreaks of temper 
remains, for the moral sense is by no means 
lost, and, moreover, this is a form of nervous- 
ness which is more readily controlled than 
many others. Each indulgence increases it, 
but if a constant watch is kept upon the 
temper, and a strong effort at repression 
made, improvement will be certain and rapid. 
Above all, it is important to avoid giving vol- 
untary expression in any way to the irritated 
feeling, and this can very readily be done if 
one really desires it. Some take much cred- 
it to themselves for “speaking what they 
think,” as they term it, but really for speak- 
ing what they feel. This is altogether wrong. 
It is a mistake to suppose that anger is less- 
ened by “having it out,” or that “it is bet- 
ter to say it than to keep it to one’s self.” 
Every strong outburst of emotion is followed 
by some degree of reaction, which, in the case 
of anger, may for a time make it seem as if NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
the outburst had done good in clearing away 
the clouds of ill-feeling, as a discharge of 
electricity may remove the mists from the air, 
but this benefit is only apparent and tempo- 
rary, and the outburst has in fact prepared 
the way for a more violent one on the next 
opportunity. The feeling of vexation or an- 
ger is involuntary and reflex. Words, on the 
contrary, are voluntary, and thoughts, strictly 
speaking, are also. No matter how “passion- 
ate ” or nervously irritable one may be, these 
intrinsic distinctions remain. We can, then, 
control our words and thoughts, and, by con- 
trolling these, we can remove from our minds 
in large part the impressions that give rise to 
the feeling of vexation. It is on this princi- 
ple that it has been said that an angry per- 
son should count ten before speaking, and if 
very angry, a hundred. If we give voluntary 
expression to the angry feeling in words, or 
even in thought, every such expression acts 
as a renewed impression on the brain to 
maintain and intensify the angry feeling until 
the capacity of the emotion for exercise is for 
the time exhausted, so that it is no figure of HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
speech to describe a person in such circum- 
stances as “nursing his wrath to keep it 
warm.” 
The same rules apply to that lesser degree 
of irritation which results in fretfulness or 
general “crossness.” Whether it is a creak- 
ing door, an idle question, or any other petty 
annoyance that brings the frown to our brow 
and the snarl to our lips, if we remark, audi- 
bly or mentally, on every repetition of it, the 
frown will surely grow deeper and the snarl 
more habitual, while if we always let the an- 
noyance pass with as little speech or thought 
as possible, resolutely repressing the snarl and 
smoothing out the frown, we shall soon find 
that it has ceased to affect us as an annoy- 
ance. We shall find that we have grown less 
nervous, and our friends will find that we 
have grown better tempered. 
A form of nervousness that is often de- 
rided, but is very distressing to those who are 
afflicted by it, is manifested by fear or dread 
of certain things. This is not the reasonable 
fear of things known to be unsafe, which may 
be a mere matter of prudence, nor is it a cow- NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
27 
ardly shrinking from danger, but it is an un- 
reasoning dread with which the question of 
danger has really little or nothing to do. 
Often this clread is felt for some object that 
is entirely harmless, and is known to be so 
by the person dreading it. Again, the object 
of dread may be in itself more or less dan- 
gerous, yet, that the feeling of dread is not 
caused by the actual danger, may be shown 
in the fact that the person subject to it is 
perfectly courageous in the presence of all 
other dangers. So, many persons of un- 
doubted bravery are beside themselves with 
fear at sight of a mouse. Others have the 
same uncontrollable terror of a cat or of some 
other animal. It is impossible for them to 
give any reason for their dread. They do not 
commonly fear that the object of it will really 
hurt them, but its presence excites in them 
an intense horror that reason and will are 
powerless against because it is not born of 
reason or will, being purely reflex in its op- 
eration. There is no more reason apparent 
why a strong and brave man, or even a girl 
neither very strong nor very brave, should 28 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
tremble and turn pale at sight of a little 
mouse that one slight blow would crush out 
of existence, than there is why either of them 
should laugh immoderately if a finger be 
drawn over the ribs or across the sole of the 
foot. In either case there is a peculiar nerv- 
ous susceptibility to a certain form of re- 
flex action. In one case the presence of the 
mouse causes a nervous sensation of terror. In 
the other case the motion of the finger causes 
a nervous sensation of tickling. Though the 
exciting causes as well as the effects are dif- 
ferent, the two operations are very similar; 
and as, in the case of the tickling, if the will 
is strong enough to resist the prompting to 
laugh, and keep the body quiet, the suscepti- 
bility to tickling will be much lessened, and 
may in a little time be lost altogether, so in 
the other case, if the will is able to repress 
the manifestation of terror, the susceptibility 
to terror from such cause will be lessened 
and may wholly disappear. On the contrary, 
if the will can not or does not repress the 
manifestation of terror, the susceptibility to 
the terror will grow, so that every time, for NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
29 
example, one screams or starts at sight of a 
mouse or other object of nervous dread, that 
dread is increased for the future, just as 
every tickling that can not be resisted ren- 
ders one more ticklish. For this reason, it is 
cruel as well as unwise to force on the at- 
tention of persons who have this nervous 
weakness the object of their dread, especially 
when it is done suddenly so that they are 
taken unawares, or when the object is brought 
into personal contact with them, or a pre- 
tense is made of so doing. Such things are 
often done thoughtlessly by friends or ac- 
quaintances who find pleasure in laughing at 
the distress that seems to them but a foolish 
fear, or sometimes with good intentions, in 
the erroneous supposition that all that is nec- 
essary to cure the dread is familiarity with 
its cause. Very serious results have some- 
times followed such acts. 
The same kind of nervous dread often 
has for its object other things than those just 
mentioned. In fact, it may be caused by 
any object, animate or inanimate, or by the 
idea of an object, as well as by the thing 30 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
itself. The poet G-ray, for instance, is said 
to have suffered acutely from a nervous dread 
of fire, and while in college his life was made 
miserable by fellow-students, who knew of 
his weakness, and amused themselves by giv- 
ing false alarms of fire under his window at 
night and in other ways playing upon his fear- 
There is, however, a distinction to be made 
between this unavoidable nervous dread and 
simple cowardice or affectation of fear, which 
is often mistaken for it by the person af- 
fected. A cow or a spider may excite in 
some persons a nervous horror, but in a far 
larger number of persons the fear of the cow 
is a reasoning fear of its horns and hoofs, 
originating in well-grounded knowledge of 
the animal’s power and ignorance of its do- 
cility, or in cowardly distrust of the person’s 
superiority ; while the dread of the spider is 
either a dislike of its ungainly shape and ob- 
jectionable habits, an ill-founded belief that 
it is venomous, or an affectation of what is 
fancied to be delicate and lady-like. 
There are many forms of nervousness more 
or less closely allied to that which has just NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
31 
been considered. Even the inferior animals 
are subject to some of them. It is said that 
the elephant will tremble with fright at sight 
of a mouse, and monkeys shriek and chatter 
with terror at any slight rustling sound oc- 
curring at night, although in daylight they 
would take no notice of it. Very similar oc- 
currences are often observed among our do- 
mestic animals and those which in a state of 
nature make their dwellings near men. The 
rage of bulls and turkey-cocks on seeing a 
red cloth flutter and the alarm of chickens at 
seeing a bird or a piece of paper fly through 
the air above them are familiar to most per- 
sons. Many dogs howl dismally whenever 
they see the full moon, and others do the 
same on hearing thunder or the report of fire- 
arms, the tolling of a bell, or certain chords of 
a piano or of some other musical instrument. 
Mice and some other animals are some- 
times strangely influenced by musical sounds, 
in a manner quite opposite to their common 
habits and instincts. In some cases the in- 
fluence seems to be an agreeable one, and in 
others the reverse. Many instances are re- 32 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
lated of naturally shy animals being drawn 
from their hiding-places by the strains of a 
flute or other musical instrument, and remain- 
ing unconscious of danger, and in a state of 
apparent ecstasy, during the continuance of 
the music. On the other hand, bats are said 
to suffer acutely from the strains of a violin; 
and a recent writer* gives the following ac- 
count of the effect jiroduced on these animals 
by the sound of another instrument: “The 
upper story of the Salzburg Acropolis is in- 
fested with innumerable horseshoe bats, and 
the steward often uses them for a curious ex- 
periment. He claps one into a wire cage, 
puts the cage on the top of a desk, and on 
a lower shelf of the desk a Hackbrett, or 
Styrian zither. At every twang of the zith- 
er the bat will start as if a fine needle had 
pierced its body, and a prolonged perform- 
ance will throw it into a fit, a convulsive 
twitching of the whole flying membrane.” 
In some of these instances we can see a 
* Felix L. Oswald, in “ Lippincott’s Magazine,” for February 
1882. Several illustrations in this chapter are on the authority of 
the same author. NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
33 
cause, or at least a reason, for the nervous 
manifestation, while in others we can not. 
We are told that the elephant has good 
ground for his fear of the mouse, in the fact 
that the small animal is liable to make its way 
into the nostril of the larger one, thereby, of 
course, causing intense suffering and perhaps 
danger to life. But it does not seem likely 
that the elephant should know this fact if he 
has never experienced it, and, not knowing it, 
his terror of the mouse is inexplicable, unless 
we suppose that the experience of past gener- 
ations of elephants has impressed his nervous 
system with an instinctive horror of mice. 
That an animal may thus blindly inherit 
some peculiar nervous susceptibility as a re- 
sult of the experience of many generations 
of its ancestors, is abundantly proved. A 
familiar illustration of it is found among 
dogs. Pointers, setters, hounds, etc., are vari- 
eties of dogs that for many generations have 
been trained to hunt certain animals. Pup- 
pies of any one of these varieties show great 
nervous excitement at the first sight or smell 
of an animal of the particular kind that their 34 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
ancestors have hunted, although the puppies 
have as yet no knowledge of their true rela- 
tions to this animal, and must themselves be 
carefully trained before they can properly 
hunt it. On the same principle it has been 
suggested that the nervousness of monkeys 
at night is probably due to the fact that, as 
these animals can not see in the dark, they 
are, in their native forests, quite at the mercy 
of night-prowling beasts of prey, and the fre- 
quent visits of such nocturnal enemies, amid 
rustling leaves and crackling branches, to suc- 
cessive generations of monkeys, have devel- 
oped in the whole monkey race instinctive 
night-terrors which the slightest rustling or 
crackling sound will awaken to shuddering 
and shrieking expression, though the terrified 
creatures do not seem to have any idea of a 
specific danger, but rather to be like children 
cowering and crying in the dark. We do 
not know why moonlight or a tolling bell 
should make a dog howl, why a mouse should 
be entranced by the music of a flute, or a bat 
thrown into convulsions by the sound of a 
zither, and the same is true of many other NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
35 
forms of nervousness that animals are sub- 
ject to. It may be that explanations will be 
found for these, not dissimilar from the ex- 
planations proposed in the case of the ele- 
phant and that of the monkey, and it may 
be quite otherwise. We can as yet see only 
the immediate cause and the effect, and, what- 
ever may be the remote cause, so far as we 
can see, the phenomena are very similar in 
all these forms of nervousness. We find a 
variety of such forms affecting man in much 
the same way as they do the lower animals. 
The dread of darkness common to chil- 
dren—and which, by-the-way, is not confined 
to children—has already been alluded to. It 
is not simple cowardice, although it may have 
a greater influence on cowards than on those 
who are naturally courageous. Neither is it 
probably due to stories of night-horrors heard 
or read by children, as many persons have 
supposed, though these undoubtedly aggra- 
vate it. It is a form of nervousness like 
those we have been considering. Of course 
it is very inconvenient and undesirable, and 
fortunately it can nearly always be overcome. 36 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
Not, however, by violent means. To force a 
child who is afraid of the dark to go alone 
into a dark room while in a state of nervous 
excitement, and especially to terrify such a 
child with weird tales and suggestions, or 
with unexpected noises and movements made 
under cover of darkness, is cruel and certain 
to increase its nervousness. Self-control in 
such circumstances is hardly possible, and 
self-control is the prime necessity in over- 
coming this and similar forms of nervousness. 
Familiarity with the object of dread is 
essential to effect this end, but this familiar- 
ity must be gained in a manner that will not 
of itself deepen the impression of dread. In 
other words, if we are to be cured of fear- 
ing the dark, we must become accustomed to 
darkness in circumstances that will not asso- 
ciate in our minds other unpleasant or ter- 
rifying ideas with that of darkness. We 
should avoid getting our imaginations excited 
by ghost-stories or other horrors at any time, 
and especially just before going into the dark. 
On the contrary, we should, so far as possible, 
before retiring to a dark room, fill the mind NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
37 
with, wholesome and practical ideas by cheer- 
ful conversation or reading. If it can be 
avoided, we should never delay such retire- 
ment until we are very weary in either mind 
or body, because such a condition unfits us 
to exercise self-control, and favors the forma- 
tion of weird mental images. We should, if 
about to sleep in a strange room, take careful 
note of every part of it, and the position of 
doors, windows, furniture, etc., before extin- 
guishing the light, not that we are actually 
safer for making this observation, but because 
we will then have a sense of controlling our 
surroundings and not of being controlled by 
them, and because we will be better able to 
recognize individual objects in the dim light 
of night, or of dawn, and to avoid seeing in 
them unreal and grotesque shapes. By such 
means as these, aided by reason and will, even 
very timid or nervous persons can soon rid 
themselves of a dread of darkness. Wanting 
the knowledge or the will to make a proper 
effort to this end, some girls grow to woman- 
hood with the dread fastened upon them, to 
the great annoyance of themselves and their 38 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
friends, perhaps so far yielding to it as to 
keep a light always burning in their rooms 
at night, a practice on many accounts unde- 
sirable except in sickness. 
We may notice here the not uncommon 
practice of looking under the bed before re- 
tiring. In itself it is a trivial thing, yet such 
trivial things largely affect one’s comfort and 
usefulness. The very habit of looking keeps 
alive a nervous fear that there may be some- 
thing to look for, expressed, if occasionally 
the looking has been forgotten until after the 
light is put out, by the thought, “I haven’t 
looked under the bed! What if there should 
be ?” While, then, it is better to look 
than to suffer continually from such a fear, 
yet if we have sufficient self-control to refrain 
from looking we shall probably find, after a 
short time, that we have ceased to feel the 
need of looking, that our consciousness has 
received what reason has long told us, viz., 
that our resting-place is secure; in short, that 
we are freed from a petty nervous tyranny, 
and are by so much stronger, more self- 
centered, and happier. NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
39 
Many people are affected by certain sounds 
in much the same manner as are some of the 
animals we have spoken of. The sound of 
filing a saw, the creak of a rusty hinge, and 
various other noises, produce in many an un- 
pleasant thrill, apparently in the nerves of 
the teeth, which is commonly described as 
“setting the teeth on edge.” Again, certain 
musical instruments, or sometimes certain 
notes on almost any musical instrument, af- 
fect some persons in peculiar ways, in some 
cases causing nausea, in others producing a 
curious, thrilling sensation that may be either 
pleasant or unpleasant, or may have elements 
of both pleasure and pain; and so on. 
Some persons are sensitive in a similar way 
to certain colors or shades of color, to odors, or 
to impressions conveyed by the sense of touch, 
fndeed, nearly every one feels a nervous shiv- 
er on touching the down of a green peach or 
stroking velvet the wrong way, and there are 
many other instances in which the sense of 
touch produces a peculiar effect on the nerv- 
ous system of some individuals. The smell 
of tobacco makes some persons deathly sick. 40 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
Others are affected in the same way by the 
smell of roses, of strawberries, melons, apples, 
cheese, or some one of a score of other com- 
mon articles of food. There is scarcely a flow- 
er, fruit, or other odorous substance known, 
that does not have this effect on some. Man- 
ufactured perfumes are especially apt to pro- 
duce it. On the other hand, the same odors 
produce on the nerves of some persons an 
effect which is not unpleasant, or which is 
unpleasant only in its intensity. These pe- 
culiar nervous effects, whether painful or 
pleasant, do not bear any close relation to 
the annoyance or gratification felt by the 
sense of smell. That is to say, one may like 
the smell of roses, for example, and yet faint 
at it; or one may dislike the smell of musk, 
and yet experience a certain kind of nervous 
delight in it. Probably the nervous suscep- 
tibility to colors among mankind is less com- 
mon than that to odors, at least as regards 
any great degree of its manifestation, though 
in a general way nearly every one is subject 
to the cheering and depressing influences of 
various colors and their combinations, even NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
41 
without understanding the reasons, and here 
and there, will be found an individual on 
whose nervous organization certain colors 
have a very remarkable influence. 
Moonlight, water flowing strongly, or deep 
water resting in shadow, the silence of a great 
forest, or the sound of wind rushing through 
its branches, and many other phenomena of 
nature, have a marked influence on some nerv- 
ous organizations. In some they produce a 
feeling of exaltation, in others one of sadness, 
and again they excite feelings that are not 
easily described, but that involve a kind of 
awed fascination, a consciousness of profound 
power affecting us or which may affect us, yet 
incomprehensible and beyond our control. 
Perhaps this sense of subjection to a mys- 
terious power is the principal cause of the 
influence exerted upon the nerves by such 
natural phenomena, and indeed it is proba- 
ble that something like this is a large element 
in nearly all the nervous influences just con- 
sidered as belonging to many odors, sounds, 
etc. Generally we may free ourselves from 
any of these forms of nervousness by becom- 42 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
ing accustomed to the objects which excite 
it. Familiarity with the object, whether it be 
a sight, sound, odor, or anything else, soon 
enables us to regard it without the feel- 
ing that it possesses and controls our be- 
ing, and, as soon as this point is reached, 
although the object may still be agreeable 
or otherwise to our senses, it no longer 
makes us nervous, because, instead of being 
mastered by it, we now master it. This mas- 
tery is sooner effected if our familiarity with, 
the object is associated in some way with 
practical service or use. Thus, if we could 
utilize Niagara Falls for the running of a 
cotton-mill, we would far sooner learn to 
stand beside it with unshaken nerves than if 
we merely accustom ourselves to look upon 
it with wonder and admiration. So, if one 
who is nervously affected by the odor of 
certain fruits can exercise sufficient self-con- 
trol to become engaged in the business of rais- 
ing or dealing in such fruits, the nervous in- 
fluence will disappear more readily than if 
they are handled merely for the sake of fa- 
miliarity. NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. 
43 
On the other hand, if on each occasion of 
our coming into contact with the object we 
yield to its peculiar influence, either through 
inclination or inability to avoid yielding, we 
strengthen the bonds of that influence and 
deepen its effect. Therefore, in such a case, 
if the influence is an undesirable one, as near- 
ly all such influences are, we will do wise- 
ly in avoiding the cause of it as far as we 
possibly can. On this principle those who 
find that they are excited to nervous melan- 
choly by certain scenes or associations, and 
yet are strongly fascinated by such scenes 
or associations, should carefully avoid them. 
It matters not whether that which exercises 
such a growing mastery over us is the grave 
of a friend or only the reflection of the 
moon from a frog-pond, or any other object, 
if we continue to place ourselves under its 
spell we are in danger of hopelessly impair- 
ing our nervous organizations, if not of add- 
ing to the list of tragedies in life or in death 
that have grown out of such influences. CHAPTER II. 
HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
The influence of habit upon our lives is 
so great that man is often called a machine, 
and many of our acts which at first are the 
result of choice, become, after a time, invol- 
untary and mechanical. We do an act for 
the first time, and perhaps find some difficulty 
in doing it, but, as a matter of reason and 
choice, and by a strong effort of will, the dif- 
ficulty is overcome. On some later occasion 
the act is repeated, still by the deliberate ex- 
ercise of will, but with less difficulty than be- 
fore. As the act is repeated again and again, 
the difficulty disappears, and we come at 
length to do it without conscious effort and 
with little consideration; and finally, when- 
ever the circumstances recur in which we HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
45 
have grown accustomed to doing the act, we 
perform it at once without stopping to choose 
or think about it, and even, it may be, in 
spite of a new-formed purpose not to do it. 
This growth of habit occurs in the same 
way, whether the act to which it relates is 
good or bad, or without moral quality. Take 
an example. We hear some one pronounce a. 
word in a very absurd way, and are amused 
at it. When we next have occasion to utter 
that word, the blunder connected with it 
touches our sense of humor, and we sport- 
ively adopt the false pronunciation. It may 
be a little difficult for us to produce exactly 
the grotesque sound which amused us, but by 
repeated trials we succeed in rolling the bar- 
barism from our tongue as readily as our for- 
mer correct utterance. After a time, however, 
we cease to find the blunder amusing, or our 
better judgment and the fear of being mis- 
understood warn us to desist from its use. 
But now, to our chagrin, we are apt to find 
that a habit has been formed, so that, when 
we attempt to use the proper pronunciation, 
the improper one comes instead. It may be 46 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
that we now frequently nse the latter uncon- 
sciously when we suppose we have used the 
former, or it may be that we are painfully 
conscious of the tripping tongue, and are 
obliged to pause and make a decided effort 
to speak the word correctly. The tongue 
seems to have acquired a grotesque twist that 
makes itself felt whenever we come to that 
word, and renders it difficult to turn the word 
off in proper shape. And this is the fact. 
There is no deformity of the tongue, no con- 
tortion visible to the eye, or apparent to any 
physical means of perception. It is not 
changed in form or texture. But there is a 
twist in the exercise of its functions. It has 
developed a peculiar reflex irritability, a pow- 
er, and, with the power, a necessity, of re- 
sponding in a particular way to a certain 
impression. That impression is produced by 
the idea of the word, through a mental asso- 
ciation of this idea with the blunder, so that, 
whenever the idea is present in the mind, the 
nerves impel the tongue, without our will and 
perhaps without our knowledge, to commit 
the blunder. HABIT AND ASSOCIATION 
47 
Habit, then, is a form of reflex action, and 
the act which is performed by habit is not 
strictly a voluntary act, although it may be 
performed by voluntary organs, and as a result 
of a will to perform it. Of this character is 
the act by which a musician strikes the keys 
of an instrument in accordance with the writ- 
ten or printed notes. By long practice the 
fingers have become so educated that the mo- 
ment the eye glances at any note they strike 
the corresponding key. This is in accordance 
with the will of the musician, but the opera- 
tion of that will through the ordinary chan- 
nels of thought and voluntary motion would 
be too slow for the purpose. Before this 
habit of the fingers is fully developed, the 
motion must come through these channels, 
slowly and laboriously. Even then the fingers 
may be quite as capable of making the proper 
movements, but the effort of deciding those 
movements in the mind and directing them 
in the fingers requires so much time that 
their succession is necessarily slow or inter- 
rupted. It is only when, by many repeti- 
tions, the sight of certain figures becomes so 48 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
firmly associated with certain movements of 
the fingers that the one instantly calls forth 
the other without the intervention of volition, 
that the playing becomes easy and rapid. 
The reflex character of habit is a little 
differently and perhaps more plainly illus- 
trated in those who play by ear. They begin 
a tune which they have heard played or 
sung, and, though they may have no accurate 
knowledge of the notes in it or of notes at 
all, the first note, when sounded, prompts 
them to strike the next, and so on to the 
end. This is effected through the power of 
association. There is no logical reason why, 
in a certain tune, B should follow A, but 
there is the fact that it does follow. We 
may not be aware of this fact, and, although 
familiar with the tune, may be quite unable 
to tell another person or ourself, without 
trial, what note should be struck after A, but 
on sounding A our finger, by an instinctive 
motion, falls upon B. We may even have 
forgotten a part of the tune, and be quite 
unable to recall it to mind until we under- 
take to play it, and then the playing of a HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
49 
few notes immediately preceding the forgot- 
ten passage causes us, involuntarily, to strike 
the notes of that passage, and perhaps only 
after we have thus played it are we able to 
recall it to mind. So we see that habit de- 
pends upon association, and is very similar, 
indeed, to memory. It has been aptly called 
a physical memory, and the analogy between 
this and the ideal memory is so close that 
it is often difficult to draw the line between 
them. 
Habit affects not only words and other 
acts, but thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. 
The familiar sarcasm on any notorious liar, 
that “he has told the story so many times 
that he believes it himself,” has solid truth 
for a foundation. The frequent repetition of 
a falsehood, especially if with the intent to 
make others believe it, at length makes such 
an impression on the narrator’s consciousness 
that it has to him the effect of truth. In 
this way it sometimes happens that a person 
will tell a lie, knowing it to be a lie, and 
afterward, having frequent occasion to repeat 
it for the saving of his credit, will come so 50 
HYGIENE FOB GIRLS. 
fully to believe in it that lie would stake 
his life, his reputation, and his final salvation 
on its verity. In this state of mind one may 
swear to a lie in a court of law without be- 
ing guilty of willful perjury, although legally 
guilty of it and morally responsible for the 
origin of the lie. The falsification, which at 
first was a voluntary motion, has finally pro- 
duced a reflex action, through which, when- 
ever it is presented to the consciousness, it 
must induce belief. There is a form of dis- 
ease in which this same reflex action of the 
consciousness is induced without the previous 
operation of long habit, but with all its ef- 
fect, so that the patient tells the most absurd 
and impossible lies with no apparent object, 
but really because she (women are much 
more liable to the disease than men) can not 
help it, and because the lies are truth to her 
consciousness. Again, it is known to all who 
have considered the subject that the con- 
sciousness may be so developed by habit that, 
on the one hand, we will give ready credence 
to any assertion that is brought to it, how- 
ever strange or improbable, or, on the other HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
51 
hand, we will doubt everything that we see, 
and trust no one without very particular proof. 
Belief is a matter of personal consciousness, 
and may or may not have a reasonable basis. 
It is not, like thought or speech, under the 
direct control of the will, but, through the 
force of habit, in the manner that has been in- 
dicated, it may be largely affected by the will. 
Hence, it is truly said that all men are apt 
to believe what is to their interest. I may 
wish to believe that there is no life beyond 
the present one. But my habit from infancy 
has been to believe otherwise. Philosophy 
teaches me that there must be, revelation 
tells me that there is, a hereafter. I can 
not believe what I wish, so long as I feel it 
to be false. My consciousness, my sense of 
knowing, forces me, even against my will, to 
believe in the future life. Yet, if my pres- 
ent life is such that I have strong reason 
for wishing that there may be none here- 
after, I will avoid, so far as possible, think- 
ing of the future life as a reality—will ex- 
clude from my mind those thoughts that 
prove that reality to my consciousness. In- 52 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
stead, I will welcome thoughts of what might 
be if there were no future life. The repetition 
of such thoughts encourages a feeling that 
possibly there may be none, and now my con- 
sciousness, aided by desire, begins to receive 
the impression of such arguments as I can 
find against the future life. So, at last, 
through the indirect action of the will in 
forming a habit of thought or of feeling, I 
come to have a fixed belief, a consciousness, 
of that which I wish, even though it be 
utterly false, and though I was once fully 
assured of its falsity. Something like this 
occurs whenever, on any subject, a belief is 
adopted in consequence of a desire to hold 
that belief, and not from a dispassionate bal- 
ancing of evidence. 
It is true, of course, that the influence of 
the will in forming a habit of thought that 
shall induce belief may be for good, as well as 
for evil, and right as well as wrong beliefs may 
be adopted in this way. The operation, too, 
may be quite a rapid one, and, the more we 
permit our wishes to influence our beliefs, the 
more easily and rapidly such changes will be HABIT AND ASSOCIATION 
53 
effected; so that it is not very uncommon 
to find persons who have acquired a habit of 
believing with remarkable facility almost ev- 
erything that appears to their interest, and 
of disbelieving, with equal readiness, whatever 
is contrary to their wishes. It requires, in- 
deed, much self-culture to avoid this method 
of coming to conclusions, and perhaps no one 
is wholly free from it. It is the curse of 
conversation and of discussion, the great ob- 
stacle to the advance of truth in all depart- 
ments of thought. Women are, in the aggre- 
gate, more under its influence than men, be- 
cause fewer women than men acquire the 
habit of forming beliefs by the method of 
presenting to their consciousness facts wher- 
ever found, independently of their wishes and 
predilections. For this, too, is a habit, and 
can only be attained by long and careful cul- 
tivation. Grirls are too apt to consider such 
mental discipline outside of their province— 
something for which they are not by nature 
adapted, and which is not needful for them 
to acquire. Far better would it be for them, 
and inestimably better for the next genera- 5 4 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
tion, if they could be convinced to the con- 
trary. 
It is scarcely necessary to speak of the 
influence of habit on the emotions, beyond 
what has been said of it in connection with 
nervousness. We know that a peaceable per- 
son may become quarrelsome, and a quarrel- 
some person peaceable; that love, hate, an- 
ger, and all other emotions may be devel- 
oped beyond any control, or confined within 
strict limits, simply through habit. The for- 
mation of the habit in these cases is accord- 
ing to precisely the same principles as in 
those that have been described. So in re- 
gard to habits of thought. True thought, as 
distinguished from mere ideas, is always a 
voluntary motion of the mind, but the fre- 
quency of thought, the subjects upon which 
it is chiefly exercised, and the general tone 
of it, are things of habit. 
All those processes which belong strictly to 
the animal life, and are not directly connected 
with either will or consciousness, are regulated 
by habit. Thus, the stomach becomes accus- 
tomed to receiving food at certain hours, and HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
55 
when those hours arrive hunger is felt, and 
the digestive organs are in readiness for their 
work; while if food is taken at other times 
it is often digested imperfectly, or not at all. 
The quantity of food required, or which may 
be digested, is, to some extent, a matter of 
habit, and so is the kind. The organs of se- 
cretion and excretion are all subject to the 
law of habit as to the amount of work they 
perform, and the time or circumstances of its 
performance. One would hardly suppose, for 
example, if the facts were not known, that 
sweating is largely a matter of habit, yet so 
it is. Glass-blowers, iron-founders, and others 
who work in great heat, are enabled to bear 
without suffering a temperature that would 
soon kill an unaccustomed person, because 
they have acquired a habit of perspiring 
enormously, sometimes several quarts in an 
hour, when exposed to a very high tempera- 
ture, and the perspiration carries off the heat 
from their bodies. Every organ and function 
of the body, in short, is under this law. 
So we see that, in the sum of life, a very 
large amount is to be set down to the ac- 56 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
count of habit. There is, indeed, a vast 
advantage to ns in this, for we are thereby 
enabled to so regulate our lives in all par- 
ticulars as to derive the largest and best re- 
sults, whether of pleasure or other good, with 
the least effort. Probably more than nine 
tenths of all that we think, say, and do, is 
the result of habit, and without this aid to 
action our lives would be full of wearing ef- 
fort, yet very barren of result. Yet habit also 
involves great danger of loss. So easily is it 
formed, and so closely does it bind us, that 
we are in constant danger of losing, through 
unfortunate habits, much of the good of life. 
We have seen how closely our moral, mental, 
and physical functions are united, and how 
very dependent they are upon one another for 
healthy exercise. It becomes, then, of the 
utmost importance, considered simply as a 
measure of health, that we should look care- 
fully to the habits of all these different func- 
tions, encouraging such habits as are benefi- 
cial, and checking all those that have in any 
way an evil tendency. 
Our responsibility in this matter relates HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
57 
not only to ourselves, but, perhaps even in a 
greater degree, to those who shall come after 
us. Those for whom this is written will be 
the mothers of the next generation. The 
thoughts which they are now thinking, the 
words they are speaking, the acts they are 
doing, the regularity or irregularity with 
which their various organs are performing 
their offices, will produce habits in the chil- 
dren they will bear five, ten, twenty, or thirty 
years hence. And these inherited habits are 
often stronger than those which are formed 
after birth by the direct acts of the individ- 
ual. For many months at the beginning of 
a human life there is no power of voluntary 
motion in either brain or body. All the op- 
erations are reflex, and have their origin in 
some influence derived from the parents, and 
especially from the mother. So the reflex 
character of the child—its inborn habits of 
mind and body—is determined before it has 
the power of choosing its acts, and that which 
in the parent would be a second nature is 
inherited by the child as an original nature. 
In this way many a child has been born a 58 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
drunkard. It may be that neither parent has 
ever been drunk, but one or both have prac- 
ticed the drinking of intoxicating liquors to 
some extent. Every repetition of this, as of 
every act, produces a deepening impression, 
but the habit thus formed may be restrained 
in the parent by reason and will. There are 
at first no such restraining influences in the 
child, but the reflex impression made on the 
parent is transmitted to it, and so it is born 
with a taste which it has no power to control. 
And in the same way many a child has 
been bom a liar because the parent has prac- 
ticed a disregard for truth; many a child has 
been born a sloven because the parent has 
practiced a disorderly habit; many a child has 
been born a dunce because the parent has 
neglected to form habits of study and obser- 
vation ; many a child has been born a tale- 
bearer because the parent has indulged in 
small gossip about neighbors ; many a child 
has been born a blasphemer because the par- 
ent has practiced irreverence of thought, 
word, or manner; many a child has been born 
to an inheritance of physical misery because HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
59 
the parent has formed habits of mind or body 
that interfere with the healthy exercise of the 
various organs, and this even though the 
health of the parent may not have been very 
seriously affected thereby. There is not a 
command in the decalogue that children are 
not made to break, not a grace of mind nor 
a power of body that they are not made to 
suffer the want of, through the transmission of 
habit from parents. 
And this transmission occurs whether the 
impressions destined to produce the habit oc- 
cur in the person of the parent shortly before 
the birth of the child, or many years before, 
so that parents often see in their children good 
or bad habits for which they themselves laid 
the foundation in their own childhood. Hab- 
its may even be transmitted to the third or 
fourth generation, and that even when they 
have not appeared in the intervening ones. 
So the habits that we are now forming will 
add to the happiness or misery of the world 
a hundred years from now. In this view, it 
is wholly incorrect to say, as is often said, 
that the manner in which we live “will make HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
60 
no difference in a hundred years.” Indeed, 
an inherited habit is very apt to be strength- 
ened by practice, and by the same practice to 
be transmitted to the next generation, by that 
to the next, and so on, indefinitely; hence, 
our habits will bear fruit in the physical, 
mental, and moral health of untold ages if 
the world shall endure so long. Such consid- 
erations have little weight with many young 
people, because it does not seem possible to 
them that their relations with the world can 
so change that, instead of being children, they 
shall come to be parents. Yet this is pos- 
sible to all, probable of most. They would 
hardly forgive their parents if they found 
themselves diseased and degraded in conse- 
quence of the indolence or self-indulgence of 
those parents in former years, yet at' their 
age the parents felt as they do now about 
the possibilities and responsibilities of later 
life. 
Habits formed in early life, however, and 
discontinued before the time of parentage, are 
not nearly so liable to be transmitted to pos- 
terity as those that are continued. HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
61 
As the formation and exercise of habit de- 
pend entirely upon the power of association, 
its discontinuance can only be effected by 
breaking the association or by removing the 
object or impression through which the asso- 
ciation is effected. Take, for example, the 
habit of the fingers in playing a musical in- 
strument. That habit is exercised, we found, 
through the association of certain figures or 
sounds with certain movements of the fingers. 
If for a long time we read no music, the im- 
pression made by the notes becomes weak- 
ened, and finally lost, so that we shall be un- 
able to play from note until we have again 
educated our fingers. Or, if we have no in- 
strument to play on, even though we continue 
to read notes, as in singing, the association of 
the notes with the movements of the fingers 
finally becomes broken with the same result. 
All our other habits are suppressed in the 
same way. We can not control a strong 
habit by direct force of will so long as all 
the conditions exist which call that habit into 
exercise, but we can control some of those 
conditions, and thus break the association HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
which constitutes the habit. Whatever the 
habit is, then, which we wish to break, it is 
wise to avoid, as strictly as we can, all scenes, 
companions, occupations, words, and thoughts 
that are in any way associated with its ex- 
ercise, being careful to fill their places with 
others that are dissimilar. 
Miss Mabel Chatterbox has acquired a habit 
of gossip about her acquaintances. She does 
not mean to misrepresent or injure them, and 
does not know that she does so, yet she is in 
the direct way to transform her mind into 
the same ghoul-like thing that does service in 
Mrs. Scandalmonger’s cranium. That cordial- 
ly hated old woman is not by nature particu- 
larly ill-disposed. At Mabel’s age she was, 
like the latter, a merry, romping girl, a favor- 
ite in society because she was a pleasant 
talker and well informed as to society news. 
But the habit of repeating and commenting 
on items of society news, and especially such 
items as have some sinister aspect, has grown 
upon her until it has completely warped her 
sympathies and her judgment. Even now 
she does not speak evil of people from a de- HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
63 
sire to injure them, or pleasure in making 
things worse than they are, though both these 
motives are commonly attributed to her. She 
is not really conscious, in fact, that she ma- 
ligns her neighbors, and is as virtuously in- 
dignant at the faults and foibles which she 
honestly thinks are apparent in them as they 
are at her slanderous tongue. From long-con- 
tinued noting of the ill-considered acts and 
evil motives in the world, she has developed 
so strong a habit of taking every suspicion 
for a fact and hanging suspicion wherever 
there is a point that it will hang on, that a 
shadow is to her real substance, and the very 
sunlight but a cover to some dark mystery. 
Now, if some good angel shall show Miss 
Mabel that her gossiping habit tends surely 
in this direction, she will wish to remedy it. 
With this view, as well as because tale-bear- 
ing appears unlovely in others, she will prob- 
ably avoid the society of Mrs. Scandalmonger. 
But this will help her but little, for, though 
the example of others may convince us of the 
advantage or disadvantage of certain habits, 
it has less direct influence than we are apt to 64 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
suppose in forming the habits within us, and 
neither example nor the absence of it will of 
itself break a habit that we have already 
formed. 
The companions, then, that Miss Mabel 
should especially avoid are those that listen 
complacently to her gossip, and by that very 
complacency encourage in her a feeling of su- 
periority to the fellow-mortals to whom the 
ridiculous, or unfortunate, or otherwise re- 
markable things have happened that are the 
subjects of her comments. Then if she sees 
young Mr. Goodman walk the length of a 
street with old Miss Spinster, instead of allow- 
ing herself to think that “that old maid” is 
making an effort to monopolize Mr. Goodman’s 
society, or that at least “it looks a little 
queer,” she should regard it only in the light 
of a simple courtesy on the part of a young 
gentleman to a very worthy lady, and so dis- 
miss it from her mind. And if she hears that 
Harry Ledger is short in his accounts, and, 
though his employer will not prosecute him, 
there is a probability of his leaving town, let 
her not permit her mind to be influenced by HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
65 
that lying old proverb that “where there is 
much smoke there must be some fire,” nor 
even direct her mental vision to circumstances 
that may tend to establish the fact of Harry’s 
guilt, and so add another to the long list of 
instances that already impress upon her con- 
sciousness the idea of human meanness in 
general and the necessity of watching people, 
but rather let her remember that Harry’s em- 
ployer has offered to retain him in his pres- 
ent position, and so be impressed with the fact 
that there are such things among men as gen- 
erosity and open-hearted trust. If she will 
carry out this principle of thinking in con- 
nection with all the items of social news that 
come to her, she will have broken a link in 
the chain by which the habit of evil-speaking 
depends. Moreover, she will have formed men- 
tal associations through which every unex- 
plained act of her neighbors and every par- 
tial report of their doings will present itself 
to her consciousness in an unprejudiced and 
rationally charitable light; and, although this 
charitable frame of mind will not in the least 
disqualify her to form just estimates of right 66 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
acts and motives when they are fully set be- 
fore her, it will prevent her from lightly speak- 
ing evil of any, for she will think no evil. 
Just in the same way are physical habits 
changed. If I have formed a habit of going 
to bed and to sleep at midnight, it will do me 
no good to go to bed at ten o’clock until I 
have changed that habit; and this change I 
can effect in one of two ways, either by break- 
ing the association of ideas and circumstances 
that are connected with my going to sleep, so 
that, not finding sleep through these, I shall 
learn to sleep in connection with other ideas 
and circumstances, or by bringing the present 
association of ideas and circumstances into 
operation at an earlier hour, so that at ten 
O’clock, or such other hour as may have been 
selected, the conditions will exist in which it 
has been my habit to fall asleep. Perhaps 
it has been my habit (a very bad one, by-the- 
way) to read myself to sleep. Now, if I com- 
mence my reading two hours earlier than 
usual, I shall be very likely to fall asleep two 
hours earlier than usual. But then, as I can 
only sleep a certain average number of hours HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
67 
in the twenty-four, unless I rise at the end 
of that number of hours, I shall soon form 
a habit of wakefulness during a part of the 
night, or else the association between reading 
and going to sleep will be broken, and I shall 
still have to lie until midnight before sleep 
comes. It may be that my habit is to wait un- 
til every other member of the household has 
retired, and the house is closed, before I sleep. 
If I become a member of another house- 
hold, where some one else assumes this office, 
I shall for a little time have a half-conscious 
feeling of care at night that may perhaps keep 
me from sleeping early, but, being freed from 
the responsibility, I shall soon lose the feel- 
ing of it, the association that connects the 
closing of the house with going to sleep will 
vanish, and I shall find my necessary sleep in 
connection with some other association. Sleep 
is so necessary that it will come to us, sooner 
or later, from sheer fatigue, even in circum- 
stances where habit and association do not fa- 
vor it. Soldiers in forced marches sometimes 
sleep on foot or in the saddle without halt- 
ing, and it is exceedingly common for persons 68 
HYGIENE FOB GIRLS. 
who are greatly exhausted to sleep in the 
midst of pain or discomfort, and at unusual 
times. But the sleep so obtained is not suffi- 
cient to maintain the highest degree of health 
and strength. The sleep which is necessary 
for this purpose comes before we are so com- 
pletely exhausted that we can not help sleep- 
ing, and comes at regular hours, the time of 
its coming being a matter of habit associated 
with certain incidents in our daily lives. 
These incidents vary widely in our various 
lives, and it would be easy to trace the asso- 
ciation of these with the special habit of sleep 
in numerous instances ; but perhaps enough 
has been said to show how the habit depends 
on such associations, and how the associations 
must be changed in order to change the habit. 
Probably the examples already adduced, 
of the manner in which habit is broken or 
changed, are sufficient to make clear to us how 
we may change any habit, moral, mental, or 
physical, by changing the associations on 
which it depends, and in what direction we 
must work to change the associations. It is 
a very important item in the displacement of HABIT AND ASSOCIATION. 
69 
an association to have some other association 
in its stead, and a little effort will supply this 
from within ourselves, even if we do not find 
it in external circumstances. CHAPTER HI. 
SYMPATIIY AND IMAGINATION. 
The term “sympathy,” when used in a phys- 
iological sense, means the influence through 
which action or irritation of one organ pro- 
duces a corresponding action or irritation of 
another organ more or less remote. It is a 
form of reflex action. Blushing is an example 
of this peculiar action. The brain has little 
or no direct control over the blood-vessels, but 
there exists in the body a second and much 
smaller system of nerves known as the sym- 
pathetic system, the entire function of which, 
so far as now known, is to regulate the ex- 
pansion and contraction of the blood-vessels. 
The sympathetic system has nerve-centers of 
its own, located in various parts of the body, 
and is only slightly and indirectly connected 
with the brain; yet a feeling of shame, an- SYMPATHY AMD IMAGINATION. 
71 
ger, or some other emotion, may originate in 
the brain, and an impression produced there- 
by will be transmitted to the sympathetic sys- 
tem, which responds by allowing the blood- 
vessels near the surface of the face and neck 
to expand so that the part appears suffused 
with blood. 
It was formerly supposed that all the so- 
called sympathetic actions of organs not di- 
rectly connected were effected through the 
medium of the sympathetic nerves, and, with 
that idea, this system of nerves received the 
name that still adheres to it, though it is also 
called by several other names. That suppo- 
sition, however, is no longer held, the sympa- 
thetic system being thought, as has been said, 
to be wholly occupied in the control of the 
blood-vessels. Yet strong sympathies exist 
between various organs, and, though we may 
not understand through what medium or in 
what way they are communicated, the relation 
which many of them bear to causes that are 
within our control is sufficiently obvious. 
Sympathy, like other reflex actions, is be- 
yond the direct control of reason, will, or HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
consciousness, yet in some cases and to some 
extent may be influenced or even induced, 
indirectly, by these forces, as in the example 
of blushing; and, on the other hand, through 
some connection not well understood, sympa- 
thetic action may be conveyed from organs 
not under our conscious control to those that 
usually are. For instance, in young children, 
indigestion, or some other form of irritation 
in the stomach or intestines, frequently pro- 
duces spasms of the voluntary muscles. The 
same cause in older persons often produces 
headache, giddiness, disturbance of vision, 
palpitation of the heart, and other disorders 
in various organs. Cold or wet applied to 
the skin often produces an irritation of the 
internal organs, resulting in inflammation of 
the throat or lungs, diarrhoea, disease of the 
kidneys, etc., varying according to the partic- 
ular organ or organs in which the sympa- 
thetic action happens to be manifested. The 
sympathetic relation between the head and 
the various organs contained within the ab- 
domen is so close that, in dispensaries where 
the number of patients attending is so large SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
73 
as to make it necessary to divide them into 
classes according to the general characteris- 
tics of their diseases, and assign each class 
to the care of a separate physician, it is cus- 
tomary to place ‘‘diseases of the head and 
abdomen” in one class. Often a disease 
which appears to exist in one of these parts 
is found to be really in the other, the appar- 
ent location being the result of sympathy. 
The condition known as hysteria, or hys- 
terics, is a sympathetic affection. It is very 
much more common among women than among 
men, and in very many cases its cause exists 
in some disease or irritation of some organ 
peculiar to woman, particularly the womb. 
The fact that rare cases do occur in men 
shows that it sometimes has a different ori- 
gin, and this different origin may exist in 
women as well as men. It is, indeed, exceed- 
ingly difficult to discover its cause or original 
seat in a large proportion of cases. Wher- 
ever that cause may be, the manifestation is 
generally in some other part. Sometimes it 
is manifested by fits of unreasoning laughing 
and crying, sometimes by spasms of the mus- HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
cles, sometimes by severe pain in some part 
where no cause for pain exists. There is no 
disorder of sensation or motion that may not 
be simulated by hysteria. On this account, 
and because its cause is obscure, it is popu- 
ularly considered a purely imaginary disease, 
and hence a reproach to those who are affected 
by it. Undoubtedly there are cases of reputed 
hysteria where there is no disease whatever, 
apart from the imagination of the alleged 
patient, but this does not disprove the exist- 
ence of hysteria as a genuine disease. 
There are also very many cases in which, 
while there is no established disease, unusual 
fatigue or excitement produces, through sym- 
pathy, a peculiar irritation resulting in a fit of 
genuine hysteria. When this has once oc- 
curred it is very liable to be repeated on sub- 
sequent occasions of fatigue or excitement, and 
every repetition confirms the habit and tends 
to render the fits more severe, in accordance 
with the general laws of habit. In all this 
there may be no imagination, and it may oc- 
cur to one who has never seen or heard of 
hysteria. Still, in all such cases, as well as SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
in those having a fixed local cause for the 
disease, the imagination is capable of exerting 
a very great influence either to induce or to 
suppress the attacks. A similar power be- 
longs to the exercise of the will, and so large- 
ly does it operate that, in the cure of hysteria, 
the first and most important consideration is 
to enlist the will on the side of recovery. 
Imagination may act through sympathy on 
various functions of the body in such a way 
as really to produce the imagined disorder. 
Through this power of imagination, persons 
who are liable to certain forms of hysteria 
are very apt to have an attack whenever they 
see any one similarly affected, or even when 
they hear a description of an attack, or have 
their attention in any way specially directed 
to it. 
Although the power of imagination in this 
regard is chiefly exhibited in cases of hyste- 
ria, it is sometimes shown in other forms of 
disease. There are many well-authenticated 
instances of persons in whom sympathy was 
particularly active, who have been made seri- 
ously sick, and some of whom have died, in 76 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
consequence of being led to imagine that they 
had symptoms of certain diseases, by the con- 
certed comments of their acquaintances who 
wished to play a joke upon them, or of those 
who desired to experiment in this matter. 
The familiar story of the fate of Gonello, the 
famous jester, who flourished in the early part 
of the fifteenth century, under the patronage 
of the Marquis of Ferrara, furnishes a strik- 
ing illustration of the sometimes fatal effect 
of imagination. Having offended his patron, 
Gonello was condemned to die. Before the 
day of execution, however, the anger of the 
marquis relented so far that he determined to 
remit the death-penalty and, instead, to in- 
flict upon the man a severe practical joke, 
such as he had delighted to inflict upon others. 
Gonello was not, therefore, informed of any 
change in his sentence, and at the appointed 
time was led to the scaffold, on which the 
public executioner awaited him axe in hand, 
and around which stood an immense throng 
of people expecting to see him beheaded. 
His neck being bared, he laid his head upon 
the block, and, with closed eyes, awaited the SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
77 
final blow, when the executioner, having been 
privately instructed by the marquis, ex- 
changed the axe for a pail of water that 
stood in readiness, and dashed the water upon 
Gonello’s neck. The people, instantly com- 
prehending the joke, shouted with glee, but 
the victim of it did not move, and it was 
presently found that the shock of what he had 
imagined to be the falling axe had killed him. 
It is notorious that, in epidemics of certain 
diseases, those whose fears lead them to an- 
ticipate the outbreak of the disease in their 
own persons, and to imagine that they have 
the premonitory symptoms, are usually among 
the first victims and the least likely to re- 
cover. Physicians and others who have a 
knowledge of diseases are generally difficult 
patients to care for when sick, because their 
habit of noting symptoms leads them to watch 
their own, and, by imagining dangers, to in- 
duce them. Dr. Bennett, in his great work 
on “The Principles and Practice of Medicine,” 
says: 
“ Nothing is more common for medical stu- 
dents, when first studying individual diseases, 78 
HYGIENE FOB GIBLS. 
than to imagine themselves to be the victims 
of each in succession. Then, in certain con- 
ditions of the system, it is well known that 
actual pain may be produced in a part by 
fixing our attention upon it. Hypochondri- 
acs are martyrs to these erroneous impres- 
sions. Supposed pains in the limbs or stom- 
ach prevent their walking or eating, and their 
health suffers from want of exercise or want 
of food. Sir Benjamin Brodie has given some 
singular cases where so-called nervous pains 
of this description have actually led to ten- 
derness and swelling of the integuments cov- 
ering the part. It may easily be understood 
how facts of this kind may be made to as- 
sume the appearance of prophecy, and how in- 
forming a valetudinarian that he will certain- 
ly have a rheumatic or neuralgic pain bn any 
given day is likely to produce it. 
“As illustrative of the strong influence of 
predominant ideas, even in healthy persons, I 
may mention the following circumstances: Mr. 
Macfarlan, druggist, North Bridge, Edinburgh, 
informed me that on one occasion a butcher 
was brought into his shop, from the market- SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION 
79 
place opposite, laboring under a terrible acci- 
dent. The man, on trying to hook up a heavy 
piece of meat above his head, slipped, and the 
sharp hook penetrated his arm, so that he 
himself was suspended. On being examined, 
he was pale, almost pulseless, and expressed 
himself as suffering acute agony. The arm 
could not be moved without causing excessive 
pain, and in cutting off the sleeve he frequent- 
ly cried out, yet when the arm was exposed 
it was found to be quite uninjured, the hook 
having only traversed the sleeve of his coat! 
“A clergyman told me that some time ago 
suspicions were entertained in his parish of a 
woman, who was supposed to have poisoned 
her new-born infant. The coffin was exhumed, 
and the procurator-fiscal, who attended with 
the medical men to examine the body, de- 
clared that he already perceived the odor of 
decomposition, which made him feel faint, and 
in consequence he withdrew. But, on opening 
the coffin, it was found to be empty, and it was 
afterward ascertained that no child had been 
born, and consequently no murder commit- 
ted. Numerous instances might be given of 80 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
individuals engaged in duels, or on other 
occasions, who have supposed themselves to 
be wounded, and have fallen down as if 
dead, without having received the slightest 
injury.” 
In a treatise on medicine, written over fifty 
years ago by the famous Dr. Good, among 
many illustrations of the effects of imagina- 
tion are the following: “ Greding gives an 
account of a medical practitioner who ap- 
plied to him for assistance, under an impres- 
sion that his stomach was filled with frogs, 
which had been spawning ever since he had 
bathed, when a boy, in a pool in which he 
had perceived a few tadpoles. He had spent 
his life in trying to expel this imaginary evil, 
and had traveled to numerous places to con- 
sult the first physicians of the day upon his 
obstinate malady. It was in vain to attempt 
convincing him that the gurglings or bor- 
borygmi he heard were from extricated or 
erratic wind. He argued himself, says M. 
Greding, into a great passion in my pres- 
ence, and asked me if I did not hear the 
frogs croak. SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
“I have at this moment under my care a 
hypochrondriac of about fifty years of age, 
who affords sufficient proof that Moliere drew 
his ‘ Malade Imaginaire ’ from nature, and 
hardly added an exaggerating touch. His 
profession is that of the law, his life has 
been uniformly regular, but far too sedentary 
and studious; without having any one clearly 
marked corporeal affection, he is constantly 
dreading every disease in the bills of mortal- 
ity, and complaining, one after another, of 
every organ in his body. ... It is rarely 
that I have left him half an hour, but I have 
a note to inform me of some symptom he had 
forgotten to mention, and I have often five or 
six of these in the course of the day. The 
last was to state that shortly after my visit 
he had had a discharge of three drops of blood 
from the nose—a change which he thought of 
great importance, and requiring immediate at- 
tention. His imaginary symptoms, however, 
soon disappear, provided they are listened to 
with gravity and pretended to be prescribed 
for; but not otherwise. Yet in disappearing 
they only yield to others that can only be HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
82 
surmounted in like manner. His head is too 
much confused to allow him to engage in any 
serious study, even if it were prudent to rec- 
ommend it to him; but on all common sub- 
jects he is perfectly clear, and will converse 
with shrewdness and a considerable extent of 
knowledge. His bowels are sluggish; his ap- 
petite not good, though he eats sufficiently ; 
his sleep is unquiet, but he has enough of it 
without opiates; his pulse is variable, some- 
times hurrying on abruptly, and without any 
obvious cause, to a hundred strokes in a min- 
ute, but often very little quicker than in a 
state of health. His tongue varies equally, 
and is irregularly clean, milky, and brownish, 
and then suddenly clean again. He is irrita- 
ble in his temper, though he labors to be calm; 
and is so rooted to his chamber that it-is diffi- 
cult to drag him from it. He has now been ill 
about ten weeks, but it is during the winter, 
and the season is too inclement for him to 
venture abroad. I look forward to his res- 
toration in the spring, from exercise, change 
of air, and a course of tonic medicines.” 
Though these accounts were written so SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION 
83 
many years ago, they describe, with perfect 
accuracy, cases that are exceedingly frequent 
to-day. There is, in the practice of most 
physicians, a considerable class of patients 
whose only ailments are such as have result- 
ed from their own imagination, yet who have 
really come to such a state that they need 
medical care. Disorders of this class gener- 
ally affect the digestive or such other organs 
as are but little controlled by the will, yet 
they may affect any part. 
Nearly allied to this condition is one in 
which imagination affects the mental instead 
of the physical functions. Dr. Good, in the 
treatise already mentioned, describes this as 
a species of mental extravagance or hallu- 
cination, having several varieties, concerning 
which he says: 
“The age of the first of these varieties, 
that of chivalry, or romantic gallantry, has 
nearly, if not altogether, departed. It may 
be regarded a generous and high-spirited 
flight of the imagination that gives a vision- 
ary coloring to the external world, and com- 
bines, without a due degree of discrimination, 84 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
ideas of fact with those of fancy. Like many 
of the varieties of empathema, or ungovern- 
able passion, it may lead to, or be combined 
with, ecphronia or insanity. 
“I have sometimes had to attend patients 
who, having spent the greater part of their 
days and nights over the most captivating 
novels of the present day, had acquired so 
much of this falsity of perception as to startle 
their friends around them, and to give evident 
proofs that they were of a mind occasionally 
deranged, though, when the attention could 
once be seriously engaged, capable of being 
brought down to the soberness of external 
objects and real life. These have commonly 
been ladies, unmarried, or without a family, 
about the middle or a little beyond the mid- 
dle of life, of a nervous temperament, fine 
taste and fancy, but whose education had 
been directed to subjects of superficial or ex- 
ternal ornament, rather than of intrinsic ex- 
cellence. Their manner has been peculiarly 
courteous, their conversation sprightly and 
figurative, and their hand ready to aid the 
distressed. But it has been obvious that in SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
85 
all they were saying or doing they had some 
ideal character in their minds, whose supposed 
air, and language, and manners, they were 
copying; and the distressed were always most 
sure of relief, and of a relief often beyond 
the necessity of the case, whose story was 
combined with some perilous adventure, or 
sentimental catastrophe. 
“In former times, however, when the wild 
and daring spirit of romance formed the sub- 
ject of popular study, and 
‘The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, 
And the free maids that wove their threads with 
bones, 
Were wont to chant it,’ 
this bewildering triumph of the imagination 
over the judgment was far more common, and 
was carried to a much higher pitch. The 
high - toned and marvelous stories of ‘ La 
Morte d’Arthur,’ ‘Guy of Warwick,’ ‘Ama- 
dis of Gaul,’ ‘The Seven Champions of Chris- 
tendome,’ and ‘The Mirror of Knighthood,’ 
the splendid and agitating alternations of 
magicians, enchanted castles, dragons, and 86 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
giants, redoubtable combatants, imprisoned 
damsels, melting minstrelsy, tilts and tourna- 
ments, and all the magnificent imagery of the 
same kind, that so peculiarly distinguished 
the reign of Elizabeth, became a very frequent 
source of permanent hallucination. The his- 
torian of Don Quixote adhered strictly to the 
tenor of his times in representing the library 
of this most renowned knight as filled with 
romances of this description, and himself as 
being permanently crazed by an uninterrupted 
perusal of them. And that the same morbid 
effect was not confined to Spain, and was, in- 
deed, common to our own country, we know 
from the severe but just invectives of Ascham 
against this class of writings, and his com- 
plaints of the disordered turn they had given 
to the public mind; and still more from the 
necessity Shakespeare felt himself under in 
making all his maniacal characters, whether 
really or but pretendedly so, deeply versed in 
the prose or poetical romances of the day, 
and throwing forth fragments of the most 
exquisite force or beauty in the midst of 
their wildest and most discordant ravings; SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
87 
Lear, Edgar, and the heart-broken Ophelia 
are in this respect alike gifted, and show to 
what sources their reading had been directed. 
Without an attention to these casual glances 
it is impossible to understand the meaning of 
the sentiment, and its force or feeling is lost 
upon us; as in the following burst of Ophelia 
which consists of a string of quotations or 
allusions to picturesque customs: ‘You must 
sing Down a-down an you call him adown-a. 
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false 
steward that stole his master’s daughter.’ We 
have not space for the explanation, but it 
may be found in the commentators, or in the 
interesting and elaborate history of ‘ Shake- 
speare’s Times,’ by my early and valued friend 
Dr. Drake.” 
If Dr. Good found such results from im- 
aginative reading in a time that, compared 
with this, was very barren of such reading, 
we would naturally expect to find similar re- 
sults and much more commonly now. It is 
true, as he says, that that form of mental 
extravagance which busied itself with the 
paraphernalia of chivalry, as castles and 88 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
dungeons, imprisoned ladies and knights in 
armor, has nearly passed away with the age 
that produced it. The romances of to-day 
rarely deal with such matters. But, while the 
matter changes, the manner remains. There 
are to-day thousands of girls whose imagina- 
tions have been so swollen and distorted by 
a flood of poisonous fiction that their views 
of life are as false and visionary, and them- 
selves as unfit to engage in any practical 
affairs, as was the case with those ridiculously 
courteous dames that Dr. Good prescribed 
for. Instead of dragons and chimeras we 
have clairvoyants and spirit-mediums, instead 
of mounted knights and squires we have 
animated manikins representing a phase of 
society that never was and never will be, or 
perhaps house-breakers and detectives, Indian 
fighters and border ruffians, and, instead of 
feudal castles, hotels, railroad-stations, and 
all the appurtenances of modern life. It is 
perhaps questionable whether the romance of 
Don Quixote’s time wTas not less unwholesome 
than that of ours. 
Certainly it is true that works of fiction SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION 
89 
are not all nor altogether to be condemned. 
On the contrary, many of them are admirable 
in scope and tendency, and a fair acquaintance 
with such is an essential part of a liberal 
education. It is not the first part, however, 
and one who makes it so, or who reads little 
except works of fiction, even if these are 
well chosen, develops an unhealthy imagina- 
tion at the expense of sound judgment and 
other mental faculties. In such cases gener- 
ally, however, there is not even a good choice 
of fiction. Indeed, it is not to be expected 
that there will be, from the limited knowledge 
possible with such a course of reading, and 
the consequent perversion of faculties. While, 
therefore, too much imaginative reading even 
of the best kind is sufficient to produce an 
unhealthy state of mind, practically such ex- 
cess always involves the added danger of a 
pernicious selection by the impaired judg- 
ment. 
In the majority of such cases there is no 
such radical disorder of the mind as consti- 
tutes insanity, but there is so much distor- 
tion of the reasoning and perceptive faculties 90 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
that the mind is no more capable of healthy 
exercise and development than a body would 
be with contorted limbs. Dr. Good does not 
hesitate to call such a condition a disease, 
but says that its cure is to be sought in gen- 
eral instruction rather than in medicine, a 
rule which he applies to all varieties of men- 
tal extravagance short of insanity, wisely re- 
marking that “individual cases of enthusiasm 
and fanaticism have existed, and will probably 
continue to exist, in all ages; but when the 
general mind is well informed, and the social 
feelings and virtues are duly estimated and 
widely cultivated, the wild-fire will burn in 
vain, and meet with little or no fuel to sup- 
port its rage.” 
All of the emotions are capable of exerting 
a strong sympathetic influence upon the action 
of various organs, both in health and in dis- 
ease. We have already spoken of blushing 
as an example of this influence. We know, 
too, that sudden joy, anger, and various other 
emotions make the heart throb tumultuously, 
confuse the brain, and sometimes take away 
temporarily the power of speech. Sometimes, SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
91 
indeed, the effects are much more severe and 
permanent. Thus, it is said that, after the 
battle at the Lake Thrasis, two women were 
so overjoyed at seeing their sons return safe 
that they dropped dead. Many instances have 
occurred, both in ancient and modern times, 
of death from sudden and excessive joy, grief, 
anger, terror, etc. The cause of death in such 
cases is the disturbance in the action of the 
heart or brain, or perhaps some other organ, 
from the influence of the emotion. 
Sometimes such disturbance results in in- 
sanity. Plutarch tells of a soldier who became 
insane from the joy he experienced in wound- 
ing King Cyrus in battle, and instances are 
found in all ages of a similar result from 
uncontrolled emotions of nearly every kind. 
Children are sometimes rendered idiotic by 
sudden fright, and at other times are made 
strangely nervous and miserable for life by 
the same cause. Many pitiable examples of 
such effects exist as the result of sportive but 
cruelly thoughtless attempts of acquaintances 
to frighten them. 
The sympathetic influence of various emo- HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
92 
tions on the secretions and excretions is very 
remarkable. Nearly every one is familiar 
with the fact that certain emotions have a 
decided effect on the flow of tears and per- 
spiration. It is not so generally known, 
though no less a fact, that they influence in 
quantity and quality the flow of saliva, milk, 
the product of the kidneys, and that of the 
lower bowel. Probably all of the secretions 
and excretions are more or less subject to 
these influences. As a general rule, violent 
emotions diminish the production of saliva 
and other digestive fluids, and of milk, and 
increase that of tears, perspiration, and the 
excrements of the kidneys and bowels. Cer- 
tain emotions have a very curious influence 
on the quality of some secretions. For in- 
stance, it is not very uncommon for a child 
to be thrown into convulsions if allowed to 
draw milk from the breast of a woman who 
has just given way to a violent fit of anger or 
terror, and instances of sudden death of the 
child from this cause are by no means un- 
known. It is said, too, that strong anger 
sometimes imparts to the saliva of dogs, cats, SYMPATHY AND IMAGINATION. 
93 
and other animals, including men, a peculiar 
virulence, from the effect of which a person 
bitten by them may suffer severely and pos- 
sibly die, even though the angry animal has 
not hydrophobia, but is perfectly healthy, 
both before and after the bite. 
From the foregoing facts it is obvious that 
improper action or exposure to hurtful in- 
fluence, of one part of the system, is liable 
to induce serious disorder of some other part, 
and that a perfect control of our imaginations 
and passions, as well as a care for the phys- 
ical condition of the various organs, is necessa- 
ry to maintain the body in sound health. We 
have elsewhere considered the danger of the 
passions themselves becoming disordered and 
passing beyond our control through continued 
indulgence, but here we see how their free 
exercise interferes directly with physical func- 
tions concerned in digestion, secretion, and 
other important operations of life, and so 
may induce bodily disease. Farmers and 
stock-raisers understand the practical issues 
of this fact in their relations to the health of 
animals, and are careful for this reason to 94 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
keep their stock as free from strong emotional 
excitement as possible. In regard to the im- 
agination, it is best that we restrain it alto- 
gether from the probability of ailments affect- 
ing onrselves. We should observe all the 
laws of health, so far as we can know them, 
remembering that a seemingly slight violation 
sometimes produces very serious and unlooked- 
for results, and at the same time we should 
avoid speculating upon the ills that may 
happen to ns, and even upon those that have 
happened. If we are ill, we shall probably 
find it out without previously looking for it, 
and in that case our proper course is to leave 
the minute consideration of symptoms and 
probabilities entirely to some one better quali- 
fied than ourselves to deal with them, and 
whose investigation will not produce new dis- 
orders or aggravate those already existing, as 
will generally be the result with those who 
undertake to study their own ailments. CHAPTER IV. 
OEGANS PECULIAE TO WOMAN. 
The human body, exclusive of the head 
and limbs, is divided for the purpose of de- 
scription into three principal parts, known 
respectively as the chest or thorax, the abdo- 
men, and the pelvis. The chest is that part 
which extends from the lower border of the 
neck to the lower ribs, and contains the lungs 
and heart. The abdomen commences at the 
lower border of the chest, and reaches to a 
little below the projecting upper border of 
the hip-bones. It contains the stomach, liver, 
most of the intestines, the pancreas, the spleen, 
and the kidneys. The pelvis is that part 
which is below the abdomen. It contains a 
small part of the intestines, particularly the 
lower part of the bowel, which is called the 
rectum, and in front of this the bladder. In 96 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the female the pelvis also contains all the 
organs that are peculiar to woman, except 
the breasts. 
The most important of these peculiar or- 
gans, in many respects, is the womb, or, as 
it is technically called, the uterus. When a 
woman becomes a mother, it is within the 
womb that the child is formed and nourished 
until the time of its birth. It is, however, 
not only nor chiefly on this account that the 
proper development of the organ is important, 
but because its condition exercises a control- 
ling influence oner the physical and mental 
health of every woman, whether a mother or 
not, for about thirty years of her life. 
The womb that has never been fertile is a 
pear-shaped body, a little flattened, about 
three inches long, two inches wide at the 
broadest part, and an inch thick. Of course 
it is hollow, but the cavity is very small, 
and the walls are very thick and hard. It is 
nearly in the center of the pelvis, between the 
bladder and the rectum. The ovaries, two in 
number, one on each side of the womb, are 
oval bodies, about an inch and a half long, ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
97 
three quarters of an inch wide, and a third 
of an inch thick. Each ovary communicates 
with the cavity of the womb by a narrow 
tube. The womb opens into the upper end of 
a passage, about five inches long, called the 
vagina, the lower end of which opens upon 
the surface of the body. Near the lower end 
of this passage, and opening into it, is the 
mouth of the urethra, which is the tube that 
conveys the urine from the bladder, so that 
the urine and the discharges from the womb 
finally escape from the body through the 
same outlet. 
The ovaries contain a large number of 
ova (plural of ovum). Each ovum is a very 
minute body, globular in form, measuring 
when fully developed only T|-g- of an inch in 
diameter. It is capable of becoming, under 
peculiar circumstances, the germ of a human 
being. Ordinarily, however, the ova, as fast 
as they mature, are discharged from the body 
very much after the manner of excretions, 
except that their discharge is attended with 
a very considerable disturbance of the general 
system. During childhood the ova remain in 98 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the ovaries, imperfectly developed. At length, 
however, usually at about fourteen or fifteen 
years of age, though sometimes earlier, and 
sometimes much later, the first ovum is ma- 
tured. When fully developed it passes from 
the ovary into the womb, from which it finally 
escapes through the vagina. 
About the time that the ovum is matured, 
all the organs just described are very much 
engorged with blood, and there is usually a 
feeling of weight or a dragging pain in the 
pelvis. Frequently, too, there are severe 
headache or nausea, pain in the back, and 
other uncomfortable sensations. At the same 
time there is a slight discharge of mucus from 
the vagina. The discharge increases in quan- 
tity, and after a short time is tinged with 
blood, and in the course of a day or two it 
appears to be nearly pure blood. This blood 
comes chiefly from the mucous membrane lin- 
ing the womb. Generally, but not always, 
the painful sensations disappear as soon as 
the haemorrhage is well established. The latter, 
however, continues at its height for a day or 
two, and then gradually subsides. At the end ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
99 
of from four days to a week after the first 
appearance of these symptoms they have usu- 
ally entirely disappeared, and everything goes 
on as before. After this function has once 
been established, however, an ovum is matured 
and discharged every four weeks as a general 
rule, with all the attendant phenomena just 
described. 
This process is called “menstruation,” or 
“monthly sickness,” because it takes place 
every lunar month. It is sometimes extremely 
inconvenient, both by its presence and because 
unusual care of one’s self is requisite at such 
a time, but it is of very great importance 
that nothing should interfere with its natural 
course. If it is arrested or interfered with in 
any way, or if due care is not exercised dur- 
ing its continuance, the most disastrous results 
are liable to follow. Prominent among these 
results are inflammation of the womb and of 
other organs, displacements of the womb, of- 
fensive chronic discharges, hysteria, epilepsy, 
catalepsy, and various other nervous diseases, 
including some forms of paralysis, as well as 
insanity and death. 100 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
It sometimes happens that after the first 
occurrence of menstruation it does not return 
for several months, or that during the first 
year of puberty, as this period of life is 
called, the exercise of the function is quite 
irregular. This need not cause any alarm if 
the general health is good and no discomfort 
is felt, but, if otherwise, the family physician 
should, by all means, be consulted. Some- 
times, too, severe sickness causes a temporary 
suspension of the function, and it occasionally 
becomes necessary, after recovery from sick- 
ness, to resort to the use of medicine to restore 
it. Nothing of this kind should ever be 
attempted without the advice of a competent 
physician. 
As a general thing, menstruation occurs 
every four weeks in every unmarried woman’s 
life, until she is about forty-five years of age, 
when it usually becomes first irregular, and 
then ceases altogether. In rare cases it hap- 
pens every two or every six weeks, or even 
at other intervals. If this is so from the 
commencement, and the intervals are always 
of equal length, and if with this the health ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
101 
continues perfect, it may fairly be regarded 
as a constitutional peculiarity that need excite 
no anxiety, but will be best let alone. If, 
however, in such a case the health is im- 
paired, whether the impairment is apparently 
connected with menstruation or not, or if, 
even though there be no visible failing of 
health, the intervals which have once been 
regular become longer or shorter, a physician’s 
advice should be sought without delay. So, 
too, in case any irregularity, such as during 
the first year may occur in consequence of 
incomplete development, should continue be- 
yond that time, as well as if, as sometimes 
happens, the flow becomes more or less copi- 
ous than has been habitual. 
The nervous connections and sympathies 
of the womb are very extensive. It has al- 
ready been remarked that disorder of this 
organ produces very serious effects on many 
other organs, some of which are distant from 
it. In particular, the brain and the entire 
nervous system sympathize very strongly with 
the womb, and are often alarmingly affected 
by its derangements. So, too, excessive mental 102 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
excitement or nervous impressions sometimes 
cause serious disturbance of the functions of 
the womb. Sudden and violent emotion, as, 
for instance, fear, grief, anger, etc., occurring 
during menstruation, will sometimes arrest 
it. Over-fatigue often has the same elfect. 
Probably one of the commonest causes of ar- 
rest of menstruation is cold, as when one 
“takes cold,” or when cold is applied to the 
surface of the body. Especially is this true 
of the application of cold to the lower ex- 
tremities. 
When the function is arrested through 
any of these causes, the symptoms that usu- 
ally follow, immediately or within a few 
hours, are very distressing. Violent pain is 
felt in the pelvis and lower part of the abdo- 
men, and sometimes in the back and thighs. 
Very often this is accompanied by severe 
headache and nausea, and sometimes by chills, 
followed by more or less fever. Exhaustion 
is very great, and it becomes necessary to go 
at once to bed. 
From these facts it will very readily be 
seen that great care is requisite during each ORGANS PECULAR TO WOMAN. 
103 
menstrual period to guard against any disturb- 
ance of the natural course. It is unwise, at 
such a time, to attend balls and parties, or to 
indulge in any violent and long-continued ex- 
ercise, although moderate exercise is usually 
beneficial. Picnics and similar excursions are 
unsafe, from the fatigue they are liable to 
occasion, as well as from the danger incurred 
of taking cold through the commission of 
some imprudent act. Especially should one 
avoid, at such a time, sitting or standing in 
a draught of air, or in any damp or cold 
place, going suddenly from a heated room to 
a cold one, getting the feet wet or cold, or 
sitting down on any damp or cold surface, as 
on the ground, on a marble slab, on a door- 
step, or stone. Cold baths should be indulged 
in with great caution, and cold foot or hip 
baths not at all. Sleigh-rides, or rides of any 
kind in cold weather, should not be taken 
without the most ample provision for keep- 
ing the body, and especially the feet, warm. 
Simple as these precautions may seem, their 
neglect has brought many a healthy girl to 
an untimely grave. HYGIENE FOB GIRLS. 
104 
Sometimes it happens that a girl, wishing 
to avoid the inconvenience of menstruation, 
in order that she may attend some party or 
place of amusement which the condition might 
interfere with, deliberately attempts to check 
it, by making use of a cold foot or hip bath. 
The folly of such an act is only equaled by 
the misery it brings. Frequently it is success- 
ful in its first object, that is, in arresting 
the haemorrhage, but the hours of agony that 
commonly follow will effectually prevent her 
from enjoying the proposed amusement, or 
even from being present at it at all, and the 
after-effects may be still more serious. 
Some drink large quantities of vinegar in- 
stead of nsing cold water, and for the same 
purpose. It is a very foolish experiment, as 
it can never be relied on to arrest menstrua- 
tion, but can very generally be relied on to 
disorder the stomach, and lay the founda- 
tion for dyspepsia or some other troublesome 
complaint, while, if it should accomplish what 
is designed, it would involve the dangers 
already mentioned. The same is to be said 
of all other methods that are used with the ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
105 
same purpose, and some of them are even 
more objectionable than those named. Men- 
struation is a development of the prime law 
of womanhood, and any attempt to check or 
interfere with its natural course is unmaidenly, 
unwomanly, and unclean, besides being dan- 
gerous in proportion as it is successful. 
If, during menstruation, one gets wet feet, 
or comes in from a walk or drive wet or 
chilled, no time should be lost in getting 
thoroughly dry and warm. Every article of 
clothing that is in the least damp should be 
changed at once. It is also a good plan to 
take a warm drink or a mild cordial. If the 
symptoms described as belonging to arrest of 
menstruation make their appearance, the pa- 
tient should at once get into a warm bed (never 
a cold one), the feet be made warm, if they 
are not so, by the use of friction and hot flat- 
irons wrapped in flannel and laid against 
them, or some similar means, and the family 
physician should be immediately summoned. 
No delay should be made about this, as every 
hour that the condition continues increases 
the difficulty of restoring the natural one. 106 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
In health there is no continual discharge 
of any kind from the vagina except during 
menstruation. Any such thing continuing be- 
tween the menstrual periods, whether bloody 
or not, is an indication that something is 
wrong, and should always be made the sub- 
ject of medical advice, as, if neglected, it may 
have serious results. 
Perfect cleanliness of the external genital 
organs is at all times essential to health and 
comfort. This is sometimes neglected through 
a false idea of modesty. A similar reason 
often withholds those who suspect that some- 
thing is wrong with their sexual organism 
from mentioning their suspicions or the rea- 
sons for them to those who are competent to 
give advice on the subject. This is all wrong, 
and rather prudish than modest. The subject 
is not one ever to be unnecessarily alluded 
to, or even thought about, but, whenever any 
unusual sensation or appearance is observed 
in these parts, it should be mentioned to the 
mother or whoever stands in the place of a 
mother, or to the physician, or, if at school 
away from home, to a lady teacher or matron. ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
107 
This is the more important if the annoyance, 
however slight, is of such a nature as fre- 
quently to direct thought or consciousness to 
it. Concealment at such a time frequently 
brings about the very conditions which a 
sense of delicacy seeks to avoid. 
The position of the womb, closely inter- 
posed between the bladder and the rectum, 
is important in its relations to the health of 
all these organs, and explains in a great meas- 
ure the influence which they have upon one 
another. If the rectum is continually dis- 
tended with fecal matter, as in habitual con- 
stipation, it presses against the womb, some- 
times to such an extent as to cause a dis- 
placement of the latter, an accident which 
occasions great distress, and is frequently the 
direct cause of intense agony during each 
succeeding menstrual period. Even when dis- 
placement is not produced, the pressure from 
the rectum is productive of so much discom 
fort as in many cases to quite unfit one for 
the ordinary duties and enjoyments of life, 
while the congestion of the rectum resulting 
from the constant irritation produced by its 108 
HYGIENE FOB GIRLS. 
contents extends frequently to the womb and 
all the contiguous organs, and is liable to 
engender organic disease in these organs that 
will make the remainder of life a burden from 
which death will be a happy release. Similar 
facts exist in the relations of the bladder to 
the womb, while, on the other hand, it is 
evident that any wrong position or condition 
of the womb is likely to affect injuriously 
either the bladder or the rectum, or both. 
When the womb is displaced, it very com- 
monly presses upon these organs in such a 
way as to make the passages from them dif- 
ficult and painful, and thus often excites ob- 
stinate and dangerous inflammation. 
The bladder should never be allowed to 
remain unemptied longer than from six to 
ten hours, and never, on any account, so long 
as that if it becomes greatly distended, or 
produces a feeling of discomfort. If the con- 
tents of the bladder are retained longer than 
this they are liable to become partially de- 
composed, a condition in which they not only 
are very offensive, but also frequently excite 
an inflammation of the bladder that is very ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN 
109 
painful and difficult to cure, and that some- 
times extends to the kidneys and causes 
death. 
But if the bladder becomes too full, even 
though the time since it was last emptied 
is less than that mentioned, another danger 
threatens. The bladder is partly surround- 
ed by muscular fibers, by the contraction of 
which it is emptied. When its fullness reach- 
es a certain point, or when the time arrives 
at which we have formed a habit of empty- 
ing it, these fibers are impelled to contract. 
We may for a time resist that impulse by 
force of will, and frequently when we do so 
the impulse is less felt after a while. In the 
mean time, however, the bladder is getting full- 
er and fuller, and the muscular fibers are of 
course subjected to more and more of a strain, 
and if we continue to prevent the discharge 
it sometimes happens that the strain on these 
fibers becomes so great that they are para- 
lyzed, and it is then impossible for the blad- 
der to be emptied in the natural way. When 
this occurs it is necessary to seek relief at the 
hands of a surgeon, and if this is not done the 110 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
distention of the bladder continues until the 
organ bursts, and an agonizing death is the 
inevitable consequence. 
The rectum should always be empty, ex- 
cept for a few moments just preceding its 
evacuation, which should occur once every- 
day, and always at the same hour. This 
rule is very important, and neither business 
nor pleasure should be allowed to interfere 
with it. Irregularity in the time of evacuat- 
ing the rectum is one of the most fruitful 
causes of disease. It does not much matter 
what hour of the day is chosen for this, 
though the morning is usually most conven- 
ient, and the habit is more easily established 
if the effort is always made just after a meal. 
Whatever the time selected, it should always 
be adhered to, the effort to relieve the bowels 
being made every day at that time, whether 
the inclination to do so is felt or not. It 
should not be done hastily, and violent strain- 
ing is always to be avoided, as it often 
causes serious injury. If the act is not read- 
ily accomplished, after a reasonable trial it 
should be deferred, if possible until the next ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
day at the same time. In this way a habit 
will speedily be acquired that will do more 
than almost any other one thing for the pres- 
ervation of health. 
It is not to be understood that a certain 
hour by the clock should be observed so much 
as a certain time in the order of each day’s 
occupation. For example, if the act is always 
made to follow immediately some other daily 
act, such as rising in the morning, dressing, 
eating a certain meal, or anything else which 
always occurs at about one time in the day, 
after a short time the desire to relieve the 
bowels will always be felt immediately after 
the accustomed act of rising or dressing, etc., 
the rectum being filled just at that time and 
at no other, for the motions of the bowels are 
more a matter of habit than most people real- 
ize. Aside from the question of health, neg- 
lect in this matter is really more uncleanly 
than neglect of bathing, for the rectum is a 
no more appropriate place for the accumula- 
tion of effete matter than the skin is for the 
accumulation of dirt. 
These rules are at all times of the gravest 112 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
importance, but if possible even more so dur- 
ing the menstrual periods, when the increased 
flow of blood to the womb and surrounding 
parts renders them more than ordinarily lia- 
ble to injury. Owing to certain physical pe- 
culiarities, women are somewhat more liable 
than men to contract a habit of constipation. 
Moreover, many circumstances frequently com- 
bine to tempt them to neglect proper care of 
themselves in this respect. 
This is especially true of women living in 
the country, who have generally no conveni- 
ence for relieving the bowels except at some 
little distance from the house, often at the 
end of a garden-path that is sloppy in rainy 
weather and bordered by wet grass and 
bushes, or overhung by dripping trees, and 
this when reached is very commonly a slight 
and very rude structure, repulsive in all its 
appointments, stifling with heat and bad 
odors in summer, and traversed by piercing 
winds if not by snow in winter. Many slight 
and some serious cases of sickness are di- 
rectly traceable to the use of such ill-adapted 
arrangements, but a far greater amount of ORGANS PECULIAR TO WOMAN. 
113 
suffering has its origin in the neglect of their 
use. There is much to encourage this neglect 
in sensitive persons, particularly in seasons of 
weakness or of slight indisposition, but the 
objectionable features can in most cases be 
much modified by a little thought and labor, 
and it is certainly better to make the best of 
them, and resolutely keep the bowels in a 
healthy state, even at the cost of some dis- 
comfort, than to suffer the chronic or peri- 
odic headache, the digestive disorders, the 
general lassitude and torpor, that are the al- 
most certain penalties of irregularity of the 
bowels, and the risk of graver maladies that 
have been mentioned as being its frequent 
results. CHAPTER V. 
FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
It is apparent, from the facts already con- 
sidered, that woman is physically quite unfit- 
ted for many of the employments in which 
men pass their lives. Any vocation, for ex- 
ample, which involves constant liability to ex- 
posure to the vicissitudes of weather, with- 
out the opportunity afforded of adequate pro- 
tection, is unsuited to a woman’s physical 
nature. So, too, is anything involving great 
mental or nervous excitement, especially if the 
nature of the pursuit is such that no peri- 
odical abatement of energy can be provided 
for, or that no guarantee may be had that 
the greatest amount of excitement may not 
often occur just at the time when it is most 
inconvenient and unsafe. 
There are very many women, in fact, in FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
115 
whom so strong a sympathy exists between 
the organs of reproduction and the brain, or 
the function of menstruation taxes so severely 
the general system, that during the exercise 
of that function they are totally unfitted for 
any kind of mental labor, and unable to 
make more than the very lightest physical 
exertion. This is characteristic, too, of many 
whose general health is good, and who are 
by no means weak either in mind or body. 
It is true that instances are occasionally 
seen of women who are able to disregard or 
defy this periodical weakness, and to engage 
in the most arduous and unremitting labor of 
mind and body without apparent injury or 
inconvenience; but these are to be regarded 
as exceptional cases, curious anomalies, rath- 
er than examples of what is generally pos- 
sible. The majority of women, while not 
wholly prostrated, are yet able to do and en- 
dure much less without injury at such times 
than at others. In communities where it is 
customary for women to do a large share of 
heavy labor, those diseases which are pecul- 
iar to women are much more common than 116 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
elsewhere. This is especially true of manu- 
facturing towns, where women and girls are 
largely employed in mills or factories. 
It is also a fact that insanity, nervous dis- 
eases, and various disorders of a more or less 
general nature, are of more than ordinary 
frequency among women who, during that 
part of their lives when the reproductive or- 
gans are most active, are employed in labor 
which, though not always of a violent or es- 
pecially arduous character, affords little op- 
portunity for rest or relaxation. Of late 
years it has been remarked by many that this 
is notably true of farmers’ wives and daugh- 
ters, particularly in dairy districts and locali- 
ties where the farm-work is so arranged that at 
certain seasons of the year the farmer’s house- 
hold is largely increased by the employment 
of hired men who lodge in his house and 
board at his table. In such circumstances 
the women of the family work as continuous- 
ly as, or even more so than, the men, though 
the work of the former is generally of a 
lighter kind. 
It certainly is not to be denied that a FEMININE EMPL 0 YMENTS. 
117 
farm-life in some parts of the country in- 
volves more danger from exposure to inclem- 
ent weather, or to miasmatic influences, as 
well as from various local or incidental causes, 
than belongs to some other modes of life ; 
yet undoubtedly very many cases of disease 
and death among the women of farmers’ 
families result directly from the overtaxing 
of their general systems by the ordinary rou- 
tine of household duties at a time when so 
much of their strength and vitality is de- 
manded by the requirements of their phys- 
ical nature as women. The activity of the 
reproductive system is generally continued, 
even, if need be, at the expense of the gen- 
eral system, or of some special organs. 
This accords with a grand natural law 
which provides for the propagation of all liv- 
ing things, and is closely allied to that mys- 
terious law of nature by which every living 
thing seems to struggle against death. Every 
species of life-endowed creature is endowed 
also with the power of reproducing its kind. 
Without this, of course, all life would soon be- 
come extinct, therefore the energies of individ- 118 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
ual life become subservient to the preparation 
for and exercise of the function of reproduc- 
tion. There is a beautiful harmony in this, in- 
asmuch as the preservation of a race is of great- 
er importance than the life of an individual. 
We find that plants mature their seeds 
even when themselves are diseased and dying. 
Frequently, indeed, they bear fruit earlier or 
more abundantly when their life is in dan- 
ger of being terminated than they otherwise 
would. In dry seasons grain ripens earlier 
than usual, though the straw has not at- 
tained its ordinary size, as if it were matured 
in haste lest the plant should wither before 
provision could be made for the growth of 
the next year’s crop. A fruit-tree that has 
never borne, but is vigorous and growing 
rapidly, will often bear a large quantity of 
fruit if half its branches are cut off, or if its 
roots or trunk are so mutilated as to endan- 
ger its life. Often it happens that a tree 
which is about to die will burst into blossom 
at an unusual season of the year, as if futilely 
endeavoring to forestall its own death by re- 
producing its own kind. FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
119 
It is often remarked that the development 
and germination of the seeds of plants, and 
the bringing forth of young by man and other 
animals, are similar processes in very many 
respects. The careful gardener removes the 
blossoms from weakly trees, that they may use 
what strength they have in their own develop- 
ment. But in a feeble or overtasked woman 
the course of nature can not be so interfered 
with. The process of menstruation must con- 
tinue, and all other things must give way to it. 
It is by no means intended that women 
must be idle because they are thus consti- 
tuted, but merely that they must be conformed 
to the law of their nature; and this law, 
while it is the glory, is not the weakness, 
but the limit, of womanhood. It is every 
way desirable that a woman should be occu- 
pied with such employments and recreations 
as are adapted to her nature and position. 
Work, within the limits of health, is the 
natural order of woman’s life as well as of 
man’s. 
It is only when work is unsuited in char- 
acter or amount to the conditions in which 120 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the individual is placed, that it is unnatural 
and injurious. In all work, respect must 
first be had to the grand end to which life 
is shaped—the possibilities of which it is 
capable, as well as the exigencies of the 
passing moment; and for an individual to 
undertake a course of action which he or she 
can pursue only in a halting and imperfect 
manner, while there is a range of perfection 
or a possibility of excelling within his or 
her scope, is to throw away life, and, like 
Esau, to despise the birthright. 
For example, if Rosa Bonheur had chosen 
to be a blacksmith, she would probably have 
done the work nearly as well as a man, per- 
haps better than many men, but certainly 
she could never hope to equal in that line of 
labor the best blacksmiths among men, and 
in the making of a second-rate blacksmith 
the world would have lost a great artist. So 
if the author of the “Legends of Sleepy Hol- 
low” had continued in the business which in 
early life he undertook and in which he was 
very unsuccessful, he would have lived a lit- 
tle and unprofitable life, and the name of FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
121 
Washington Irving would have had no place 
in the history of modern literature. 
Similar instances might be multiplied in- 
definitely ; and the world is full of individ- 
uals who fail to do their proper work well be- 
cause they seek to do work which is not 
theirs and which they can do but imper- 
fectly. Not all are Bonheurs or Irvings, but 
for all some kinds of work are more suit- 
able than others. Often it happens that the 
way is not open for us to engage in the 
work for which we are perhaps best adapted, 
that other work claims our attention in a 
manner that we may not disregard. In such 
a case we show our wisdom if we accept the 
inevitable with good grace, making the most 
of such opportunities as we have, and doing 
the work of our necessity in the best manner 
of which we are capable. 
No inconsiderable portion of the lives of 
many women is spent in the occupation of 
sewing. Within the present century the as- 
pects of this kind of industry have been great- 
ly changed by the introduction of the sewing- 
machine. By this means much of the former 122 
HYGIENE I OR GIRLS. 
tediousness of sewing is abolished, and a good 
sewing-machine is a great aid in the labor of 
a household. But it has its serious disad- 
vantages. Most of the sewing-machines now 
in use are operated by the feet by means of 
a treadle, and the peculiar motion of the feet 
for this purpose is very wearying to a certain 
set of muscles, some of which assist in sup- 
porting the womb in its proper position. Be- 
sides this, the lower extremities and the lower 
part of the body becoming exhausted by long- 
continued exercise of this kind, act strongly 
by sympathy upon the reproductive organs. 
The position in which one usually sits at the 
sewing-machine also adds largely to the bad 
effect by causing the abdominal organs to press 
more heavily than usual upon the womb, and 
at the same time depriving it of the support 
of some of the abdominal muscles. The result 
of all this is, that very many disorders of the 
womb and adjacent organs are caused by the 
habitual use of sewing-machines. Most of the 
evils from this cause would be avoided if the 
following rules were generally observed by 
women: LEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
123 
1. Never use a sewing-machine at all un- 
til fully matured. 
2. Never use a sewing-machine when not 
perfectly well and strong. 
3. Never use a sewing-machine long enough 
to become fatigued by it, nor try to do a large 
amount of work on it in a short time. 
The first of these rules is applicable to 
many things, which will readily suggest them- 
selves to the mind, besides the use of sewing- 
machines. The period of development of the 
reproductive system is always a critical one, 
not free from danger in itself. The entire 
resources of the body are then taxed to the 
utmost, and the organs which are being per- 
fected are especially sensitive to sympathetic 
impressions, and liable to disease. Therefore, 
many things which a mature woman may do 
with impunity, and not a few of which may 
even be permitted to a child, are altogether 
unsafe for the girl just upon the threshold of 
womanhood. 
The rules given are, of course, chiefly ap- 
plicable to the domestic use of the sewing- 
machine. They can not easily be observed HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
124 
where it is used as a means of gaining a 
livelihood. There is little to be said of the 
necessity that sometimes impels to this course. 
Like many necessities, it is to be deplored ; 
like all, it is to be submitted to. If women 
are at liberty to choose something better, they 
should certainly do so, but, when choice lies 
between danger and starvation, one must face 
the danger. In many large factories sewing- 
machines are now run by steam, the operatives 
having only to arrange and guide the work. 
This is a healthful regulation, and is greatly 
to the credit of the employers. 
The household cares that chiefly occupy 
the attention of a large proportion of women 
and girls are, for the most part, quite free 
from injurious influences upon healthy bodies, 
provided they are not so onerous as to inter- 
fere with needful rest. There are some exer- 
cises connected with such work, however, that 
are not wholly free from danger, and should 
either be left to men, or, if done by women, 
should be done with much care and modera- 
tion. 
All heavy lifting is of this character. In FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
125 
lifting, and especially in lifting to a con- 
siderable height, as, for example, in lifting a 
pail of water from the floor to a table, or a 
scuttle of coal to the top of a stove, there is 
a severe strain not only on the muscles of 
the arms and back, but also on those of the 
abdomen. This strain of the muscles strongly 
compresses the organs within the abdomen, 
and forces some of them down into the pelvis 
and against the womb, bladder, and rectum. 
Owing to a difference in the shape of the 
bones of the pelvis, the pressure within from 
such a cause is greater in women than in 
men. Consequently, not only is the womb 
liable to suffer, but the other organs are 
more apt to be injured than when the lifting 
is done by men. The moving of heavy furni- 
ture, shaking of heavy carpets, and all similar 
exercises, are undesirable for women, for the 
same reasons. 
Especially are all such strains undesirable 
for girls between twelve and twenty years of 
age. Even young children, as has been al- 
ready intimated, are in less danger of injury 
from such causes, partly because the special 126 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
organs within the pelvis are so slightly de- 
veloped that they are less susceptible to in- 
jury, and the pelvis itself in childhood is of 
such size and shape that its contents suffer 
less from the pressure, and partly because, 
the muscular strength of the child being less, 
it is incapable of producing so great a strain. 
On the other hand, while the organs of a 
girl just entering womanhood are in a special- 
ly susceptible condition, her ambition to fill 
the part of a woman often leads her to over- 
estimate and over-exert her strength, and she 
is liable to injure herself by a strain that a 
maturer person might bear safely. 
The previous habit of the individual makes 
a great difference in this as in other things. 
Those who have been inured from early life 
to heavy work bear it better than those who 
have not. We often see girls and women of 
a certain class doing work that would speed- 
ily kill others of the same age who have been 
differently brought up, if they should under- 
take it. At the same time, it must not be 
imagined that the training which fits such 
women to do their heavy work is free from FEMINIZE EMPLOYMENTS. 
127 
danger. Vast nhmbers of them break down 
while forming the habit of hard labor, like 
the ancient Greek’s horse that died of starva- 
tion just before fully acquiring the habit of 
living on nothing; and the hospitals of all 
large cities are filled, in great part, with girls 
and young women belonging to what we call 
the laboring class, who have been brought 
there by the strain of heavy work. 
Sweeping is an exercise that calls the ab- 
dominal muscles into play as well as others. 
It produces no violent straining of them, 
however, and is not injurious to those who 
are in vigorous health. There are many girls, 
however, who are not very strong, to whom 
this exercise is an injury if long continued. 
The muscles become exhausted, and unable to 
furnish the accustomed support to the ab- 
dominal organs, which sutfer for lack of it, 
and also through sympathy or from the gen- 
eral fatigue. If sweeping causes a pain in 
the side, or a faint, sick feeling at the stom- 
ach, it is a warning to cease. In all cases, 
it is best to so arrange the work that it shall 
not be necessary to sweep for a long time 128 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
continuously. The plan which some have, of 
sweeping the whole house on certain days of 
the week, is an unwise one, unless the house 
is very small, as it is almost certain to induce 
great fatigue, and sometimes causes perma- 
nent weakness or other injury. 
Outside the domain of household duties, a 
much larger scope of action is open to women 
now than formerly, and the tendency is con- 
tinually to enlarge the field. Hot a few 
women are entering the ranks of the medical 
profession. Many suppose that women are 
naturally better adapted to nursing than men, 
and that, therefore, they should make better 
physicians, and especially that they are, for 
various reasons, better adapted to become the 
physicians of other women, and of children. 
In point of fact, however, this is one of the 
most arduous departments of a very laborious 
profession, and comparatively few women could 
safely undergo the exposure and fatigue inci- 
dent to a full practice in this branch of medi- 
cine. There are other departments of medicine 
in which women could engage more safely, 
and with much better prospect of ultimate FEMININE EMPL 0 YM ENTS. 
129 
success, provided they took the time and 
pains to thoroughly qualify themselves. 
But let no girl think she can reap abundant 
success as a medical practitioner unless she is 
willing to make a much fuller preparation for 
the work than the majority of those who 
enter upon it do make. That it is possible 
for one who will make such preparation to 
succeed largely is shown by the fact that 
there are a few who stand shoulder to shoul- 
der with the most eminent men in the pro- 
fession, and that, notwithstanding they had 
to contend with greater difficulties in the 
work of their preparation than meet the be- 
ginner now. There are, too, some who are 
notably successful in the treatment of women 
and children, although not every one could be. 
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the suc- 
cess of women in the medical profession is 
to be found in the fact that, whereas most 
women as well as most men marry sooner or 
later, the cares and incidents of married life, 
and especially of parentage, interfere with its 
continuous practice by women in a way that 
does not occur in the case of men, so that 130 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the majority of women who are physicians 
give up their practice after marriage—the 
consequence being, that a very large propor- 
tion of female practitioners are mere beginners, 
and, of course, the average of knowledge and 
experience among them being therefore low, 
very many people acquire a distrust of female 
physicians in general. 
There is a large demand for women who 
are skilled nurses—far greater, indeed, than 
the few training-schools now in existence can 
supply. Those who are thoroughly qualified 
receive as much for their services as a very 
considerable proportion of the physicians 
throughout the country derive from their 
practice. Only thoroughly healthy and fairly 
strong young women, however, are suitable to 
enter this vocation. 
Of other professions little need be said. 
With the exceptions of the military and 
naval, there are no special reasons in the 
physical character of women why they should 
not adopt any to which their peculiar talents 
or tastes may incline them. In regard to the 
various vocations not commonly designated FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 
131 
as professions, but collectively known as 
“business,” the principles already brought 
out will serve as a general guide. To most 
departments of mercantile business, and to 
many trades, most women are physically 
nearly as well adapted as men, and in some 
European countries are much more generally 
engaged therein than in this. 
In many stores where women are employed 
to sell goods, as well as in some factories 
and other establishments employing women or 
girls, they are obliged to stand constantly. 
This is very bad, apart from its general weary- 
ing effect, for the constant pressure of the ab- 
dominal organs upon those within the pelvis, 
combined with the weakened support of the 
tired muscles, tend to produce displacements 
of the womb and other disorders. These 
dangers are greatly increased if the hands are 
occupied in lifting heavy goods to and from 
high shelves, or in handling heavy machinery. 
In some countries women are employed as 
farm-laborers, and in some parts of this 
country it is not nnnsnal to see them work- 
ing in the fields, though nearly all who do 132 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
such work here are foreigners. An exception 
to this rule exists in many districts that are 
largely devoted to the raising of small fruits 
for market, where, during the ripening season, 
native girls and women are largely employed 
as pickers. There is no physiological reason 
why they should not do such work as this, 
and many other parts of farm-work as well, 
if they wish to, or if need require, though 
much of the work on a farm involves heavy 
lifting and straining, and is therefore unsafe 
for them. ' CHAPTER VI. 
AMUSEMENTS. 
The desire for amusements is so nearly 
universal that it would seem at first scarcely 
requisite to argue seriously for their necessity. 
Yet, as a few people hold a real or affected 
contempt for all amusements, and as many 
other people are thereby led to regard them 
as mere concessions to human weakness, hav- 
ing at best no value beyond a passing and 
frivolous pleasure, it is worth while to inquire 
what their true relation is to the health of 
mind and body. 
At the outset of this inquiry two consider- 
ations stand self-evident, or so nearly that as 
to need no demonstration here, and upon these 
the whole question of amusements depends. 
First, the proper purpose of an amusement is 
to afford recreation ; that is to say, relief from 134 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the weariness of some other action. For in- 
stance, the scholar, after an hour of studious 
confinement, finds amusement in conversation 
or in the rapid exercise attending some phys- 
ical sport, while one whose occupation consists 
in physical exercise finds amusement in sitting 
down to read. Second, some amusements may 
be in themselves injurious, and, if so, are cer- 
tainly to be avoided. For instance, one might 
find amusement in playing with some poison- 
ous plant, in walking through a district where 
the air is fever-laden, or in any one of a thou- 
sand ways wherein the advantage of the rec- 
reation will be balanced or more than balanced 
by the evil directly connected with the amuse- 
ment. 
The lower animals have their amusements, 
all of them, at least, that possess any consider- 
able degree of intelligence, and it seems to be 
a general rule that the greater the intelligence 
of the animal the more numerous and diver- 
sified are its amusements. Animals of small 
intelligence, such as fowls and rabbits, have 
little amusement beyond an occasional scam- 
per or a mock battle, actions which are of AMUSEMENTS. 
135 
similar character with the serious concerns of 
their lives, differing from these merely in be- 
ing free from all constraint and care, executed 
wholly as a matter of pleasure, and continuing 
only while they afford pleasure. These are, 
indeed, the chief points of difference between 
an amusement and a task. But animals of 
larger intelligence add an element of humor 
to their amusements ; and man, having greater 
intelligence than any other animal, has also 
the greatest variety in amusements. 
The young require and usually obtain more 
amusement than those who are older. One 
reason for this is, that the powers of mind and 
body, being feebler in the young, are sooner 
exhausted by action and require more frequent 
recreation. Another and perhaps the princi- 
pal reason is, that for the young amusement 
has another purpose besides recreation, that 
purpose being the development by exercise 
of those very powers which are afterward to 
find their principal exercise in doing life’s 
work. 
The kitten toys with a string, or chases 
a flying leaf, to strengthen by nse the mus- 136 
HYGIENE I OR GIRLS. 
cles that will enable the cat to spring upon 
and seize the animals which form its food. 
The puppy romps with whatever playmate 
comes in its way, to gain that wonderful 
strength of wind and limb that the dog will 
maintain by guarding his master’s flock or 
following that master from place to place. 
The colt paws and prances, to nurture a frame 
that may bear the horse’s burdens. So the 
child builds piles of blocks, digs in the sand, 
or gathers colored pebbles, and in so doing 
develops powers of observation and comparison 
that afterward find exercise and growth in the 
tasks of the school-room and of life. 
Many amusements of childhood are of this 
class, and are therefore outgrown as soon as 
the powers to which they minister are suffi- 
ciently formed to gain their needed exercise 
by real work. But amusement for the pur- 
pose of recreation is never outgrown, and, the 
more severely the faculties are concentrated 
on any task, the greater is the need of such 
amusement. Consequently, we find that the 
greater the development of thought among 
men, and the more intense the effort of their AMUSEMENTS. 
137 
lives, the more advanced, in short, their civil- 
ization, the more abundant are their amuse- 
ments. 
The savage is but very little above the 
brute in his amusements. He runs, dances, 
shouts, wrestles with a companion, or vacantly 
watches the smoke curling above his pipe. 
Civilized men and women of low intellectual 
culture are not much in advance of savages 
in this regard. The fact that they live in civ- 
ilized society insures their acquaintance with 
other classes of amusements, but those which 
most interest them and best supply their need 
are, as in the case of savages or of brutes, 
sportive copies of the motions that make up 
the labors and strifes of their life. Even when 
they converse, their ideas rarely range beyond 
the daily routine of that which their muscles 
perform; and to tell what they did yesterday, 
what they will do to-morrow, and what their 
neighbor is doing, is the sum of their talk. 
Those who do intellectual work need in- 
tellectual amusement. If their work is wholly 
intellectual, or nearly so, they certainly need 
physical amusement too, even more impera- 138 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
tively than those whose work is wholly phys- 
ical. But the need of a working mind for 
amusement is greater than that of muscles, 
for the mind differs from the muscles in the 
fact that when once set at work it is not 
readily stopped, and therefore mental diversion 
is necessary to give it rest. 
Not unfrequently it happens that the mis- 
take is made of taking for an amusement an 
exercise which is too severe, and which, by 
the heavy tax that it lays upon the powers 
of the individual, has all the effect of a task. 
Thus what is amusement to one is labor to 
another. For example, Pollok says, m the 
fifth book of “The Course of Time,” when de- 
scribing the joys of earth: 
“It was, indeed, a wondrous sort of bliss 
The lonely bard enjoyed when forth he walked, 
Unpurposed ; stood, and knew not why ; sat down, 
And knew not where ; arose, and knew not when; 
Had eyes, and saw not; ears, and nothing heard ; 
And sought—sought neither heaven nor earth— 
sought naught, 
Nor meant to think; but ran, meantime, through 
vast 
Of visionary things, fairer than aught AMUSEMENTS. 
139 
That was ; and saw the distant tops of thoughts 
Which men of common stature never saw, 
Greater than aught that largest words could hold, 
Or give idea of, to those who read. ” 
It is true, as the poet says, that such 
thoughts are only possible to persons of great 
mental stature, and of these only the most 
active minds can find true amusement in 
them, for to all others the mere attempt to 
grasp such great thoughts is a wearisome 
labor. To be sure, the less active minds are 
not very apt to become wearied with this 
high form of reverie, because they are not 
very apt to undertake it. Our reveries are 
naturally adapted to the ordinary scope of 
our minds, and a mind whose ordinary range 
is bounded by the foot-hills of thought is 
not likely in hours of idleness to wander 
among those “distant tops” that pierce the 
clouds above a common life. But the condi- 
tions illustrated in this belong also to other 
forms of amusement which are frequently at- 
tempted by those who are not capable of 
using them as amusements. 
Such is the game of chess. To play it tol- 140 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
erably requires close attention, much study 
and calculation, and severe exercise of the 
reasoning faculty. Most persons of cultivated 
mind are capable of such effort, but few can 
make it without in some degree exhausting 
their power for other mental effort, so that, al- 
though it may be to them a pleasing exercise, 
it is more of a labor than a recreation. There 
are some minds of sufficient grasp, activity, 
and balance, to really play at chess without 
working at it, using it as a wholesome diver- 
sion from other mental exercise, yet never 
becoming occupied with it to the point of 
fatigue. Yet it is a game of capacity to tax 
the highest power, and few who become in- 
terested in it are content to spend small effort 
upon it. Therefore it is generally not profit- 
able for those whose work is chiefly mental, 
except it may be during a vacation, when 
there is less need of rest than of a change of 
mental occupation. 
So largely, indeed, does it usually en- 
gross the mental powers, that many excellent 
players have finally given up playing it al- 
together, convinced that they must either do AMUSEMENTS. 
141 
that or give up their business; and Paul 
Morphy, at one time the finest player in the 
world, is said to have become insane from 
close attention to the game. At the same 
time it is one of the best of games for mental 
discipline, and perhaps sometimes available 
for that purpose when other means are not; 
but mental discipline and recreation, though 
certainly not opposed to one another, are not 
closely connected, and usually other exercises 
than games are preferable for discipline. 
In consequence of considerations such as 
these, and, moreover, because it is wholly 
sedentary, chess is among the games which 
are wisely excluded at some schools. 
Many amusements are unsuitable for a 
similar reason, that they exhaust the powers, 
either mental or physical, too much to be 
serviceable as recreations. This objection is 
sometimes general and sometimes special. The 
instances just considered are of general unfit- 
ness, their effect being that of general men- 
tal fatigue or exhaustion. In a similar way 
others, such as severe gymnastic exercises, 
long-continued running, etc., may cause gen- 142 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
eral physical fatigue or exhaustion. But still 
others may in a special way exhaust or in- 
jure mind or body in certain individuals. 
Thus, some minds are so painfully suscep- 
tible that the slight suspense of the contest in 
any game of skill or chance, and the excite- 
ment of winning or losing, fatigue more than 
an exercise requiring greater effort but lacking 
these conditions; and many bodies have some 
defect in circulation, or weakness of some 
particular organ, in consequence of which 
very moderate physical exercise may, if it 
affects that defect or weakness, have the 
effect of great exhaustion. For example, a 
person having heart-disease, although per- 
haps quite as strong and agile as another 
whose heart is sound, or even more so, may 
be greatly distressed and exhausted by a 
short run that would scarcely flush the face 
or quicken the breath of the other. 
So, in amusements as in other things, 
“one man’s meat is another’s poison,” and, 
while variety of taste prompts to a choice, re- 
gard must also be paid to some necessities not 
indicated by taste. Fortunately, the range is AMUSEMENTS. 
143 
so great that an ample variety can usually 
be found, approved by both the taste and the 
health requirements of each individual. It is 
not easy in this to lay down strict rules for 
another, and it is only possible here to indicate 
general principles and their application to a 
few forms of amusement. 
The same rules that govern the relation of 
woman to the various forms of physical labor 
apply in equal degree to her physical amuse- 
ments. As a rule, she is more likely to have 
too few of the latter than too many, but more 
care is necessary on her part than on that of 
man in their choice and extent. 
Nearly all girls need more out-of-door 
amusement. They should walk and run as 
their brothers do. There is every reason for 
a girl’s running that there is for a boy’s, and 
she is as well formed for it as he, unless her 
form has been distorted at the dictate of an 
unhappy fashion. Among the lower animals 
the female is often swifter than the male. 
This is notably true of race-horses. It is sig- 
nificant, too, that the ancient Greeks, who sur- 
passed all other nations in physical culture, 144 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
in their mythology named Atalanta, a woman, 
as the most fleet-footed of mortals. 
Owing to social customs and other condi- 
tions, many girls walk very little and run 
scarcely at all, though of late years the gen- 
eral tendency has been toward improvement 
in this respect, and in the use of many open- 
air sports by girls and women, such as cro- 
quet, lawn tennis, archery, horseback-riding, 
rowing, etc. These are generally beneficial, 
though the more active, as lawn tennis, riding 
and rowing, are unsafe in excess, and all are 
subject to the general limitations already 
mentioned. 
There is one special danger in connection 
with rowing that ought to be generally un- 
derstood and guarded against. The action in 
pulling the oars is almost precisely the same 
as in lifting a weight in the hands from a 
stooping to an upright position. The body 
is first bent forward toward the feet, the 
arms being extended in front and the knees 
bent. The knees are then straightened, the 
feet being braced, the arms are drawn toward 
the chest and the body thrown back. In this AMUSEMENTS. 
145 
action nearly all of the most powerful mus- 
cles of the body and limbs are made tense, 
including those of the chest and abdomen, 
and there is a strong pressure upon the inter- 
nal organs. There is no harm in this if the 
organs are healthy and the action moderate, 
but otherwise there is a liability that the 
womb may be displaced. For this reason girls 
when rowing should never engage in a race 
or task their strength to the utmost. 
Bathing for amusement, as it is generally 
done at our summer watering-places, is nearly 
always bad in its tendency. There is a very 
common notion that salt water never injures 
health as fresh water may. This is a mistake. 
Other things being equal, one is not quite so 
likely to take cold in salt water as in fresh, 
because the salt stimulates the skin slightly, 
and one can swim with less fatigue in salt 
water if it is free from waves, because it is 
heavier and therefore more readily floats the 
body than fresh water. But, as very many 
people drown in salt water notwithstanding 
its weight, so do a vastly greater number take 
cold in it, notwithstanding the salt. At most 146 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
of the summer resorts on our Atlantic coast 
the sea is too cold for comfortable or heathful 
bathing during a considerable part of the sea- 
son which fashion prescribes for spending in 
these places. 
But the commonest injury that is received 
from such bathing is not an ordinary “cold,” 
but a depression of the vital powers resulting 
from long immersion in the water. This is 
shown by chilliness, blueness of the lips and 
lassitude, and sometimes by headache or nau- 
sea. It occurs more rapidly in proportion as 
the water is colder, and much sooner in fee- 
ble persons, or those whose blood does not 
circulate freely, than in those who are robust. 
Some persons may be in the water for 
half an hour or more without being thus af- 
fected, but these are comparatively few, and 
there are others who can scarcely endure more 
than a single dip with safety. In general, it 
may be said that on the coast of our Middle 
States a sea-bath should be from three to fif- 
teen minutes in length, and probably there 
are many more girls who would be benefited 
by a bath of less than ten minutes than there AMUSEMENTS. 
147 
are who would be benefited by one of more 
than that time. It is not the chill of the first 
plunge that is harmful, except to very feeble 
persons. If there is sufficient vigor to react 
against this, and cause, on coming out of the 
water, a pleasant glow of the surface of the 
body, with warm hands and feet, the exer- 
cise has been a good one; if otherwise, bad; 
and this should be the test as to the time of 
remaining in the water. 
Another and a very frequent source of 
injury in sea-bathing is the motion of the 
water. In a calm day and upon a smooth 
beach the long waves roll with a force that is 
surprising to one who has not known it, and 
when raised by a moderate wind they will 
severely tax the strength of the strongest 
man. Adventurous swimmers, going outside 
of the surf-line, and rising and falling with 
the waves, do not of course feel their force as 
those do who stand cowering upon the sand, 
with every moment a volume of water weigh- 
ing perhaps half a ton rushing against or 
falling upon them. 
In view of all the facts, therefore, when 148 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
delicate girls and women permit themselves, 
as many do, for an hour or two each day of 
several weeks, to be drenched, pounded and 
tossed by ocean-waves, their bodies mean- 
while feeling chilled to the marrow, and gen- 
erally a fierce sun beating upon their heads, 
it is no wonder that some of them conclude 
that sea-air does not agree with them. 
Skating is an amusement that has much 
in its favor and some decided disadvantages. 
It pleasantly exhilarates •without fatiguing 
the mind, and at the same time gives free 
play to very many of the muscles. It quick- 
ens the circulation and insures the breathing 
of fresh air. But that air is necessarily cold, 
and the very fact that it is breathed in in- 
creased quantities makes it somewhat likely 
to affect the lungs or air-passages injuriously. 
It has often happened that a more or less 
serious inflammation of some of these parts 
has resulted from skating. The feet, too, are 
exceedingly apt to suffer from cold, especially 
if the skates are fastened by straps, as these 
constrict the feet and check the circulation 
of blood in them. On this account, skates AMUSEMENTS. 
149 
which fasten to the soles of the shoes are 
better for the wearer, though perhaps not so 
good for the shoes. 
Very much of the danger incident to skat- 
ing may be avoided by observing the simple 
precaution of keeping the mouth closed con- 
stantly while skating and afterward until home 
is reached. All the air which reaches the lungs 
is thus made to come through the nostrils, 
and in the long, narrow, and winding passages 
which intervene it becomes partly warmed. If 
the mouth is opened, as in talking and laugh- 
ing, a great volume of cold air rushes almost 
directly into the lungs, where the violent con- 
trast of its temperature to that of the heated 
blood which the unusual exercise sends surg- 
ing through them is very apt to make mis- 
chief. 
For this reason skating-parties, where the 
amusement consists largely in the merry con- 
versation and laughter that seem to belong 
to such gatherings, are less desirable than 
separate and therefore quiet indulgence in 
the exercise. 
Another precaution of very great import - 150 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
ance is always to walk home after skating. 
Many cases of serious and even fatal sickness 
have followed the chill occasioned by a drive of 
fifteen minutes in a carriage or sleigh through 
the wintry air after getting warm and tired 
by skating. When possible, too, an extra 
wrap of some kind should be carried to the 
skating-pond, to be worn home. Of course, 
no one who values health will sit down on 
the ice, or elsewhere in the open air, to “cool 
off,” or to rest, when wearied by the sport. 
When need of such rest is felt, it is time to 
go home. 
Dancing is in itself an excellent exercise 
and recreation for both body and mind. It 
is, however, nearly always carried to excess, 
and its common accompaniments of extreme- 
ly late hours, indigestible suppers, insufficient 
clothing, and sudden changes from overheat- 
ed rooms to chilly night-air, are anything but 
conducive to health. 
Receptions and parties of various kinds, 
picnics, excursions, theatres, operas, and the 
like, afford a pleasant break in the monotony 
of many lives, but are apt to cause too much AMUSEMENTS. 
151 
weariness to afford immediate benefit in the 
way of recreation, even though they may be 
altogether pleasurable. Their chief advan- 
tage, apart from direct social or educational 
considerations, is in affording themes of after- 
amusement in thought and conversation. For 
this purpose they are more effective, if not suf- 
ficiently frequent to wear the edge of novelty. 
What constitutes such frequency varies 
so greatly in different cases that it is im- 
possible to give anything like a general rule. 
Some may derive most benefit from only three 
or four such entertainments in a year, and oth- 
ers from thirty or forty. It is even possible 
that the immediate excitement of a continuous 
round of such entertainments may at times 
be beneficial to some persons, but such cases 
are very rare, and when they exist the per- 
sons to be thus benefited are not likely to 
seek the excitement; for, when there is a 
craving of excitement for excitement’s sake, it 
is a pretty sure sign that the excitement will 
be injurious. 
Amusements should complement the gen- 
eral occupation, as colors complement one 152 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
another. Not only should the action of an 
amusement be different from that of the oc- 
cupation, but there should be a kind of har- 
mony between them, which will insure sym- 
metrical development. A person whose occu- 
pation is sedentary commonly requires more 
active amusements than one whose occupation 
is active, yet the former is more likely than 
the latter to be injured by too great activity 
in amusements. A student may get only dis- 
comfort and harm from a game of foot-ball 
that a farm-laborer would thoroughly enjoy 
and profit in. On the other hand, the farm- 
laborer may only be bored and tired by a 
game of logomachy that would be a delight 
and gain to the student. 
It is far from the truth to suppose that all 
students would be injured by playing foot-ball, 
and still more so to suppose that all farm- 
laborers would fail of being interested in lo- 
gomachy ; yet the fact that it is sometimes 
so illustrates a principle concerning amuse- 
ments, that while some, of a nature very di- 
verse from one’s occupation, are useful and 
necessary, still, when their object is mere rec- AMUSEMENTS. 
153 
reation to the wearied powers, without refer- 
ence to the discipline and development of 
other powers, there is special advantage in 
such as are somewhat allied in character to 
the occupation, provided they are not identi- 
fied with it too closely. Thus, a person tired 
with muscular exercise may often find anoth- 
er form of muscular exercise refreshing, even 
when it is done as a labor, and much more 
when it is done as a sport. In accordance 
with this principle, it is said that horses on 
hilly roads last much longer, even though 
their work is much harder, but affords variety 
in the exercise, than they do on level ones 
where the muscular strain is always in one 
direction. Again, a person tired with mental 
work, if not in present need of muscular exer- 
cise, may often find the best relief in some 
other form of mental occupation. 
Such change not only distributes the sum 
of action among different powers or organs of 
mind or body, and so passively relieves those 
that are wearied—it actively relieves them also. 
Weariness is an effect produced by the wear- 
ing out of certain particles of brain or body 154 
HYGIENE I OR GIRLS. 
in their work. This waste is made up by 
fresh particles taken from the blood. The an- 
tagonizing processes of waste and repair are 
constantly going on during life. In action 
the former predominates; and in rest, within 
certain limits, the latter. But action in any 
part always increases the flow of blood to that 
part, so that the process of repair is really 
more rapid during action than during rest, and 
it is only because the process of waste in- 
creases at the same time in still greater ratio 
that exhaustion follows action. 
But if one set of muscles in the arm are 
wearied, and while allowing them to rest we 
exercise another set of muscles in the same 
arm, the flow of blood to that arm continues 
to be increased, and the wearied muscles are 
repaired faster than they would be if the arm 
remained entirely at rest. So, when the brain 
is wearied, if we occupy it on a subject engag- 
ing other faculties than those which have be- 
come exhausted, the blood continues to flow 
through the brain more freely than when it 
is wholly at rest, and we get the effect of rec- 
reation. AMUSEMENTS. 
155 
On the other hand, if with a tired brain 
we engage the body in severe exercise, and 
especially if it is an exercise to which we 
are unaccustomed, and which, therefore, is 
performed with constraint and difficulty, the 
blood is partly withdrawn from the brain to 
help the body, and the growing fatigue of 
the latter adds in effect to the unrelieved fa- 
tigue of the former. A similar result is apt 
to follow when one with tired body engages 
in unusual or severe mental exercise. 
Thus it is that scholars are apt to find 
their principal amusements in affairs which in- 
volve mental exercise, and those who are not 
scholars naturally seek theirs in exercises more 
purely physical. This principle, however, does 
not in any degree obviate the fact that both 
brain-workers and muscle-workers need a cer- 
tain considerable amount of exercise of the 
other kind, less perhaps for pure amusement 
than for symmetrical development of mind 
and body and consequent general health. 
An important point for those who are en- 
gaged in the work of the honse is to so system- 
atize their work that they shall have sufficient 156 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
and regular time for ont-of-door exercise and 
recreation as well as for rest. It is very com- 
monly and loosely asserted that the domestic 
duties of women are more monotonous and 
confining than the occupations of men. They' 
are not intrinsically so, at least in the case 
of women who are not mothers. The more 
one learns of the various trades and profes- 
sions by which men obtain the means of liv- 
ing, the more apparent it becomes that in 
each a wearying monotony is the rule. There 
can hardly be a more monotonous occupation 
than that of book-keeping, in which very 
many men spend the greater part of their 
waking hours from the time they leave school 
until they die. In other departments of mas- 
culine labor, from hod-carrying to sermon- 
writing, there is one unvarying round—doing 
the same things in the same way over and 
over and over again, hour after hour, day aft- 
er day, and year after year. In some of these 
occupations the hours of labor are less than 
for most housewives, but in others they are 
more. It will be found a general rule, to 
which there are very few exceptions, that the AMUSEMENTS. 
157 
more arduous the work the less are the hours, 
and vice versa. 
But it happens that the business of men is 
generally away from their homes, or at least 
not essentially connected with the scenes of 
home-life. With women who are housewives 
it is different. The food that they cook, the 
rooms that they sweep, the furniture that 
they dust, even to the beds on which they 
sleep and the books, pictures, and musical in- 
struments that are intended to afford them 
recreation, become for them so closely associ- 
ated with their daily routine of labor that it 
is necessary that they shall go out in order 
to break the association and obtain complete 
rest. 
Besides this, the kitchen is often poorly 
lighted and not well ventilated, and the house- 
wife’s dread of flies and faded furniture in 
summer and of cold air in winter often leads 
to the exclusion of sunshine and fresh air 
from the rest of the house during the greater 
part of the time, while, her work being nearly 
all within the house, there is little to take 
her into fresh air and sunlight, and even when 158 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
she does go out it is very commonly on some 
housekeeping errand that occupies her mind 
to the exclusion of any considerable recreative 
benefit. 
Every girl or woman, then, who is occu- 
pied with household cares, should so arrange 
these that she may spend a part of each day 
in absolute freedom from them and in the 
open air. It is not generally needful, nor in- 
deed best, that this time should be spent in 
absolute idleness. For some the raising of 
flowers or even of table vegetables, or the care 
of fowls or other animals, will furnish suffi- 
cient diversion. Others will find their largest 
profit in the pursuit of botany, mineralogy, 
or some other out-door study. In cities, visits 
to picture-galleries and to other places of prof- 
itable entertainment will attract many, while 
in both city and country a reasonable amount 
of time should be devoted to social intercourse. 
Of the various occupations suggested for 
these leisure hours, and of many more which 
will suggest themselves, those only are suitable 
to any individual which appeal to the taste 
of that individual as entertainments, Those AMUSEMENTS. 
159 
which partake of the nature of tasks will fail 
of their object. Other things being equal, 
those recreations are best which will give the 
largest amount of out-of-door life and the 
widest departure from the range of ideas em- 
braced in the daily routine of work. 
Although amusements are so much needed, 
it sometimes happens that the system gets 
into a condition where it can not afford them, 
just as some people may be financially in a 
condition where they can not afford salt on 
their potatoes, although salt is so necessary to 
health. For example, some persons, either 
from necessity or choice, give themselves un- 
remittingly to some form of mental or phys- 
ical labor as long as they are capable of effort, 
and, when they cease, their weariness demands 
utter and immediate rest. This being contin- 
ued day after day, the whole system becomes 
so exhausted that amusement is impossible. 
If the labor is intermitted for an hour, the 
person falls asleep, or at least is unable to fix 
the mind on any amusement with real in- 
terest. The face is somber or anxious, and 
the very attitude expresses weariness and de- 160 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
jection, like that of a jaded horse that has 
forgotten that life holds anything more than 
a heavy burden and a long road. The same 
result is sometimes produced by insufficient 
food, and for the same reason, that all the 
power that is produced in the system is used 
up in the mere process of living and in the 
enforced labor, and there is none left for 
amusement. 
But even as the overworked and under- 
fed horse can neither go so far nor carry so 
much as the animal that has vigor to spare 
for a little sportiveness, so the work of a per- 
son who has reached this condition must al- 
ways be inferior in amount and quality to 
that of one who saves a little time and strength 
for amusement. CHAPTER VII. 
SOCIAL CUSTOMS 
Social life necessitates many habits and 
conditions which are artificial, and which 
modify in varying degrees the progress of 
natural events. It is, however, an error to 
suppose that all which is artificial is unnatu- 
ral, or that anything is unnatural merely 
because it is artificial. That only is unnatu- 
ral which is radically opposed to the purposes 
of nature. It is not even necessary that an 
act should be artificial in order that it should 
be unnatural. For example, certain animals 
destroy and eat their own young. This act is 
not artificial, but it is unnatural, because it 
is subversive of a great natural purpose. On 
the other hand, the grooming of horses is 
artificial, but it is not unnatural, being con- 
sistent with the purposes of nature, though 162 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
it may somewhat modify their development. 
The true object of art is to assist, refine, or 
improve natural development. Unfortunately, 
art does not always keep this object in view. 
All forms of dress, every kind of cook- 
ery, light other than that of the sun and 
stars, the heating of houses by means of fire, 
the houses themselves, and objects and usages 
innumerable, belonging to civilized life, are 
artificial and modify in varying degrees the 
operation of natural laws. Indeed, art is not 
only a necessary factor in civilization, but a 
large element in savage life, and it is even 
extremely doubtful if human life could long 
continue in any circumstances without its in- 
tervention. We have, then, to consider the 
artificial conditions in which we are placed as 
in some sense an adjunct to nature, and a 
necessary part of our belongings. 
Social usages modify to a very great ex- 
tent the development of womanhood—some- 
times, but not always, injuriously. The in- 
fluence of habit is so great, that in many 
respects a woman’s life may be made to con- 
form to customs of society involving consider- SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
163 
able deviation from the strict course of nature, 
without either good or bad results being ap- 
parent. This, however, is only within certain 
limits, beyond which, any change, not in ac- 
cordance with the purposes of nature, will 
have a bad effect. 
The fashions of dress afford very good 
illustrations of these facts. Round the neck, 
or over the shoulders, the clothing is often 
thicker and more close-fitting, and round the 
waist it is nearly always thicker and more 
close-fitting, than in other parts. There is no 
natural reason why these parts should be 
kept warmer than adjacent parts of the body, 
and, without the accommodation of habit, 
such unequal distribution of warmth would 
be very uncomfortable, and even unhealthful, 
yet ordinarily it is not so in any great 
degree. The parts so warmly clothed become 
accustomed to it, and if they are divested of 
a part of their covering, even though they 
may still have as much as other parts of the 
body, it sometimes happens that sickness is 
the result. Again, the fashions in regard to 
the covering of the neck frequently change, 164 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
so that at one time dresses are worn which 
come up high on the throat, and at another 
they are open low down upon the bosom. 
Custom rapidly inures to these conditions, so 
that comparatively little inconvenience is felt, 
although even so slight a thing as laying off 
a neck-ribbon or a necklace not unfrequently 
produces a cold at first. 
A chronicler of Eastern legends tells the 
story of a monarch who, seeing one day a 
shepherd in the fields, inquired about his 
mode of life, and finding that the man slept 
on the bare ground, exposed to every kind 
of weather, that he was scantily clothed, and 
yet never took cold or was sick, remarked 
that the poor people were so much hardier 
than the higher classes that there must be a 
great difference in their natures. One of the 
wise men of the court replied that the differ- 
ence was entirely of habit. The king, desir- 
ing to test the correctness of this view, had 
the shepherd brought to court, where, for 
some months, he lived in the same manner as 
the nobles, never being exposed to fatigue or 
to inclement weather, and his person being in SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
165 
all respects most tenderly cared for. At the 
end of this time the king directed that the 
shepherd be taken into a room, the marble 
floor of which had just been sprinkled with 
water, and that he be engaged in conversation 
there for half an hour. This was done, and 
a few days later the king inquired for the 
man, that he might see the result of the ex- 
periment. To his astonishment he learned 
that the poor fellow was dead. Standing on 
the sprinkled floor had made the soles of his 
shoes damp, in consequence of which he had 
taken a violent cold and died. Whether the 
story is historically true or not, its double 
moral is certainly correct: that many of the 
refinements of civilization are purchased at 
the expense of vigor or hardihood, and that 
the nature of man soon adapts itself to the 
circumstances in which it happens to be 
placed. This, however, as has been already 
said, is only within certain limits. To force 
a habit beyond these limits is to invite dis- 
aster. 
The evils of tight lacing have been often 
commented on, and many illustrations have 166 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
been given of the terrible effects of this prac- 
tice. In spite of all that can be said, how- 
ever, if fashion demands it, women will con- 
tinue to be deformed in this way. That it 
is a deformity is beyond denial. Classical 
statues and paintings of Venus, and other 
representations of perfect female beauty and 
grace, all have the waist full, with only a 
gentle inward curve at the sides, instead of 
the sharply pinched waist of modern society, 
which gives to the upper part of the body 
the appearance of an inverted cone. 
This unnatural compression is often spok- 
en of as forcing the lower ribs together, 
and pushing up the diaphragm by constant 
pressure upon the abdominal organs, thus 
doubly confining the motion of the lower 
part of the lungs and consequently impeding 
breathing, and assisting, if not producing, 
various diseases of the lungs, as well as 
eventually producing permanent distortions 
of the ribs and spine, and often seriously 
interfering with the action of the heart and 
liver. All this is true, and more, for the 
compression of the waist exerts a pressure on SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
167 
the abdominal organs, downward as well as 
upward, and is thereby the direct cause of 
many disorders of the womb. Often this 
cause of diseases of the womb is overlooked, 
and oftener yet, when the evil is discovered, 
it is too late to apply the remedy. 
Tight lacing will not cause a woman to 
suffer from shortness of breath equally with 
a man, because nature has provided that, in a 
woman, breathing is effected principally by 
the motion of the upper part of the chest, 
while in a man it is done chiefly by the 
motion of the diaphragm and abdominal mus- 
cles. This provision, however, does not pre- 
vent the lungs themselves from sustaining 
serious damage in this way, nor does it at 
all lessen the amount of injury inflicted on 
other parts. Moreover, the provision itself is 
a safeguard of nature in certain possible con- 
ditions of a woman’s life. It is a prevision 
against the pressure within the abdomen in 
the event of maternity, and if this pressure 
is forestalled by tight lacing, even if no im- 
mediate ill effects were felt, the life of both 
mother and child may one day pay the 168 
HYGIENE FOE GIELS. 
penalty. This may be, too, although tight 
lacing has been discontinued long before ma- 
ternity is possible, for the body once de- 
formed in this way never regains its original 
perfect form. 
By tight lacing should be understood not 
only a degree of constriction approaching the 
limit of endurance, but every degree of tight- 
ness which causes pressure upon the abdo- 
men, or confines the movements of the body. 
Everything round the waist should be loose 
enough for the entire hand to pass easily 
under it. Dresses that “fit snugly” about 
the waist are too tight. 
If corsets are to be permitted at all, they 
should be loose enough to be easily moved 
up and down on the person, and should have 
no constricted portion, or sharp inward curve, 
the front being straight except where it en- 
larges to support the breasts, and the sides 
nearly straight, except where they enlarge at 
the bottom to cover the hips. They should 
be supported entirely by the projection of the 
hips and the natural curve of the spine, and 
not by compression of the abdomen. They SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
169 
should also be made of soft and elastic ma- 
terials, and not with steel or stiff whalebone. 
Quite frequently, when tight lacing is not 
practiced for its own sake, or when, strictly 
speaking, it is not practiced at all, the waist 
is constricted as a means of supporting the 
under-skirts. This is full of harm. In the 
first place, heavy under-skirts, or many of 
them, should never be worn, both because, 
whatever kind of support is devised, their 
weight is a burden which is worse than in- 
convenient, and because they do not ade- 
quately protect the lower extremities from 
cold, especially from currents of cold air. 
For this purpose, drawers should be worn of 
sufficient thickness to keep the legs comfort- 
ably warm, whatever the weather, and both 
they and such skirts as may be necessary for 
the sake of appearance should be supported 
in the same manner as the corset when it is 
worn, by the projection of the hips, or, better 
still, by buttoning to the garments which 
hang from the shoulders. The latter mode 
of support is not easy when very low-necked 
dresses are worn, and, for this reason, among 170 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
others, dresses made in that fashion are ob- 
jectionable. 
The frequent and extreme changes of fash- 
ion in the matter of ladies’ hats and bonnets, 
and in the style of arranging the hair, are 
very unfortunate. At one time a hat is worn 
low upon the forehead, and the back of the 
head is left exposed; again, the covering is 
set back upon the crown, and the forehead 
and top of the head are bare; during one 
season the whole head is enveloped in a huge 
bonnet, which, during the next season, is re- 
placed by a slight alfair that rests on the 
top of the head, and does not so much as 
cover the ears. In dressing the hair quite as 
much diversity occurs. At one time it is 
massed over the back of the neck; at an- 
other, on the crown or just above the fore- 
head. Now it is gathered about the ears, 
and now carefully brushed away from them. 
Any one of these fashions would be com- 
paratively harmless if it were continuous, as 
habit would soon inure to it, though some of 
them are so far from the natural design of 
protecting the head from heat and cold that SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
171 
they could never be wholly comfortable and 
safe. But the great danger is in their fre- 
quent changes. Among other evil results, 
many cases of neuralgia of the head or face, 
and of deafness, are owing to this cause. It 
is not to be expected that such changes of 
fashion will be discontinued, and some con- 
formity to the prevailing fashion is a social 
duty as well as a necessity, but there is 
neither duty nor necessity to make these 
changes so sudden and extreme as they often 
are. Especially unsafe is it to make such 
changes in cold weather. 
The wearing of veils is in general bad for 
the eyes, and should in ordinary circum- 
stances be avoided so far as possible. This 
is especially true of black crape and other 
dark-colored and thick veils, of those which 
are figured, and those which are drawn tight- 
ly over the face. The dark and thick ones 
keep the eyes in a perpetual twilight, and 
therefore perpetually strained. This evil be- 
longs, indeed, in greater or less degree, to all 
veils worn over the eyes. The figured ones 
render the light uneven, and constantly at- 172 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
tract vision to the figures, by which means 
they greatly fatigue the eyes, and have been 
thought, in very numerous instances, to pro- 
duce near-sightedness. Closely drawn veils, 
besides having the disadvantages of loose 
ones, interfere somewhat with the evapora- 
tion of moisture from the eye, and promote 
inflammation. There are, indeed, some con- 
ditions of the eyes, or of the surrounding air 
and light, that make the use of veils neces- 
sary at times, but this should always be de- 
termined by a physician. 
The nse of cosmetics can hardly be called 
a social custom, for, though it is unfortunately 
very common, the better sense of society is 
decidedly opposed to it, and it is done in a 
sort of secret way. At least, it is generally 
supposed to be a secret by those who do it. 
Many ladies, indeed, use face-powder frankly, 
more as a convenience than as a true cosmetic, 
their object being to arrest perspiration, pre- 
vent sunburn, etc. When magnesia or rice- 
powder is thus used there is no more objec- 
tion to it than to any other kind of dust or 
dirt with which the skin might be covered. SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
Like all others, they make the skin dry and 
rough, partly by absorbing its natural moist- 
ure and partly by mechanical irritation, and, 
by clogging the pores and checking the per- 
spiration, they tend to make it sallow and 
promote pimples, but they are not poisonous, 
and do no other harm. The same can not be 
said of the various washes, lotions, enamels, 
etc., that are used for beautifying the com- 
plexion. Notwithstanding the abundant guar- 
antees and testimonials under which they are 
sold, all of them are highly objectionable, 
and most of them contain dangerous quanti- 
ties of arsenic. 
The shoes commonly worn by women are 
the cause of a vast amount of suffering, and 
a great deal of ill health. The foot is a 
wonderful piece of mechanism, in the form 
of an elastic arch, the instep being the mid- 
dle or highest point of the arch, and the 
design is, that the heel and toes, being the 
ends of the arch and resting on the ground, 
shall support the entire weight of the body. 
According to the laws of mechanics, the mid- 
dle of the sole, representing the middle of 174 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the inside of the arch, is the part of the foot 
least able to endure pressure, yet, in very 
many of the shoes made for women, the heel, 
in order to make the foot look small, is 
placed under this very part, causing the 
whole weight of the body to be borne by 
the weakest part of the foot. Then the heel 
is made very narrow and very high, causing 
a severe strain on the ankle to preserve the 
balance, and making the foot slide down and 
forward toward the toe of the shoe, and the 
shoe is made as narrow as possible, especially 
at the toe, painfully cramping the toes, and, 
indeed, the whole foot. The consequence is, 
that walking is difficult and uncomfortable, 
and is therefore avoided as much as possible, 
and the whole body suffers for want of ex- 
ercise, while the foot itself, being distorted 
and pained, develops corns, bunions, inflamed 
joints, and in-growing nails. Besides this, the 
raised heel throws the weight of the body 
forward, and, by thus lessening the support 
of the abdominal organs, tends to produce or 
aggravate disorders arising from this source. 
The heel of the shoe should be broad, flat, SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
175 
very low (not more than half an inch in 
height at the utmost), and should be placed 
well back under the heel of the foot. The 
sole of the shoe should be broad, especially 
at the toe, and thick enough to protect from 
cold and damp. If the sole is sufficiently 
broad, the upper may be as tight as it can 
be worn, without danger of producing corns. 
A narrow sole, with a loose and ill-fitting 
upper, is the form of shoe most likely to 
produce them. 
It frequently happens that school-girls, 
about the time when the menstrual func- 
tion is becoming established, feel generally 
unwell, and disinclined to much study, or to 
any great exertion. Often they suffer a good 
deal from headache, or from vaguely defined 
pains in various parts of the body and limbs. 
Sometimes the attempt to study makes them 
unreasonably drowsy. At other times it ex- 
cites and makes them restless and irritable. 
Usually the complexion changes to a pallid, 
and often a slightly greenish hue. In conse- 
quence of the frequency of this symptom the 
condition is very commonly called “green- 176 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
sickness.” As in other forms of sickness, 
the appetite is apt to become impaired or 
irregular, and sometimes capricious, so that 
unnatural or unwholesome kinds of food are 
desired. 
Such symptoms indicate that the powers 
of life are probably overtaxed by the double 
burden which they are made to bear, and that 
it is necessary to make some concession to 
the new and great development which is tak- 
ing place at this time. Sometimes, by judi- 
cious medical advice, the difficulty may be 
overcome without interfering seriously with 
the course of study, but in other cases, and 
these not a few, it is absolutely necessary to 
give up school-life for several months, or even 
for several years, until the new function be 
thoroughly established, and all the organs 
concerned in it fully matured. This neces- 
sity will be more readily apparent when 
what has been said of the very extended and 
acute nervous sympathies of the reproductive 
organs, and the very importunate demand they 
make upon the general forces, is remembered, 
with the added fact that mental labor is real- SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
ly more exhausting than labor of any other 
kind. 
Such a state of things were a great calam- 
ity to woman if her position in life were the 
same as that of man, or if her necessarily 
different position denoted inferiority. But 
neither is the case. It is not even desirable 
that man and woman should occupy the same 
place in the world. Both nature and society 
assign them to different lots. Girls develop 
more rapidly, mentally as well as physically, 
than boys. The mental perception of a girl 
of fourteen or fifteen years is generally much 
quicker than that of the average boy of the 
same age, and her intelligence greater. This 
difference increases for several years, so that 
at eighteen or twenty the girl is practically, 
in many respects, three or four years in ad- 
vance of the boy. This advantage often en- 
ables young girls to outstrip their brothers in 
their common studies, but afterward, as they 
develop more in other directions, they often 
progress in the ordinary studies of school 
less rapidly, if at all; and usually the appli- 
cants for admission to female colleges are 178 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
found to be not so thoroughly prepared as 
the applicants for admission to similar insti- 
tutions for males. JSTor has it so far been 
found generally practicable to maintain in 
the former institutions the same standard of 
study that is found in the latter. 
It is true that one reason for this is the 
prevalent feeling that as women mature ear- 
lier than men, they should enter sooner on 
the ultimate realities of life, and therefore 
can not afford to devote so much time to the 
preliminary business of education. It is also 
true, however, that the womanly development 
itself often interferes with the course of study 
to such an extent that the latter must either 
be curtailed, or more time must be devoted 
to it than is generally necessary among men. 
The question is still mooted, whether the 
direct line of study which has been developed 
through centuries, with the express object of 
fitting men for their future life in the world, 
is equally adapted for the education of the 
feminine mind, or whether a system can not 
be devised more in accordance with woman’s 
specific requirements and capabilities. This SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
179 
question is hardly within the scope, and cer- 
tainly not within the compass, of this work, 
and it will therefore not be meddled with. 
The present purpose is but to speak of exist- 
ing known facts in their relations to woman’s 
health. 
The idea held by many, that women should 
complete their preparatory life-work early, in 
order to enter at once upon life’s graver du- 
ties, is unfortunate. That girls should marry 
as soon as they are out of school is painfully 
absurd. The age at which a woman is fit to 
marry varies considerably in different coun- 
tries, being generally earlier in warm than in 
cold climates. In this country no girl ought 
to marry under twenty years of age, and few 
are fit for it under twenty-two or twenty- 
three. Twenty-five years is always a far 
preferable time for marriage, to twenty. 
The reasons for this are physiological. In 
the first place, the bones of the pelvis do not 
attain their proper size and form nntil some 
time after the individual has ceased to grow 
tall, and after the menstrual function is well 
established. In general, these bones are not 180 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
perfectly developed until the woman is up- 
ward of twenty years of age. If she should 
be married, and should become a mother be- 
fore this occurs, the birth of the child will 
be attended with very great difficulty and 
danger to it and to her, and will even be not 
unlikely to occasion the death of both, from 
the narrowness of the outlet through which 
lies the child’s way into the world. In the 
second place, maturity of strength and en- 
durance do not come until some time after 
maturity of form and of organization has 
been reached. This is the natural order of 
things; and often, perhaps generally, the 
fullness of power is retarded in its develop- 
ment several years beyond the time when in 
the natural order it might otherwise appear, 
by the great drain imposed in perfecting the 
organization. If a woman marries before her 
strength is full grown, though her body may 
be, she will probably sink under the stress of 
child-bearing, added to the other labors and 
cares inseparable from married life. 
Thus it happens that, whatever of differ- 
ences may exist in mental development be- SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 
tween the sexes, women are not physically fit 
to be married at an earlier age than their 
brothers, and the physical consequences of too 
early marriage are much more disastrous to 
the former than to the latter. It is generally 
thought that the husband should be a little 
older than the wife, to counterbalance the 
earlier maturity of the latter, for in common 
parlance “a girl is older at eighteen than a 
man is at twenty-one.” This statement, in 
its accepted sense, is true, but the disparity 
grows less as they advance in life, and finally 
disappears. 
If, however, girls do not marry until they 
are really fit to do so, and if, at the same 
time, the general sentiment remains unshak- 
en, that men should be older than their 
wives, then those social scientists who are 
given to lamenting the general inability of 
very young men to marry and support fami- 
lies are deprived of considerable ground for 
argument, and by just so much is the fact 
made plainer that the progress of civilization 
is still onward, and the world is really not 
retrograding. If it be said that many early 182 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
marriages have been free from the evil con- 
sequences alluded to, it is simply such an 
argument as to say that many have played 
with edge-tools and have been unhurt, or 
that steam-engines have frequently been run 
at a pressure above the safety-point, and the 
boilers have not burst. Such things do hap- 
pen, but the experiments are not safe enough 
to be worth trying. CHAPTER VIII. 
HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 
Woman’s place in the world differs from 
that of man, and she is endowed by nature 
with such peculiarities as fit her specially for 
her position. Less in stature and in physical 
strength, as well as in such mental qualities 
as are particularly adapted to the jarring en- 
counters of a business life, to the competitive 
struggle for means of subsistence and emula 
tion for the possession of power, hers is the 
fuller grace which fills and beautifies the 
bolder outlines of the man’s work, and nour- 
ishes the germs of power that is to be. In 
this difference is no inferiority, but rather 
the variety that is necessary to companion- 
ship. As the world depends for its present 
progress on masculine force, so does it de- 
pend on feminine grace for its future pros- 184 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
perity. To this end the physical and mental 
attributes of woman are especially directed. 
It has been said that, as among the lower 
animals the male is generally more beautiful 
as well as stronger than the female, the same 
fact exists in relation to human beings, and 
that the concession of the palm of beauty to 
woman is merely a gallant courtesy. This is 
not so. Among many of the lower animals, 
the female is little more than a humbler 
copy of the male. The lioness, equaling the 
lion in size and strength, and invested with 
his full mane and terrible voice, would be 
not a whit less majestic than he. . The pea- 
cock’s gay plumes and majestic carriage, be- 
stowed upon his mate, would make her as 
beautiful and as much admired as himself. 
But beauty depends on purpose. The pea- 
cock’s plumes upon the lion would be ab- 
surd. So that which in woman is beautiful 
becomes ridiculous effeminacy in man, as 
that which is majestic in man is ungraceful 
and unbecoming in woman. The tenors of 
their lives differ, and their natures and consti- 
tutions differ accordingly. Among the lower HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 
185 
animals there is generally no true companion- 
ship between the sexes. The female is not a 
helpmeet for the male, with qualities radi- 
cally differing from and supplementing his. 
She is only necessary for the purpose of 
perpetuating the race. For every other pur- 
pose the male is, in himself, sufficient, and 
for some he is better endowed than she; 
hence his greater beauty. In the case of 
men and women, however, there is the differ- 
ence already noted, of purpose rather than of 
degree. Therefore, the beauty of the woman 
is not modeled on that of the man, nor to be 
measured by the same rules. 
Few things are more difficult to define 
than beauty, and few things are more diffi- 
cult to analyze or lay down rules for. It is 
true that we have some general rules of 
beauty, such as that curves are more beauti- 
ful than right lines and angles, that certain 
harmonies should be observed in colors, etc., 
but after all we can not arrange any exact 
system of forms and colors, and say that all 
within that system is beautiful, and all with- 
out it is otherwise. If we look through a 186 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
collection of portraits, we find among those 
that are equally beautiful wide differences of 
form and of color combinations. When we 
attempt to define beauty, we are reduced to 
the necessity of saying that it is something 
which pleases the beholder, and that it is 
therefore, to a very great extent, a matter of 
individual taste. 
This is simply another way of saying that 
beauty consists in adaptation. If we follow 
the subject, we find that this idea enters, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, into all our con- 
ceptions of beauty. Even in those points on 
which the rules of beauty are seemingly fixed 
and arbitrary, this idea has a fundamental 
place. For example, the harmonies of color 
depend on the adaptation of certain colors to 
certain ends in the mechanism of light and 
vision. Form always conveys an idea of pow- 
er in some sense, either to act or to resist 
action, and curved lines allow of greater pow- 
er within a given space than right lines an 
angles. 
It is true that in these instances we may 
be unconscious of the adaptation, yet we ap- HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 181 
preciate the beauty which springs from it. 
In some other instances we can not appreci- 
ate the beauty of an object until we become 
conscious of its adaptation. We may look 
at some machine, and see in its complicated 
wheels, and shafts, and pulleys, and bands, 
only a conglomeration of ugliness, yet one 
who understands the adaptation of all these 
parts to one another, and of the whole to a 
purpose, sees in it a marvel of beauty. 
So in regard to language. The beauty 
which we find in certain words conies only 
through their adaptation to some purpose. It 
may be that the words are peculiarly fitted to 
express a certain shade of meaning, and, if so, 
we experience, in discovering this fitness, the 
same pleasurable thrill that we feel in the 
presence of other forms of beauty. Or, it 
may be that the beauty of the words consists 
in their adaptability to the organs of speech, 
making them easy of pronunciation. The 
pleasure which we then have, simply in re- 
peating or hearing them, depends on their 
adaptation to the character and constitution 
of our being. 188 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
A similar adaptation governs our concep- 
tion of beauty in the persons of those about 
us. We often meet with people whom at first 
we dislike or pity for their ugliness, but, after 
becoming better acquainted, some qualities 
which they possess are found so well adapted 
to our personal requirements, that we deem 
them really beautiful. On the other hand, it 
is not uncommon to meet with people who 
are physically beautiful, but whose qualities 
of mind or heart are such as to quite destroy 
the effect of their beauty on their acquaint- 
ances. Beauty is actually there, for in form 
and color the adaptation of means to end 
exists, but we feel that this adaptation is to 
a minor purpose, and that the more impor- 
tant harmonies are wanting. 
On the same principle, a person may seem 
beautiful to others and not to us, may in- 
deed be beautiful according to the rules of 
art, yet not according to our taste. Adapta- 
tion to the ordinary rules of art may not in 
elude adaptation to some sense within us, 
and we can but say of such a person, as 
Benedick says of Hero: “ Only this commen- HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OE BEAUTY. 
189 
dation I can afford her, that were she other 
than she is, she were unhandsome ; and be- 
ing no other but as she is, I do not like 
her.” 
We see, then, that beauty is not a matter 
intrinsically of form and color, but of har- 
mony and effect. And it is within the reach 
of all who will consider the design of their 
being, and pay a just regard to the harmoni- 
ous development of the parts and functions 
with which they are endowed. Some are more 
gifted in this respect than others. Some are 
born with elements of beauty that others can 
never possess. But all can develop in them- 
selves a far higher beauty than that with 
which they are born, just as strength may 
be developed by all, although some are from 
birth stronger than others. Like strength, 
too, beauty thus developed, in an individual 
originally having little of it, often exceeds 
great natural beauty that has not been de- 
veloped. 
Nor are the means of development much 
dissimilar as regards beauty and strength. 
Perfection in either can be reached only 190 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
through a harmonious and symmetrical de- 
velopment of the entire being, physical, men- 
tal, and moral. The slightest deviation from 
strict health in any part is a detriment to 
either. The highest type of physical beauty 
is always a type of perfect health, and every 
item in the elements of such beauty will be 
found, on careful examination, to represent 
the most perfect adaptation of some part of 
the system to the use for which nature de- 
signed it. 
It is doubtless true that conventional ideas 
of beauty require, at various times, various 
deviations from the type of perfect health. 
For example, at one time the fashionable 
idea of female beauty may require a certain 
paleness of the face and hands. But this is 
in consequence of the idea that a high or 
dark color of the skin indicates that in the 
development of the purely physical nature 
the intellectual and aesthetic requirements 
have been slighted; so that, although the 
idea is a mistaken one, it is based on a sup- 
posed adaptation to a very important purpose. 
So is it with all the fashions that from time HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 
191 
to time, and in varying places, make more or 
less absurd rules of beauty. Absurd though 
they may be, they all have their origin in 
some real or imagined adaptation to ends in 
themselves desirable. 
Individual taste may indeed be so depraved 
and perverted, that an object to be adapted 
to that taste must be intrinsically bad, and 
therefore only hideous things can seem beau- 
tiful to its possessor. It is possible, too, 
and instances have undoubtedly occurred, 
that such depraved taste may be transmitted 
from one person to another, or to a com- 
munity, yet this is not so common a mode 
as the former, of the introduction of de- 
praved fashions relating to beauty, at least 
in civilized communities. 
For the development of personal beauty, 
then, it is evident that the only reasonable 
and successful course is the use of all those 
hygienic measures which are necessary to se- 
cure a healthy action of every part. 
Two considerations here are important. 
The first is, that the effect of beauty will be 
defeated if there is a seeming want of adapta- HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
192 
tion, even though there be no real want. It 
is a principle in architecture that no project- 
ing or overhanging part of a building should 
be without apparent support, no matter how 
secure it may really be. The reason is, that 
it gives to the beholder a sense of insecurity, 
and so, seeming to want adaptation to the 
purpose for which it was designed, its beauty 
is defective. On this principle we put brack- 
ets under a shelf, even though they may not 
be needed for support, or may not really 
afford support, and thus add to its beauty, 
or, rather, thus bring out its beauty. It 
would be unbeautiful without the brackets, 
although, in fact, as well adapted to its use 
without as with them. So a person, whose 
symmetry of form and feature and perfect 
complexion indicate the most perfect adapta- 
tion of every power of body to its appropriate 
exercise, may be made to appear clumsy in 
form, and sickly-hued by an ill-shaped and 
badly colored dress, or by other unfortunate 
surroundings. These matters belong to the 
department of art, yet, since they affect so 
closely beauty of person, which is dependent HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 
193 
on hygienic rules and practice, an allusion 
to them is warranted. 
The second consideration is that beauty 
has many different elements and many differ- 
ent forms, and, while it is very rare to find 
all the elements of beauty united in one per- 
son, it is still more rare to find a person who 
has none. Often a single beautiful feature 
redeems and renders attractive a face that is 
otherwise plain. Sometimes a person has no 
beauty of feature, yet a fine complexion, a 
shapely hand, an elegant form, or some pe- 
culiar grace of motion or manner, charms the 
beholder. It is the same with beauty of the 
mind. Few minds are symmetrically beauti- 
ful. Some persons are very dull talkers, but 
exquisite writers. Others are very common- 
place writers, and brilliant talkers. An ex- 
cellent wit may be a poor mathematician. 
A great poet may not be a good logician. 
One may have no aptitude for the natural 
sciences, and yet be a splendid musician or 
a fine artist. Again, in both body and mind 
there may be different styles of beauty. We 
may have the dark and the fair, the tall and 194 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
the petite, the slender and lithe and the 
full-formed, the grave and the piquant, the 
majestic and the vivacious, the serene and 
the brilliant, all beautiful after their kind, 
because all adapted to certain ends. 
Yery many make the mistake of trying to 
be what they are not, and can never be, in- 
stead of making the most of what they are. 
It seems a very common thing for us to over- 
look or disprize the elements of beauty that 
rightfully belong to us, and to make our- 
selves unattractive and absurd, by dressing 
our bodies or minds with such adornments as 
are only suited to some person of different 
mold. 
Another common fallacy is to attempt to 
remedy some known defect of body or mind 
by means that only render it more apparent 
and glaring, as when one loads the fingers of 
a large and coarse hand with flashing rings, 
or when a dull-witted person entertains a 
company with a stumbling rehearsal of vapid 
jokes. If there exists an unavoidable defect 
from any cause, it is best to leave that defect 
to itself, and develop the possible beauty that HARMONY AND ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 
195 
is elsewhere inherent. If one has a club-foot, 
it is not desirable to make it conspicuous by 
unsuccessful attempts to improve its appear- 
ance. It is much better to so care for the 
symmetrical members that they shall impress 
the beholder pleasantly, while the foot at- 
tracts little or no attention, and thus the 
whole effect is one of beauty. So with any 
other defect. Few are without some serious 
one, but there is always some special grace 
of body or mind, or some combination of 
such graces, that may be so cultivated as 
to withdraw attention from the defects, and 
produce only the effect of beauty. 
This may be called an economy of forces, 
and the principle is applicable to all exercises 
of power. It is not possible for any one to 
do everything for which the human frame is 
adapted. It is not even possible for any one 
person in the course of a life-time to do all 
the things for which that person is adapted. 
It is necessary for us to choose, from the 
many things that we might do well, that 
which we can do best, or which we would 
rather do (commonly, but not always, the 196 
HYGIENE FOE GIRLS. 
same thing), or that which from the force of 
circumstances we must do; and in bending 
our energies to that, and making the utmost 
of it, while we leave other works to other 
workers, we shall find our greatest usefulness 
and our fullest happiness. CHAPTER IX. 
HYGIENIC MORALS. 
Moral purity in woman is so essential to 
her own happiness, and the welfare of all 
with whom she associates, indeed, of the 
whole world, that its absence involves the 
greatest degradation of which a woman is 
capable. It is not within the purpose of this 
work to discuss the reasons why civilized 
society is in this respect more strict toward 
women than toward men. Of course, it is as 
much the duty of men as of women to lead 
pure lives, and the men who do not are as 
verily guilty as the women who do not, and 
are so considered by all sincere and thought- 
ful people ; yet, whatever reasons may under- 
lie it, the fact remains that the consequences 
of failure in this are much more dreadful to 
women than to men. The slightest breath of 198 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
suspicion on a woman’s chastity, the least 
taint even of immodesty, disgraces her be- 
yond recovery. 
And no true woman would be willing to 
have it otherwise. The general instinct and 
habits of thought and feeling are nicer in 
woman than in man, and to the mind of a 
virtuous woman no line of separation can be 
too deeply marked between the pure and the 
impure. To cross that line would seem to 
her equally horrible and impossible. Yet all 
those who now stand on the shameful side of 
the line once stood on the other side, and 
many of them grew up to womanhood with- 
out an impure thought; and, if they had 
then thought about the subject at all, would 
have deemed it as impossible that they could 
ever become the outcasts they now are, as 
that horns should grow on their heads and 
hoofs on their feet. No girl or woman can 
securely say to herself, “I shall never fall.” 
Daily some are falling, and it is as certain 
that some who this year are secure in inno- 
cence will next year be dishonored and lost, 
as it is that some men who are now sober HYGIENIC MORALS. 
199 
will some day be drunkards. Many even 
now stand unconsciously upon the brink of 
an abyss of shame, which, if they saw, they 
would turn from with horror. 
There are some whose surroundings from 
infancy are so depraved, or whose moral sense 
is so perverted, that they can hardly have 
any conception of purity, or know more than 
the beasts do of virtue. We shudder at the 
darkness of their fate, which seems to be by 
the force of circumstances fixed beyond hope. 
But there are others whose lives are so far 
above any impurity that they can hardly 
conceive of such a thing, and yet who, if 
they fall, will but add to the many examples 
of those whose freedom from the knowledge 
of evil has been the cause of their falling 
therein. To such, a word of warning may 
not be vain. 
Impurity of thought is inconsistent with 
purity of life. In the consideration of habit 
and association we have seen how constantly 
thoughts or ideas may induce actions that 
we can not control. Ho girl, therefore, who 
desires to live a modest life, is safe in har- 200 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
boring thoughts that for their indelicacy she 
would be ashamed to have known to her 
mother or any other pure-minded woman. 
It is not needful to enlarge on this point, 
for no chaste girl will deliberately indulge 
such thoughts. But they may be forced on 
her consciousness. There exists in all the 
higher animals, including man, a passion 
that springs from the relation between the 
sexes. It is natural and necessary that there 
should be such a passion, and its exercise, 
with certain restrictions, is entirely proper. 
Yet, like other useful things, it is liable to 
abuse. Some persons are much more subject 
to its influence than others, and find it need- 
ful to exercise great self-control at times, to 
keep the mind from dwelling on improper 
themes. One of the best means of prevent- 
ing this is to fill the mind full of something 
else. 
It has been said that hunting and hard 
study are among the occupations most likely 
to repress sexual desire. Probably the prin- 
cipal reason for this is that they are among 
the occupations which most fully interest HYGIENIC MORALS. 
201 
those who are devoted to them, and most 
fully occupy their time, attention, and energy. 
Any other occupation fulfilling these condi- 
tions will be found useful in the same way, 
whereas idleness is an inveterate foe to vir- 
tue. 
Early rising is, on the same principle, an 
aid. By early rising in this connection, how- 
ever, is not meant the practice of rising be- 
fore the natural amount of sleep has been 
had, but simply rising at the moment of wak- 
ing from sleep. If there is any tendency to 
impure thoughts, every moment that is spent 
in bed and not needed for sleep is a direct 
temptation to indulge them. Not all will 
need to observe this caution, at least for this 
reason, for many are happily so free from 
such tendency that their waking hours in bed 
will be filled with other thoughts. 
There is, however, a source of contamina- 
tion against which none is secure. That is, a 
certain kind of reading. In many hotels and 
public conveyances, on the streets, and in 
other public places, certain books and peri- 
odicals that are foul with obscenity, and yet 202 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
skillfully kept just within the pale of the 
law defining obscenity, are thrust before the 
eyes of everybody. Repulsive as they are to 
every person of refinement, one can not re- 
peatedly meet their suggestions without los- 
ing something of that refinement. Yet these 
are by no means the most dangerous forms 
of literature, for their easily recognized char- 
acter quickly prompts us to avoid them, as 
a danger-flag warns us to turn from some 
loathed infection. There are other publica- 
tions, chiefly works of fiction, though found 
to some extent in most departments of litera- 
ture, and of every degree of literary merit 
and power to please, that convey impure im- 
pressions so insidiously that we are not aware 
of the mischief until it has been done, nor 
always then. 
Many works of the latter class are not ex- 
cluded from polite literature. Some of them 
are described as a little free, or simply uncon- 
ventional in their treatment of certain sub- 
jects, and it is often said of them that, while 
a social system based upon the ideas which 
they contain might not be desirable, they are HYGIENIC MORALS. 
203 
profitable for entertainment, and are not like- 
ly to turn one’s sober judgment to evil. 
This may be true, and yet they may be 
pernicious. It is not necessary to turn one’s 
sober judgment in order to influence one for 
evil. We have seen how unconscious ideas 
may be formed, how ideas induce habits, how 
habits influence beliefs, how close the sym- 
pathetic relation is between the moral, men- 
tal, and physical natures, and how readily an 
impression of any kind acting on one of these 
natures may affect the others, whether we will 
it or not. Our only safety, then, is in en- 
tirely avoiding such works. 
We may read only to condemn, but even 
then the familiarity we acquire with objec- 
tionable subjects does us harm. And, for 
reasons alluded to in speaking of habit, this 
harm is necessarily much greater in the case 
of young people than of the middle-aged. It 
is manifestly desirable, therefore, that young 
people should read only that which older 
competent critics pronounce wholesome. And 
this restriction should not be considered as 
indicating a want of perception or judgment, 204 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
or even of maturity on the part of the young, 
but simply as a safeguard for them against 
evils which, for physiological reasons, are 
more liable to affect them than others. It 
would indeed be better if no one need read 
these works, but some must read for the 
purpose of discrimination, just as some must 
deal with contagion in order to guard the 
public against it, and in either case it is best 
that those shall do the work who are least 
liable to suffer from it. 
Medical advertisements constitute another 
division of this class of literature. Such ad- 
vertisements appear in every conceivable place 
and form. Some stand conspicuously on way- 
side walls and posts, or mar the beauty of 
nature by staring at the beholder from rocks 
and trees. Some disfigure the pages of other- 
wise respectable newspapers and magazines, 
and even of some religious journals. Some 
are distributed in the form of tracts, pictorial 
cards, etc., and others are more pretentiously 
made up into pamphlets or even substantially 
bound volumes, at one time combined with 
useful information and humor, in the form of HYGIENIC MORALS. 
205 
a so-called almanac, at another offering a 
treatise on certain functions of the human 
body, and the abuses or disorders of these 
functions. 
Most of the last-named style, and many 
of some others, profess to originate in the 
purest and most praiseworthy motives. All 
of them have one real object, namely, to pro- 
cure the sale of certain medicines or other 
substances, or to lead people to seek the ad- 
vice of the advertisers for real or imagined 
diseases. Beputable physicians never ad- 
vertise their medicines or their cures; there- 
fore, every one who responds in any way 
to such an advertisement may be sure of 
falling into the hands of some unprincipled 
person. 
But beyond this the mere reading of such 
advertisements is hurtful, for it is liable in 
some cases to induce, through the influence 
of imagination and sympathy, the symptoms 
described. The advertisers are generally well 
aware of this, and many of the advertise- 
ments are artfully arranged to call attention 
especially to such symptoms of disease as 206 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
may readily be thus induced, or at least im- 
agined to exist. 
For all of these reasons, it is a wise rule 
never to read a medical advertisement, if it 
can be avoided. 
But the worst and most dangerous of all 
medical advertisements are those which do not 
at first appear to be advertisements at all, but 
profess to be scientific treatises on marriage, 
the relations of the sexes, and certain forms 
of immorality. They commonly assume a 
high moral tone, but their true character is 
such that no one who is acquainted with it 
would like to be seen reading them. They 
appeal to an immodest curiosity, and are di- 
rectly calculated to rouse unclean desires and 
thoughts. Many are led to read them, inno- 
cently, through ignorance of their evil char- 
acter, and a sincere desire for knowledge, and 
bitterly repent it afterward. 
It occasionally happens that immodest 
thoughts are induced through reflex action, 
by disease of some of the organs peculiar to 
women. The fact that this may happen is 
sufficient reason, even if no other existed, HYGIENIC MORALS. 
207 
why any disorder of these organs should be 
made at once the subject of competent medi- 
cal advice. On the other hand, the facts 
just stated show how vitally important it is, 
in any such case, to avoid the use of any 
nostrum or advertised remedy. It is almost 
equally important in these cases to avoid us- 
ing so-called domestic remedies, or medicines 
and modes of treatment that are recommended 
by one woman to another without the special 
direction of a physician. This is often done 
under the idea that what has benefited one 
person will benefit another who has similar 
symptoms. But many very different disorders 
of this class have quite similar symptoms, and 
no woman who has not a thorough medical 
education is capable of distinguishing between 
them; while, to use the remedies suitable for 
one, may be to bring about the very result 
we dread in another, seemingly similar case. 
In all such cases, whether apparently grave 
or not, the family physician should be frank- 
ly consulted if there is one, and, if not, some 
physician of known character and ability. 
Another frequent cause of impurity exists 208 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
in the social relations between girls and young 
men. It is altogether profitable and pleasant 
that they should be much in one another’s 
society. The natural passion of one sex for 
the other is an element of the enjoyment in 
this association. This, too, is as it should 
be, yet it may be that this passion will 
escape control, and end in evil. Leaving out 
of view those cases of perverted moral nature 
in which the passion is deliberately made to 
minister to a base purpose, as being unwor- 
thy the consideration of the readers of these 
pages, let us look at the way in which it 
may work harm to those who have no inten- 
tion of harm. 
Every girl should remember that, while she 
is endowed with reason and will, she is also 
endowed with powers independent of reason 
and will. In other words, while she has, to 
a large extent, control over her own acts, she 
is only her own mistress so long as her acts 
are limited to the direct influence of reason. 
Sensations and desires are not within the in- 
fluence of reason, nor controlled by will. We 
can not satisfy hunger, when once it is roused, HYGIENIC NOEALS. 
209 
by any effort of will. We can withhold food 
by an effort of will, and the hunger will re- 
main unsatisfied. 
But there are some appetites that, when 
fully roused, paralyze the will, and control the 
whole being, so that, unlike the appetite for 
food, it is impossible to withhold from them 
the object of their desire. Of course, all 
these desires are of reflex origin. They are 
excited by impressions received from different 
sources, and in different ways, according to 
the nature of the desires. The only way, 
then, to restrain the desires, is to avoid the 
sources of the impressions. The sexual desire 
is most readily excited by caresses and other 
acts of personal contact between persons of 
opposite sexes. Though no harm is intended 
by either party to these acts of endearment 
or sportiveness, they are liable to bring about 
gradually, and perhaps unconsciously, a con- 
dition in which a moment arrives when the 
reason and will of both persons are suddenly 
overwhelmed by fierce lust, and two lives are 
for ever disgraced. For this reason, no young 
woman should ever permit caresses or other 210 
HYGIENE FOR GIRLS. 
personal liberties, especially in private, to 
pass between her and any man other than 
her father or brother, or one to whom she 
has intrusted her person and honor for all 
time. 
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