We have talked of your body and your mind, but as yet not of yourself. You are not body; you are not mind; but you possess both. You are spirit, created by God, who is spirit; therefore you are His child. You may not have thought much of this fact, but that has not changed the fact. No failure to recognize God as your father changes His relationship to you. No conduct of yours can make you any less His child.
"Well," you may say, "if that is so, what does it matter, then, what I do? If disobedience or sin cannot make me less God's child, why should I be good and obedient?" Because, dear heart, your conduct changes your attitude towards Him. You might not know that I am your mother; you might know it and choose to disobey my wishes; yet in both cases I should still be your mother, and no more or less in one case than in the other. But you will have no difficulty in understanding that in one case you would be a loving, helpful, obedient daughter, a comfort and delight to me; in the other, a disobedient, willful, unloving daughter, a care and trouble.
We are God's children, each of us, dependent on His love and bounty for protection, food, friends, intellect, even life. Is it dignified and noble in us to ignore and disobey Him? Indeed the most worthy and dignified thing we can do is to recognize ourselves as God's children and be obedient. It is a wonderful glory to be a child of God. It means that we have Godlike powers. The children of human parents are like them in their capacities. Children of God must have capacities that are Godlike.
This is true even of the most ignorant or degraded. They have in themselves divine possibilities.
If you can get this thought fully engrafted into your consciousness, it seems to me you can never willfully do wrong, can never condescend to a mean or ignoble deed, because you recognize your divine inheritance, and feel compelled by it to live truly, nobly.
Being children of God puts on us certain obligations towards Him, but it also puts on God certain obligations towards us. "What!" you say; "God the Infinite under obligations to man, the finite? The Creator under obligations to the created?" Oh, yes.
We recognize the fact that human parents are under obligations to care for their children, to protect them, to educate them, to give them opportunities. Even such are the obligationsof God towards His human children, and He fulfills them. All our earthly blessings are from His hand. Home, friends, shelter, food, are gifts of His love. He takes such minute care of us that if for one second of time He would forget us, we should be annihilated. He educates us. He does not send us away to a boarding-school where we hear from Him but seldom, but He has a home-school where He is both Father and Teacher, and His methods of instruction are divinely wise.
The injudicious love of earthly parents often induces them to do for their children things it would be far better to let the children do for themselves. I once knew a boy of seven years, as intelligent as the ordinary child, who had never been allowed to go down stairs alone in his life for fear he would fall. This unwise care of the parents had resulted in the child's being timid, fearful, and unable to care for himself. He would cry if he fell, and would lie still sobbing until some one came to pick him up and quiet him with caresses. At the same time I saw a boy of four who could run up and down stairs, go to the store alone to make purchases, and who, if he fell, would jump up quickly, saying, "O, that didn't hurt." Which child had been better protected—the one who had been cared for by an overindulgent parent, or the one who, by judicious stimulation to self-help, had learned to care for himself?
God teaches us how to help ourselves, and circumstances of life which we so often think hard and cruel are only the means by which we are being trained to be strong. The things we call failure, worriment, and hardship, are only the little tumbles by which we are learning to walk.
The heathen philosopher, Seneca, says: "God gives His best scholars the hardest lessons." We know how proud we would feel if our school-teacher would say, "This is a hard problem, but I believe you can solve it." We would be stimulated to work night and day to justify his confidence in our ability. But when a little trial comes in life we are quite apt to say, "God is so hard in His dealings with me. Why should He be so unkind?" instead of saying: "These hard things of life are a test of my scholarship, and are an evidence of my Teacher's confidence in my ability."
I would like you to get this thought fixed in your mind so firmly that you will feel sure that all circumstances of life are but lessons in God's great school, and, rightly used, will be the means of promoting you to higher grades.
No scholar wants to stay always in the primary department because it is easy there. He welcomes each promotion, although he knows it means harder lessons and new difficulties. He looks forward to college or university withpride, even though lessons grow harder and harder.
God's school of earthly life has in it all grades of advancement. Will you be a studious, courageous scholar and try to learn life's lessons well? It is such a wonderful thing to be a child of God, for that means to be an heir of God, an heir of His wisdom, His strength, His glory, His powers. "All things are yours," says Paul; "life, death, things present and things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
With a feeling of reverence for ourselves we now take up the subject of special physiology to learn what makes us women. In the study of general physiology we find very few physical differences in the sexes, but when we come to investigate what is called the reproductive system we find entire difference of structure and of function.
Boys and girls in early childhood are much alike in their inclinations. They both love activity—to run, to climb, to shout, to laugh, to play. If left to themselves one sees not much more difference between boys and girls than between different individuals of the same sex. But as they grow and develop they begin to take on characteristics that indicate the evolution of sex.
The boy grows rapidly in height, his voice breaks, the signs of a moustache appear, he seems constrained and embarrassed in society, and yet he begins to show more politeness towards women and more of an inclination to be gallant to girls. He is becoming a man, and assumes manlike airs. Often, too, he becomes restless and willful, hard to govern,self-assertive, with an assumption of wisdom that provokes laughter from his elders. The boy is passing through a serious crisis and needs much wise and loving care. There are inner forces awakening that move him strangely; he does not understand himself, neither do his friends seem to understand him. Sometimes they snub and nag him, sometimes they tease and make fun of him. In either case he does not find home a happy place, and frequently leaves it to seek more sympathetic companionship elsewhere.
I once spoke to an audience of women and girls along this line, and appealed to the mothers and sisters to be kind to the boys in their homes who were between twelve and eighteen years of age, to remember that they were passing through the critical period of transition from boyhood to manhood, and to try and help them by sympathy and kindness. Some time later, as I was on the train, a young lady came and sat down by me and said: "I want to thank you for what you said to us the other day about boys. I have a brother about sixteen, and we have done just as you said; we have teased him about his moustache, and his voice, and his awkwardness, and laughed the more because it seemed to touch him. He had gotten so that he never would do anything for us girls, and we called him an old bear. Since I heard you I concluded that wehad done wrong and I would make a change, so that evening I said kindly, 'Charlie, don't you want me to tie your cravat? I'd like to, ever so much.' I shall never forget the surprised look he gave me. It seemed as if he could not believe that I, his sister, wanted to do something to please him, but as soon as he saw I really meant it he accepted my offer with thanks, and since then it seems as if he could not do enough for me. Really I have almost cried to think that so little a thing would make him so grateful. I have invited him to go out with me several times, and he seems so glad to go. Then I've begun to make things for his room—little fancy things that I never thought a boy would care for—and he has appreciated them so much. Why, he even stays in his room sometimes, now, instead of going off with the boys. And the other day, when one of the boys came to see him, I heard him say, 'Come up and see my room,' and the other boy said, 'Well, I wish some one would fix upmyroom in such a jolly fashion.' Really," said the girl, "if you have done nothing on your trip but what you have done for me, in showing me how to be good to my brother, it has paid for you to come."
I often think of this little incident when I see boys at this critical age who are snubbed and teased just because they are leaving the land of boyhood to begin the difficult climb up the slopes of early manhood towards the granderheight of maturity; and I wish all parents, sisters and older brothers would manifest a sympathy with the boy who, swayed by inner forces and influenced by outward temptation, is in a place of great danger.
The girl at this period is also passing through a crisis, but this fact is better understood by her friends than is the crisis of the boy's life. Her parents are anxious that she shall pass the crisis safely, and they have more patience with her eccentricities. She, too, often shows nervousness, irritability, petulance, or willfulness. She has headaches and backaches, she manifests lassitude and weariness, and is, perhaps, quite changed from her former self. She weeps easily or over nothing at all. She is dissatisfied with herself and the whole world. She feels certain vague, romantic longings that she could not explain if she tried. She inclines toward the reading of sensational love stories, and if not well instructed and self-respecting may be easily led into flirtations or conduct that later in life may make her blush to remember. Certain physical changes begin to be manifest. She increases rapidly in height, her figure grows fuller and more rounded, her breasts are often sore and tender. Hair makes its appearance on the body, and altogether she seems to be blossoming out into a fuller and riper beauty. She is changing from the girl to the woman, and this is a matter of sex. At this time theorgans of sex, which have been dormant, awaken and take on their activity, and it is this awakening which is making itself felt throughout her whole organization.
We are sometimes apt to think that sex is located in certain organs only, but in truth sex, while centralized in the reproductive organs, makes itself manifest throughout the whole organization. I used to feel somewhat indignant when I heard people talk of sex in mind, and I boldly asserted that it did not exist, that intellect was neuter and had no reference to sex; but I do not feel so now. When I see what an influence the awakening of sex has upon the entire body and upon the character, I am led to believe that sex inheres in mind as well. That does not mean that the brain of one sex is either inferior or superior to the other; it means only that they differ; that men and women see things from different standpoints; that they are the two eyes of the race, and the use of both is needed to a clear understanding of any problem of human interest.
You know that the true perspective of objects cannot be had with one eye only, for each eye has its own range of vision, and one eye can see much farther on one side of an object than the other can. You can try this for yourself.
If, then, in viewing the vital problems of life we have the man's view only or the woman's view only, we have not the trueperspective. We cannot say that either has superior powers of vision, but we can say that they differ, as this difference is inherent in them as men and women, and not merely as individuals.
Instead, then, of looking at sex as circumscribed, and perhaps as something low and vulgar, to be thought of and spoken of only with whispers or questionable mirth, we should see that sex is God's divinest gift to humanity, the power through which we come into the nearest likeness to Himself—the function by which we become creators and transmitters of our powers of body, mind, and soul.
It is important that a young woman should understand her own structure and the functions of all her organs, and so, with this feeling of reverence for sex, we will begin this study.
The trunk of the body is divided into three cavities; the upper or thoracic cavity contains the heart and lungs; the central or abdominal cavity contains the organs of nutrition, the stomach, liver, bowels, etc.; the lower or pelvic cavity contains two organs of elimination, the bladder and the rectum, and also the organs of reproduction, or of sex. Between the outlet of bladder and bowels is the inlet to the reproductive organs. This inlet is a narrow channel called the vagina, and is about six inches in length. At the upper end is the mouth ofthe womb or uterus. The words mean the same, but womb is Anglo-Saxon anduterusis Latin, and as Latin is the language of science, we will use that word. The uterus is the little nest or room in which the unborn baby has to live for three-fourths of a year. It is a small organ, about the size and shape of a small flattened pear. It is suspended with the small end downwards, and it is hollow. It is held in place by broad ligaments that extend outward to the sides, and by short, round ligaments from front to back. These ligaments do not hold it firmly in place, for it is necessary that it should be able to rise out of the pelvic into the abdominal cavity during pregnancy, as the baby grows too large to be contained in the small pelvic space.
On the posterior sides of the two broad ligaments are two small oval organs which are called ovaries, meaning the place of the eggs.
Perhaps you will remember that I once told you that all life is from an egg, the life of the plant, the fish, the bird, the human being. In the book "What a Young Girl Ought to Know" we discussed how all life originates in an egg, and why there must needs be fathers as well as mothers. We found that some eggs were small, were laid by the mothers in various places, and then left to develop or to die. Others were larger, covered with a large shell, and kept warm by the mothers sitting over them until the little ones were hatched. Others were so small that they developed in the mother's body until, as living creatures, they were born into the world. This is the case with the human being. He is first an egg in the mother's ovary. When this egg has reached a certain stage of development it passes from the ovary through a tube into the uterus. If it meets there, or on its way there, the fertilizing principle of the male, it remains there and develops into the child. If it does not meet this principle, it passes out through the vagina and is lost.
But the eggs, or ova—which is the Latin wordmeaning eggs—do not begin to ripen until the girl reaches the age of thirteen or fourteen, or, in other words, until she begins to become a woman. This passing away of the ovum (singular of ova) is called ovulation, and it occurs in the woman about every twenty-eight days. The uterus is lined by a mucous membrane similar to that which lines the mouth, and at this time of ovulation this membrane becomes swollen and soft, and little hemorrhages, or bleedings, occur for three or four days, the blood passing away through the vagina. This is called menstruation.
Sometimes, when girls have not been told beforehand of the facts of menstruation, they become greatly frightened at seeing this blood and imagine that they have some dreadful disease. If they have no friend to whom they can speak freely they sometimes do very injudicious things in their efforts to remove that which to them seems so strange and inexplicable. I have known of girls who washed their clothes in cold water and put them on wet, and so took cold and perhaps checked the menstrual flow, and as a consequence were injured for life, or may even have died years after as a result of this unwise conduct.
The girl who is wisely taught will recognize in this the outward sign of the fact that she has reached womanhood, that she has entered upon what is called the maternal period of a woman'slife, the period when it is possible for her to become a mother.
This does not mean that she should become a mother while so young. It only means that the sex organs are so far developed that they are beginning to take up their peculiar functions. But they are like the immature buds of the flower, and need time for a perfect development. If she understands this, and recognizes her added value to the world through the perfecting of her entire organism, she will desire to take good care of herself, and during these years of early young womanhood to develop into all that is possible of sweetness, grace, purity, and all true womanliness.
Girls who are not wisely taught sometimes feel that this new physical function is a vexatious hindrance to their happiness. It is often accompanied with pain, and its periodical recurrence interferes with their plans for pleasure, and they in ignorance sometimes say, rebelliously, "O, I hate being a woman!"
A young woman once came to consult me professionally. She was a well-formed, good-looking girl, to all outward appearance lacking nothing in her physical make-up; but she was now twenty-two and had never menstruated, so she was aware that for some reason she was not like other girls. She came to ask me to make an examination and find out, if possible, what was wrong. She was engaged to be married,and knew that motherhood was in some way connected with menstruation, and she thought it might be possible that her physical condition would preclude the possibility of her becoming a mother, and, if so, it would be dishonorable to marry. Upon examination I discovered that all the organs of reproduction were lacking. When I disclosed this fact to her she exclaimed, with sadness, "Oh, why was I not made like other girls? I have heard them complain because they were girls, but I think if they were in my place, and knew that they could never have a home and children of their own, they would feel they had greater reason then to complain."
I think so, too. We seldom think of the fact that upon sex depend all the sweet ties of home and family. It is because of sex that we are fathers, mothers and children; that we have the dear family life, with its anniversaries of weddings and birthdays. It is through sex that the "desolate of the earth are set in families," and love and generosity have sway instead of selfishness. For this reason we ought to regard sex with reverent thought, to hold it sacred to the highest purposes, to speak of it ever with purest delicacy, and never with jesting or prurient smiles. I do not want you to center your thought on the physical facts of sex, but I would like to have you feel that womanhood, which is the mental, moral and physicalexpression of sex, is a glorious, divine gift, to be received with solemn thankfulness.
I want you, for the sake of a perfect womanhood, to take care of your bodily health, and yet I do not want you to feel that a woman must of necessity be a periodical semi-invalid.
Menstruation is a perfectly physiological process and should be without pain. Indeed, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi maintains that a woman ought to feel more life, vigor and ambition at that period than at any other time. As a fact, however, the majority of civilized women feel more or less lassitude and discomfort, and many suffer intensely. Whenever there is actual pain at any stage of the monthly period, it is because something is wrong, either in the dress, or the diet, or the personal and social habits of the individual. We certainly cannot believe that a kind and just God has made it necessary for women to suffer merely because they are women, and the observation of travelers among uncivilized peoples seems to indicate that where life is conducted according to nature's laws, the limitations of sex are less observable.
It is difficult for us to understand how very far our lives are from being natural. Professor Emmett, a world-renowned specialist in diseases peculiar to women, says: "At the very dawn of womanhood the young girl begins to live an artificial life utterly inconsistent with normal development. The girl of the period ismade a woman before her time by associating too much with her elders, and in diet, dress, habits and tastes becomes at an early age but a reflection of her elder sisters. She may have acquired every accomplishment, and yet will have been kept in ignorance of the simplest features of her organization, and of the requirements for the preservation of her health. Her bloom is often as transient as that of the hothouse plant, where the flower has been forced by cultivation to an excess of development by stunting the growth of its branches and limiting the spread of its roots. A girl is scarcely in her teens before custom requires a change in her dress. Her shoulder-straps and buttons are given up for a number of strings about her waist and the additional weight of an increased length in skirt is added. She is unable to take the proper kind or necessary amount of exercise, even if she were not taught that it would be unladylike to make the attempt. Her waist is drawn into a shape little adapted to accommodate the organs placed there, and as the abdominal and spinal muscles are seldom brought into play they become atrophied. The viscera are thus compressed and displaced, and as the full play of the abdominal wall and the descent of the diaphragm are interfered with, the venous blood is hindered in its return to the heart."
Since Professor Emmett wrote this, public sentiment has changed, and it is no longerunladylike for girls to exercise; but with this increased freedom in custom should also come increased physical freedom through healthful clothing that allows perfect use of every muscle, more especially of the breathing muscles. I am sure you would rather pay out your money for that which shall add to your health and real happiness than to pay physicians to help you from suffering the just penalty of your own wrongdoing, and that is why I am anxious to give you this needed instruction. I do not care to have you study much about diseases, but I want you to understand very fully how, through care of yourself, to prevent disease.
There should be no pain at menstruation, but that pain is quite common cannot be denied. Let us look for other causes than are found in the dress.
One frequent cause is found in the ignorance of girls, and their consequent injudicious conduct at the time of the beginning of sexual activity. At this time of life the girl is often called lazy because she manifests lassitude, and this is nature's indication that she should rest. The vital forces are busy establishing a new function, and the energy that has been expressed in bodily activity is now being otherwise employed. The girl who has been properly brought up, whose muscles are strong, and whose nervous supply is abundant, may have no need of especial care at this time, but the average girl needs much judicious care, in order that her physical womanhood shall be healthfully established. She should be guarded from taking cold, from overexertion, from social dissipation, and especially from mental excitement, and other causes of nervousness. I would like to call your attention to the great evil of romance-reading, both in the productionof premature development and in the creation of morbid mental states which will tend to the production of physical evils, such as nervousness, hysteria, and a host of maladies which largely depend upon disturbed nerves.
Girls are not apt to understand the evils of novel-reading, and may think it is only because mothers have outlived their days of romance that they object to their daughters enjoying such sentimental reading; but the wise mother understands the effects of sensational reading upon the physical organization, and wishes to protect her daughter from the evils thus produced.
It is not only that novel-reading engenders false and unreal ideas of life, but the descriptions of love-scenes, of thrilling, romantic episodes, find an echo in the girl's physical system and tend to create an abnormal excitement of her organs of sex, which she recognizes only as a pleasurable mental emotion, with no comprehension of the physical origin or the evil effects.
Romance-reading by young girls will, by this excitement of the bodily organs, tend to create their premature development, and the child becomes physically a woman months, or even years, before she should.
In one case it became my duty to warn a girl of eleven, who was an omnivorous reader of romances, that such reading was in allprobability hastening her development, and she would become a woman in bodily functions while she ought yet to be a child. Her indications of approaching womanhood were very apparent. By becoming impressed by my words she gave up romance-reading, devoted herself to outdoor sports, to nature studies, and the vital forces diverted from the reproductive system were employed in building up her physical energy, her health improved, her nervousness disappeared, and three years later her function of menstruation was painlessly established.
A frequent cause of painful menstruation is found in habitual neglect of the bowels. The evils of constipation are common to the majority of women and girls, and the foundation is laid in childhood. Mothers are not careful enough in instructing children in the need of care in this respect, and so the habit is formed early in life, and the results are felt later.
If the bowels are not evacuated regularly the matter to be cast out of the body accumulates in the rectum and large bowel, and by pressure the circulation of the blood is impeded and congestion ensues. This extends to all the pelvic organs; the uterus and ovaries thus congested will soon manifest disease, and painful menstruation be the result.
One of the most frequent causes of pain is congestion produced by displacements. Peopleare very apt to think that the displacement of the uterus is the main factor, but in my opinion it is a secondary condition, and not the one to be first considered. The uterus is a small organ, not vital to the individual, is very movable, and not sensitive, so that its displacement alone could hardly be considered sufficient to cause so great a train of evils as is frequently manifest. But the liver, stomach and bowels are large, vital organs, and their displacement leads to greater consequences. You learned at school that the bowels are over twenty feet in length, weigh as much as twelve or fifteen pounds, are supported in a way that makes it possible for them to sag into the abdominal cavity and press upon the pelvic organs. Dr. Emerson, of the Boston School of Oratory, asserts that in most adults the stomach and bowels are from two to six inches below their normal location; and, as I have said before, Dr. Kellogg often finds the stomach lying in the abdominal cavity as low down as the umbilicus. What has caused this sagging of the abdominal viscera? They certainly must have been intended to keep their place unless there has been some interference. We find just such interference in the ordinary arrangement of the clothing. Tight waists and bands, and skirts supported by the hips, are cause sufficient for these displacements.
Just above the hips there is no bony structureto protect and support the soft, muscular parts. They yield to pressure, and the internal viscera, deprived of muscular support, sink until they rest on the pelvic organs. If, when you look at your abdomen, you see depressions or hollows on each side below the floating ribs, you may know that the bowels have sagged down out of place. If you feel great weariness, backache, or a dragged down feeling in standing or walking, you may know that the contents of the abdomen are pulling on their attachments or pressing on the pelvic organs. Thus displaced, circulation is hindered and the organs all become congested, or filled with blood that moves very slowly. This congested condition is increased at menstruation, and great pain may result.
It is well to have the counsel of some good, honest physician under such circumstances, but should you be where it is not possible to have such counsel, you may still be able to do something to help yourself. In the first place, you can rearrange your clothing so as to relieve all the organs from external weight or pressure, and, in the second place, you can support the abdominal walls by applying pressure from below. I have known cases of painful menstruation entirely relieved by simply supporting the bowels by a bandage, thus relieving the uterus of pressure and allowing a free circulation through all the internal organs.
A very simple and practical bandage can be made at home at almost no cost, either in time or money. Buy some thin, cheap cotton flannel. Take lengthwise of the goods a strip long enough to go around the body at the hips, which will be a yard or a little over, and wide enough to fit from the thighs up to the waist, perhaps eight inches. Put darts on the sides and in the center of the back, to make it fit the figure. Make a couple of straps four inches wide and half a yard long; cut off one end of each diagonally. Sew these slanting ends to the lower side of the band about four inches from the center, that is eight inches apart, and so that the short side of the strap will be towards the center. Do not hem either band or straps, but overcast them; then they will not feel uncomfortable.
In order to adjust the band properly it will be well to lie down on the back upon the bandage with the knees raised. Press the hands low down upon the abdomen and raise the contents. Repeat this several times; then draw the bandage around, pin with safety pins, draw the straps up between the limbs and fasten with safety pins to the bandage. The support thus given is found to be very comfortable, and girls who have much trouble in walking or standing during their menstrual periods would find this simple bandage a great help at that time.
When the bandage is removed at night you should rub and manipulate the abdominal walls so as to increase the circulation and stimulate in them a better circulation and thus make you stronger.
By deep breathing in a proper standing attitude the abdominal viscera are lifted upward, and if the firmness of the abdominal walls is at the same time increased by exercise, the difficulties may be largely overcome. Some exercises will be found inChapter XXIII. which are calculated to strengthen the walls and to lift the internal organs.
I wish to call your attention to a cause of displacement that is quite generally overlooked, and that is, a wrong attitude.
Dr. Eliza Mosher has made a very thorough study of this matter, and she says that the common habit of standing on one foot is productive of marked deformities of both face and body and of serious displacements of internal organs. It is seldom a girl or woman can be found whose body is perfectly symmetrical. By standing on one foot, the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side isstretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the uterus remains permanently dislocated.
Dr. Mosher thinks that standing continually with the weight on the left foot is more injurious than bearing it on the right foot, for it causes the uterus and ovaries to press upon the rectum and so produces a mechanical constipation, especially during menstruation.
Wrong habits of sitting will produce the same results. If the girl sits at school with one elbow on the desk, the head will be turned to the opposite side and the spine will be inclined from the perpendicular, and a lateral curvature be likely to result. If she carries her books always on the same side, it will tend to increase the curvature. If she sits with both elbows supported, her shoulders will be pushed up. If her body is twisted as she sits, a strain comes upon the muscles, and some ligaments will be lengthened and others shortened, thus producing a lateral curvature.
To sit "on the small of the back," that is, slipping down in the chair, bracing the shoulders against the chair-back, tends to injure the nerves by pressure, and also to create a posterior curvature of the spine.
Does it not seem unfortunate that we should allow ourselves even to form such wrong habits of sitting and standing? And now we ask, How shall we know when we are in a correct attitude?
We have comparatively few correct examples to imitate. I notice people everywhere, and I see that old and young stand incorrectly. The head is poked forward, the shoulders are rounded, the chest is flattened, and the curve in the lower part of the back is straightened. The whole figure is out of balance, and therefore not harmonious. Not only is the beauty of the figure destroyed, but the internal organs are displaced. Many a mother who sees her daughter thus growing round-shouldered keeps telling her to throw her shoulders back; but to follow this command only increases the difficulty. The shoulders are not primarily at fault, but the trouble originates in non-use of the front waist muscles. These muscles, weakened by disease because of tight clothing and corset steels, and also by cramped positions in school or at work, refuse to hold the body erect, and it "lops" just at this point. This "lopping" disturbs the harmonious relation of the weights of shoulders, abdomen, head, and the large lower gluteal muscles with which nature has cushioned the lower part of the body, and so they are obliged to readjust themselves to balance each other, and the awkward, ungainly, unhealthful posture results.
What is needed is to restore the right relation of these weights and all will again be harmonious. Do not interfere with the shoulders, but straighten the front of the body byelevating the chest and raising the head until it is supported directly on the spine, letting the shoulders take care of themselves. If the abdomen is now held back and the gluteal muscles raised, the beautiful curves of the spine will be restored, the shoulders will be straightened, and the internal organs will have a chance to resume their natural position.
A very easy way of finding out if you have the correct attitude is to place your toes against the bottom of the door. Now bring your chest up to touch the door, and throw the lower part of the spine backward so that there will be a space between the abdomen and the door. Place the head erect, with the chin drawn in towards the neck, and you will have very nearly the correct attitude. It may seem a little tiresome at first, because you will be apt to hold yourself in position with needless tension of muscles, but you will soon learn to relax the unnecessary tension, and then you will find the position the most comfortable possible. You can walk farther without fatigue, and stand longer without backache, because the body is placed in the attitude in which all parts occupy their designed relation to each other.
One very important fact is that in the wrong attitude the abdominal organs crowd down into the pelvis, while in the correct position they are supported and kept from sagging, sothat the matter of a correct attitude is not only a matter of beauty, but also of health.
In sitting, also, the most comfortable posture is the most healthful; that is, with the body squarely placed on the seat, and equally supported upon the pelvis—not leaning back against the chair, unless the chair should chance to be so constructed that it supports the lower part of the back and keeps the body erect.
We hear a great deal in these days of "female diseases," by which is meant the displacements of the organs of the reproductive system; that is, of the uterus, ovaries, etc. These displacements are many, for the uterus may not only drop down out of place, but it may be tipped towards one side or the other, to the front or the back; or it may be bent upon itself in various directions. These different displacements cause much pain, and often result in ulcerations and profuse discharges which are known as the "whites," or scientifically as leucorrhea.
I only mention these things incidentally, so that I may call your attention to the things you may do to prevent them.
A great many girls and women are spending large sums of money in being doctored for these difficulties who need not suffer with them at all if they had known how to dress healthfully; and many are bearing much anxiety over the possibility of becoming sufferers with these distressing diseases who could have their burden of fear removed by the knowledge that "female diseases," in the great majority of cases, are the results of wrong habits of dress and life.Leucorrhea is not a disease. It is a symptom of abnormal conditions, and to be cured it is needful that the conditions shall be understood.
Dr. Kellogg says, "Leucorrhea may result from simple congestion of the bloodvessels of the vaginal mucous membrane, due to improper dress. It may also be occasioned by taking cold, and by a debilitated condition of the stomach."
Leucorrhea is merely an abnormal increase of a normal secretion. All mucous membrane secretes mucus in small quantities—enough to keep the membrane moist. When from any cause this secretion is increased, we have what is called a catarrhal condition. As all cavities that communicate with the air are lined with mucous membrane, this catarrhal condition may exist in the nose, the throat, the eyes, the ears, the bowels, or the reproductive organs, and will be named according to the location.
A natural increase of this secretion takes place just before and after menstruation, and should occasion no anxiety, but if continued during the remainder of the month, especially if very profuse, of offensive odor, or bloody in character, it needs the attention of the skilled physician.
I do not wish to make you think constantly of yourself as diseased, and so I do not give you directions as to local self-treatment. Many symptoms can be overcome by general care ofthe health-habits of the girl, and if they do not yield to this general care it is better to consult a responsible physician than to tamper with yourself.
And here let me give you a word of warning. If you need medical care, never consult the traveling doctors who advertise to do such wonderful things. They charge big fees and give a little medicine and then move on, and you have no redress if they have not accomplished all that they have promised. They live off the gullibility of people. Again, never take patent medicines. Wonderful discoveries, favorite prescriptions and the like may be harmless, and they may not. And even if they are, how can you judge that they are suited to your special case? That they cured some one else is not proof that they will benefit you, and you run a risk by taking them as an experiment. One very serious danger in the taking of patent medicines is the fact that they are so largely alcoholic in composition, and girls and women have all too often been led into the alcohol habit and become habitual drunkards through taking some advertised remedy.
Another has correctly said: "If you need the consultation and advice of a physician go to your family physician, or, if you prefer, go to some other physician; but always select one whose moral character and acknowledged ability render him a suitable and safe adviser in sucha time of need. Above all things avoid quacks. The policy they pursue is to frighten you, to work upon your imagination, and to make such alarming and unreliable statements as will induce you to purchase their nostrums and subject yourself to such a series of humiliations and impositions as will enable them to pilfer your purse and without rendering you in return any value received, but likely leave you in a much worse condition than they found you."
You will probably be advised by your personal friends, who may know of your ailments, to take hot douches, and perhaps you may wonder why I do not prescribe them for leucorrhea, and kindred difficulties.
I do not commend them for the fact that I do not want you to be turning your constantly anxious thought towards yourself in these matters. If you need such treatment, let it be prescribed by your physician, who knows exactly your condition. As far as possible turn your thoughts from the reproductive system. Take care of your general health, dress properly, obey all the rules of hygiene in regard to diet, sleep, bathing, special cleanliness, and care, and then forget as far as possible the physical facts of womanhood.
An excellent addition to your general bathing can be taken once a week in the form of a sitz bath, which is effective for cleanliness, and also for the reduction of congestion. If youhave no sitz bath-tub, an ordinary wash-tub can be made to answer by raising one side an inch or two by means of some support. Have the water at a comfortable temperature, say about 98 degrees, and if you have no thermometer you can gauge the heat by putting in three gallons of cold water and add one gallon of boiling water. Sit down in the tub and cover yourself with a blanket. In about ten minutes add by degrees a gallon of cold water. Remain sitting a minute or two longer, then rub dry.
Many people are afraid to use cold water after hot, in bathing, for fear they will take cold, but that is just the way to prevent such a result from the hot bath. The hot water has caused all the pores on the surface of the body to open, and the bodily heat is rapidly lost through this cause. The cold water, quickly applied, causes the pores to close, leaves the skin in a tonic condition, and conserves the bodily heat. One should never take a hot bath without following it with aquickcold application to the surface. It should continue, however, but for a moment.
This kind of a bath is very useful for all chronic congestions of the abdominal and pelvic viscera, such as piles, constipation, painful menstruation, leucorrhea, or other affections of the reproductive organs. It is also very helpful in headaches due to congestion of the brain. If there is too little blood in the brainit might produce wakefulness, but when the brain is too full of blood this bath tends to produce sound and refreshing sleep.
A foot bath may be taken at the same time as the sitz bath, and in this case the water should be warmer than that in the sitz bath, and as the person rises from the sitz bath she should step into it, so that her feet will get the tonic effect of the cold water.
The average age at which menstruation first appears is fourteen, but some girls menstruate as early as eleven, while others may not develop till some years later. Frequently, when the girl does not manifest this symptom of womanly development, the mother becomes anxious and begins to give forcing medicines. She knows that girls often die with consumption in their early young womanhood, and has heard that it was because they did not physically develop, and she fears that such danger threatens her daughter, and imagines that if something can be done to "bring on her courses," as she expresses it, the danger will be averted.
In this case she has reversed cause and effect. The consumptive girl did not menstruate because she had not the vitality to do so. The consumption was the cause, the non-menstruation the effect. To produce hemorrhage from the reproductive system by strong, forcing medicines is only to increase the danger. The only thing to do is to improve the generalhealth, and if the girl can increase in strength until she has more vital force than suffices to keep her alive, the function that is vital—not to her, but to the race—will establish itself.
The failure of the menses to appear at the average age may be due merely to a slow development, and in this case there is nothing to do but wait. If the girl seems well, if she has no backache, no headache, no general lassitude, no undue nervous symptoms, the mere non-appearance of the menses need occasion no alarm. If, however, she has these symptoms, it is an evidence that nature is attempting to establish the function and is hindered either by general lack of vitality or by some local condition, and in either case the giving of forcing medicines would be a mistake. The weekly sitz bath would do no harm as a semi-local measure. All proper precautions should be observed as to maintenance of general health and mental serenity, and if these do not prove sufficient the physician should be consulted.
In the case I mentioned, where the reproductive organs were lacking, the girl had been subjected to a long course of home medication which had proven disastrous to her digestion, and yet, as will be readily understood, had not resulted in the establishment of a function that is dependent upon organs which, in this case, did not exist.
Sometimes there are slight mechanicalhindrances which can only be determined by the physician, though their presence will be indicated by the symptoms of menstruation without the accompanying sanguineous discharge. In these cases the home medication is dangerous. If the girl regularly has symptoms of approaching menstruation, with pain and bloating, and these subside without flow, it would be wise to consult the physician instead of resorting to domestic remedies or letting the matter go on without attention.
Quite frequently the first appearance of menstruation is followed by weeks or even months of freedom from its reappearance. In these cases no alarm need be felt as long as the general health is not affected. Again, there may be suspension of the function from change of surroundings. Girls who go away to school often suffer from irregularity. I have known of a case where the girl never menstruated during the school year, but was perfectly regular during vacations.
These cases may be accounted for by the nervous strain, the using up of vital forces in mental effort to such degree that there is nothing left with which to carry on the menstrual function. In all such cases it is wise to watch carefully the general health, and if all functions are not properly conducted, to reduce the strain until the vitality is able to keep all functions in order.
Girls are sometimes disturbed because the flow is scanty, and think they should do something to increase the amount. It is no doubt true that profuse menstrual flow is the result of our artificial lives. If we lived more normally we should have naturally a scanty menstrual flow. Therefore if a girl has good health and no monthly pain and the flow is scanty, she may consider herself as more nearly in a normal state, and be thankful.
If, however, the menses are suddenly less than normal it denotes a suppression, which may be the result of cold, exhaustion of body, weariness of nerves, mental anxiety, or disturbance of the emotions.
If gradual suppression occurs, accompanied by loss of health, it indicates some constitutional difficulty or local trouble which demands professional counsel.
Profuse menstruation is also a relative term, as there is no definite standard as to amount of menstrual flow, nor the length of time it should continue. The profuseness must be measured by the condition of the individual. Where health seems fully maintained there would appear no cause for anxiety. But if there is a marked increase over the amount usual for the individual, if great weakness and prostration is produced, either at the time or afterward, it may be called profuse, and the cause may be either debility, that is weakness,or plethora, which means fullness. If from the latter, there will be throbbing headache, pain in the back, and general signs of fever. If from debility, there will be pallor, weakness, and perhaps an almost continuous flow.
As may be imagined, the treatment in the two cases will differ. The full-blooded girl should be put on a plain, unstimulating diet, with plenty of out-door exercise during the month, but about twenty-four hours before the flow is expected she should have complete mental and physical rest. She should remain in bed, and apply cold wet cloths over the abdomen and between the thighs for an hour at a time, with intervals of at least one-half hour between the applications. The bowels should be freed from all fecal matter, and cool, small enemas be given two or three times a day. If these simple measures do not avail, the doctor should be consulted.
The pale and debilitated girl needs to rest. Sometimes, if hemorrhage continues almost from one period to the next, she should remain in bed even after the flow seems checked. The great desideratum is to build up the general health, not by tonics, which are usually only stimulants, but by the judicious observance of the laws of health. This will, in many cases, call for the advice of the physician, who can see and study the patient and her special conditions. It is not safe to trust to book-doctoring.