confidence in his parents. Let him go to them with all his queries
instead of to some older boyish friend. If all boys would do this, an
immense amount of evil would be prevented. When tempted to sin, boys,
think first of the vileness and wickedness of the act; think that God
and pure angels behold every act, and even know every thought. Nothing
is hid from their eyes. Think then of the awful results of this terrible
sin, and fly from temptation as from a burning house. Send up a prayer
to God to deliver you from temptation, and you will not fall. Every
battle manfully and successfully fought will add new strength to your
resolution and force to your character. Gaining such victories from
day to day you will grow up to be a pure, noble, useful man, the grandest
work of God, and will live a happy, virtuous life yourself, and add
to the happiness of those around you.
A CHAPTER FOR GIRLS.
We have written this chapter especially for girls, and we sincerely
hope that many will read it with an earnest desire to be benefited by
so doing. The subject of which we have to write is a delicate one, and
one which, we regret exceedingly, needs to be written about. But our
experience as a physician has proven to us again and again that it is
of the utmost importance that something be said, that words of warning
should be addressed particularly to the girls and maidens just emerging
into womanhood, on a subject which vitally concerns not only their own
future health and happiness, but the prosperity and destiny of the race.
Probably no one can be better fitted to speak on this subject than the
physician. A physician who has given careful attention to the health
and the causes of ill-health of ladies, and who has had opportunities
for observing the baneful influence exerted upon the bodies and minds
of girls and young women by the evil practices of which it is our purpose
here to speak, can better appreciate than can others the magnitude of
the evil, and is better prepared to speak upon the subject
understandingly and authoritatively. Gladly would we shun the task
which has been pressed upon us, but which we have long avoided, were
it not for the sense of the urgent need of its performance of which
our professional experience has thoroughly convinced us. We cannot keep
our lips closed when our eyes are witnesses to the fact that thousands
of the fairest and best of our girls and maidens are being beguiled
into everlasting ruin by a soul-destroying vice which works unseen,
and often so insidiously that its results are unperceived until the
work of ruin is complete.
The nature of our subject necessitates that we should speak plainly,
though delicately, and we shall endeavor to make our language
comprehensible by any one old enough to be benefited by the perusal
of this chapter. We desire that all who read these pages may receive
lasting benefit by so doing. The subject is one upon which every girl
ought to be informed, and to which she should give serious attention,
at least sufficiently long to become intelligent concerning the evils
and dangers to which girls are exposed from this source.
Girlhood.--Nothing is so suggestive of innocence and purity as the
simple beauty of girlhood when seen in its natural freshness, though
too seldom, now-a-days, is it possible to find in our young girls the
natural grace and healthy beauty which were common among the little
maidens of a quarter of a century ago. The ruddy cheeks and bright eyes
and red lips which are indicative of a high degree of healthy vigor
are not so often seen to-day among the small girls in our public schools
and passing to and fro upon the streets. The pale cheeks, languid eyes,
and almost colorless lips which we more often see, indicate weakly
constitutions and delicate health, and prophesy a short and suffering
life to many. Various causes are at work to produce this unfortunate
decline; and while we hope that in the larger share of cases, bad diet,
improper clothing, confinement in poorly ventilated rooms with too
little exercise, and similar causes, are the active agents, we are
obliged to recognize the fact that there is in far too many cases another
cause, the very mention of which makes us blush with shame that its
existence should be possible. But of this we shall speak again
presently.
Real girls are like the just opening buds of beautiful flowers. The
beauty and fragrance of the full-blossomed rose scarcely exceed the
delicate loveliness of the swelling bud which shows between the
sections of its bursting calyx the crimson petals tightly folded
beneath. So the true girl possesses in her sphere as high a degree of
attractive beauty as she can hope to attain in after-years, though of
a different character. But genuine girls are scarce. Really natural
little girls are almost as scarce as real boys. Too many girls begin
at a very early age to attempt to imitate the pride and vanity manifested
by older girls and young ladies. It is by many supposed that to be
ladylike should be the height of the ambition of girls as soon as they
are old enough to be taught respecting propriety of behavior, which
is understood to mean that they must appear as unnatural as possible
in attempting to act like grown-up ladies. Many mothers who wish their
daughters to be models of perfection, but whose ideas of perfect
deportment are exceedingly superficial in character, dress up their
little daughters in fine clothing, beautiful to look at, but very far
from what is required for health and comfort, and then continually
admonish the little ones that they must keep very quiet and "act like
little ladies." Such a course is a most pernicious one. It fosters pride
and vanity, and inculcates an entirely wrong idea of what it is to be
ladylike,--to be a true lady, to be true to nature as a girl. Such
artificial training is damaging alike to mind and body; and it induces
a condition of mind and of the physical system which is very conducive
to the encouragement of dangerous tendencies.
How to Develop Beauty and Loveliness.--All little girls want to be
beautiful. Girls in general care much more for their appearance than
do boys. They have finer tastes, and greater love for whatever is lovely
and beautiful. It is a natural desire, and should be encouraged. A pure,
innocent, beautiful little girl is the most lovely of all God's
creatures. All are not equally beautiful, however, and cannot be; but
all may be beautiful to a degree that will render them attractive. Let
all little girls who want to be pretty, handsome, or good-looking, give
attention and we will tell them how. Those who are homely should listen
especially, for all may become good-looking, though all cannot become
remarkably beautiful. First of all, it is necessary that the girl who
wishes to be handsome, to be admired, should be good. She must learn
to love what is right and true. She must be pure in mind and act. She
must be simple in her manners, modest in her deportment, and kind in
her ways.
Second in importance, though scarcely so, is the necessity of health.
No girl can long be beautiful without health; and no girl who enjoys
perfect health can be really ugly in appearance. A healthy countenance
is always attractive. Disease wastes the rounded features, bleaches
out the roses from the cheeks and the vermilion from the lips. It
destroys the luster of the eye and the elasticity of the step. Health
is essential to beauty. In fact, if we consider goodness as a state
of moral health, then health is the one great requisite of beauty.
Health is obtained and preserved by the observance of those natural
laws which the Creator has appointed for the government of our bodies.
The structure of these bodies we may do well to study for a few moments.
The Human Form Divine.--Go with us to one of the large cities, and we
will show you one of the most marvelous pieces of mechanism ever
invented, a triumph of ingenuity, skill, and patient, persevering labor
for many years. This wonderful device is a clock which will run more
than one hundred years. It is so constructed that it indicates not only
the time of day, the day of the month and year, itself making all the
necessary changes for leap year, but shows the motions of the earth
around the sun, together with the movements and positions of all the
other planets, and many other marvelous things. When it strikes at the
end of each hour, groups of figures go through a variety of curious
movements most closely resembling the appearance and actions of human
beings.
The maker of this remarkable clock well deserves the almost endless
praise which he receives for his skill and patience; for his work is
certainly wonderful; but the great clock, with its curious and
complicated mechanism, is a coarse and bungling affair when compared
with the human body. The clock doubtless contains thousands of delicate
wheels and springs, and is constructed with all the skill imaginable;
and yet the structure of the human body is infinitely more delicate.
The clock has no intelligence; but a human being can hear, see, feel,
taste, touch, and think. The clock does only what its maker designed
to have it do, and can do nothing else. The human machine is a living
mechanism; it can control its own movements, can do as it will, within
certain limits. What is very curious indeed, the human machine has the
power to mend itself, so that when it needs repairs it is not necessary
to send it to a shop for the purpose, but all that is required is to
give nature an opportunity and the system repairs itself.
A Wonderful Process.--We have not space to describe all the wonderful
mechanism of this human machine, but must notice particularly one of
its most curious features, a provision by which other human beings,
living machines like itself, are produced. All living creatures possess
this power. A single potato placed in the ground becomes a dozen or
more, by a process of multiplying. A little seed planted in the earth
grows up to be a plant, produces flowers, and from the flowers come
other seeds, not one, but often a great many, sometimes hundreds from
a single seed. Insects, fishes, birds, and all other animals, thus
multiply. So do human beings, and in a similar manner. The organs by
which this most marvelous process is carried on in plants and animals,
including also human beings, are called sexual organs. Flowers are the
sexual organs of plants. And flowers are always the most fragrant and
the most beautiful when they are engaged in this wonderful and curious
work.
Human Buds.--A curious animal which lives near the seashore, in shallow
water, attached to a rock like a water plant, puts out little buds which
grow awhile and then drop off, and after a time become large individuals
like the parent, each in turn producing buds like the one from which
it grew. Human beings are formed by a similar process. Human buds are
formed by an organ for the purpose possessed only by the female sex,
and these, under proper circumstances, develop into infant human beings.
The process, though so simply stated, is a marvelously complicated one,
which cannot be fully explained here; indeed, it is one of the mysteries
which it is beyond the power of human wisdom fully to explain.
The production of these human buds is one of the most important and
sacred duties of woman. It is through this means that she becomes a
mother, which is one of the grandest and noblest functions of womanhood.
It is the motherly instinct that causes little girls to show such a
fondness for dolls, a perfectly natural feeling which may be encouraged
to a moderate degree without injury.
How Beauty is Marred.--As already remarked, mental, moral, and physical
health are the requisites for true beauty, and to secure these,
obedience to all the laws of health is required. The most beautiful
face is soon marred when disease begins its ravages in the body. The
most beautiful character is as speedily spoiled by the touch of moral
disease, or sin. The face is a mirror of the mind, the character; and
a mind full of evil, impure thoughts is certain to show itself in the
face in spite of rosy cheeks and dimples, ruby lips and bewitching
smiles. The character is written on the face as plainly as the face
may be pictured by an artist on canvas.
To be more explicit, the girl who disregards the laws of health, who
eats bad food, eats at all hours or at unseasonable hours, sits up late
at night, attends fashionable parties and indulges in the usual means
of dissipation there afforded, dancing, wine, rich suppers, etc., who
carefully follows the fashions in her dress, lacing her waist to attain
the fashionable degree of slenderness, wearing thin, narrow-toed
gaiters with French heels, and insufficiently clothing the limbs in
cold weather, and who in like manner neglects to comply with the
requirements of health in other important particulars, may be certain
that sooner or later, certainly at no distant day, she will become as
unattractive and homely as she can wish not to be. Girls and young ladies
who eat largely of fat meat, rich cakes and pies, confectionery, iced
creams, and other dietetic abominations, cannot avoid becoming sallow
and hollow-eyed. The cheeks may be ever so plump and rosy, they will
certainly lose their freshness and become hollow and thin. Chalk and
rouge will not hide the defect, for everybody will discover the fraud,
and will of course know the reason why it is practiced.
A Beauty-Destroying Vice.--But by far the worst enemy of beauty and
health of body, mind, and soul, we have not yet mentioned. It is a sin
concerning which we would gladly keep silence; but we cannot see so
many of our most beautiful and promising girls and young ladies annually
being ruined, often for this world and the next alike, without uttering
the word of warning needed.
As before remarked, the function of maternity, which is the object of
the sexual system in woman, when rightly exercised is the most sacred
and elevated office which a woman can perform for the world. The woman
who is a true mother has an opportunity of doing for the race more than
all other human agencies combined. The mother's influence is the
controlling influence in the world. The mother molds the character of
her children. She can make of their plastic minds almost what she will
if she is herself prepared for the work. On the other hand, misuse or
abuse of the sexual organism is visited in girls and women, as in boys
and men, with the most fearful penalties. Nothing will sooner deprive
a girl or young lady of the maidenly grace and freshness with which
nature blesses woman in her early years than secret vice. We have the
greatest difficulty in making ourself believe that it is possible for
beings designed by nature to be pure and innocent, in all respects free
from impurity of any sort, to become so depraved by sin as to be willing
to devote themselves to so vile and filthy a practice. Yet the frequency
with which cases have come under our observation which clearly indicate
the alarming prevalence of the practice, even among girls and young
women who would naturally be least suspected, compels us to recognize
the fact. The testimony of many eminent physicians whose opportunities
for observation have been very extensive shows that the evil is
enormously greater than people generally are aware. Instructors of the
youth, of large experience, assert the same. Nor is the evil greater
in America than in some other countries. One writer declares that the
vice is almost universal among the girls of Russia, which may be due
to the low condition in which the women of that country are kept.
Terrible Effects of Secret Vice.--The awful effects of this sin against
God and nature, this soul-and-body-destroying vice, become speedily
visible in those who are guilty of it. The experienced eye needs no
confession on the part of the victim to read the whole story of sinful
indulgence and consequent disease. The vice stamps its insignia upon
the countenance; it shows itself in the walk, in the changed disposition
and the loss of healthy vigor. It is not only impossible for a victim
of this sinful practice to hide from the all-seeing eye of God the
vileness perpetrated in secret, but it is also useless to attempt to
hide from human eyes the awful truth.
Headache, side-ache, back-ache, pains in the chest, and wandering pains
in various parts of the body,--these are but a few of the painful
ailments from which girls who are guilty of this sin suffer. Many of
the tender spines which cause great solicitude on the part of parents
and physicians, who fear that disease of the spine is threatening the
life of a loved daughter, not infrequently originate in this way. Much
of the hysteria which renders wretched the lives of thousands of young
ladies and the fond friends who are obliged to care for and attend them,
arises from sexual transgression of the kind of which we are speaking.
The blanched cheeks, hollow, expressionless eyes, and rough, pimply
skins of many school-girls are due to this cause alone. We do not mean
by this to intimate that every girl who has pimples upon her face is
guilty of secret vice; but this sin is undoubtedly a very frequent cause
of the unpleasant eruption which so often appears upon the foreheads
of both sexes. It would be very unjust, however, to charge a person
with the sin unless some further evidence than that of an eruption on
the face was afforded.
The inability to study, to apply themselves in any way except when
stimulated by something of a very exciting character, which many girls
exhibit, is in a large proportion of cases due to the practice of which
we are writing. Often enough the effects which are attributed to
overstudy are properly due to this debasing habit. We have little faith
in the great outcry made in certain quarters about the damaging effects
of study upon the health of young ladies. A far less worthy cause is
in many cases the true one, to which is attributable the decline in
health at a critical period when all the vital forces of the system
are necessarily called into action to introduce the activity of a new
function.
Hundreds of girls break down in health just as they are entering
womanhood. At from twelve to eighteen years of age the change naturally
occurs which transforms the girl into a woman by the development of
functions previously latent. This critical period is one through which
every girl in health ought to pass with scarcely any noticeable
disturbance; and if during the previous years of life the laws of health
were observed, there would seldom be any unusual degree of suffering
at this time. Those who have before this period been addicted to the
vile habit of which we are writing, will almost invariably show at this
time evidences of the injury which has been wrought. The unnatural
excitement of the organs before the period of puberty, lays the
foundation for life-long disease. When that critical epoch arrives,
the organs are found in a state of congestion often bordering on
inflammation. The increased congestion which naturally occurs at this
time in many cases is sufficient to excite most serious disease. Here
is the beginning of a great many of the special diseases which are the
bane and shame of the sex. Displacements of various sorts, congestions,
neuralgia of the ovaries, leucorrhoea, or whites, and a great variety
of kindred maladies, are certain to make their appearance at this period
or soon after in those who have previously been guilty of self-abuse.
If the evil influences already at work are augmented by tight lacing,
improper dressing of the extremities, hanging heavy skirts upon the
hips, and fashionable dissipation generally, the worst results are sure
to follow, and the individual is certain to be a subject for the doctors
for a good portion of her life.
A talented writer some time since contributed to a popular magazine
an article entitled, "The Little Health of Women," which contained many
excellent hints respecting the influences at work to undermine the
health and destroy the constitutions of American women; but he did not
even hint at this potent cause, which, we firmly believe, is responsible
for a far greater share of the local disease and general poor health
of girls, young women, and married ladies, than has been generally
recognized. These are startling facts, but we are prepared to
substantiate them.
Remote Effects.--Not all of the effects of the vice appear in girlhood,
nor even during early life. Not infrequently it is not until the girl
has grown up to be a wife and mother that she begins to appreciate fully
the harm that has been wrought. At this time, when new demands are made
upon the sexual organism, when its proper duties are to be performed,
there is a sudden failure; new weaknesses and diseases make their
appearance, new pains and sufferings are felt, which no woman who has
not in some way seriously transgressed the laws of health will suffer.
In not a few instances it is discovered that the individual is wholly
unfitted for the duties of maternity. Often, indeed, maternity is
impossible, the injury resulting from the sins committed being so great
as to render the diseased organism incapable of the functions required.
In the great majority of cases these peculiar difficulties, morbid
conditions, and incapacities are attributed to overwork, overstudy,
"taking cold," "getting the feet wet," or some other cause wholly
inadequate to account for the diseased conditions present, although
in many instances it may be true that some such unfortunate circumstance
may be the means of precipitating the effects of previous sin upon
organs already relaxed, debilitated, and thus prepared readily to take
on disease.
Causes which Lead Girls Astray.--The predisposing causes of sexual
vices have already been dwelt upon so fully in this volume that we shall
devote little space to the subject here. We may, however, mention a
few of the causes which seem to be most active in leading to the
formation of evil habits among girls.
Vicious Companions.--Girls are remarkably susceptible to influence by
those of their own age. A vicious girl who makes herself agreeable to
those with whom she associates can exert more influence over many of
her companions than can any number of older persons. Even a mother
rarely has that influence over her daughter that is maintained by the
girl whom she holds as her bosom friend. The close friendships which
are often formed between girls of the same age are often highly
detrimental in character. Each makes a confidant of the other, and thus
becomes estranged from the only one competent to give counsel and advice,
and the one who of all others is worthy of a young girl's
confidence,--her mother.
From these unfortunate alliances often arise most deplorable evils.
Vicious companions not infrequently sow the seeds of evil habits far
and wide, contaminating all who come within their influence.
Whom to Avoid.--A girl will always do well to avoid a companion who
is vain, idle, silly, or frivolous. Girls who have these evil
characteristics are very likely to have others also which are worse.
A girl who is rude in her manners, careless in her habits, irreverent
and disobedient to parents and teachers, is always an unsafe companion.
No matter how pretty, witty, stylish, or aristocratic she may be, she
should be shunned. Her influence will be withering, debasing, wherever
felt. A girl may be gay and thoughtless without being vicious; but the
chances are ten to one that she will become sinful unless she changes
her ways.
Sentimental Books.--The majority of girls love to read, but,
unfortunately, the kind of literature of which they are chiefly fond
is not of a character which will elevate, refine, or in any way benefit
them. Story books, romances, love tales, and religious novels
constitute the chief part of the reading matter which American young
ladies greedily devour. We have known young ladies still in their teens
who had read whole libraries of the most exciting novels.