ARTIFICIALITIES OF CIVILIZED LIFE.
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 is made 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 longer unladylike 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.