_UNREGARDED CAUSES OF ILL-HEALTH IN AMERICAN WOMEN._
By JOHN FORD BARBOUR, M. D.
That ill-health is more common amongst American women of the middle and
higher classes than amongst the women of other nations is proven by a
great many considerations. In the first place, we have the testimony of
many eminent physicians on this point. Dr. Austin Flint, Sr., is said to
have declared that if things went on as they are now going, in fifty
years it would be well-nigh impossible to find a healthy woman of
American descent. Numerous articles have appeared in the medical
magazines by such writers as Dr. Mary Putnam-Jacobi, Dr. Engelmann, and
many others, calling attention to the alarming and increasing prevalence
of ill-health among American women. We have in addition the testimony of
such close and careful observers as our novelists, Howells and James,
which is of even greater value, as coming from laymen, who would
naturally not be so quick to notice such things as physicians. Howells
speaks of the “typical American girl, never very sick and never very
well.” Do we not all know her? And again and again he speaks of her lack
of physical development as compared with her European sisters. James, in
one of his stories, describes a little girl who comes dashing into the
hotel parlor on roller-skates, crying, “Get out of the way.” One can see
all too plainly from his description, the typical American little girl,
with her weak ankles, her thin, flat chest, her feeble little arms and
legs, and her lack of proper parental control. Again, in “_A Bundle of
Letters_,” he makes one of his male heroines say: “The types here,
excepting myself, are exclusively feminine. We are thin, my dear
Harvard; we are pale, we are sharp. There is something meagre about us;
our line is wanting in roundness, our composition in richness. The
American temperament is represented by two young girls. These young
girls are rather curious types. They are cold, slim, sexless; the
physique is not generous, not abundant; it is only the drapery that is
abundant.”
The bearing of two or three feeble children ought not to make a physical
wreck of a woman; but how often do we see this the case? Compare the
American mother—with her sick headache, her general physical
inefficiency, her everlasting doctors’ and druggists’ bills, and her two
or three delicate, bottle-fed children, with the stout, active German or
English matron, and her sturdy brood of eight or ten, every one of whom
she has nursed at her own breast.
Let the reader take his stand at some fashionable street-corner on a
sunny afternoon and notice carefully the women who pass by. Below are
given two figures after Lauder Brunton. The first represents the posture
of health; the second, the posture of physical degeneracy.
[Illustration]
He will find that about seven out of ten of the women who pass him will
present the second posture. In addition to this, they will show by their
sallow complexions, thin, flat chests, angular figures, and miserable
gait, all the evidences of present or impending ill-health. He will
hardly find one woman out of ten with bright eyes, a clear complexion,
an erect carriage and a firm step.
It is simply impossible for human beings to live as most American women
live, and have good health. After a girl puts on long dresses, she is
taught that almost any sort of active bodily movement is unladylike. Her
frail little body is enveloped in corsets, which effectually prevents
the full development of the important trunk-muscles. At school she gets,
perhaps, a little make-belief of calisthenics. During her life in
society she waltzes with great ardor, it is true, and it is said that to
go through all the evolutions of a German is equivalent to a walk of
fifteen miles; but no one has ever seriously claimed that this form of
exercise is conducive to health. After marrying, the American woman
reduces physical exertion to the minimum. Any form of physical labor is
regarded by her as menial. If the weather is bad, she will not put her
foot out of the house for whole days at a time. If she does go out,
often she will take a car to ride two squares.
American women take more drugs than other women. The drug-store is
ubiquitous with us. They show increased susceptibility to stimulants and
narcotics, sensitiveness of the digestion, increase of near-sightedness
and weakness of the eyes, early and rapid decay of the teeth,
sensitiveness to heat and cold, tendency to nervous exhaustion etc.
Gynecology and abdominal surgery are American contributions to medical
science.
This state of affairs is not limited to any particular section of the
United States, but extends from Maine to California, and from Dan even
unto Beersheba. It is national in its scope. The fact is that ill-health
is so common in our women that we have grown accustomed to it, and have,
quite unconsciously, set up a low standard of feminine health. If a
woman is habitually constipated, dyspeptic, so weak that she can hardly
walk a mile, has one or two headaches every month, irregular and painful
menstruation, backache, napeache, cold hands and feet, leucorrhea,
capricious appetite, and a moderate degree of nervousness and insomnia,
she is considered to possess average good health. If she is free from
all these, it is a rare exception, a fortunate accident, not a condition
of health to be attained by the exercise of reason and common sense.
What, then, are the causes for ill-health which are peculiar to American
women? These may be divided into two classes, _viz._: The unavoidable
and the avoidable. Let us briefly survey the unavoidable causes.
By far the most potent of these is our climate, which differs from that
of Europe in three respects; it is more variable; the extremes of heat
and cold are greater; and the atmosphere is drier.
The reason for the extreme variability of our climate is found in the
fact that our mountain chains run north and south, while those of Europe
run east and west. In consequence of this, when up in Manitoba Territory
King Aeolus reverses his spear and smites upon the side of the mountain,
rude Boreas comes whistling down upon us with hardly a moment’s notice,
except a hasty telegram from Washington with the familiar announcement
that the thermometer will fall forty degrees in the next twenty-four
hours. This is followed by nearly as rapid a rise in the temperature.
The extremes of our climate keep us house-bound for a large part of the
year, and this is a very potent factor of ill-health. There are few
portions of the country where it is agreeable to be out of doors for as
many as a hundred days of the year.
The effect of a dry, variable, extreme climate is to stimulate
powerfully the nervous system and keep it on the _qui vive_.
The liberty and enlarged scope of thought and action, which American
women enjoy, must also be considered as causes of ill-health. How much
more nervous energy an active, ambitious, American woman must expend
than a German matron, with her placid, narrow life.
There are many other unavoidable causes of ill-health in American women
which need not be discussed here; let us rather turn our attention to
the more practical consideration of the avoidable causes of ill-health
in our women. While there are very many of these, it has seemed to the
writer that the following are the principal ones: