considered as the sole cause of the delicate health
of American girls. Dr. Clarke indeed guards his every assertion with a
care and precision that is worthy of imitation by those who draw such
large deductions from his book. When, however, all illegitimate
inferences have been set aside, and we come to the propositions really
and categorically maintained, we find the following:

1st. During the catamenial period, _i.e._, during one week out of every
month, a woman should abandon intellectual or physical labor, either
because she is already incapacitated for it, or because she will be so
ultimately, if she does not take the precautionary rest.

2d. A large number of American girls become affected with amenorrhea[35]
or menorrhagia[36] solely on account of excessive mental exertion at
such periodical epochs of incapacity.

3d. It is possible to educate girls properly, only by regularly
intermitting their studies at such times, and by "conceding to nature
her moderate but inexorable demand for rest during one week out of
four."

4th. Consequently, it is chimerical to attempt to educate girls with
boys, whose organization requires no such periodical intermittence.

5th. If sufficient precaution be observed during the first years of
adolescence, and the establishment of menstruation, such excessive care
will become unnecessary when the constitution is fully formed, _i.e._,
after the age of eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years.

In regard to these propositions we wish to try to show--that the first
contains a certain exaggeration of fact: that in the second a certain
sequence of phenomena has been attributed to the wrong cause, and that
much more important causes can be demonstrated: that in the third, a
precaution needed for many has been unduly generalized for all: finally,
that the fifth proposition entirely annuls the inference contained in
the fourth.

We believe the exaggeration of fact to be twofold, that is, first, in
regard to the number of girls to whose health the menstrual period makes
any sensible interruption. Second, in regard to the duration of such
interruption, among the majority even of those who are indeed obliged to
submit to it.

Dr. Clarke himself admits that the susceptibility he describes in a
certain number of cases, is not universal, but he claims that this is
the rule, and the reverse the exception. Such a claim can only be
substantiated by an appeal to relative statistics, which are well