which the
rudiments of a process that is to be effected at a future epoch are
sketched out during an epoch already existing. The afflux of blood to
the uterus during the rupture of the ovisac, cannot be shown to be
useful by any effort of teleological physiologists. It predicts,
however, the afflux that will be necessary at a future pregnancy, in
precisely the same way as the growth of the lungs in the foetus predicts
the future necessity for respiration, or the formation of ovules in the
ovaries of the newborn girl, predicts the future necessity of a
reproductive apparatus. But to impose on the girl the precautions
necessary to the mother, is one way to enfeeble and prematurely age her.
In the same way is the child enfeebled by premature considerations in
regard to sex that do not yet exist, and the adult woman so often
treated as old as soon as she has borne children, which should be a
proof not of age, but of maturity.

From the preceding considerations we may, we think, conclude:

1st. That unless the brain and spinal cord _had been already exhausted
or on the point of exhaustion previous to the menstrual_ crisis, this
alone would be insufficient to exhaust them.

2d. That the degree of exhaustion in the cerebro-spinal system,
necessary to determine vaso-motor paralysis, is very great, and much
transcends that likely to be induced by the mental exertion required in
the ordinary curriculum of a girl's school.

3d. That therefore, when vaso-motor paralysis, as indicated by uterine
haemorrhage, has occurred apparently in consequence of such mental
exertion, it is really due to some other conditions existing with this.

Of these we have already insisted upon two--sedentary position and
deficiency of physical exercise.

Authors have less frequently analyzed the effects of another
circumstance so often accompanying the intellectual exertions of school
life, namely, the morbid emotional excitement that is incident either to
the period of adolescence or to the injudicious educational _regime_. To
precisely appreciate these effects, it will be necessary to push a
little further the analysis already commenced, of the mode of activity
exhibited by different portions of the brain during the evolution of
thought or of emotion.

Among all the obscurities that overhang this subject, a few facts are,
nevertheless, demonstrated. The first that concerns us is the existence
of the vaso-motor centre, whose situation and functi