be avoided, and that woman can have a liberal education that
shall develop all her powers, without mutilation or disease, up to the
loftiest ideal of womanhood, is alike the teaching of physiology and
the hope of the race.
In concluding this part of our subject, it is well to remember the
statement made at the beginning of our discussion, to the following
effect, viz., that it is not asserted here, that improper methods of
study and a disregard of the reproductive apparatus and its functions,
during the educational life of girls, are the _sole_ causes of female
diseases; neither is it asserted that _all_ the female graduates of
our schools and colleges are pathological specimens. But it is
asserted that the number of these graduates who have been permanently
disabled to a greater or less degree, or fatally injured, by these
causes, is such as to excite the _gravest alarm_, and to demand the
serious attention of the community.
The preceding physiological and pathological data naturally open the
way to a consideration of the co-education of the sexes.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] It appears, from the researches of Mr. Whitehead on this point,
that an examination of four thousand cases gave fifteen years six and
three-quarter months as the average age in England for the appearance
of the catamenia.--WHITEHEAD, _on Abortion, &c._
[14] The arrest of development of the uterus, in connection with
amenorrhoea, is sometimes very marked. In the New-York Medical Journal
for June, 1873, three such cases are recorded, that came under the eye
of those excellent observers, Dr. E.R. Peaslee and Dr. T.G. Thomas. In
one of these cases, the uterine cavity measured one and a half inches;
in another, one and seven-eighths inches; and, in a third, one and a
quarter inches. Recollecting that the normal measurement is from two
and a half to three inches, it appears that the arrest of development
in these cases occurred when the uterus was half or less than half
grown. Liberal education should avoid such errors.
[15] Physical Degeneracy. By Nathan Allen, M.D., Journal of
Psychological Medicine. October, 1870.
[16] According to the biblical account, woman was formed by
subtracting a rib from man. If, in the evolution of the future, a
third division of the human race is to be formed by subtracting sex
from woman,--a retrograde development,--I venture to propose the term
agene (+a+ without, +genos+ sex) as an appropriate designation for the
ne
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