ily form that represents beauty, he reverences it as a god,
and would sacrifice to it." From the days of Plato till now, all have
felt the power of woman's beauty, and been more than willing to
sacrifice to it. The proper, not exclusive search for it is a
legitimate inspiration. The way for a girl to obtain her portion of
this radiant halo is by the symmetrical development of every part of
her organization, muscle, ovary, stomach and nerve, and by a
physiological management of every function that correlates every
organ; not by neglecting or trying to stifle or abort any of the vital
and integral parts of her structure, and supplying the deficiency by
invoking the aid of the milliner's stuffing, the colorist's pencil,
the druggist's compounds, the doctor's pelvic supporter, and the
surgeon's spinal brace.
When travelling in the East, some years ago, it was my fortune to be
summoned as a physician into a harem. With curious and not unwilling
step I obeyed the summons. While examining the patient, nearly a dozen
Syrian girls--a grave Turk's wifely crowd, a result and illustration
of Mohammedan female education--pressed around the divan with eyes and
ears intent to see and hear a Western Hakim's medical examination. As
I looked upon their well-developed forms, their brown skins, rich
with the blood and sun of the East, and their unintelligent, sensuous
faces, I thought that if it were possible to marry the Oriental care
of woman's organization to the Western liberty and culture of her
brain, there would be a new birth and loftier type of womanly grace
and force.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Woman's Wrongs, p. 59.
[2] Enigmas of Life, p. 34.
PART II.
CHIEFLY PHYSIOLOGICAL.
"She girdeth her loins with strength."--SOLOMON.
Before describing the special forms of ill that exist among our
American, certainly among our New-England girls and women, and that
are often caused and fostered by our methods of education and social
customs, it is important to refer in considerable detail to a few
physiological matters. Physiology serves to disclose the cause, and
explain the _modus operandi_, of these ills, and offers the only
rational clew to their prevention and relief. The order in which the
physiological data are presented that bear upon this discussion is not
essential; their relation to the subject matter of it will be obvious
as we proceed.
The sacred number, three, dominates the human frame. There is a
trinity
|