ntiment has changed, and
it is no longer unladylike for girls to exercise; but with this
increased freedom in custom should also come increased physical
freedom through healthful clothing that allows perfect use of every
muscle, more especially of the breathing muscles. I am sure you would
rather pay out your money for that which shall add to your health and
real happiness than to pay physicians to help you from suffering the
just penalty of your own wrongdoing, and that is why I am anxious to
give you this needed instruction. I do not care to have you study much
about diseases, but I want you to understand very fully how, through
care of yourself, to prevent disease.

CHAPTER XVI.

SOME CAUSES OF PAINFUL MENSTRUATION.

There should be no pain at menstruation, but that pain is quite common
cannot be denied. Let us look for other causes than are found in the
dress.

One frequent cause is found in the ignorance of girls, and their
consequent injudicious conduct at the time of the beginning of sexual
activity. At this time of life the girl is often called lazy because
she manifests lassitude, and this is nature's indication that she
should rest. The vital forces are busy establishing a new function,
and the energy that has been expressed in bodily activity is now being
otherwise employed. The girl who has been properly brought up, whose
muscles are strong, and whose nervous supply is abundant, may have no
need of especial care at this time, but the average girl needs much
judicious care, in order that her physical womanhood shall be
healthfully established. She should be guarded from taking cold, from
overexertion, from social dissipation, and especially from mental
excitement, and other causes of nervousness. I would like to call your
attention to the great evil of romance-reading, both in the
production of premature development and in the creation of morbid
mental states which will tend to the production of physical evils,
such as nervousness, hysteria, and a host of maladies which largely
depend upon disturbed nerves.

Girls are not apt to understand the evils of novel-reading, and may
think it is only because mothers have outlived their days of romance
that they object to their daughters enjoying such sentimental reading;
but the wise mother understands the effects of sensational reading
upon the physical organization, and wishes to protect her daughter
from the evils thus produced.

It is not only tha