The saddest part of it all is, that this neglect of
herself in girlhood, when her organization is ductile and impressible,
breeds the germs of diseases that in later life yield torturing or
fatal maladies. Every physician's note-book affords copious
illustrations of these statements. The number of them which the writer
has seen prompted this imperfect essay upon a subject in which the
public has a most vital interest, and with regard to which it acts
with the courage of ignorance.
Two considerations deserve to be mentioned in this connection. One is,
that no organ or function in plant, animal, or human kind, can be
properly regarded as a disability or source of weakness. Through
ignorance or misdirection, it may limit or enfeeble the animal or
being that misguides it; but, rightly guided and developed, it is
either in itself a source of power and grace to its parent stock, or a
necessary stage in the development of larger grace and power. The
female organization is no exception to this law; nor are the
particular set of organs and their functions with which this essay has
to deal an exception to it. The periodical movements which
characterize and influence woman's structure for more than half her
terrestrial life, and which, in their ebb and flow, sway every fibre
and thrill every nerve of her body a dozen times a year, and the
occasional pregnancies which test her material resources, and cradle
the race, are, or are evidently intended to be, fountains of power,
not hinderances, to her.
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