Their teachers have known
nothing of the amenorrhoea, menorrhagia, dysmenorrhoea, or leucorrhoea
which the pupils have sedulously concealed and disregarded; and the
cunning devices of dress have covered up all external evidences of
defect; and so, on graduation day, they are pointed out by their
instructors to admiring committees as rosy specimens of both physical
and intellectual education. A closer inspection by competent experts
would reveal the secret weakness which the labor of life that they are
about to enter upon too late discloses.
The testimony of Dr. Anstie of London, as to the gravity of the evils
incurred by the sort of erroneous education we are considering, is
decided and valuable. He says, "For, be it remembered, the epoch of
sexual development is one in which an enormous addition is being made
to the expenditure of vital energy; besides the continuous processes
of growth of the tissues and organs generally, the sexual apparatus,
with its nervous supply, is making _by its development heavy demands_
upon the nutritive powers of the organism; and it is scarcely possible
but that portions of the nervous centres, not directly connected with
it, should proportionally suffer in their nutrition, probably through
defective blood supply.
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