supposes? For this purpose the use of cold washes
and
applications is common, some even seek to stop the
flow by a cold
bath, as was done by a now careful mother, who long
lay at the
point of death from the result of such indiscretion,
and but
slowly, by years of care, regained her health. The
terrible
warning has not been lost, and mindful of her own
experience she
has taught her children a lesson which but few are
fortunate
enough to learn--the individual care during periods
of functional
activity which is needful for the preservation of
woman's
health."
In a study of one hundred and twenty-five American
high school
girls Dr. Helen Kennedy refers to the "modesty"
which makes it
impossible even for mothers and daughters to speak
to each other
concerning the menstrual functions. "Thirty-six
girls in this
high school passed into womanhood with no knowledge
whatever,
from a proper source, of all that makes them women.
Thirty-nine
were probably not much wiser, for they stated that
they had
received some instruction, but had not talked freely
on the
matter. From the fact that the curious girl did not
talk freely
on what naturally interested her, it is possible she
was put off
with a few words as to personal care, and a
reprimand for her
curiosity. Less than half of the girls felt free to
talk with
their mothers of this most important matter!" (Helen Kennedy,
"Effects of High School Work upon Girls During
Adolescence,"
_Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1896.)
The same state of things probably also prevails in
other
countries. Thus, as regards France, Edmond de
Goncourt in
_Chérie_ (pp. 137-139) described the terror of his
young heroine
at the appearance of the first menstrual period for
which she
had never been prepared. He adds: "It is very
seldom, indeed,
that women speak of this eventuality. Mothers fear
to warn their
daughters, elder sisters dislike confidences with
their younger
sisters, governesses are generally mute with girls
who have no
mothers or sisters."
Sometimes this leads to suicide or to attempts at
suicide. Thus a
few years ago the case was reported in the French
newspapers of a
young girl of fifteen, who threw herself into the
Seine at
Saint-Ouen. She was rescued, and on being brought
before the
police commissioner said that she had been attacked
by an
"unknown disease" which had driven her to despair.
Discreet
inquiry revealed that the mysterious malady was one
common to all
women, and the girl was restored to her
insufficiently punished
parents.
Half a century ago the sexual life of girls was ignored by their parents
and teachers from reasons of prudishness; at the present time, when quite
different ideas prevail regarding feminine education, it is ignored on the
ground that girls should be as independent of their
physiological sexual
life as boys are. The fact that this mischievous neglect has prevailed
equally under such different conditions indicates
clearly that the varying
reasons assigned for it are merely the cloaks of
ignorance. With the
growth of knowledge we may reasonably hope that one of the chief evils
which at present undermine in early life not only
healthy motherhood but
healthy womanhood generally, may be gradually
eliminated. The data now
being accumulated show not only the extreme prevalence of painful,
disordered, and absent menstruation in adolescent girls and young women,
but also the great and sometimes permanent evils
inflicted upon even
healthy girls when at the beginning of sexual life they are subjected to
severe strain of any kind. Medical authorities,
whichever sex they belong
to, may now be said to be almost or quite unanimous on this point. Some
years ago, indeed, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, in a very
able book, _The
Question of Rest for Women_, concluded that "ordinarily healthy" women may
disregard the menstrual period, but she admitted that
forty-six per cent,
of women are not "ordinarily healthy," and a minority which comes so near
to being a majority can by no means be dismissed as a
negligible quantity.
Girls themselves, indeed, carried away by the ardor of their pursuit of
work or amusement, are usually recklessly and ignorantly indifferent to
the serious risks they run. But the opinions of teachers are now tending
to agree with medical opinion in recognizing the
importance of care and
rest during the years of adolescence, and teachers are even prepared to
admit that a year's rest from hard work during the
period that a girl's
sexual life is becoming established, while it may ensure her health and
vigor, is not even a disadvantage from the educational point of view. With
the growth of knowledge and the decay of ancient
prejudices, we may
reasonably hope that women will be emancipated from the traditions of a
false civilization, which have forced her to regard her glory as her
shame,--though it has never been so among robust
primitive peoples,--and
it is encouraging to find that so distinguished an
educator as Principal
Stanley Hall looks forward with confidence to such a
time. In his
exhaustive work on _Adolescence_ he writes: "Instead of shame of this
function girls should be taught the greatest reverence for it, and should
help it to normality by regularly stepping aside at
stated times for a few
years till it is well established and normal. To higher beings that looked
down upon human life as we do upon flowers, these would be the most
interesting and beautiful hours of blossoming. With more self-knowledge
women will have more self-respect at this time. Savagery reveres this
state and it gives to women a mystic awe. The time may come when we must
even change the divisions of the year for women, leaving to man his week
and giving to her the same number of Sabbaths per year, but in groups of
four successive days per month. When woman asserts her true physiological
rights she will begin here, and will glory in what, in an age of
ignorance, man made her think to be her shame. The
pathos about the
leaders of woman's so-called emancipation, is that they, even more than
those they would persuade, accept man's estimate of this state."[27]
These wise words cannot be too deeply pondered. The
pathos of the
situation has indeed been--at all events in the past for to-day a more
enlightened generation is growing up--that the very
leaders of the woman's
movement have often betrayed the cause of women. They
have adopted the
ideals of men, they have urged women to become second-
rate men, they have
declared that the healthy natural woman disregards the presence of her
menstrual functions. This is the very reverse of the
truth. "They claim,"
remarks Engelmann, "that woman in her natural state is the physical equal
of man, and constantly point to the primitive woman, the female of savage
peoples, as an example of this supposed axiom. Do they know how well this
same savage is aware of the weakness of woman and her
susceptibility at
certain periods of her life? And with what care he
protects her from harm
at these periods? I believe not. The importance of
surrounding women with
certain precautions during the height of these great
functional waves of
her existence was appreciated by all peoples living in an approximately
natural state, by all races at all times; and among
their comparatively
few religious customs this one, affording rest to women, was most
persistently adhered to." It is among the white races alone that the
sexual invalidism of women prevails, and it is the white races alone,
which, outgrowing the religious ideas with which the
menstrual seclusion
of women was associated, have flung away that beneficent seclusion itself,
throwing away the baby with the bath in an almost
literal sense.[28]
In Germany Tobler has investigated the menstrual
histories of
over one thousand women (_Monatsschrift für
Geburtshülfe und
Gynäkologie_, July, 1905). He finds that in the
great majority of
women at the present day menstruation is associated
with
distinct deterioration of the general health, and
diminution of
functional energy. In 26 per cent. local pain,
general malaise,
and mental and nervous anomalies coexisted; in
larger proportion
come the cases in which local pain, general weak
health or
psychic abnormality was experienced alone at this
period. In 16
per cent. only none of these symptoms were
experienced. In a very
small separate group the physical and mental
functions were
stronger during this period, but in half of these
cases there was
distinct disturbance during the intermenstrual
period. Tobler
concludes that, while menstruation itself is
physiological, all
these disturbances are pathological.
As far as England is concerned, at a discussion of
normal and
painful menstruation at a meeting of the British
Association of
Registered Medical Women on the 7th of July, 1908,
it was stated
by Miss Bentham that 50 per cent. of girls in good
position
suffered from painful menstruation. Mrs. Dunnett
said it usually
occurred between the ages of twenty-four and thirty,
being
frequently due to neglect to rest during
menstruation in the
earlier years, and Mrs. Grainger Evans had found
that this
condition was very common among elementary school
teachers who
had worked hard for examinations during early
girlhood.
In America various investigations have been carried
out, showing
the prevalence of disturbance in the sexual health
of school
girls and young women. Thus Dr. Helen P. Kennedy
obtained
elaborate data concerning the menstrual life of one
hundred and
twenty-five high school girls of the average age of
eighteen
("Effect of High School Work upon Girls During
Adolescence,"
_Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1896). Only twenty-
eight felt no
pain during the period; half the total number
experienced
disagreeable symptoms before the period (such as
headache,
malaise, irritability of temper), while forty-four
complained of
other symptoms besides pain during the period
(especially
headache and great weakness). Jane Kelley Sabine
(quoted in
_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, Sept. 15,
1904) found in
New England schools among two thousand girls that 75
per cent.
had menstrual troubles, 90 per cent. had leucorrhoea
and ovarian
neuralgia, and 60 per cent. had to give up work for
two days
during each month. These results seem more than
usually
unfavorable, but are significant, as they cover a
large number of
cases. The conditions in the Pacific States are not
much better.
Dr. Mary Ritter (in a paper read before the
California State
Medical Society in 1903) stated that of 660 Freshmen
girls at the
University of California, 67 per cent. were subject
to menstrual
disorders, 27 per cent. to headaches, 30 per cent.
to backaches,
29 per cent. were habitually constipated, 16 per
cent. had
abnormal heart sounds; only 23 per cent. were free
from
functional disturbances. Dr. Helen MacMurchey, in an
interesting
paper on "Physiological Phenomena Preceding or
Accompanying
Menstruation" (_Lancet_, Oct. 5, 1901), by inquiries among one
hundred medical women, nurses, and women teachers in
Toronto
concerning the presence or absence of twenty-one
different
abnormal menstrual phenomena, found that between 50
and 60 per
cent. admitted that they were liable at this time to
disturbed
sleep, to headache, to mental depression, to
digestive
disturbance, or to disturbance of the special
senses, while about
25 to 50 per cent. were liable to neuralgia, to
vertigo, to
excessive nervous energy, to defective nervous and
muscular
power, to cutaneous hyperæsthesia, to vasomotor
disturbances, to
constipation, to diarrhoea, to increased urination,
to cutaneous
eruption, to increased liability to take cold, or to
irritating
watery discharges before or after the menstrual
discharge. This
inquiry is of much interest, because it clearly
brings out the
marked prevalence at menstruation of conditions
which, though not
necessarily of any gravity, yet definitely indicate
decreased
power of resistance to morbid influences and
diminished
efficiency for work.
How serious an impediment menstrual troubles are to
a woman is
indicated by the fact that the women who achieve
success and fame
seem seldom to be greatly affected by them. To that
we may, in
part, attribute the frequency with which leaders of
the women's
movement have treated menstruation as a thing of no
importance in
a woman's life. Adele Gerhard, and Helene Simon,
also, in their
valuable and impartial work, _Mutterschaft und
Geistige Arbeit_
(p. 312), failed to find, in their inquiries among
women of
distinguished ability, that menstruation was
regarded as
seriously disturbing to work.
Of late the suggestion that adolescent girls shall
not only rest
from work during two days of the menstrual period,
but have an
entire holiday from school during the first year of
sexual life,
has frequently been put forward, both from the
medical and the
educational side. At the meeting of the Association
of Registered
Medical Women, already referred to, Miss Sturge
spoke of the good
results obtained in a school where, during the first
two years
after puberty, the girls were kept in bed for the
first two days
of each menstrual period. Some years ago Dr. G.W.
Cook ("Some
Disorders of Menstruation," _American Journal of
Obstetrics_,
April, 1896), after giving cases in point, wrote:
"It is my
deliberate conviction that no girl should be
confined at study
during the year of her puberty, but she should live
an outdoor
life." In an article on "Alumna's Children," by "An Alumna"
(_Popular Science Monthly_, May, 1904), dealing with
the sexual
invalidism of American women and the severe strain
of motherhood
upon them, the author, though she is by no means
hostile to
education, which is not, she declares, at fault,
pleads for rest
for the pubertal girl. "If the brain claims her
whole vitality,
how can there be any proper development? Just as
very young
children should give all their strength for some
years solely to
physical growth before the brain is allowed to make
any
considerable demands, so at this critical period in
the life of
the woman nothing should obstruct the right of way
of this
important system. A year at the least should be made
especially
easy for her, with neither mental nor nervous
strain; and
throughout the rest of her school days she should
have her
periodical day of rest, free from any study or
overexertion." In
another article on the same subject in the same
journal ("The
Health of American Girls," Sept., 1907), Nellie
Comins Whitaker
advocates a similar course. "I am coming to be
convinced,
somewhat against my wish, that there are many cases
when the girl
ought to be taken out of school entirely for some
months or for a
year _at the period of puberty_." She adds that the chief
obstacle in the way is the girl's own likes and
dislikes, and the
ignorance of her mother who has been accustomed to
think that
pain is a woman's natural lot.
Such a period of rest from mental strain, while it
would fortify
the organism in its resistance to any reasonable
strain later,
need by no means be lost for education in the wider
sense of the
word, for the education required in classrooms is
but a small
part of the education required for life. Nor should
it by any
means be reserved merely for the sickly and delicate
girl. The
tragic part of the present neglect to give girls a
really sound
and fitting education is that the best and finest
girls are
thereby so often ruined. Even the English policeman,
who
admittedly belongs in physical vigor and nervous
balance to the
flower of the population, is unable to bear the
strain of his
life, and is said to be worn out in twenty-five
years. It is
equally foolish to submit the finest flowers of
girlhood to a
strain which is admittedly too severe.
It seems to be clear that the main factor in the common sexual and general
invalidism of girls and young women is bad hygiene, in the first place
consisting in neglect of the menstrual functions and in the second place
in faulty habits generally. In all the more essential
matters that concern
the hygiene of the body the traditions of girls--and
this seems to be more
especially the case in the Anglo-Saxon countries--are
inferior to those of
youths. Women are much more inclined than men to
subordinate these things
to what seems to them some more urgent interest or fancy of the moment;
they are trained to wear awkward and constricting
garments, they are
indifferent to regular and substantial meals, preferring innutritious and
indigestible foods and drinks; they are apt to disregard the demands of
the bowels and the bladder out of laziness or modesty; they are even
indifferent to physical cleanliness.[29] In a great
number of minor ways,
which separately may seem to be of little importance,
they play into the
hands of an environment which, not always having been
adequately adjusted
to their special needs, would exert a considerable
stress and strain even
if they carefully sought to guard themselves against it.
It has been found
in an American Women's College in which about half the scholars wore
corsets and half not, that nearly all the honors and
prizes went to the
non-corset-wearers. McBride, in bringing forward this
fact, pertinently
remarks, "If the wearing of a single style of dress will make this
difference in the lives of young women, and that, too, in their most
vigorous and resistive period, how much difference will a score of
unhealthy habits make, if persisted in for a life-
time?"[30]
"It seems evident," A.E. Giles concludes ("Some Points of
Preventive Treatment in the Diseases of Women," _The Hospital_,
April 10, 1897) "that dysmenorrhoea might be to a large extent
prevented by attention to general health and
education. Short
hours of work, especially of standing; plenty of
outdoor
exercise--tennis, boating, cycling, gymnastics, and
walking for
those who cannot afford these; regularity of meals
and food of
the proper quality--not the incessant tea and bread
and butter
with variation of pastry; the avoidance of
overexertion and
prolonged fatigue; these are some of the principal
things which
require attention. Let girls pursue their study, but
more
leisurely; they will arrive at the same goal, but a
little
later." The benefit of allowing free movement and exercise to the
whole body is undoubtedly very great, both as
regards the sexual
and general physical health and the mental balance;
in order to
insure this it is necessary to avoid heavy and
constricting
garments, more especially around the chest, for it
is in
respiratory power and chest expansion more than in
any other
respect that girls fall behind boys (see, e.g.,
Havelock Ellis,
_Man and Woman_, Ch. IX). In old days the great
obstacle to the
free exercise of girls lay in an ideal of feminine
behavior which
involved a prim restraint on every natural movement
of the body.
At the present day that ideal is not so fervently
preached as of
old, but its traditional influence still to some
extent persists,
while there is the further difficulty that adequate
time and
opportunity and encouragement are by no means
generally afforded
to girls for the cultivation and training of the
romping
instincts which are really a serious part of
education, for it is
by such free exercise of the whole body that the
neuro-muscular