Читать книгу The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother - George H. Napheys - Страница 10

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This has been a matter of careful study by physicians. They have collected great numbers of observations, and have reached this conclusion: In the middle portion of the temperate zone, the average age when the first period appears in healthy girls is fourteen years and six months. If it occurs more than six months later or earlier than this, then it is likely something is wrong, or, at least, the case is exceptional.

Exceptional cases, where this average is widely departed from in apparently perfect health, are rare. But they do occur. We have known instances where the solicitude of parents has been excited by the long delay of this constitutional change, and others in which it has taken place at an almost tender age, without causing any perceptible injury to the general health.

There is an instance recorded, on good authority, where a French child but three years old underwent all the physical changes incident to puberty, and grew to be a healthy woman. But what children can surpass the American in precocity? This French child-woman is quite left in the shade by one described in a recent number of a western medical journal, who from her birth had regular monthly changes, and the full physical development which marks the perfect woman!

Thus, sometimes, a wide deviation from the average age we have stated occurs, without having any serious meaning. Yet at no time is such a deviation to be neglected. In nine out of ten instances it is owing to some fault in the constitution, the health, or formation, which should be ascertained and corrected. Otherwise years of broken health and mental misery may be the sad results. Mothers, teachers, it is with you this responsibility rests. The thousands of wretched wives, who owe their wretchedness to a neglect of proper attention at this turning-point of their lives, warn you how serious is this responsibility.

The foundation of old age, says a distinguished author, is laid in childhood; but the health of middle-life depends upon puberty. Never was there a truer maxim. The two years which change the girl to the woman often seal for ever the happiness or the hopeless misery of her whole life. They decide whether she is to become a healthy, helpful, cheerful wife and mother, or a languid, complaining invalid, to whom marriage is a curse, children an affliction, and life itself a burden.

We reiterate our warning: Mothers, teachers, you to whom children are confided at this crisis of their lives, look well to it that you appreciate, understand, and observe the duties you have assumed. Let no false modesty prevent you from learning and enforcing those precautions, so necessary at this period of life.