Читать книгу The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother - George H. Napheys - Страница 19

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Concerning the maladies of puberty, we may broadly say, that if we are obliged to have recourse to medicine, it is because we have neglected hygiene. That the period requires assiduous care, we grant; but given that care, drugs will be needless.

In a general way, we have already emphasized the danger of indolence and the benefits of exercise or labor; the perils of exciting the emotions, and the advantages of a placid disposition; the impropriety of premature development, and the wisdom of simplicity and moderation. This is an old story—a thrice-told tale. Let us go more into minutiæ.

One of the most frequent causes of disease, about the age of puberty, is starvation. Many a girl is starved to death. Food is given her, but not of the right quality, or in insufficient quantity, or at improper hours. The system is not nourished, and, becoming feeble, it is laid open to the attacks of disease, and to no form of disease more readily than to consumption.

To correct this, let the food be varied, simply prepared, and abundant. Good fresh milk should be used daily, while tea and coffee should be withheld. Fat meats and vegetable oils, generally disliked by girls at this age, are exactly what they need; and were they partaken of more freely, there would be less inquiry at the druggists for cod-liver oil.

A modern writer of eminence lays it down as one of the most common causes of consumption in young people, that just at the age when their physical system is undergoing such important changes, that invaluable article of diet, milk, is generally dropped, and nothing equally rich in nitrogen substituted in its place.

Exercise, whether as games, the skipping rope, croquet, walking, dancing, riding, and calisthenics, or as regular labor, is highly beneficial, especially when it leads one into the fresh air, the sunshine, and the country. A particular kind of exercise is to be recommended for those whose chests are narrow, whose shoulders stoop, and who have a hereditary predisposition to consumption. If it is systematically practised along with other means of health, we would guarantee any child, no matter how many relatives have died of this disease, against its invasion. It is voluntary inspiration. Nothing is more simple. Let her stand erect, throw the shoulders well back, and the hands behind; then let her slowly inhale pure air to the full capacity of the lungs, and retain it a few seconds by an increased effort; then it may be slowly exhaled. After one or two natural inspirations, let her repeat the act, and so on for ten or fifteen minutes, twice daily. Not only is this simple procedure a safeguard against consumption, but, in the opinion of some learned physicians, it can even cure it when it has already commenced.

At first the monthly loss of blood exhausts the system. Therefore, plenty of food, plenty of rest, plenty of sleep, are required. That ancient prejudice in favour of early rising should be discarded now, and the girl should retire early, and if she will, should sleep late. Hard study, care, or anxiety should be spared her. This is not the time for rigid discipline.

Clothing is a matter of importance, and, if we were at all sure of attention, there is much we would say of it. The thought seriously troubles us, that so long as women consent to deform themselves and sacrifice their health to false ideas of beauty, it is almost hopeless to urge their fitness for, and their right to a higher life than they now enjoy. No educated painter or sculptor is ignorant of what the model of female beauty is; no fashionable woman is content unless she departs from it as far as possible.

Now beauty implies health, and ugliness of form is attained not only at the expense of æsthetics, but of comfort. The custom of fastening growing girls in tight corsets, of flattening their breasts with pads, of distorting their feet in small high-heeled shoes, and of teaching them to stoop and mince in gait, is calculated to disgust every observer of good sense and taste, and, what is of more consequence, to render these girls, when they become women, more liable to every species of suffering connected with child-bearing.

The monthly change is the prelude to maternity. On its healthful recurrence depends present comfort and future health; and not these alone, but also happiness in marriage, easy child-beds, and the constitution of children to a degree the thoughtless girl and even the mature woman rarely understand. She, therefore, who neglects the due care of her own condition, violates a duty owed to others as well as herself. We would have mothers impress this on their daughters. Let no mistaken modesty prevent them.

Especially at their commencement should the monthly changes be carefully watched. The mother should prepare her daughter's mind betimes for such an expected incident in her life, thus preventing a useless fright, or the employment of injurious means to stop what the child may look upon as an accident.

Nor should the maternal care cease here. Such tender sympathy should exist on the one side, such trusting confidence on the other, that the mother should acquaint herself with every detail of each recurring period until the function is thoroughly established. She should inquire into the duration of each epoch, the abundance of the discharge, the presence of pain, and its effects on the general health. She should convince herself that all these do not vary from the standards of health we have previously laid down. Or should they do so, she should not delay to use the proper means to bring them to that standard.

Long observation proves that if, during the first two or three years which follow the attainment of puberty, the health of the girl is successfully guarded, and this, her most important physical distinction, meets with no derangement, her life-long health is well-nigh secured; but, on the contrary, if she commences her sexual life with pain and disorder, she is likely to be a life-long sufferer.

We are about to approach a topic of vital importance, therefore, in summing up as briefly as may be, the precautions necessary to attain this end. They can most conveniently be divided into those to be observed during the monthly changes, and those more general rules of health to be obeyed in the intervals of the periods.