The Education of American Girls Part 15

Among the conditions, therefore, which may, by inducing either pain or excessive haemorrhage, render menstruation an abnormal process, and incompatible with active exertion, three are directly connected with the ganglionic system of nerves, the fourth indirectly, by the possible influence upon them of the cerebro-spinal. The first are excessive activity of the ovarian nerves, derived from the hypogastric plexus; paralysis of uterine vaso-motor nerves, as a secondary result of this excessive action: exhaustion of these same vaso-motor nerves, as an element of general nervous exhaustion. The last theoretical condition would be, excitement of the brain or spinal cord, in a manner a.n.a.logous to what may be determined by a galvanic current, and followed, therefore, by the same consequence--paralysis of vaso-motor nerves, and excessive dilatation of the blood-vessels.

The two first conditions among these four are most easily induced when the activity of the ganglionic system is habitually predominant in the organism, or when this activity is habitually irregular. This irregularity, marked by vaso-motor spasm, uterine cramp, and pain, represents the lowest degree of disorder, which, if long continued, pa.s.ses to the next--of vaso-motor paralysis, accompanied by excessive haemorrhage; and finally may, as Dr. Clarke has pointed out, be followed by paralysis in the ovarian plexus itself, with consequent cessation of ovulation, and amenorrhea, or absence of menstruation.

This habitual predominance or irregularity of the ganglionic nerves implies, as has been seen, a relatively deficient innervation or generation of nerve-force in the cerebro-spinal system. It could not, therefore, be ascribed to excessive activity of that system, except in the cases where this has been pushed to the point of complete exhaustion. It is, in fact, a matter of common observation, that hysterical and anemic women, in whom disordered menstruation is most frequently observed, are conspicuously dest.i.tute of habits implying either cerebral or spinal activity--that is, they neither think much, nor take much physical exercise.

The last two cases, however, of cerebro-spinal excitement or exhaustion, may be supposed to imply a predominant activity of the cerebro-spinal system.

Inquiry into the effects of cerebro-spinal excitement is rendered extremely complicated on account of the following facts:

1st. Experimental excitation, by means of galvanism or mechanical irritation, causes different results when applied to spinal nerves, to different parts of the spinal cord, or to different parts of the brain.

Galvanism applied to a spinal nerve, determines, it has been said, dilatation of blood-vessels, and increased secretion in glands. But galvanism applied to the spinal cord in the neck, causes contraction of blood-vessels. Mechanical irritation of other parts of the spinal cord, on the other hand, causes vaso-motor paralysis and dilatation of blood-vessels. This is especially true of that part lying in the loins, and which contains a peculiar nervous centre, that stands in special relation to the uterus and ovaries, and is involved in many of their diseases, either as a cause or effect. Systematic galvanic irritation of the brain has been little attempted, until in some very recent experiments; but its effects are already known to be most various, according to the part to which it is applied. The brain is not a single organ, but rather a collection of organs, differing from one another in function even more than in situation, and among them only some are really concerned in the production of thought.

2d. In the medulla oblongata exists a nervous centre called the vaso-motor centre, because of its close relations with the vaso-motor nerves. Stimulation of this centre causes contraction of the blood-vessels. Severing the same part causes paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves and dilatation of the blood-vessels. The conditions of the brain that have been most clearly shown to influence the circulation, are those that can be proved to take an effect on this vaso-motor centre.

If, as is probable, different forms of cerebral action induce or depend on different cerebral conditions, or involve different sections of the cranial ma.s.ses, this effect would necessarily be different, and the influence on the circulation vary accordingly.

3d. No experimental proof has. .h.i.therto been obtained that stimulation of the cerebral organs lying above the vaso-motor centre, and which include those possessing the function of thought, ever paralyzes this centre; but, as it is only by such paralysis that cerebral conditions can induce dilatation of blood-vessels, it must follow that no _experimental proof_ at present exists that stimulation of the brain ever does cause such dilatation--that is, ever does become a cause of haemorrhage. The _clinical_ facts for such a supposition are those in which the occurrence of an emotion is followed by flus.h.i.+ng of the face, acceleration of the pulse, hot or cold perspirations, phenomena all indicative of dilatation of the blood-vessels, with temporary paralysis of their nerves and of their vaso-motor centre. It is not proved, however, that the emotions capable of causing these effects really result from a stimulation of the brain. On the contrary, they are generally accompanied by diminished activity of that cerebral function that most certainly does depend on such stimulation--the function, namely, of thought.

Now, since the power of thought and the power of the vaso-motor centre are equally paralyzed under these circ.u.mstances, it is more probable that the phenomena which most nearly resemble those of stimulation of the brain are either confined to some special part of it, whose activity is in antagonism to the rest, or else are really phenomena of exhaustion, and therefore come under another category. But if these do not, no facts exist to prove that stimulation of the intellectual functions of the brain is in itself capable of producing vaso-motor paralysis--that is, of becoming a cause of haemorrhage; or, in other words, stimulation of the brain cannot be likened in its effect to galvanic stimulation of a spinal nerve. But if stimulation of the brain does not paralyze, it must increase the tonicity of the vaso-motor centre, and hence the force and regularity of the circulation. Up to a certain point, these characters do indeed increase, with increase of pressure in the cerebral blood-vessels. They increase also during intellectual operations, unattended by emotion, in which a similar increase of pressure must take place, on account of the afflux of blood to the cerebral hemispheres, when these are aroused to activity.

These facts already indicate a radical difference between the nature of the cerebral actions involved in emotion and in thought. From them also we should infer in all cases where vaso-motor paralysis was apparently traceable to excess of cerebral activity, either _that exhaustion had already occurred, or that the activity was not intellectual but emotional_. In the first case, we should be immediately brought to our fourth possible condition for uterine haemorrhage, dependent on modifications of the cerebro-spinal system. It is admitted, as the result of many experiments and pathological observations that need not here be quoted, that exhaustion of certain parts of the brain and spinal cord may induce vaso-motor paralysis, and that, if a cause for haemorrhage is already in operation, a pa.s.sive flow of blood may be indefinitely increased. Such a course is the menstrual crisis, without which even the vaso-motor paralysis is usually unable to determine uterine haemorrhage.[40] In connection with it, physical exercise, pushed to the point of exhausting the spinal cord, and the peculiar centre in its lumbar portion, or mental effort so excessive and prolonged as to exhaust the brain, and the general vaso-motor centre, might become causes of menorrhagia.

It is evident, however, that if such exhaustion had been produced previous to the menstrual epoch, the effect would be precisely the same as if the morbific causes operated only at the time of menstruation.

From this point of view the precaution suggested by Dr. Clarke, of intermitting intellectual effort during the menstrual period, would be inadequate whenever it was not superfluous. But in Dr. Clarke's theory this period has a peculiar influence in rendering morbific conditions that at other times are innocuous. This, in virtue of the law already quoted, that the evolution of force at one centre of the nervous system is incompatible with an evolution of equal intensity at another, since it diminishes the sum of resources distributed to the nervous system as a whole. Hence, relatively to the amount of power left in the brain, the same exertion becomes very much more fatiguing, and may easily lead to exhaustion with all its consequences.

Nothing seems more simple than this proposition when thus stated. But all physiological problems are complicated by the element of quant.i.ty--circ.u.mstance which almost indefinitely limits our power of making absolute a.s.sertions. The comparison already made between the process of digestion and that of menstruation should suffice to show that there is no absolute incompatibility between the evolution of nerve force at the ganglionic centres and at the cerebro-spinal. For if so the process of digestion would necessitate such absolute torpor of the brain and spinal cord as certainly would be quite incompatible with the exigencies of civilized life. There is a certain alternation between the periods of activity of the two systems, but this varies in infinite gradation; from the digestive torpor of the savage, a.n.a.logous to that of ruminating animals, up to the unconscious digestion of healthy men of temperate habits and marked intellectual and physical activity, to whom all hours of the day are nearly equally suitable for exertion. As previously said, up to a certain point, the incompatibility diminishes with every increase in the development of the cerebral system.

But again, the evolution of nerve force required by ovulation should not normally be comparable in intensity with that effected in cerebral or spinal action. Whenever it is so the activity of the ganglionic system must be in excess, or that of the cerebro-spinal system must be deficient. It is true that among the women of highly civilized societies, one or both of these conditions very frequently exist, but it is then as truly abnormal as is the dyspepsia and spleen--equally prevalent.

Although, for certain purposes, it is necessary to consider the ganglionic and cerebro-spinal system together, as parts of a single apparatus, it is important also to remember the boundaries that lie between them. It is much easier, by intense muscular exertion, that necessitates evolution of force in the spinal cord, to render the brain incapable of function, than to do so by intense action of the ganglionic nerves, whose connection with the brain, though real, is much less direct. Were it not so, life would be much more precarious than it is, and advance in civilization impossible; because the necessarily incessant activity of the nerves involved in nutritive processes would too largely impair the action of the brain. The effect on the brain of a really irresistible and predominant activity of the nerves involved in the reproductive organs, is to be studied in the lower animals, and in phenomena that, fortunately, are rarely to be observed in healthy individuals of the human race. Still less can such confessedly morbid predominance be considered as a peculiar liability of the female s.e.x in this race. A singular tendency exists in many quarters, and is strongly manifested in Dr. Clarke's book, to a.s.sume that considerations pertaining to s.e.x and to the functions of reproduction exercise such an enormous influence upon one s.e.x, and none at all upon the other. Since the discovery in 1827 of the ovule or female reproductive cell, there can be no question of the complete physiological equivalence and a.n.a.logy between the essential organs of reproduction in the two s.e.xes. The period of their development, the influence of such development on the entire nutrition of the body, the irregularities of nutritive or of cerebro-spinal action, that may be caused by irregularities in such development, are also completely a.n.a.logous. It is only the organ of gestation that is peculiar to the female--the organ of maternity--the function that, although resulting from s.e.x, transcends s.e.x and belongs to the race. In a double sense is the uterus secondary to the ovaries.[41] For its physiological action, both in menstruation and in pregnancy, is the direct consequence of ovarian functions, and closely dependent upon them; and the period of its prominent activity does not come until after the action of the ovaries has been completely established; that is, the period of maternity is, or should be, consecutive to the period of adolescence, and the work of gestation only entered upon when the work of ovulation has long been thoroughly accomplished.

The a.n.a.logies have been much overstrained that exist between the menstrual epoch of an adolescent girl and the pregnancy of an adult woman. They are ill.u.s.trations of a general physiological law that in some cases might be called a caprice of nature, in virtue of which the rudiments of a process that is to be effected at a future epoch are sketched out during an epoch already existing. The afflux of blood to the uterus during the rupture of the ovisac, cannot be shown to be useful by any effort of teleological physiologists. It predicts, however, the afflux that will be necessary at a future pregnancy, in precisely the same way as the growth of the lungs in the foetus predicts the future necessity for respiration, or the formation of ovules in the ovaries of the newborn girl, predicts the future necessity of a reproductive apparatus. But to impose on the girl the precautions necessary to the mother, is one way to enfeeble and prematurely age her.

In the same way is the child enfeebled by premature considerations in regard to s.e.x that do not yet exist, and the adult woman so often treated as old as soon as she has borne children, which should be a proof not of age, but of maturity.

From the preceding considerations we may, we think, conclude:

1st. That unless the brain and spinal cord _had been already exhausted or on the point of exhaustion previous to the menstrual_ crisis, this alone would be insufficient to exhaust them.

2d. That the degree of exhaustion in the cerebro-spinal system, necessary to determine vaso-motor paralysis, is very great, and much transcends that likely to be induced by the mental exertion required in the ordinary curriculum of a girl's school.

3d. That therefore, when vaso-motor paralysis, as indicated by uterine haemorrhage, has occurred apparently in consequence of such mental exertion, it is really due to some other conditions existing with this.

Of these we have already insisted upon two--sedentary position and deficiency of physical exercise.

Authors have less frequently a.n.a.lyzed the effects of another circ.u.mstance so often accompanying the intellectual exertions of school life, namely, the morbid emotional excitement that is incident either to the period of adolescence or to the injudicious educational _regime_. To precisely appreciate these effects, it will be necessary to push a little further the a.n.a.lysis already commenced, of the mode of activity exhibited by different portions of the brain during the evolution of thought or of emotion.

Among all the obscurities that overhang this subject, a few facts are, nevertheless, demonstrated. The first that concerns us is the existence of the vaso-motor centre, whose situation and functions have been already described. The second is the localization of the function of thought in the circ.u.mvolutions of gray matter on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres--fact that we have already a.s.sumed to be sufficiently demonstrated. The third cla.s.s of facts include those, also insisted upon, that indicate a peculiar influence of the emotions upon the circulation and the vaso-motor nerves. In some cases these are stimulated, and the blood-vessels spasmodically contract, the cheek pales, the hands and feet grow cold, chills creep down the back--even nausea may occur from interference with the circulation of the brain; or else the cheek flushes, the temples throb, the heart beats more rapidly, when, from temporary paralysis of these same nerves, the blood-vessels are suddenly dilated.

These phenomena indicate that either the anatomical seat or the mode of generation of emotion, is in closer connection with the cerebral vaso-motor centre than is the seat of ideas.

From this positive stand-point we may be permitted to cautiously venture a little further, in the direction of a theory for the precise localization of the organs of emotion.

It is well known that at the base of the brain are collected certain ma.s.ses of nervous matter, that const.i.tute nervous centres or cerebral ganglia, that are in very intimate connection, on the one hand, with nerves of special sense, as the optic[42] and olfactory,[43] on the other with nerves of general sensation and motion.[44] To this intricate part of the brain, these centres, converge the nerve-fibres collected in the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, and from them radiate other fibres that pursue a divergent course, and finally terminate in the gray matter of the cerebral hemispheres. Thus, the brute impressions brought from the periphery of the body, are conveyed to special foci of concentration, thence to be transmitted to the gray matter at the surface of the brain, and become material for thought. Conversely, impulses generated in the nerve-cells devoted to the elaboration of thought, pa.s.s through these same intermediate stations before they acquire sufficient consistency to affect the motor-nerves, and, through them, the muscular osseous apparatus of the body. Before a sensory impression can become a thought, or a voluntary impulse express itself by motion, each must be converged toward these centres, whence it afterwards radiates, along divergent fibres, directed now above, to the surface of the brain, now below, on a longer course, to the surface of the body.

Luys has suggested, therefore, that these intermediate stations of cerebral organs const.i.tute peculiar centres in which crude nervous impressions sustain a primary elaboration before pa.s.sing to the surface of the brain. Further, that the generation of emotions, which differs in so many respects from that of ideas, is especially connected with these centres as distinguished from the cerebral hemispheres lying above them.

This idea is based on the following facts:

1st. The nervous ma.s.ses in question are well developed in animals in whom the cerebral hemispheres, or organs of intellection, are comparatively rudimentary; and in these same animals, while little or no capacity for abstract reasoning exists, the instincts and feelings attain individuality and intensity.

2d. The emotions stand in much closer relation to sensation and movement, than do the operations of thought. The latter, indeed, necessitate immobility, and, if sufficiently intense, diminish the power of sensation; they seem to indicate a concentration of nervous action upon organs unconnected with motility or sensibility. On the contrary, movements of some kind are the first result of emotions, of which each is expressed by a characteristic gesture, and these increase in violence with the intensity of the feeling. A powerful emotion, as well as an absorbing thought, may, it is true, annihilate or transform sensation; but this is explicable by the fact that the strongest emotions are excited by ideas. Hence, on the hypothesis, the impression radiating downwards to the emotional centres from the cerebral hemispheres, would counteract a sensory impression radiating upwards from them, by a literal interference a.n.a.logous to that observed in opposing waves of sound. But as the direction of the impression generating emotion coincides with that of the motor impulses, the latter would not be counteracted, but reinforced.

3d. Conversely, sensations of various kinds, transmitted to these centres from different parts of the body, are as effective as ideas in generating or modifying emotional conditions--often, indeed, much more so. The hypochondria of the ancients, the dyspeptic melancholia of the moderns, the infinite varieties of hysterical sensibility, are all well-known ill.u.s.trations of this undisputed fact. The elastic consciousness of well-being that emboldens the volition of certain individuals, as distinguished from the timid apprehensiveness that constantly depresses the powers of others, is connected, not with any view of external conditions appreciable by the intellect, but with a vast mult.i.tude of vague bodily sensations, of which each alone fails to make a distinct impression upon consciousness.

4th. An impression made on one part of the sympathetic system is easily communicated to another, and to the ganglionic ma.s.ses of the visceral plexuses, already described. Hence the rapid effect of many emotions upon the processes of digestion; hence the epigastric response to the emotion of fear, which led b.i.+.c.hat to localize this feeling in the solar plexus lying behind the stomach. In a precisely similar manner may the effect of emotion be distributed to the ganglionic nerves of the kidneys, uterus, and ovaries, leading to the flow of urine that terminates a paroxysm of hysteria, often suppressing menstruation, by contraction of uterine blood vessels, or causing an excess of menstrual haemorrhage, from an excessive excitement of the ovarian nerves during the menstrual crisis. None of these effects are observed after a simple act of thinking, unattended by emotion.

5th. Probably on account of such an influence upon the vaso-motor nerves, the blood vessels, and, consequently, the processes of nutrition, the evolution of emotions is attended with much greater fatigue than is that of thought. The fatigue that may follow a prolonged intellectual operation is, moreover, distinctly localized in the head, and exists in various degrees, from simple inability for further attention, to decided sensation of weariness, or even pain. But the fatigue experienced after excessive emotion, especially if this be of a depressing character and accompanied by tears (which imply vaso-motor paralysis in the lachrymal glands), is generalized all over the body, and is, moreover, very much more often followed by headache, or by symptoms of cerebral congestion or anemia, than is the act of thinking, except in persons morbidly predisposed. When nervous exhaustion is observed after prolonged mental effort, one of two other conditions, or both, has nearly always co-existed, namely, deficiency of physical exercise, or presence of active emotion, as, ardent ambitions or hara.s.sing anxieties. In a few cases, the mental effort itself, by the afflux of blood determined to the brain, or the excessive activity imposed upon its elements, becomes an efficient cause of disease. But in these cases there is either an original imperfection in the organization of the nerve tissues, or the mental effort has been of that exceptionally intense nature of which none but a few minds are capable.

Finally, in these cases, the resulting disease is seated in the brain or spinal column.

This latter remark is of great importance for our purpose; for it tends to show that diseases produced elsewhere within the range of the ganglionic system of nerves--as the menstrual haemorrhage, that we are especially considering--must be due to some other nervous act than that of thought.

From the foregoing considerations, we believe, may be again inferred, first, that the radical difference which exists between the cerebral operations that result in thought, and those that accompany the evolution of emotion, probably depends upon the fact, that in the former central nervous action remains more or less localized on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, while, in the latter, the great ganglia lying at the base of the brain, and hence nearer the vaso-motor centre, are called into play; second, that the effects of such action are more rapidly generalized throughout the nervous system, and, by causing the dilatation of the blood-vessels in the manner described, exhaust the central nervous system in a twofold manner, by a disturbance of its circulation, and by a direct depression of its nutrition, when the modifications of the circulation exaggerate the nutrition elsewhere.

Repeated excitement and consecutive paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves, therefore, serve as the most efficient means of draining off the force of the cerebro-spinal nervous system. And it has been seen, that a depression of its power is followed by an exaggerated and irregular activity of the ganglionic system, to which are due most of the phenomena observed in hysteria and in ordinarily nervous women. These are in many respects different from those observed in men suffering from so-called nervous debility, for the reason, that in them the ganglionic system of nerves is less prominent, and its irregularities of action therefore less marked, when the control exercised by the cerebro-spinal system has been diminished. If the vaso-motor centre of the brain is only influenced when the ganglia at the base are called into activity, and if their activity coincides with emotion, and not with thought, whose organ is much more remote, in the cerebral hemispheres, it should follow that emotion, and not thought, should most easily influence the vaso-motor centre, and be followed by peculiar modifications of the ganglionic system and of the circulation. This supposition is confirmed by the occurrence of many vaso-motor phenomena that commonly follow emotion, but are rarely observed after even prolonged thought. It is not, therefore, stimulation of the intellect, but excitement of the feelings, that can be shown from physiological data to have an injurious effect upon the vaso-motor nerves of the uterus, or the ganglionic nerves of the ovaries, or, in other words, can be concerned in the production of uterine haemorrhage. To be just, however, it must be admitted, that still another view is possible. For it might be affirmed: first, that in women communication of impressions between different parts of the nervous system was so rapid, that the limitation of activity to a particular part of the brain was impossible; in other words, that the distinction between thought and emotion was effaced, because any action set up at the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, invariably called the emotional centres into play; or, second, it might be said, that the original organization of the cerebral tissues in women was so imperfect, that a slight amount of activity was sufficient to exhaust them, and hence become a cause of haemorrhage by the mechanism previously described.

Neither of these a.s.sertions is made by Dr. Clarke, but it is certain that one or both of them might be made in regard to a large number of women. To these, however, severe intellectual exertion would be injurious, not only if performed during the week of menstruation, but if performed at all. Nervous excitement during the inter-menstrual period, is quite as likely to be followed by pain or excessive haemorrhage at the next menstruation, as if it had been sustained at the critical epoch itself. Nature generally provides for a portion of this contingency, by rendering such women little capable of mental exertion, and little ambitious for it. But, though they be kept in the most complete intellectual quiescence, the condition of these unfortunates is scarcely improved. Withdrawn from the serene and powerful movement of intellectual life, they are left to all the agitations of their ganglionic nerves; impressions, unfelt by others, raise storms of feeling in them, that actually ravage their nervous system; efforts that but slightly fatigue stronger organizations, are completely exhausting to theirs; health, indeed, is only possible to them while they may be sheltered from exposure, saved from exertion, and carefully screened from excitement and shock.

The method, therefore, suggested by Dr. Clarke for enabling young girls to master Latin and Greek without sacrifice of their health, seems to us to be addressed to the wrong element in the group of supposed causes.

In the cases related by Dr. Clarke, there is nothing to show that the menorrhagia was occasioned by study during the week of menstruation, rather than during the three weeks that preceded it. Nor that even then, the true cause of disease was to be found in the intellectual exertion of mastering the school text-books, rather than in the moral excitement due to compet.i.tion, haste, and cramming, or the close confinement necessitated by prolonged school hours, and unhealthy sedentary habits out of school.

The complexity of causation in such instances may be well ill.u.s.trated by the following case, that I select on account of its great resemblance to the type described by Dr. Clarke.

A young girl of sixteen consulted me on account of menstrual haemorrhage so excessive as to induce complete exhaustion, bordering upon syncope.

She had menstruated for two years--during the first, in quite a normal manner--but during the second, had become subject to these menorrhagic accidents, since residence at boarding-school. It would have been easy to decide that the disturbance was directly due to the severity of the mental efforts exacted by the _regime_ of the school. But on further inquiry it appeared: first, that the mother of the girl had always been subject to menorrhagia, and it is well known that this often occurs exclusively as the result of hereditary predisposition. Second, that just before the entrance to school, and the disturbance of menstruation, the girl had been living in a malarial district, and had suffered from malarial infection, which is again a frequent cause of menorrhagia.

Third, that the studies pursued at school were unusually rudimentary for a girl of sixteen, and indeed, below the natural capacity of her intelligence, had this been properly trained. But the hours of study were so ill-arranged, that the pupils were kept over their books, or at the piano, nearly all day, and even in the intervals allowed for recreation, no exercise was enforced. It was therefore frequently neglected, and the girl, with hereditary predisposition to menorrhagia, increased by malarial infection, and also by certain rheumatic tendencies, was allowed to expend upon elementary text-books an amount of time, attention, and nervous energy, that would have been deemed excessive for the most valuable intellectual pursuits.

All physicians are aware of the frequent dependence of menorrhagia upon anemia, not only acquired, but congenital. The existence of anemia, or of an imperfect elaboration of the blood and vascular system, previous to the occurrence of the first menstruation, is a possible condition of menstrual disorder that must always be very carefully eliminated before any other cause be a.s.signed. It is, moreover, extremely frequent. Others exist, but are more rare--as peculiar congenital predisposition to haemorrhages, with or without true hemophilia[45].

With such causes (anemia, rheumatism, malarial infection, hereditary predisposition), the observance of rest during the menstrual week would be quite ineffectual so long as the _regime_ of the other three weeks remain uselessly unhygienic. If the menstrual crisis finds the uterine blood-vessels already deprived of tonicity through nervous exhaustion or other cause, haemorrhage is as likely to occur as if that tonicity were only exhausted at the epoch of menstruation. In the cases described by Dr. Clarke, the cure was effected, when at all, not by an intermittence of study, which does not seem to have been tried, but by its complete cessation, together with that of all the conditions by which it was accompanied.

Again, therefore, it may be said, that wherever such intermittence is not superfluous, it would be inadequate for the purpose for which it is designed.

But this conclusion may seem to be much more severe, and, to those interested in the education of girls, much more disagreeable than that formulated by Dr. Clarke. We firmly believe, however, that truth never can be disagreeable when it is really understood in all its bearings and all its consequences, and conversely, that any proposition framed with a view to supposed desirableness rather than veracity, is almost certain to lead in the end to consequences quite undesirable. We will not, therefore, try to decide whether it may be more agreeable to believe that the health of adolescent girls requires general and permanent supervision, or that all responsibility may be discharged by confining them to a sofa and a novel for one week out of every four; to believe that a certain number of women, as of men, are always unfit for intellectual exertion, or that all women are inevitably rendered so unfit during one quarter of their lives at times unknown to outsiders, and which, therefore, may be at any time; to believe that the increased delicacy of women in civilized societies depends on a cultivated predominance of their ganglionic nervous system and emotional functions, or on the excessive stimulus of the cerebro-spinal system and on intellectual cultivation.

More useful than such discussion is the consideration of the methods that might be proposed, instead of that suggested by Dr. Clarke in the third proposition we have formulated from his book. Dr. Clarke's method is to provide regular intermittences in the education of girls, "conceding to Nature her moderate but inexorable demand for rest, during one week out of four." The method that we believe to be suggested by the foregoing considerations would be more complex, but, we think, at once more effectual and less inconvenient. It may be stated in the following formula: "Secure the predominance of the cerebro-spinal system over the activity of the ganglionic." Since the activity of the cerebro-spinal system may be roughly[46] divided into a twofold direction, intellectual and muscular, this predominance is to be secured by a.s.siduous cultivation of the intellect as compared with the emotions, and of the muscles of the limbs as compared with the muscular fibre of the blood-vessels. In other words, the evil effects of school compet.i.tion, and of the emotional excitement natural to adolescence, are to be combated by a larger, wider, slower, and more complete intellectual education than at present falls to the lot of either boys or girls. And the dangers incident to the development of new activity in the ganglionic nervous system by the functions of the ovaries, the dangers of irregular circulation, vaso-motor spasm and paralysis, are to be averted by systematic physical exercise, that shall stimulate the spinal nerves, quicken the external circulation, and favor the development of muscles at the moment that their activity threatens to be overpowered.

The effect of systematic training on the spinal nervous system, and on the bones and muscles dependent upon it, has been often enough described. Far less attention has been given to the equally positive development that can be secured for the brain, under the influence of prolonged and systematic exercise of its functions. An immense increase of functional capacity is possible, even without marked anatomical alteration; but even this is observed under circ.u.mstances that seem to indicate that it is rather the effect than the cause of changes in function. Retzius (Muller's Archives, 1845, p. 89[47]) observes that the female cranium varies in size much more than the male: "Female crania of the higher and middle cla.s.ses are in general much smaller relatively than is the case among the peasants, a fact which probably depends on the different mode of life and occupation. The skull of the Norway female peasants is as large and strong as that of the men." Welcker himself makes a somewhat a.n.a.logous observation in regard to the crania of different races, the differences between the s.e.xes being more marked in proportion to the civilization of the race--that is, to the degree of specialization of education, and mental occupation. He gives the following table:

CRANIAL CAPACITY.

WOMAN. MAN.