I am quite persuaded,
indeed, that the development of a nervous temperament is one of the many
race-changes which are also giving us facial, vocal, and other
peculiarities derived from none of our ancestral stocks. If, as I
believe, this change of temperament in a people coming largely from the
phlegmatic races is to be seen most remarkably in the more nervous sex,
it will not surprise us that it should be fostered by many causes which
are fully within our own control. Given such a tendency, disease will
find in it a ready prey, want of exercise will fatally increase it, and
all the follies of fashion will aid in the work of ruin.
While a part of the mischief lies with climatic conditions which are
utterly mysterious, the obstacles to physical exercise, arising from
extremes of temperature, constitute at least one obvious cause of ill
health among women in our country. The great heat of summer, and the
slush and ice of winter, interfere with women who wish to take exercise,
but whose arrangements to go out-of-doors involve wonderful changes of
dress and an amount of preparation appalling to the masculine creature.
The time taken for the more serious instruction of girls extends to the
age of nineteen, and rarely over this. During some of these years they
are undergoing such organic development as renders them remarkably
sensitive.
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