I have given a lengthy description of these organs; I think it will repay a careful reading.  To understand a disease one should understand the organs that are subject to the disease.

CAUSES OF DISEASES OF WOMEN.

Dr. Child says among primitive people, woman is notoriously free from many of the diseases to which her sister in our present-day civilization is especially prone.  As we ascend the scale of civilization, departing from a natural and adopting an artificial mode of life we find nature enacts due penalties for the transgression of her laws.  The female among savage tribes has every advantage and opportunity to develop physical perfection, and her endurance suffers little, if any, by comparison with the male.  How different is our modern system when the young girls are sent early to school and subjected daily to long hours of study, often in badly ventilated class-rooms, for nine months in the year, and this at the time of puberty, one of the most important periods of their life when they need plenty of out-door exercise.  Surely, as Goodell says, “If woman is to be thus stunted and deformed to meet the ambitious intellectual demands of the day, if her health must be sacrificed upon the altar of her education, the time may come when to renew the worn out stock of the Republic it will be necessary for our young men to make matrimonial excursions into lands where educational theories are unknown.”

[494 Mothers’ remedies]

Menstruation.—­Many of the disorders of menstruation are due to carelessness and neglect of this function.  There should be rest of both body and mind at this time, and especially at puberty.  Rest is seldom allowed, but the daily routine is gone through, regardless of what may happen.

Dress.—­The way the abdomen is now constricted, and this is now a prominent feature of women’s mode of dress, is without doubt an important predisposing cause in female diseases.  This contraction of the normal size of the cavity of the abdomen, with the subsequent compression and displacement of its organs, must of necessity produce dynamic (powerful) changes in the pelvis that cannot be otherwise than injurious to the pelvic organs.  Tight lacing or any lacing, aside from the remote effects so unnatural a practice must produce, causes marked atrophy (dwindling) of the abdominal muscles.  These are often so weakened that during labor they cannot properly assist the uterus (womb) in effecting delivery, and as a result instrumental interference, with its attendant dangers becomes necessary.

Prevention of Conception.—­This is a very common practice among civilized women, and it has a most destructive effect upon the pelvic organs, as well as upon the general system.

Criminal abortion.—­The chief danger from the criminal interruption of pregnancy is sepsis (absorption of poisons) into the system.  This may be acute in character and have a fatal termination, or chronic in nature, leading to permanent injury of the womb and fallopian tubes, sterility and chronic invalidism.