In beginning to take any form of exercise the intensity and duration of the movements practiced must be increased very gradually, or positive harm instead of good will be done.  As soon as fatigue is appreciable, the exercise should be discontinued and at once be followed by complete rest.  Rapid respiration, palpitation or dizziness, headache, the face becoming pale or pinched or flushing suddenly, a feeling of great heat or excessive perspiration, are all danger signals showing that the exercise has already been carried too far and should cease at once.  Continued over-exertion carried to a point of exhaustion leads to an obstinate irritability of the heart as well as to organic lesions.

Mountain-climbing, rowing, and bicycling call into play almost all the muscles of the body.  Of all the outdoor exercises for girls, swimming is one of the most perfect.  It not only calls into vigorous action most of the muscles of the body, but spares many of those muscles that are so commonly overworked, the most of the work being performed by muscles that are so little used as to have become flabby and weak.

Swimming and sea-bathing must be avoided by girls who have weak hearts and in whom the reaction after a plunge into cold water is never established; also by girls with heart disease or kidney disease.

The principal outdoor games are croquet, archery, golf, tennis, cricket, foot-ball, and base-ball.  Of these, croquet is the mildest, and is for that reason a good beginning exercise.  Croquet, archery, golf, and tennis are all defective in that they cause a greater development of the right than of the left side of the body.

As the greater majority of these outdoor exercises can only be indulged in for seven months of the year, they should be supplemented by exercises in the gymnasium for the remaining five winter months.

There should be the greatest variety possible in the kinds of exercise taken, not only to develop the body symmetrically, so as to obtain strength, vigor, grace, celerity, and accuracy of movement, but also because there is no such potent cause of fatigue as monotonous repetition of the same act, whether physical or mental.

It has been repeatedly proven that physical deterioration can be overcome by exercise, and that by so doing the mental capacity is greatly increased.

CHAPTER III.

 Anatomy of the generative organs.

   The Vulva; the Hymen; Condition, of the Hymen as a Proof of Virginity;
   the Bladder; Vagina; Uterus; Respiratory Movements of the Uterus;
   Fallopian Tubes; Ovaries.

  “He that respects himself is safe from others;
   He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.”

—­Longfellow.

The Vulva.—­ The female generative organs consist of three groups—­ the external, the intermediate, and the internal.  The vulva, or external generative organs, comprises all those organs which are external to the body.