In the locomotive system, the muscles have not yet acted with sufficient power and frequency to modify the direction of the bones, and to bestow a peculiar character upon their combination in the skeleton. The fleshy and other soft parts do not yet appear to differ from those of the male, either as to form or as to relative volume.
The vital functions of digestion, of circulation and respiration, of nutrition, secretion, and excretion, are performed in the same manner. The want of nourishment is unceasingly renewed, and the movements of the pulse, and of inspiration and expiration, are rapidly performed, owing to the extreme irritability of all the organs.
The mental functions present the same resemblance; the ideas, the appetites, the passions, have the greatest analogy; and similar moral dispositions prevail. Little girls, it has been observed, have in some measure the petulance of little boys, and these have in some measure the mobility and the inconstancy of little girls.
Owing to the pelvis not being yet developed, little girls walk nearly like children of the other sex.
These points of resemblance do not continue during a long period: the female begins to acquire a distinct physiognomy, and traits which are peculiar to her, long before we can discern any of the symptoms of puberty; and although the especial marks which distinguish her sex do not yet show themselves, the general forms which characterize it may be perceived. These differences, however, are only slight modifications, more easily felt than determined.
The cartilaginous extremities of the bones appear to enlarge; and the mucous substance, which ultimately gives the soft reliefs which distinguish woman, is not yet secreted. She is now perhaps more easily distinguished by the nature of her inclinations and the general character of her mind: while man now seeks to make use of his strength, woman endeavors to acquire agreeable arts. The movements, the gait, of the little girl begin to change.
These shades are so much the more sensible as the development is more advanced. Still, woman, in advancing toward puberty, appears to remove less than man from her primitive constitution; she always preserves something of the character proper to children; and the texture of her organs never loses all its original softness.
At the near approach to puberty, woman becomes daily more perfect.
We observe a predominance of the action of the lungs and the arteries; the pelvis enlarges; the haunches are rounded; and the figure acquires elegance.
There is in particular a remarkable increase of the capacity of the pelvis, of which the circumference at last presents the circular form; it being no longer, as in the little girl and in man, the anteroposterior diameter which is the greatest, but the transverse one. It has been observed that the same occurs in the females of the greater quadrupeds. The pelvis, however, does not acquire, till the moment of perfect puberty, its proper form and dimensions.