Just here, before reviewers shall have an opportunity for misinterpretation, may I pause to guard them against it and to call their especial attention to the word “only,” which has been so freely used above?
Why is it that the criticisms of so many women who see below the surface, ring with a womanly indignation? They are ready for rational argument, and for widely collected and digested statistics. One of these justly says in her criticism, that Dr. Clarke need not to have written to Germany to be informed of the care which a mother should exercise over the health of her daughter. That there are mothers in America who do not take this care, who are so occupied with other thoughts that they have no time to attend to their children, we sadly know; but some at least of us have had mothers who knew and did their duty, and who handed down to us, unimpaired the “traditions” which are well-known among women, but of which men generally, even fathers of grown-up daughters, have little knowledge, and some of them none.
With regard to “the European way,” however, I subjoin the following testimony from a German lady, now a mother, in answer to inquiries. She says:
“I was two years at school at Stuttgart, as a boarding pupil, at the close of which I made my examination in the highest class, No. 8, as it was called. When I entered the school, there were twenty boarding pupils; when I left, there were twenty-five; more than thirty were never admitted. Day-scholars were about four hundred. As to the regulations of the school concerning the pupils during the time to which you refer, there was only one general rule, that of being excused from the daily walk which we took from one to two hours every day. Only two pupils during my stay at school were excused from being present in their classes at that time, and this only because the physician had so ordered it. They were not kept in bed, but in the so-called sick-room, where they could read, write, etc., and must only keep very quiet.”
This testimony, as showing the regulations in one of the largest girls' schools in Germany, seems to me valuable, as the course pursued by any large school is the index of the public demand. As to the health of English women, I copy the following paragraph from a recently published book by an English woman,[57] which would seem to indicate that women, at least in England, are not so much superior to their American sisters:
“Women above actual want seldom suffer from extreme labor or from excessive indulgence, but they seldom enjoy their full vitality, either in exertion or in pleasure. Whether from this reason or not, their most frequent illnesses are those connected with deficient vitality, such as can keep them in lingering misery for years; affecting chiefly those organs whose activity is not immediately necessary to life. Not half the illness of this kind is under the care of a doctor. When he is consulted, it is, if possible, at second-hand, and he is very likely to hear only half the symptoms. * * * It is natural to point to the multitude of women under constant medical care, and the number of doctors whose practice lies chiefly among female patients. But if those could be counted who are endeavoring to cure themselves by traditional remedies, by quack medicines, by advice at second-hand, by the use of means that have been recommended by some doctor to some other woman, they would outnumber the former ten-fold. And it must be remembered, that most of the first class belong also to the second, as often as they dare.”
This testimony as to the health of English women, as coming from a woman, is of course doubly valuable; and it comes, too, as a mere digression in the article from which it is quoted, the subject of which is “Feminine Knowledge.” It remains yet to be proved, it seems to us, that American women are, as a whole, suffering from more derangement of their peculiar functions than women of other countries. Do accurately compiled statistics from full and trustworthy sources, warrant us in asserting that American women are more unhealthy than European women, or are we only assuming the fact from their general external appearance—a criterion by no means a certain one? In the old story, the pail of water containing the living fish was, after all the discussion, found to weigh about as much as the pail with the dead one. Are we sure of our facts?
Or even if we are sure of these, even supposing that a mother of a large family here is not as strong as a mother of a large family in Germany for instance, we are in no wise warranted in concluding that the two were not as strong before marriage. The wear and tear of American life must be taken into consideration, and no one but an American housekeeper who has ever “kept house” on the other side of the water, can appreciate the immense relief from care and trouble which she has there experienced, and the dread with which she again returns to the care of a house and the dealings with servants in America. It is not work, and not weakness, but annoyance and worry, that tire and drive women into nervous diseases. When we find the American and German mothers subjected to the same strain, and only the same strain, may we fairly judge of their comparative strength and health, and only then. Where are the statistics concerning German women resident in this country? There is a vast field of inquiry open on this subject yet; in fact, a “South-sea of discovery,” and till we are sure of our facts, it were well that we were cautious in our conclusions.
The times are gone by when the clergyman uttered the authoritative words of superior knowledge to an ignorant and unquestioning audience. Every clergyman preaches now to a congregation of critics, many of whom are his equals, sometimes his superiors, in general information, and who sit in judgment, more or less adequate, on the statements he may make. In the same manner, the days are past when the physician was the only one who understood anything of the structure and functions of the body, and whose prescriptions were written in an unknown tongue. It is undeniable that the majority, perhaps, of both men and women, are deplorably ignorant of their structure, and the operations of the delicate and exquisite machinery which they bear about with them; but there is also a large number who are not so ignorant, and who trace, with the genuine scientific interest, the phenomena of health and disease. The general diffusion of printed matter is rapidly diffusing knowledge in the department of medicine, as well as in that of theology. The elements of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, are taught in all our high schools and academies, and it is no uncommon sight to see a class of girls handling the bones of a human skeleton, or, unmindful of stained fingers, searching for the semi-lunar valves in an ox's heart, with as much delight and intelligent interest as that with which they examine the parts of a watch or the machinery of a locomotive; while they can sketch on the black-board, in a few minutes, the form and relative location of all the important organs of the body, and follow the course of the blood from left auricle back to left auricle again, and that of the food, from the teeth to the descending vena cava. And with this basis for study already laid in school, as a part of the common education of a woman, the latest researches and discoveries of the wisest men and women are open to her as well as they are to the physician, and the census reports are at her hand; while, moreover, her knowledge of Latin and chemistry makes plain to her the nature of the remedies proposed in the prescription which she gives to the apothecary.
As a result of our American schools, we have such women now by the hundreds—I am not speaking of those belonging to the medical profession—and does not this question belong to them? As far as the records of experience go they are ready, nay, anxious to receive them, but they ask that these statistics shall be full in some particulars, where they always find them deficient.