The Education of American Girls

by Anna C. Brackett

1st. During the catamenial period, i.e., during one week out of every month, a woman should abandon intellectual or physical labor, either because she is already incapacitated for it, or because she will be so ultimately, if she does not take the precautionary rest.

2d. A large number of American girls become affected with amenorrhea[35] or menorrhagia[36] solely on account of excessive mental exertion at such periodical epochs of incapacity.

3d. It is possible to educate girls properly, only by regularly intermitting their studies at such times, and by “conceding to nature her moderate but inexorable demand for rest during one week out of four.”

4th. Consequently, it is chimerical to attempt to educate girls with boys, whose organization requires no such periodical intermittence.

5th. If sufficient precaution be observed during the first years of adolescence, and the establishment of menstruation, such excessive care will become unnecessary when the constitution is fully formed, i.e., after the age of eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years.

In regard to these propositions we wish to try to show—that the first contains a certain exaggeration of fact: that in the second a certain sequence of phenomena has been attributed to the wrong cause, and that much more important causes can be demonstrated: that in the third, a precaution needed for many has been unduly generalized for all: finally, that the fifth proposition entirely annuls the inference contained in the fourth.

We believe the exaggeration of fact to be twofold, that is, first, in regard to the number of girls to whose health the menstrual period makes any sensible interruption. Second, in regard to the duration of such interruption, among the majority even of those who are indeed obliged to submit to it.

Dr. Clarke himself admits that the susceptibility he describes in a certain number of cases, is not universal, but he claims that this is the rule, and the reverse the exception. Such a claim can only be substantiated by an appeal to relative statistics, which are well known to reverse many conclusions drawn from general impressions of facts. Statistics are reliable only when compiled on a large scale; but in an inquiry of this nature, a few contributions from various sources are not useless. Among twenty persons, not considering themselves invalids, of whose cases I have taken notes, in six only, had menstruation ever been the cause of any suffering whatever. The ages of the persons questioned ranged from eighteen to thirty, but the inquiry referred to the entire menstrual life. Several among these young ladies had attended mixed schools, and had never been compelled to absent themselves for a single day. Several had been engaged for three or four years in the study of medicine; some, for a much longer period, had engaged in its practice.

Among the six exceptions, one had been healthy until twenty-one, and then had suffered from ovaritis, so that, although engaging in the work of a healthy woman, she should really be classed apart. One was subject to epileptic convulsions, and may therefore be fairly ruled out for the same reason. The remaining three were in good, even robust, general health. In two, pain was experienced for two days, and a certain diminution of capacity for mental exertion, which, however, had never been sufficient to necessitate its interruption. One of these cases was a woman of thirty, who had been married for ten years without child-bearing. In the third case on the list, pain had never lasted more than six or twelve hours, and had been very greatly diminished during four years that the young lady had engaged in constant medical study. Finally, in the fourth case, the early years of adolescence were marked by quite severe dysmenorrhea, the pain only lasting, however, twelve hours. Between twenty-five and thirty, the pain disappeared, but the menstruation became menorrhagic (excessive). This was the only case on the list where no constant intellectual exertion had ever been made, but where the nervous system had been subjected to the strain of much moral emotion and anxiety. The girl belonged, moreover, to a family in which uterine disease was almost universal among the female members.

While at first glance, therefore, it would appear that the proportion of women invalidated by menstruation was nearly as high as one-third, closer inspection shows that among these cases selected at random, the proportion is only one-fifth or one-sixth, if the calculation be confined to persons who had received much intellectual training.