Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

Emotional causes, such as worry, anxiety, and grief, as well as the more tangible physical factors, cause softening and disease of the tissues, which frequently accounts for the arteriosclerosis and premature senility. Alienists have long found abundant evidence that abnormal physical conditions are capable of producing mental diseases, but the reverse is quite as true.

And not only the imagination, but the intellect, the emotions, and the will have or may have a powerful influence over the sensations and organic functions.

It is not only profoundly true that mental attitude has much to do with bodily function, capable of producing changes in its nutrition and secretion, but we may go further and say that healthful and hopeful habits of thought do much to put the body on the defensive against the assaults of disease.

Mental attitude refers not to the will or the emotions, but to the mind in its entirety. The trend of a woman’s thoughts, the use she makes of her intellect, the strength of the volition, the sense of responsibility, and the objects of her life are all questions that have a distinct bearing upon the bodily functions and the health of the individual.

A Definite Occupation a Physical Necessity.—It is now generally conceded by the leading sociologists of the day that women who are not engaged in the duties of maternity need the same intellectual and industrial activities as men. Many go further, and it is their opinion that there is no reason for excluding women, who are fulfilling the duties of maternity, from exercising full intellectual and physical activities in other directions. And the proof that this is not a mere theoretic assumption is to be found in the fact that many women have not only given birth to a family of children, but have successfully reared them, and, in addition, have been eminent in other pursuits and callings. Well-known illustrations of this fact are to be found among the most noted sovereigns that Europe has ever had—Catherine de Medici, Maria Theresa, Catherine II of Russia, and Queen Victoria.

Pleasure seeking, as the end and object of life, leads to ennui, disgust, and physical and mental deterioration, while the slavery of housework, the childish vanities, and petty cares and vexations are most injurious to the nervous system, so that for the life of the housewife the education preceding it should be broad; and the more highly educated the woman is, so much the more effectually can she free herself from attaching too much importance to every little detail, and so neglecting what is higher and more important, and it will be a great preventive of irritability of temper, quarrelsomeness, and even melancholia and mental derangement, from which so many of these women suffer in consequence of the monotony of their lives.

Every girl when she leaves school, which she should consider the very alphabet of her education, should prepare herself for some definite occupation, just as her brother does.

Clouston, in answer to the question as to how the powers of the mind can best be developed, conserved, and made the best use of for life’s work, says: “It is a most fortunate thing, if, during the later period of adolescence, an occupation in life has been selected which really suits the capacity of the individual and goes with his innate tendencies. The seriousness and the settledness of the life of the period, with the bracing of every nerve and sinew to do the work, to gain a reasonable position in society, and to enjoy a fair amount of happiness, is in itself a tonic of no mean value, while overtaxing of body and mind is always a risk, as well as an ambition which overreaches itself. The repressions of woman’s life in civilized society constitute one of her serious strains and dangers. The life and conditions of a working woman who has six or seven children in a few years, who has small means, and but little help, is in my judgment the very hardest of any human being in our modern social system.”

Thomas[6] thus sums up his views as to the evils resulting from the non-occupation of women of the better classes. “Human nature was made for action; and perhaps the most distressing and disconcerting situation which confronts it is to be played on by the stimulations without the ability to functionate. The mere superinducing of passivity, as in the extreme case of solitary confinement, is sufficient to produce insanity, and the emotion of dread or of passive fear is said to be the most painful of the emotions, because there is no possibility of relief by action.

“The American woman of the better class has superior rights and no duties, yet she is worrying herself to death; not over specific troubles, but because she has lost her connection with realities. Many women, more energetic and more intelligent than their husbands or brothers, have no more serious occupation than to play the house cat, with or without ornament. It is a wonder that more of them do not lose their minds; that more of them do not break with the system entirely, is due solely to the inhibitive effect of early habits and suggestions.