Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

From the measurements of twelve hundred boys and girls, Professor Sargent ascertained that at the age of fifteen years boys are three-quarters of an inch taller than girls, but that the mean height in the two sexes is the same, and that, taking the sum of the measurements of the head, chest, waist, legs, and arms, the mean total was equal in boys and girls. The sum of these measurements is regarded as indicative of the strength of the individual, but that, as a matter of fact, it was found that the girls did not compare favorably with the boys in point of strength. In capacity of lungs the girls were seventy cubic inches behind the boys, and that, in strength of the expiratory muscles, the weakest boy was stronger than the average girl. In strength of back, leg, chest, and arms, the showing of the girls was a little better, though considerably below what it should have been.

At twenty years of age the man was found to be five inches taller and twenty pounds heavier. The superiority of the male in strength was now much more apparent than at an earlier age. He now presented ninety cubic inches greater lung capacity and one hundred and forty-three pounds, greater strength of legs, while the muscular power of the arms and chest was more than double that of woman. The charts showed that women were physically inferior to men in almost every particular.

Dr. Sargent then goes on to say, “The principal characteristics of general form that distinguish civilized women from men are smaller muscles, sloping shoulders, broader hips, and shorter legs. The smaller muscles and the shorter legs may be said to be embryonic, while the superior breadth of the hips indicates a greater evolutionary advancement in this part of the body than has taken place in man. The constricted waist must be regarded as a deformity artificially produced. When the hips are large in the male or female, the waist will naturally be larger if the muscles which connect the trunk with the pelvis have nothing to constrict them. Since the hips of women are much wider than those of men, we should expect to find the waist proportionately larger in women than in men.

In close antithesis to these observations of Dr. Sargent’s on the physical inferiority of American women to men, it is both interesting and instructive to note those of Dr. Hancock in his work on “Physical Training for Women by Japanese Methods.”

The Physical Training of the Japanese Women.—A Japanese woman is usually the peer of a man of her own race who is of the same age and height, especially when weights are about equal. This is due to the fact that the Japanese women exercise in much the same way that the men do, and devote fully as much time in the endeavor to gain strength.

In the Japanese system of bodily training, known as jiu-jitsu, it is considered advisable in the initial stages to have boy and girl contestants as nearly equal in age and height as possible. The girls enter the arena upon equal terms with the boys, and have proved their fitness to do so. Grown men and women practise together; other conditions being equal, the women show an equal amount of strength with the men.

The back of the average Anglo-Saxon woman is generally the weakest part of her body, while the normal Japanese woman satisfies the artist’s ideals as well as the surgeon’s. The average Japanese woman of to-day shows a figure as perfectly molded, and of as true proportions, as the women of ancient Greece were able to display.

First of all, the Japanese women are taught that life is impossible without a sufficient supply of fresh air. This internal cleansing with air is deemed of more importance than the bath which follows soon after. That the Japanese woman is a deep breather is shown by the firm muscles that stand out on the abdomen.

Consumption is a rare disease in Japan; even winter coughs are of rare occurrence. The Japanese look upon full, deep breathing as being the most vital function in life; food is not so important, although it is necessary. The best exercises are of little importance when the breathing which accompanies them is not properly done.

Improved Physique as the Result of Physical Training.—Dr. Mary Taylor Bissell, formerly the medical director of the New York Berkeley Ladies Athletic Club, and one of the pioneers in the systematic physical training for women, gave as the result of her experience there, “The gain of twelve months’ exercise in the gymnasium is, for the chest two inches, stature two inches, and an increase of 30 per cent. in the lung capacity; many of the strength tests were doubled, the spine became erect and the arm vigorous, and the girl gained for herself the consciousness of controlling her own body instead of having it control her.”