If you would have in a nutshell an epitome of the truth about constipation, indigestion, insomnia, and the other functional disturbances common to nervous folk, you can do, no better than to commit to memory and store away for future reference that choice limerick of the centipede, which so admirably sums up the whole matter of meddlesome interference:
A centipede was happy quite
Until a frog in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch,
Considering how to run.
Whoever tries to consider "which leg comes after which" in any line of physiological activity, is pretty sure to find himself in the ditch considering how to run. Wherefore, remember the centipede!
In which handicaps are dropped
A WOMAN'S ILLS
"The Female of the Species"
If ever there was a man who wished himself a woman, he has hidden away the desire within the recesses of his own heart. But one does not have to wait long to hear a member of the female sex exclaim with evident emotion, "Oh, dear, I wish I had been born a man!" It is probable that if these same women were given the chance to transform themselves overnight, they would hesitate long when it actually came to the point. The joys of being a woman are real joys. However, in too many cases these joys seem hardly to compensate for the discomforts of the feminine organism. It is the body that drags. Painful menstrual periods, the dreaded "change of life," various "female troubles" with a number of pregnancies scattered along between, make some of the daughters of Eve feel that they spend a good deal of their lives paying a penalty merely for being women. Brought
up to believe themselves heirs to a curse laid on the first woman, they accept their discomforts with resignation and try to make the best of a bad business.