What a Young Woman Ought to Know

by Mary Wood-Allen

Civilized life in its progress is accompanied by certain customs and habits which are detrimental to the individual health, and therefore to national health. The dress of women is not merely an unimportant matter, to be made the subject of sneers or jests. Fashions often create deformities, and are therefore worthy of most philosophic consideration, especially when we know that the effects of these deformities may be transmitted.

The tightly-compressed waist of the girl displaces her internal organs, weakens her digestion, and deprives her children of their rightful inheritance. They are born with lessened vitality, with diminished nerve power, and are less likely to live, or, living, are more liable not only to grow up physically weak, but also lacking in mental and moral stamina. This weakness may manifest itself in immoral tendencies, or in some form of inebriety. It is now recognized that alcoholism will produce nerve degeneration, but it is not so well understood that nerve degeneration may be a factor in producing inebriates from alcohol or other poisons.

Dr. Crothers says: "Hysteria, convulsions, unreasonable anger, excitement, depression, credulity, skepticism, most unusual emotionalism and faulty reasoning, are some of the signs of nerve degeneration," and adds that this central failure of nerve and brain power is often accompanied by a resulting alcohol or drug inebriety. That is, the weak and degenerate nerves crave a stimulant, and the weak will yield to the demand, and inebriety result. If this degeneration of nerve comes from the low vitality given by the mother, because of her unhealthful habits of dress and life, is it not wise that in her early womanhood she should know of this possibility, and guard against it through her care of herself?

She ought also to understand the effect of alcohol and other poisons in producing nerve degeneration in the individual, and its probability in his posterity.

George McMichaels says: "The hereditary nature of the abnormal condition of which inebriety is the outward sign is not understood, even by physicians, as it should be. It is still, I regret to say, looked upon as a vice acquired by the individual, the outcome of voluntary wrongdoing. In some few cases this may be true, but in the majority of instances inquiry into the family history will reveal the presence of an inherited taint, such families usually showing a neurotic condition. No position in the social or intellectual world is, or ever has been, entirely free from the tendency towards alcoholism, and a study of the family history of the great men who have fallen victims to alcohol will show that the cause has been identical with the case among the most obscure of mankind, viz.: That a degenerated nerve condition has been inherited which renders the sufferer specially susceptible to this and allied neuroses, such as epilepsy, idiocy and suicide. The inheritance of an unstable nervous system makes the individual easily affected by what I must call 'alcoholic surroundings.' In other words, the provocation to drink which would have no influence upon an ordinary, stable nervous organization, is sufficient to turn the neurotic into a confirmed drunkard."

As a young woman you hold great power over the race in yourself, and through your influence over others, especially over young men. Your influence, wisely used, may save more than one from a drunkard's fate, and to use it wisely you should be instructed as to the real character of alcohol and its effects on the system. I have not time to tell you in minutiæ of the effects of alcohol, but I must take time to speak of the law of heredity in this respect.

Idiocy and inebriety are on the increase among civilized peoples. This startling fact should make us ask the reason.

T.D. Crothers, M.D., who is making a life study of inebriety, states that from 1870 to 1890 inebriety increased in proportion to the population over 100 per cent., and that a large proportion is the result of inebriety in one or both parents. It is a sad fact that many women, even of good social standing, are fond of alcoholic beverages. I saw a very bright, pretty young woman not long since, at a reception, refuse to take ice-cream or cake, but drink four glasses of punch, with many jests as to her fondness for the same, apparently without any glimmering of the thought that she was drinking to excess, although her flushed face and loudness of manner were proof of this to those who were witnesses. Many people have an idea that the finer drinks, such as wine and its various disguises, do not intoxicate, but in this they are mistaken. All alcoholics are intoxicating in just the degree that they contain alcohol. The exhilaration of wine is but the first step of intoxication, and that means always an accompanying lack of judgment, a lessening of the sense of propriety.

One young woman who, under ordinary circumstances, was most modest in deportment, drank at her wedding in response to the toasts to her health, and grew very jovial, until at last she danced a jig on the platform at the railway station amid the applause of her exhilarated friends, who had accompanied the young husband and wife to the train, as they started on their wedding-journey. What a sorrowful and undignified beginning to the duties of marriage!

There is no absolute safety for either man or woman except in total abstinence. The débauché knows the effect of wine, and uses that knowledge to lead astray the young girl who, if herself, would find no charm in his blandishments, but who, after the wine supper, has no will to resist his advances.