We have now arrived at the point where we can trace, step by step, the evolution of ill-health in the American woman. Her undeveloped body is encased in corsets when she is fifteen years old. At school she learns a great many things, but is not taught that in order to have good health she must exercise the muscles of her body, and especially those of the trunk, daily and systematically. After marriage she settles down to a life of physical inactivity; she takes hardly any exercise, and even this little is not taken systematically; she does not breathe with the diaphragm; her circulation becomes feeble, her hands and feet are always cold, the blood accumulates in her abdominal and pelvic cavities, the functions of the abdominal and pelvic viscera are imperfectly carried on; she becomes dyspeptic; her stomach is distended with gas; her liver and intestines are torpid; the waste products of the system are not carried off, but accumulate in the blood. The opinion is constantly gaining ground that most of the functional nervous disturbances in women are due to auto-intoxication.
By-and-by the pelvic organs begin to show signs of disease. When one hears of the daily exploits of the abdominal surgeon, and learns that there is hardly one woman out of five who has not some form of pelvic disturbance, the conviction forces itself upon the mind that surely our women must be grossly violating some fundamental law of health. We have traced out the chain of physical causes which lead inevitably to a stasis in the abdominal and pelvic circulation. As a further result of this stasis there occurs a sagging of the abdominal and pelvic viscera, and as the latter are underneath, they catch the worst of it. Malpositions of the uterus are produced; the power of resistance of the pelvic tissues to invasion by pathogenic microbes is lowered; the tendency to plastic exudations is increased; the resolution of inflammatory processes is very much retarded; and thus the foundation for every variety of pelvic disease is laid.
The last cause assigned for ill-health in American women is superstition—not religious, but pharmaceutical superstition. The sublime faith with which an American woman will continue to swallow nauseous drugs in the belief that they will restore her to health and keep her in health, is only equalled by her faith in cosmetics. Drugs are wonderful things in their place, but it is not possible by any combination of drugs to replace the natural processes of health.
How are we to forestall this most serious of all our national evils, the physical degeneracy of American women? This matter is far too widespread and serious to be rectified by a little Anglomania, a little calisthenics, a little athletic craze. There are far too many women who lead lives that can only be characterized as parasitic; who have no independent existence, but merely cling to life like a polyp to a rock. They generate barely enough nervous energy to eat, drink, sleep, dress, take a great deal of medicine, complain constantly, and finally drop out of life without leaving the slightest vacuum.
The only way to meet this great evil is to introduce physical culture into our schools and make it compulsory. Not until then will our women realize the standard of feminine health as laid down by Walt Whitman:
They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tanned in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possessed of themselves.