WHAT OUR GIRLS OUGHT TO KNOW, MARY J. STUDLEY, M.D., GRADUATE, RESIDENT PHYSICIAN, AND TEACHER OP THE NATURAX SCIENCES IN THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, FRAMINGHAM, MASS.; ALSO, GRADUATE OP THE WOMAN'S MEDICAL COLLF EMILY ELACK.WELL, SECRETARY OP THF PARKEK, CHAIRMAN Or TH" ' ; ng to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, 'NTK & WAGNALLS, " -ngress at Washington, D. C. AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR OIF 1 Dr. Mary J. Studley. There is no study so interesting to man, as man; hence it is that the biographies of eminent men and women are more sought after than any other kind of literature. An interest is taken in them in proportion to what they have done or written, which have added to the world's store of learning, civilization and entertainment. Biog- raphy introduces us to all great men as friends, enhances our estimation of character, and trans- fuses the life of the departed into us. Great characters, like great mountains, are best seen at a distance ; we do not, therefore, as a general thing, form a true estimate of them until we lose them. It is so with many other things. We have to be deprived of them before we learn their value. We see most of the third's beauty \vhen it stretches its wings for flight. O o In this brief sketch of the life of Dr. Marjr ii Introductory. ' J. Studley we can only speak of her public char- acter. Like most struggling women, she had a side that was hidden from the world ; and there was, at times, a pressure upon her mind which none would have suspected, who only saw the exterior of the calm, sweet, gentle woman that she was. Dr. Studley was born in Worcester, Massa- chussetts, about the year 1835. She was the daughter of parents who were able to give her more advantages in early life than commonly fall to the lot of young women. She was educated at Newton, in her native State, and early de- veloped a thirst for those branches of education which most girls pass over. She acquired a thorough knowledge of Latin, mathematics, nat- ural history and physiology, to which, later on, she added the German and French languages in the first of which she could speak and write with great fluency. No State has furnished so many female teachers as Massachusetts ; and, being full of ambition and independence, she enlisted in that high and honorable calling, locating her- self at Sandusky, Ohio, where she proved her stability, worthiness and fidelity, by remaining there twelve vears all the time engaged in the education of youth. At the end of this time family inducements brought her to New York, where she lived four and a half years in the Introductory. in family of her brother. It was about this time that she resolved to study medicine and become a physician. With her to resolve was to do ; and at once she entered the Woman's Medical Col- lege of the New York Infirmary, and took a full course, graduating with honor. The first experi- ence of Dr. Studley as a physician was at Eliza- beth, New Jersey. She went there, if not abso- lutely a stranger, still without the assistance so essential to new beginners in the profession. It was with her an experiment, and her hopes came from confidence in herself her splendid health and buoyant spirits. She had to contend with ignorance, apathy, and settled physicians of ex- perience and skill, who, like most practitioners in medicine, were jealous of and unfriendly to new comers especially towards a woman, un- known, unheralded and but newly graduated. A young lawyer advertises himself, and waits long for a first client, but what is that to a woman with the popular prejudice against her sex, and with questions of life and death to be submitted to her skill ? Dr. Studley, with womanly trust, put a modest card in the papers, placed her sign upon the house, and waited for her first patient. It may be readily believed that she had abundant leisure ; but, she did not waste her time. As we have seen she had obtained much and varied learning, and she had withal a vigorous and iv Introductory. versatile pen. Her strength was in her clear- headed, common-sense, and the gift of expressing her thoughts in good English, never saying too much or too little. With a wise calculation of the charms of attracting popular attention she resolved to lecture on the subject of physiology, first delivering a few lectures to a promiscuous audience, and then a course exclusively to ladies. Her first lecture was delivered to between fifty and a hundred curious listeners ; with whatever feelings they came, they went away satisfied that she knew how to treat her subject with masterly skill. Her experiment as a lecturer was success- ful and satisfactory. If patients came in slowly, they did come ; so that by the end of the first year Dr. Stuclley was a self-supporting woman, with the prospect of a fair share of the practice of the city. More than fifteen years of teaching, however, had formed habits which could not be wholly overcome ; and although she labored zealously in her own profession, there was always an under- current of longing for the teachers desk and in- quiring students. A quiet city like Elizabeth did not satisfy her ambition ; and after a residence of about two years she left it and located in New York city, where every thing had to be begun anew. She met difficulties and obstacles with womanly determination, lecturing as before and Introductory. V using all legitimate means to achieve success; but Providence had decreed that she should oc- cupy a wider and more congenial field of useful- ness. Taking better counsel than that which carried her to New York, she returned to Massa- chussetts, and for a while practised medicine in her native city, Worcester, where she had many friends who gladly welcomed her home. She next was offered and accepted a position in the State Normal School, at Framingham, as Professor of the Natural Sciences, and as Resident physician. Here, she was indeed at home. Her studies in medicine had not been lost ; they had rounded out her talents as a teacher, they had widened her knowledge of human nature, and all her faculties were fully developed. This was, undoubtedly, the Summer period of her life. She was to her scholars, what Mentor was to Telemachus a guide, a counsellor and a friend and they loved her as such. Twice she visited Europe, each time in com- pany of a party of young and eager travelers and students, and furnished some interesting letters to the JVeivark Advertiser, giving graphic ac- counts of their travels. From her last trip she returned with somewhat impared health, the re- sult of over-fatigue and anxiety, from which she never fully recovered. She became nervous and restless ; and some action on the part of the man- vi Introductory. agers of the Normal School, of which she did not approve, led to her resignation, and tem- porary loss of employment. Unwilling to return to the practice of medicine she finally opened a private school in Framingham, which opened with every promise of success and abundant returns in reputation and money. But, alas ! a cloud may suddenly obscure the brightest sky ; so it some- times happens, that what seems to be the hour of triumph becomes the hour of affliction. " Death comes to all, his cold and sapless hand Waves o'er the world, and beckons us away. Who shall resist the summons ? " The strain upon the great heart of the strong woman had been too long endured ; the fatigue of body and mind had been excessive ; and even as a host of loving friends and relatives were rejoic- ing over the new departure, and eager scholars were waiting her words of wisdom and sympathy, the Angel of Death claimed her as his own. There was but a momentary struggle, the light fled from the eyes, the firm lips closed, and the spirit of Mary J. Studley was before the throne of the Creator. In character, Dr. Studley mingled strength and tenderness. She was fearless in the dis- charge of her duty, and her life was full of heroic self-sacrifice, and rich in noble deeds. In her off-hand talks to her scholars or assemblies, she Introductory. vii would draw upon her exhaustless fund of humor, creating ripples of laughter ; and with the door thus opened, and the attention gained, she would crowd into their minds a wonderful amount of information. She had a large head, a round face, with honesty written in every line of it, and bright sparkling eyes, with a sweet clear voice. She was warm in her friendships, and loved the so- ciety of intelligent people. If she had her fail- ings, which is not improbable, she had a wonder- ful way of hiding them from all but herself and her God. As a writer, this little volume is a fair ex- ample of her style and versatile powers. Her love for the young was great, and she had a strong, desire to contribute all in her power to the mental and physical developement of her own sex. This volume will be found to contain a large store of illustration and information, show- ing the extensive and varied character of her own studies. Dr. Studley has left other manuscripts behind her which deserve to, and which we trust may, some day, be permitted to reach the public. J. K. HOYT. JUNE 1, 1882, NEWARK, N. J. PREFACE. SAID Confucius : " If I am building a mountain, and stop before the last basketful of earth is placed on the summit, I have failed of my work. But if I have placed but one basketful on the plain, and go on, I am really building a mountain." This is my little basketful of earth which I bring to the ever-growing mountain of liter- ature upon education. " There cannot be, on such an inexhaustible subject, one book too much, even after the best except the worst." In my basketful you will find some grains of simple truth which I have picked up "along the shore of the great ocean." I have set them among gems from Homer, from Moses, from Solomon, from Plato, from Jesus, and ix x Preface. from many modern poets, philosophers, teachers, and now they are yours, dear' girls, for whom they have been collected. ^ lyfay they help you " to do and to become your best"! M. J. S. STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, FKAMINGHAM, Mass., Jan., 1878. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE iii INTRODUCTORY 5 CHAPTER I. "STUDY GOD'S POEM" 12 CHAPTER II. "KNOW THYSELF " 26 CHAPTER III. WHAT SHALL WE EAT, AND How SHALL WE COOK IT ? 42 CHAPTER IV. THE HEART 54 CHAPTER V. How WE BREATHE 68 CHAPTER VI. How WE BREATHE. Continued . . . 81 CHAPTER VII. THE BRAIN AND NERVES 97 xi xii Contents. CHAPTER VIII. NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS 113 CHAPTER IX. How PLANTS AND ANIMALS ARE PERPETUATED. . . 134 CHAPTER X. How TO BECOME BEAUTIFUL 146 CHAPTER XL THE USES AND ABUSES OF DRESS. 171 CHAPTER XII. THE MATE AND THE HOME 199 CHAPTER XIII. THE PERFECT WOMAN 225 INDEX. . 257 Ouf G[iiW Ou^t to Eqow. INTRODUCTORY. As vigorous health, and its accompanying high spir- its, are larger elements of happiness than any other things whatever, the teaching how to maintain them is a teaching that yields to no other whatever. HEU- BEKT SPENCER. HAVING been privileged, for a number of years, to associate with " our girls " in schools both public and private, as a teacher of the laws of health, there have come to me from time to time not a few requests, both from mothers and daughters, for a printed manual of the lessons given in this capacity. These requests have led me to believe that there is room for such a book among the many which seek to make our young women wiser and- better. 6 Introductory. The higher education of " our girls " is the prominent topic of the day in the press, in the magazine, in the parlor, and on the platform. New colleges are springing up for them, and old ones are gradually opening their doors to them. The nineteenth century is coming to recognize the meaning of what Moses told the world so long ago, when he said God put Eve beside Adam, instead of putting her above him or below him, or into a " female seminary " all to herself; and along with this recognition goes the underlying one that a sickly Eve was no more a part of the Divine plan than was a sickly Adam. The record is emphatic and clean upon this point. Sublime in its simple eloquence as is the character of Moses himself, the narrative says, " And God saw everything ihat he had made, and, behold, it was very good"; but in the years that roll between then and now it appears that there has been a deal of interference with the original "very good" work, until it would hardly seem as if God could recognize his pattern in the sickly, feeble, nervous, jaded, hysterical, worry -faced, and wasp-waisted creature who spends half her time Introductory. 7 in telling her aches and the other half in the specialist's office. It is not strange that this creature should have been refused admission to colleges whose work is planned for sound minds in sound bod- ies, nor that the world should be slow to be- lieve that she is capable of doing this work ; but it happens that, along with the movement to- ward higher intellectual culture, there is a no less vigorous campaign in behalf of the temple which the soul inhabits, that it may become fit for the Holy Ghost's indwelling If Eve is going to stand beside Adam, where God put her, she must take such care of her body as to insure its being a help rather than a hindrance to her work; and it has been a constant joy during my association with school-girls, in the capacity already named, to find a growing senti- ment in faVor of that vigorous health which is the prime factor of success in life. It has long been said by prominent medical men that women themselves are responsible for a large share of their characteristic weak- nesses, and the following extract from a note addressed to me by Dr. "Willard Parker only echoes the prevailing sentiment of the profes- 8 Introductory. sion. He says : " Women kill themselves b) their bad management ID a mechanical way. They make themselves portable machines for effete matter. Their nerves cry out when fed by a dirty blood, and the. cry is called neural- gia. What folly to give an anodyne for the neuralgia and let the cause of it remain !" It is not strange that the gentlemen of the profession were limited to generalities in their charges against women for maltreatment of their bodies. They never wore the absurd machinery with which the conventionally-dressed woman is deformed, and how could they attack its details or make any real progress toward reform ! The real dress - reform necessarily waited to be inaugurated by medical women, and its progress keeps pace with theirs toward popular acceptance. No woman who under- stands the beauty of the original design of the human body will ever seek to distort that body by subjecting it to the demands of a fashion which is totally regardless of natural laws; it therefore follows, as surely as day follows night, that the women who study med- icine are the women who have most respect for their bodies, and who have, therefore, the Introductory. 9 soundest and most serviceable bodies bodies upon which they can count for any amount of intellectual or other work as surely as men can depend upon their bodies. Says the Rev. Charles Kingsley in his ex- cellent book on "Health and Education": " Let women who have studied medicine teach to other women what every woman ought to know." And long before he said it they were in the field, ready and anxious to carry the gospel of health to their misguided and suffer- ing sisters. Having learned what is causing so much misery among them, they find it diffi- cult to wait in the office for the mischief to be done which they know is so much more easily prevented than cured ; hence they go forth to the school and the lecture-room as missionaries and ministers of the goddess Hy- geia, the fair daughter who put more faith in correct living than in the charmed serpents of her father ^Esculapius. " The laws of health are the laws of God, and are as binding as the decalogue," is an oft-quoted saying of Dr. Parker's. We take great care to teach the decalogue to our young men and maidens ; but are we just to them 10 Introductory. when we neglect to teach them what they ought to know about their bodies, in order that they may obey the laws of those bodies ? My experience with " our girls " convinces me that they do not willfully sin against their bodies, but that they are sadly ignorant of the laws which govern them. We all admit that it is the mother's duty to acquaint them with these laws ; but it is a lamentable fact that the present generation of mothers is wo- fully deficient in the ability to do so. They admit it, and are, as a rule, glad to secure the aid of an educated lady physician in sup- plementing their home work. And so, dear girls, we come to you, glad to help your mothers teach you what you ought to know. It is the expression of the highest thought of God, this temple which we inhabit ! Plato said to his pupils: " You take a jour- ney to Olympia to behold the work of Phidias, and each of you thinks it a misfortune to die without a knowledge of such things ; and will you have no inclination to see and understand those works for which there is no need to take a journey, but which are ready and at hand, Introductory. 11 even to those who bestow no pains ! Will you never perceive what you are, or for what you are born, or for what purpose you are admitted to behold this spectacle !" " Phidias worked on marble, and the light of his creation still beams from afar. Raphael worked on canvas, and gave to the world a beauty which has thrilled hearts through all these ages. What shall we fashion, who work upon the breath of God?" CHAPTER I. "STUDY GOD'S POEM." "THOU need'st but eyes rightly to see his work, A soul, a soul to understand it all, A heart to feel it simply as it is: How will the loving soul thrill through thee then, Which he has breathed into the eternal work, Into the beauteous face of man and flowers ! It becometh man to understand What God doth speak out loudly through his works." LEOPOLD SCHEFER. " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." MOSES. You can find this " dust of the earth " very easily by putting any bone into the fire long enough for its animal matter to be separated from its earthy constituents, and then your " Study God's Poem." 13 knowledge of chemistry and mineralogy will tell you that the dust into which the bone resolves itself is just the same dust which goes to make the marble of the Yenus de Milo, the coral which you wear over your heart, the jewel which sparkles on your finger, or your plaster cast of Psyche. I once had a little black girl in a Sunday- school, who, in reply to the question, " Of what are you made ?" said, " Mud, ma'am." And she was no less accurate than Moses ; for you know you have learned that three-fourths of your body consist of water, and we all know that dust and water make mud. And do you know what becomes of the dust which remains when the bone is burned ? Some of this " dust " is called phosphate of lime, and the farmers put it on the fields, that you may get it for your own bones in the form of corn and beans and wheat, while the match-makers (I mean Lucifer matches) also take a share of it to use in their factories. It is said that each one of us carries about in her skeleton enough phosphorus, in the form of phosphate of lime, to make four thousand matches. Other portions of the "dust" which com- 14 "Study 6W* Poem." poses the bones are called carbonate of lime; and when we have spent " our years as a tale that is told," it is quite possible that this dust of ours may reappear as a handsome coral spray to adorn the maidens who shall come after us. Besides the phosphate and carbonate of lime, there is a bit of fluoride of lime in our bones, and this may have existed in some gem which has sparkled in the crown of an emperor, so wisely does Dame Nature econ- omise her resources. She has, as you know, but sixty-three elements to work with, and she has to turn and twist and hash and warm over her odds and ends, over and over and over again, in order to keep all her ovens supplied. These, then, are the main elements which go to make the dust of your bones phosphate, car- bonate and fluoride of lime and the bones of your pet kitten are made of the same sub- stances. Not only this, but she has about the same number of bones that you have, for is she not a first-class creature, a vertebrate ? Do you know how a vertebra looks ? If not, let me beg you to go to the meat market at once and learn just how that column of little bones looks of which your " spine " consists. Look, "Study GocTs Poem." 15 too, at the nice little cushions between the ver- tebras by which all the vertebrates except the poor turtle and the corseted woman secure such flexibility of the spinal column as consti- tutes the grace of motion. Have you seen the inner surface of a turtle's back, and how all the vertebrae are consolidated so that the creature can no more execute a graceful movement than you could if you had to carry your house on your back ? Mythology tells us that the turtle alone of all the animals refused to attend the wedding of Jupiter and Juno, and that for this slight the latter con- demned her to forever carry her house on her back. I wonder what offense those M r omen are expiating who hold their vertebrae in the man- ner of the turtle by means of " stays ? " It hardly seems possible that any animal would voluntarily put itself under such restraint. Have you ever observed the beautiful adapt- ations of the parts of the skeleton of a verte- brate to eacli other and to their uses ? If not, let mo ask you to go to a Natural History mu-. seum at your earliest opportunity, and see what a superb specimen of architecture is presented by this array of*bones. 16 "Study Gotfs Poem." Observe the skull or brain case ; if possible, the human skull, since that is the finest of all. How perfect the arch of the dome ! How firm, and yet how fine, the sutures or seams where the separate bones unite ! How strong and able to resist the shock of falls is the occiput, or backbone ! Compare its thickness with that of the bones which form the eye-sockets, and see with what nicety the requisite strength 'is secured at this point by thin bones, which are almost transparent, and have no need to be thick to resist shocks such as the back of the skull is liable to receive. Look then into the nostrils, and see those fine and beautifully twisted bones which are so nicely adapted to increasing the space over which the air has to pass on its way to the lungs, that it may be wanned and fitted for introduction into such choice company as the air-cells of the lungs afford. Not only this, but also an increase of space for the distribution of the nerve of smell is secured. The longer the dog's nose and the more twisted these turbina- ted bones, as they are called, the keener is his sense of smell. And why not for you ? The nez retrousse may possibly add to the saucy prettiness of the face which it matches, but for " Study Gotfs Poemr \t real service and as a mark of high breeding the aquiline and the Roman noses can hardly be excelled. A strongly - built nose and a chin which does not retreat as if anxious to get out of eight are proofs of a well-built skeleton. The houses built with hands soon fall into hopeless ruin if the frames be of poor timber, poorly jointed, and the same is true of the house each of us lives in and which Paul asks us to call a temple for the Holy Ghost's indwelling. I don't believe the Holy Ghost will ever make his home in a poorly-built house. He may make it occasional missionary visits, and then the soul may shine out of it with a luster which is truly surprising ; but he doesn't, as a rule, take up his abode there. Infinitely better than an inheritance of bank stock with a poor house- frame is a well-built house without the bank stock, for if our parents give us the latter we can know the luxury of winning our own dollars and spending them, too ; while in the former case we can only lie about in helpless impo- tence and see our bank stock going to enrich the doctors. Says Mr. John Burroughs : " I notice that when a family begins to run out, it turns out its toes, drops oif at the heel, shortens 18 "Study God's Poem? its jaw and dotes on small feet and hands." What's to hinder a structure from going to ruin when the corner-stones give way ! Look now at the thorax or chest. See what a perfect cage it is for the protection of its occupants, and how light and airy it is at the same time. Strength joined with lightness and elasticity sufficient for perfect freedom of mo- tion of all its parts. See how beautifully the round head of each rib fits into the little socket prepared for it, and which in life is so nicely lubricated that the constant motion of each head in its socket is unnoticed, although each rib rises and falls with every breath ; that is, when it is not held in splints by that instrument of torture which one sees in all the shop - windows, labeled " Patent glove-fitting," a machine which has been the cause of more misery to women than any other one thing. I sometimes think that Moses' account of Eve's eating the fatal apple and then running for a fig-leaf refers to her putting on a corset and the abominations which hang thereby. Believe me, dear girls, you cannot compress the walls of this delicate cage without paying the penalty in ways which you would never "Study God's Poem." 19 suspect. The corner-stone of a house may crumble away and never be noticed till the tower falls over, and so you may undermine your foundation by crowding your chest bones upon each other, and the head alone will utter its protest by aching. That is the tower falling over. Look now at the complexity of the frame- work of the wrists and the ankles, the hands and the feet. Note that it takes eight little bones in the wrist, all of them so adjusted and lubricated as to move upon each other in most exquisite nicety, so that the movements of the human hand have no parallel in the universe for beauty and variety. What do you suppose the Author of all this mechanism thinks when he sees a string of bangles hung on it ! Look at the foot with its marvelous array of bones, all adapted for motion by the most perfect system of joints which could possibly be made, and tell me what the maker of it must think when he sees that complex and beautiful instep tipped wholly out of its position on a French heel, and those toes folded upon each other in helpless inactivity, not one of them able 20 "Study God's Poem." to move itself or assert its " inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Says Mr. John Burroughs in his charming little book, " Winter Sunshine," which I hope you all have read or will read, " Occasionally on the sidewalk, amid the dapper, swiftly-moving, high-heeled boots and gaiters, I catch a glimpse of the naked human foot. Nimbly it scuffs along: the toes spread, the sides flatten, the heel protrudes ; it grasps the curbing, or bends to the form of the uneven surfaces a thing sensuous and alive, that seems to take cogniz- ance of whatever it touches or passes. How primitive and uncivil it looks in such company a real barbarian in the parlor ! We are so unused to the human anatomy, to simple, un- adorned nature, that it looks a little repulsive ; but it is beautiful for all that.. . .That unham- pered, vitally playing piece of anatomy is the type of the pedestrian ; man returned to first principles, in direct contact and intercourse with the earth and the elements ; his faculties unsheathed, his mind plastic, his body tough ened, his heart light, his soul dilated ; while those cramped and distorted members in the calf and kid are the unfortunate wretches "Study Gods Poem." 21 doomed to carriages and cushions.. . .1 fear the American is becoming disqualified for the manly art of walking by a falling off in the size of his foot. ... A small, trim foot, well booted or gaitered, is the national vanity. How we stare at the big feet of foreigners, and wonder what may be the price of leather in those countries, and where all the aristocratic blood is, that these plebeian extremities so predominate. If we were admitted to the confidences of the shoemaker to Her Majesty or to His Royal Highness, no doubt we would modify our views on this latter point, for a truly large and royal nature is never stunted in the extremities ; a little foot never yet supported a great char- acter. "It is said that Englishmen, when they first come to this country, are for some time under the impression that American women all have deformed feet, they are so coy of them and so studiously careful to keep them hid." Indeed, it seems to me that many of us spend our lives in trying to convince our Maker that he doesn't understand his business. We are averse to the study of his plan of action, and, instead of taking the body as he gives it to us, 22 "Study God's Poem: 1 and trying to make it conform to his laws, we squeeze it and bind it and tilt it from its erectness, until we are mere caricatures of the Eve whom we pretend to admire in the pictures and statues, but whom we utterly refuse to imitate. Believe me, dear girls, God knows best how to shape the framework of your soul's habitation so that the light of a healthy, free and happy life shall shine out from its walls and through its windows. Do not, I pray you, distort and fetter it into total deformity, but rather seek to glorify him who made you by becoming gloriously strong. Mr. Emerson, in his essay on " Beauty," tells us " it is the soundness of the bones that ultimates itself in a peach-bloom complexion ; health of constitution that makes the sparkle and the power of the eye. 'Tis the adjust- ment of the size and of the joining of the sockets of the skeleton that gives grace of out- line and the finer grace of movement. The cat and the deer cannot move or sit inelegantly. The dancing-master can never teach a badly- built man to walk well. The tint of the flower proceeds from its root, and the lusters of the "Study God's Poem." 23 sea-shell begin with its existence.. . .The felici- ties of design in art or in works of nature are shadows or forerunners of that beauty which reaches its perfection in the human form. All men are its lovers. Wherever it goes it creates joy and hilarity, and everything is permitted to it. It reaches its height in woman. l To Eve,' say the Mahometans, ' God gave two- thirds of all beauty.' A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, plant- ing tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.'' And each one of you has the right to be perfectly beautiful by so living that you shall be perfectly healthy. The transient beauty of the hectic flush and the brilliant eye of the dying consumptive are akin to the ephemeral brilliancy of the autumnal foliage, but it is the final flicker of the candle which precedes its extinction. To be truly beautiful, with the unfading beauty of health and culture of mind and soul which good health make possible, is to grow beautiful as long as you live. What could be finer in the way of a beautiful face than the pictures give us of Martha Washington in her 24 "Study God's Poem." post-meridian ripeness! Yet how rarely one sees so handsome a face past the age of fifty ! It is the exception where it ought to be the rule, and the reason why it is the exception is, because young women have learned so little up to the present time of natural ways of liv- ing. It seems to be characteristic of the reason- ing animal to err, while the ones who depend upon instinct are pretty sure to go right. " But," I hear you ask, " supposing we be- gin life with sickly bodies, as a direct inherit- ance from sickly parents. What if our bones are already deformed by rickets, because our fathers and mothers had rickety skeletons, or because they fed ns in such wrong ways in our infancy as to make ours so ?" Then, I say, go to work and learn what it is which makes rickety bones, and supply those defects in your early diet which have resulted in such deformities. Enough has been written upon this subject to eradicate rickety skeletons from the whole human family, if they would but read and heed. But, above all things else, if you are one of those unhappy ones whose inheritance is a "Study God's Poem." 25 frail body which no amount of hygienic care can make sound, I pray you think well before vou venture to transmit your frailties to inno- cent children who ought never to be born. Rather be content to live and die an "old maid," and so a heroine. CHAPTER II. "KNOW THYSELF." THE beautiful youth Cliarmides, who is also the most temperate of mortals, is asked by Socrates, "What is Temperance?" He answers (1), " Quietness." " But temperance is a fine and noble tiling; and quietness, in many or most cases, is not so fine a thing as quick- ness." lie tries again, and says (2) that tem- perance is modesty. But this, again, is sot aside by a sophistical application of Homer: for temperance is good, as well as noble, and Homer has declared that " modesty is not good for a needy man." (3), Once more Charmides makes the attempt. This time lie gives a defi- nition which he has heard, and of which he insinuates that Critias is the author : " Temper- " Know Thyself." 27 ance is doing one's own business." But the artisan who makes another mairs shoes may be temperate, and yet he is not doing his own business. How is this riddle to be explained ? . . . Critias, in the spirit of Socrates and of Greek life generally, proposes as a fifth defi- nition, Temperance is self-knowledge. But all sciences have a subject: number is the subject of arithmetic, health of medicine : what is the subject of temperance or wisdom ? The answer is, that (6) Temperance is the knowledge of what a man knows, and of what he does not know. . . . In this dialogue may be noted the Greek ideal of beauty and goodness, the vision of the fair soul in the fair body, realized in the beautiful Charmides. Jowetfs Dialogues of Plato. Although Plato, in this dialogue, gives no abstract definition of temperance, it is yet plain that he includes self-knowledge as a prime constituent of that virtue. Another writer says, " Nearly all the evils in life come to us from a want of self-domination," and I am sure you will all agree with both of them. 28 "Know Thyself? Let us therefore go on to study ourselves, that we may know how to manage ourselves. You have learned, in the foregoing chap- ter, that a variety of elements enter into the composition of the framework of your bodies, and that the various parts of that framework are most nicely adapted to each other and to their respective offices. Your own observation shows you that this bony framework is clothed with a covering of soft tissues, and you also are conscious that a certain number of organs reside in its cavities. These organs you are accustomed to call vital organs, and you are aware that all your powers of thought and action depend upon their harmony of action. That constitutes health. All sickness is dis- cord. Let us now go on to study in detail the provision made by the Author of all this mechanism for maintaining both its vitality and its harmony. We will begin, if you please, with the provisions for digestion in the simplest forms of animal life, and glance at the beautiful gradations by which we arrive at the most complex apparatus, as it exists in our bodies, by which the constant wear of all "Know Thyself:' 1 29 animal organisms is made good, and life and growth maintained. The general name Protozoa, meaning first animals, is applied to a large number of very email, simple, aquatic creatures, too small to be seen by the naked eye, and only visible by aid of the microscope. These little crea- tures are mere dots of jelly-like tissue, desti- tute of any apparatus for taking in or digesting food, beyond a set of delicate fringes, called cilia, meaning eye-lashes, whose office is to float little particles of food toward them as they swim about in the water. They are not only rnouthless, but headless, and one part of their body is just as capable of eating as an- other. They may be said to get around their food. A very easy way of living, you see, to float around iu the water and live on what happens to stick to you, without even the trouble of swallowing. The next sub-kingdom includes all the radiated animals, such as star- fishes, sea-urchins, sea -cucumbers, etc. You can pick up great numbers of star-fishes on the rocks by the seashore at low tide, and if you look carefully in little pools and crevices between the rocks you may find something 30 "Know Thyself." that looks like a chestnut-burr. That is a sea- urchin, or echinus. Then, if you look at the under surface of the star-fish, you will find a round hole in the center of him. That is his mouth, and quite likely his stomach will he in his mouth, turned wrong side out, as that is a way he has of doing. He is very fond of oys- ters, raw. He takes one in his arms, shell and all, and thrusts his stomach in the cleft of the valves and sucks out his victim alive. This, you see, is quite an advance upon the proto- zoan style of eating ; but when you look at the under surface of the sea-urchin you will find a surprising improvement upon the star- fish, in that he has a whole set of teeth. Not only this, but he is, in one sense, ahead of you in the dental business, in that he has five jaws, while you have but two, and each jaw has its own tooth all to itself. The next sub -kingdom includes the Mol- lusks, or soft-bodied animals like snails, oysters and clams, who live in shells and carry their houses wherever they go, alwaj^s having their trunks packed and ready for a move. If you take a clam from his house before he is cooked, and look carefully at that edge of him which "Know Thyself." 31 was under the hinge, and at that end of him which is opposite his siphon (that is, the tube which is often called his neck, but it isn't hie neck at all, because it isn't in the right place for a neck, and because he hasn't any neck, either), you will find a hole with two pairs of feelers to it. That is his mouth, and the feelers are his lips. They are very long for lips, but they have to serve for lips and tongue, too. He has no teeth, and his mouth opens right into his stomach, in the handiest way possible. Taken as a whole, he is considerably more highly organized than the people already spoken of, even though the sea-urchin is ahead of him in dentistry. But there's a fellow in his kingdom who is considerably ahead of him, even, and that is the snail. It' you have never made the ac- quaintance of the sea-snail, let me beg you to do so at your earliest convenience. You can easily find him in the mud at low tide. Put him in a pan of sea-water, and see him prome- nade ! Look at the size of his foot, and when you have drawn his portrait alive, en prome- nade, drop him in alcohol, leave him there a few hours in his last sleep, and then hunt for his tongue. This is the greatest marvel in the 32 "Know Thyself." way of dentistry which has yet appeared. It is all covered with teeth. Only think how con- venient ! You will find clam and mussel shells on the shore, with little round holes in them which the snail has gnawed with this wonder- ful tonguo of his. That's the way he gets his clams and mussels for his dinner. The next sub-kingdom includes the articu- lated or jointed people, like lobsters, crabs, spi- ders and insects. They carry their skeletons on the outside, instead of inside, and move their jaws from side to side, instead of up and down. Their entire eating apparatus is very much more complex than that of any of the people previously spoken of, and they are considered " pretty well up in the world," as the saying is. The insects are very airy people after they get their wings. "While they are in the larval stage they are very voracious, and keep their jaws going most of the time. These jaws are so hard and horny that they make quite a loud noise when they move, soma of them ; but after they evolve from, the larval to the winged state they are much more dainty, and their side-moving jaws are replaced generally by a long, sucking tube, "Know Thyself." 33 which they plunge into the flower-cups for the nectar which they have scented from afar. Last of all come the vertebrates, and that is where you and I come in. We all of us, from the fishes to you and me, except the turtle, have our skeletons out of sight, and we all move our jaws up and down instead of from side to side. More than this, we have a most elaborate set of tools with which to do our eating and digesting. See what an array of them is found in the mouths of all the higher vertebrates ! Note the delicacy of the lips in the horse, for instance. The finest velvet can- not compare with them in softness, and so keen is their perceptive sense that not one offending substance is allowed to pass them. If our lips did such faithful service for us, we should be spared a large proportion of the ilia from which we suffer. Look now at your own teeth ! What vari- ety of form, and what nicety of adaptation, do you find ! The front ones for cutters, the next ones for tearers, and the back ones for grind- ers ! And then the tongue! "A little mem- ber," to be sure, " but it boasteth great things," and well it may, for we should have a hard 34 "Know Thyself." time without it. But the most elaborate appa- ratus in the mouth is the glandular, by which no lesa than four different kinds of saliva are supplied for moistening the food and fitting it for conveyance to the stomach. No less than two or three pounds a day of this fluid are prepared by a mouth which only chews the necessary quantity and quality of food, while the mouths that are forever chewing gum, or peanuts, or slippery-elm, or tobacco, or any superfluous substance, prepare very much more : for as the blood has to supply the materials for this excess, for which there is no provision in the original plan, it thereby becomes very much impoverished. By and by the results of this impoverishment begin to appear in the way of a thirst which calls for rum if it's a tobacco-chewing boy, and for tea if its a gum- chewing girl ; and that's the way a good many forms of intemperance begin. The beautiful youth Charmides, with the fair soul in the fair body, was no chewer of tobacco ; and Minerva, the beautiful goddess, was no tea-drinker, for no tea-drinker ever had the elegant repose and dignity which belong to her. But the main point to which I would espe- "Know Thyself." 35 cially call your attention is the pains displayed for moistening the food without any help from without. If the Divine Architect of this temple in which we dwell has taken such infinite care, proceeding by these nice gradations from the polyp to the vertebrate, to supply our mouths with thirty-two teeth for chewing, and four kinds of saliva for wetting, the food we need, are we not committing a positive sin when we descend to the level of the alligator by tossing the food past the teeth as soon as they have grasped it, and sending it swim- ming in ice-water down to the stomach ? It is no less true of the work of digestion o than it is of every other work, that the final success depends upon the thorough perform- ance of the preliminary work, and you may be very sure of life-long immunity from dys- pepsia if, having secured the right kind of food, you carefully folknv Nature's plan for the preparatory work of the mouth ; while you may be equally sure of becoming a confirmed dyspeptic, when you ought to be iu your prime, if you neglect to use your teeth faithfully on your food, and, in addition to that, you wash it down with cold water. 36 "Know Thyself." We Americans have much to learn from our more mature neighbors across the sea in this matter of water drinking at table, and the sooner we banish the omnipresent pitcher of ice-water from its central point there to its appropriate place, the better for us all, for we work a deal of mischief by our intemper- ance in this matter : first, by diluting the gas- tric juice, and second, by reducing the temper- ature of the stomach. Another way in which we invite the foe dyspepsia to abide with us is by restricting the free and easy motion of the stomach by our belts. The habit of wearing belts or bands of any kind about the body has too long held sway over us. No other animal could endure it without having its vitality sadly impaired, just as ours has been. And really there is no call for belts and bands now, even by that most capricious personage we call Fashion, for she has most amiably conformed to the grow- ing demand for more common-sense in the matter of women's attire, and has given us the easy- fitting and graceful princesse and polo- naise styles, which bring out the graceful con- tour of the body without cutting it in two by a 11 Know Thyself." 37 belt. The fickle creature really deserves a long * credit-mark for thus cooperating with the hy- gienists in dispensing with all bands and belts upon any part of the body. It really seems as if she had been studying Physiology and Greek art for a change. Let us, then, hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Chew your food long and well, drink no water with it, and wear no bands round the body, either over or under the dress ; so shall you never know dyspepsia, provided you get proper food and are temperate at all times and in all ways. Do not keep eating a thing till you feel uncomfortable, simply be- cause it tastes good, else you will be where the good old Quaker was of whom we read in Boswell's " Johnson." Here is a leaf from his diary : " Tenth month, 17 An hypochondriac ob- nubilation from wind and indigestion. " First month, 22 A little swinish at din- ner. " Fourth month, 29 Mechanically and sin-' fully dogged." QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. A few of many questions which have been 38 "Know Thyself." proffered by different members of schools where I* have given these lessons will be here and there introduced, in the hope that the answers may cover* some of the many points which necessarily go unnoticed where the field is so wide. "Shall we, then, drink no water?" There's a time to drink as well as a time to eat, and since water constitutes three-fourths of the body, arid since three or four pounds of this water daily pass out of it by way of the lungs, the skin and the kidneys, it is evident that an equivalent for this daily loss must be provided. Not only this, but the lining of the alimentary canal requires to be washed after it has done its work, just as the mouth and teeth do ; hence it follows that a good time to take a full glass of water is two or three hours after eating. Two other good times are a half hour before breakfast and the retiring hour. "And shall we drink nothing at table?" Drink all the milk you can get. Milk is the most perfect form of food which we have provided for ns. Many will say that they can't drink it, that it makes them bilious, "Know Thyself r 39 etc., etc. This idea has gained ground by the fact that many people eat just as much solid food with the milk as they would without it, forgetting that the milk is a very rich, nutritious food, and that it adds nearly as much to the labor of the digestive organs as does so much o O roasted turkey. We are all of us quite as apt to be injured by excessive quantities of food as by errors in quality. "But shall we drink no tea or coffee?" "When you get to be fifty, if you re- quire a staff to lean upon as you begin the descent, you can take a cup of properly-made coffee in the morning; but be sure you don't drink the boiled stuff which is left after the aroma has all passed off into the kitchen. Drink the best or none. The same with tea. You might as well tan your stomach with tan-bark as with boiled tea. I have had more cases of dyspepsia among servant-girls, caused by boiled- tea drinking than from any other single cause. During Lent they fast so rigidly those of the Romish faith that they drink great quan- tities of strong tea, by which the lining of their stomachs is converted into leather, and they are rendered, of all women, most miser- 40 "Know Thyself:'' able. They had much better live on milk during Lent. It would certainly be more eco- nomical than tea and sugar and milk and the inevitable doctor's bills. " What is pepsine ?" Pepsine is the substance which every healthy stomach supplies for the digestion of the albuminous portions of the food, such as milk, meat, eggs, and the glutinous portions of grains. "Dyspepsia" implies an absence of pepsine, and when the human stomach is no longer able to prepare the article for itself, the chemist has to supply the defect by ob- taining it from the stomach of the pig. Hor- rible to relate, but true ! Pig may be admit- ted into Christian society if properly introduced, but his credentials are so questionable and his personal habits so filthy that it is quite as well to take the cleanly ox or sheep, as long as we can get them, and leave the dirty porker to wallow in his mire and keep his scrofulous tendencies in his own family. Said the Rev. Adam Clark : " If I wished to offer a burnt-offering to the Devil, I would send him a pig stuffed with tobacco." And his favorite blessing at table was: "Lord, "Know Thyself r 41 bless tliis fruit and these vegetables; and if thou canst bless under the gospel what thou didst curse under the law, bless, we pray thee, this swine-flesh." I don't believe that the beautiful youth Charmides, "the fair soul in the fair body," ever ate pig. CHAPTER III. WHAT SHALL WE EAT, AND HOW SHALL WE COOK IT? You have learned from your studies in chemistry, or you will learn, that of all the sixty-three elements which constitute matter, so far as is at present known, only four take any large share in the composition of the body, namely: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. It is one of the most marvelous as well as beautiful evidences of the infinite skill of the Creator that he has combined and re- combined these few materials in so many dif- ferent proportions as to give us bone, and muscle, and skin, and nerve, and hair, and teeth, and all this nice variety of tissues which compel us to say we are " fearfully and won- What to Eat, and How to Cook It. 43 derfully made." To these four prominent ele- ments a little sulphur, a little phosphorus, a little lime, a little chlorine, and a little sodium are added in the way of finishing off, some- what as the builder of a house "made with hands" adds the hinges and the knobs and the paint and varnish to the already -con- structed frame and superstructure. How these few simple elements are held together, and how the life comes and goes to and from them is the mystery which science has not yet unlocked, for now " we see through a glass, darkly." Probably Paul spoke thus of the obscured glass which the Greeks used to soften the brightness of their sky ; but we, with our clear-glass lenses in microscope and telescope, still see but dimly through the curtain of mys- tery which hides God from us. Prof. Draper has lately found oxygen in the sun by means of the spectroscope, and Prof. Hall has found out by his telescope that "Mars has twins"; and so they have come so much nearer to God and to his secrets than we less able students; but neither the microscope nor the telescope nor the spectroscope has yet made it possible for man to combine oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and car- 44 What to Eat, and How to Cook It. bon BO as to make a living plant, much less a living animal. But it is a great gain upon what the people of earlier times knew, to have proved that these four elements are used in the making ; and as the years roll on and science strides on, we shall hope to learn more of the process, being always assured that the more we study his works the nearer we get to our Maker. If we wish to know Beethoven, or Men- delssohn, or Raphael, or Phidias, we study their works ; and the more we get into the spirit of these works, the nearer we come to a comprehension of the great artists themselves. How much more is this true of the great Artist of the Universe ! But do you ask what practical answer this knowledge brings us toward solving the ques- tion " What shall we eat, and how shall we cook it?" Let us see ! The chemists and the doctors, working together, have found out that starch and sugar and fat contain no nitrogen, but that meat, milk, eggs and the gluten of grains do contain it. Now, our muscles are just like what we call " lean meat " in our animal food, What to Eat, and How to Cook It. 45 and as they are constantly wearing out and the ashes being removed, we naturally ask, What is the kind of food which will supply this loss ? We have the answer before us : Meat, milk, eggs and the gluten of whole grains. A diet of either or all of these foods will give us good muscles. That is a fact as fixed as the multiplication-table. What, then, do wo get from the sugars, Btarches and fats ? Principally fat and heat. The Greenlander relishes his candles as a des- sert, probably as thoroughly as you do your sweetmeats. It is the coal which he must have to keep up his fires. You relish your cakes and candies and peanuts because your bodies call for enough of them to give you a layer of wadding between your muscles and your skin, to fill out the wrinkles and to keep you warm ; but when you find that this layer of wadding is getting so thick as to be intru- sive, and to fetter the action of the muscles; when you get weary on slight exertion, and are tempted to squeeze yourself in tight clothes to hide your increasing corporosity then you had better cut off your supplies of cakes and candies and peanuts. So much for muscle-and- 46 What to Jl'at, and How to Cook It. fat-making foods. For bones and nerves and pure blood you want liberal supplies of fruits and grains and vegetables. Oatmeal and corn- meal and wheatmeal and ryemeal, each and all, will help to keep your bones and nerves and brain in good order, provided you get the whole goodness of them. If your miller has taken oif all the outside envelopes of the grain, and has left you nothing but the starch of its interior, then are your bones and teeth and nerves just so much defrauded, and the pigs' bones and teeth and nerves enriched. We come now to the last, but by no means least important, part of our question, namely : " How shall we cook it ? " First and last and all the way between, don't fry it nor make it into pies ! If you have no other way to cook food than to fry it, you had better take it raw. I do not make one exception, not even that dear delight of the New Englander, the ubiquitous doughnut. I believe this popular food has been the cause of a great deal more dyspepsia than is gener- ally suspected. I always observe a great deal of eructation of badly-smelling gases by habit- ual doughnut eaters, and also by fried-potato What to Eat, and How to Cook It. 41 eaters. Yon cannot put any food into a more difficult form for digestion than bj enveloping it in a coat of hot fat. You might almost as well wrap it in sole-leather. Now for the pies. I never see an apple- pie without thinking of the sad waste of time and labor and substance of which it is the outcome. To put that king of fruits, the ap- ple, all shaven and shorn of its gorgeous cover- ing and the wealth of flavor and fragrance and bone food which go with it, into a foul, pasty mass of hogs' lard and starch, is for me the literal rendering of the wise man's "jewel in a swine's snout." Hear Joel Benton talk about the apple ! " As iron is rated among the metals, BO the apple ranks among fruits. . . .As the word book is appropriated as the fit name for the chief book of all, so apple sometimes stands for fruit in general. Scripture and geology, which have been supposed to differ about some things, agree as to its age, both placing its birth just a little before man's, as if it were said, 'Now the apple is born, it is time for man to be, who is destined to eat it.' It is not Genesis, but tradition, which makes it the apple that 48 What to Eat, and How to Cook It. was put into Eve's hand, and afterward into her own and Adam's mouth ; but literature seems quite at unison in accepting this version of the matter. The unfortunate fruit, what- ever it may have been, was said to be of the tree of knowledge; and, curiously enough, the apple has a very pertinent relation to the brain, stimulating its life and its activity, which it does by its immense endowment of phospho- rus, in which element it is richer than anything else in the vegetable kingdom. But phospho- rus is not only brain-supporting : it is light- bringing; and must thus contribute to knowl- edge .... The epicure of this fruit tells you they should always be eaten raw ; and the sec- ond orthodox rule is, to ' dispense with the knife.' Any one, however, who is not anx- ious to have them as good as they can be, will do the next best thing in following this recipe, which I will venture to vouch for: Buy a small tin apple-corer ; core with it as many apples as you want, without peeling them; set them on a tin dish ; place this in a hot oven, having first filled up the vacancies left by your surgery with the best of sugar. Let them bake till they are well done. Take them out, What to Eat, and How to Cook It. 49 and if you do not know what to do next, call in your nearest and best friend for further ad- vice." All the cook-books that ever were made, or ever will be, cannot give a better recipe than that for cooking apples. I always feel that I've been swindled when compelled to ac- cept apple-sauce as a substitute for the above form that is, apple-sauce according to the ap- proved pattern, where nil the peelings, and the rich flavor and nutriment which go with them, have gone to make the pigs glad, and left me to grieve over that mistaken notion of the fit- ness of things which is forever sacrificing the substance for the show. "But they don't look nice !" is the only protest which the misguided matron offers, and that is quite apt to be a sufficient reason for her to continue to do just as she always has done. So she peels her ap- ples and rolls them up in lard paste, and tells you she never gets time to go out-doors for any fresh air, when, if she would only look at the matter without the spectacles of custom, she could put her apples in the oven and leave them to take care of themselves while she refreshed herself with a brisk half hour or so 50 What to Eat, and How to Cook It. away from her cook-stove and her flour-bar- rel. It's just so with potatoes, alas ! What a deal of time is wasted in peeling them, to say nothing of the valuable nutriment which goes with that part of them which is right under the outer skin ! By all means, bake your po- toes with their jackets on, or, if the exigencies of the occasion compel you to boil them, then boil them with their jackets on, else a large part of their best qualities is dissolved and thrown away in the water of boiling. The best way to cook beef is to broil it or roast it. In both cases it should be subjected at once to a heat intense enough to form a protective crust which shall retain the juices at its center. Corned beef contains very little of the original nutriment, this having dissolved out in the brine, so that we get not much but chips. They may have an agreeable taste, due to the brine, but it is best to partake sparingly of anything which simply pleases the palate, but which offers no compensation to the di- gestive organs for the labor they must bestow upon it. If meat is to be boiled, it should be put at What to Eat, and How to Cook It. 51 once into boiling water, for the same reason that it should be put in a hot oven to roast: BO as to assist it to retain as much as possible of its own juices. If Boup is the objective end, then put the meat in cold water and let it gently simmer for several hours. Thus may you get its substance in the water of cooking, but it is poor policy to eat the fibrous remains of Boup-meat. The virtue has gone from them. Put them away from you. Don't attempt to economize by making them into mince -pies, else it will cost you more to pay your doctor's bills than a whole ox, properly cooked, would cost. The only thing which is fit to eat in a mince-pie is the apple, and that is only half an apple, deprived of its skin. I have seen a heart-rending sight during the past summer in the way of mince-pies. It was a poor wo- man bending over the chopping - bowl and rolling-pin and cook-stove, in the heat of mid- summer, for the sake of saving (!) some meat by putting it with dried apples for mince-pies. And this in the height of the berry season, and the poor soul thought she couldn't afford to buy berries, so she took money enough to buy several quarts of berries, and threw it 52 What to Eat, and How to Cook It. ft way on the sugar and spice and greased paste which went to make those horrible pies. Ver- ily, her children called for berries and she gave them stones. For bread, find where they keep flour which retains all the goodness of the grain, and buy no other; then let the bread be twenty-four hours old before you eat it. It is not chemically done till then. Hot bread is so difficult of mastication that it is quite apt to pass into the stomach in the form of a bullet, and is nearly as indigestible as that article. The perfection of bread is found in " Graham gems." When properly made, nothing could be nicer. When not properly made, nothing could be poorer. A light, well-beaten batter of the best Graham flour, wet with equal parts of milk and water, and dropped upon hot iron pans and baked in a quick oven, makes the model " Graham gems." The longer you chew them the sweeter they grow and the stronger you grow. I have seen girls, when out on a tramp, stop at a village store and buy doughnuts with which to refresh themselves ! The doughnuts made them thirsty, and then down went the ice-water. What to Eat, and How to Cook It. 53 Next day they came to school with the com- plaint that they had had a headache the night before and couldn't study, and so must be excused. No wonder they had headache ! The brain protests against the poor blood which is conveyed to it after such a repast as that. There were plenty of nice, ripe pears at the same store, to be had for less money than tho miserable greasy doughnuts cost. The pears would have left their brains clear and free from aches or clouds. I think they will buy the pears next time. And so it is through life : " We slight the gifts that every season bears, And let them fall unheeded from our grasp." Said Milton: " Not to know of things Remote from daily use, obscure and subtle, But to know of that which all about us lies in daily life, Is the true wisdom." Let us seek the true wisdom, so may we become as fair and as strong as Minerva! CHAPTER IV. THE HEART. THE heart, u that little three-cornered expo- nent of our hopes and fears. . . .What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the headquarters of god Cupid in this anatom- ical seat, rather than in any other, is not very clear, but we have it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed, for anything our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, ' Madam, my liver and my fortune are entirely at your dis- posal.' " CHAKLES LAMB. The sacred Scripture says the heart is " de- ceitful and desperately wicked." The anato- The, Heart. 55 mist calls it " a hollow rnusclc." The physiol- ogist calls it " a pump." And they are all right. It is all these things, and more: for, psychologically, it is too deep for the human eye to comprehend, and, anatomically, it is the one essential muscle upon which the body's life depends ; while, physiologically, the integ- rity of the valves by which it is so aptly called " a pump " is the feather which may turn the scales for life or death. You have learned from your studies in zoology, or, if you have not, you will learn, by wiiat marvelous gradations from the lower to the higher forms of life this most perfect mech- anism has been achieved. Beginning with the radiates, you will find a simple tube in the rays of the star-fish, which is at once a water-pipe to supply the impetus for motion, by conveying numberless little streams into its tubular feet, and which at the same time acts as a pulsatory heart a very simple heart, to be sure, but one which serves its purpose just as well as yours serves you. The sea-urchin gets a step or two higher and gets a ring-shaped heart around his seso- phagus, or swallow-tube; while his mastership 56 The Heart. the clam, one of the princes among mollusks, actually comes to the dignity of a two-cham- bered heart, with a real auricle and a ventri- cle. He is even more gifted in the way of a heart than any of his more active friends in the sub-kingdom of articulates the crabs, the lobsters, the moths, and the butterflies, and all those fine people with their gay feathers; for they have only a straight tube running along their backs. If you get a live clam and invite him to make himself comfortable in a pan of fresh sea-water, and then gently remove his left valve, you can see his heart beat, if you look in the right place. As old Roger Bacon told the people away back in the thirteenth century, when they asked him how he made his gunpowder, " Take of saltpeter, with pound- ed carbon and eulphur, and you will then make thunder and lightning, if you know how to prepare them." So if you know how to look for the heart of a clam, you will find it, and you can also count his pulse beats, as he is one of the cool and collected kind of people who never get up a palpitation of the heart on any slight provocation. The fishes also boast of a two-chambered The Heart. 57 heart, and his frogship and his snakeship get BO far up in the ranks as to have three rooms in their hearts. This, you will easily see, if you study into the matter, results in a mixed quality of hlood, so that no one of these people can boast of any real " true blue blood," al- though they are of the race of vertebrates, each having a real backbone all to himself. The upper-crust people who live on the top rounds of the ladder are obliged to count them in, but they by no means put them on an equal- ity with the rest of the backbones, who have four rooms to their hearts. If you have never seen the inside of the perfect mammalian heart, let me ask you to go and get one from your market-man as soon as possible. That of a pig, a sheep, a calf, or an ox will serve you. Then take your physiology book and find out its beauties. You will see just how your own heart looks, and you will never wonder that the poets have said so much about it in a figurative way. Let us now turn to the consideration of what this little four-chambered " three-cornered exponent of our hopes and fears " does for us. Into its right upper chamber, or "auricle," as 58 The Heart. it is called, from its resemblance in shape to a little ear, as the word signifies, comes the liquid which has been prepared from the food by the organs of digestion. The stomach, the liver, the pancreas, and the intestinal glands have all been at work to transform the bread and milk, and the candies and the peanuts, and, alas ! the doughnuts, too, into a fit form for their reappearance as bone and muscle and brain arid nerve and all those complicated fabrics of which each of our bodies is made. But before this liquid result of so much \vork can appear in such high company it must report at the central office, the heart. Entering its " Vor- hof," as the Germans call it, or vestibule, it is passed on through the most beautiful system of gates, called the tri-cuspid, or three-pointed valves, to the right lower chamber, or " ventri- cle"; thence to the lungs, where it receives the finishing touches in the way of exchanging it& carbonic acid, or its old clothes, for the life- giving oxygen which there awaits its coming, in lungs which are left to work as their Maker intended they should. Returning thence, brightened and vivified, it enters the left ves- tibule or auricle, is pumped past a beautiful The Heart. 59 two-pointed valve from there to the left ven- tricle, whence it issues through some most delicate half-moon-shaped valves into a large tube called the " aorta," which there begins to send off branches to all parts of the body and its extremities, so that every tissue may receive a supply of nourishment. On it sweeps, this life-current, with its bone-food, its nerve- food, and its muscle-food, so swiftly that it gets back to the heart, through the capillaries and veins, in twenty-five or thirty seconds from the time it leaves it, bringing a supply of worn-out material which it has taken in on its round, in exchange for the new goods it carried out. "Like the water flowing through the Croton pipes, that carries health and wealth to the por- tals of every house, and filth and disease from every doorway, the blood, flowing through the canals of the organization, carries nutriment to all the tissues and refuse from them. Its cur- rent sweeps nourishment in and waste out." It is comparatively an easy thing to describe the circulation of the blood after it has been shown us, but it took centuries of hard study to find it out, and it is only three centuries since Dr. William Harvey, of England, who gave 60 The Heart. to the world the true statement of it, was born. For full three centuries before Christ and for sixteen centuries after him the wise men had been asking nature to reveal this wonderful secret to them. Each of them came a little nearer to the truth than his predecessor, but the glory of the final discovery belongs to Harvey. I wish, my dear girls, that I might help you to comprehend, in some slight measure, the perfectness of God's plan, as thus described, for keeping your whole bodies supplied with pure blood, so that your cheeks shall always wear the rose-tint of health, and your eyes always sparkle with the light which shines out only from brains which are fed with such blood. " Polished steel is not quicker dimmed by the breath than is the brain affected by some abnormal condition of the blood." Every headache is a protest which the brain puts forth, either against the unclean blood which is sent to it, or against an excess of either arterial or venous blood. If you have eaten three or four hot biscuits for supper and poured down one or two glasses of cold water, yon have taken one way to get a headache, The Heart. 61 and a bad breath which will report you to your neighbors next morning. If you have added to this one or two pieces of rich cake, or a piece of mince-pie, you may be pretty sure of an aching head with troubled dreams. The brain is fastidious in its choice of blood, and will not accept the stuff which comes from half-digested fried food, hot biscuits and pies, without protesting. Eat only bread which is twenty-four hours old, chew it well and moisten it only with your own saliva given you for that very purpose ; omit the pies, fried things and rich cakes, and your head will never ache because of dirty blood : certainly not if you eat plenty of apples, either baked or raw, witli their skins on. Chew the skins well until you have extracted all their virtue, and then reject such portions as may be too tough to be finely chewed. When you cannot get apples, get the best substitute you can find. All kinds of fresh fruit, such as the market supplies at all seasons whether oranges, bananas, grapes, peaches, tomatoes, berries or melons are infi- nitely better blood purifiers than all the nos- trums ever concocted for the ostensible purpose of effecting this object ; and when you cannot 62 The Heart. get the fresh fruits, get either the dried or the canned ones. Every dollar you spend for fruits is so much saved in the way of doctors' bills, and every pie you eat is as good as a prescrip- tion for the dose of pills which will be pretty sure to follow it. As for pig-meat, however served whether as Extract casiene caput (head-cheese), Pulv. Sausagiae (sausage-powder), or Infus. JBaconii (bacon infusion) whoever eats it is pretty sure to pay heavily for it, un- less she spends the next six or eight hours out- doors in active exercise, so as to get oxygen enough to burn up the stuff. One may be pardoned for eating pig-meat when nothing else can be had, but, as long as the markets abound in so many better things, pray let us leave the pig in his own rnire and not soil our brains with his foulness. But the head may ache, and often does, if it has too much blood, even if it be of nor- mal quality. In fact, a large proportion of our aches mean that the blood is in the wrong place, and all the doctor can do is to " derive " it from the aching spot to one remote from it by the various ways with which all are familiar. But what makes it get into the wrong place ? The Heart. 63 Many things make it. If yon wear too little clothing on the feet and lower extremities in cold, wet weather, the blood will not go into them to warm them, but will take the easiest route, to the head, which will then cry out, in its agony, " My veins are full to bursting, and I ache terribly." The same result will follow if the shoes be tight or the hose are kept in place by bands about the extremities. Any band, elastic or otherwise, which is tight enough to keep the hose smooth is tight enough to interfere with the circulation of the blood. Don't wear it ! There is a way of ad- justing hose, which you can learn at any dress-reform store, whereby they are kept per- fectly smooth, and not a single blood-vessel in the whole body is compressed. It dispenses with all bands, and is thoroughly comfortable and convenient. Get it, wear it, and tell all your mates to get it! The head may ache, too, because the mus- cles are not exercised enough, and because it is oppressed with the blood which ought to be freely circulating through them. Some of you bend over your books too long at a time, and some of you sit at the piano too long, and some 64 The Heart. of yon sit at the sewing-machine too long, and your muscles get pale and flabby and your head gets hot and heavy; and, too often, in- stead of taking the warning and rushing out for a good, brisk walk in the open air, you make a bad matter worse by shutting your- selves in your close rooms and sipping tea. That is the poorest possible substitute for fresh air and exercise. You will get no bloom on your cheeks and no light in your eyes by drinking tea, but you will grow yellow and withered, like the " sere and yellow leaf," which has lost its sources of nutriment. When you see a young woman whose skin looks like old flannel, showing traces of tho starch-box or the rouge-pot, it is pretty safe to infer that she gets very little exercise in the open air and that she is a confirmed tea-toper. Let the tea stay in China till you come to your fifties or sixties, and you may be sure of being as handsome as old ladies as you will be as young ones. " What causes varicose veins ?" Varicose veins are swellings in the veins caused by interruptions to the circulation of the venous blood. You will understand, from The Heart. 65 what has been told you, that the blood has to flow upward in the veins of the trunk and lower extremities in order to return to the heart, and a little thought will show you how easily you can interfere with this current by wearing bands about the body or lower ex- tremities. These all-too-prevalent bands are a common cause of varicose veins. Habitual standing is another cause. " What causes palpitation of the heart ?" In the majority of cases, indigestion is the cause. The heart is located directly above the stomach, with only the diaphragm between them. The diaphragm is the muscular floor of the chest. If the stomach becomes distended with the gasea of indigestion, it crowds the diaphragm up against the heart. The heart then utters its protest against the intrusion by a more rapid beating, for it has no room to spare in a chest which is held still by bones and bands and steels, no matter how loose they may be. There can be no natural or free motion for ribs and muscles which are always worn in splints, and where the ribs and their muscles are thus fettered the heart is sorely perplexed by any additional crowding 66 The Heart. from below, such as it is subjected to when digestion is arrested. "What is the cause of cold feet?" Anything which prevents the blood from circulating freely in the feet will tend to keep them cold. In addition to the bands already mentioned, whether elastic or otherwise, insuf- ficient exercise in the open air is a common cause of cold feet, and the best of all ways for warming them is to take a brisk walk on the sunny side, having first prepared them by putting on warm hose and thick, broad-soled and low-heeled shoes. You can no more walk properly in thin, narrow-soled, high-heeled shoes than you can on stilts ; nor can you get the full benefit of a walk if you keep your arms rolled in a shawl or folded in a muft'. The hands should be so protected that the arms may fall naturally by the side when walking. There can bo no really graceful walking with folded arms. " How may cold, sweaty feet bo cured ?" By clothing them so that the blood may circulate freely in them, and by keeping them familiar with clean water and fresh towels. A The Heart. 67 good plan is to plunge them rapidly, first into hot and then into cold water, two or three times on retiring, and then rub them very dry with coarse towels. CHAPTER V. HOW WE BREATHE. "AND the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis ii, 7. IN our lessons upon the skeleton we have learned how carefully the framework of the human nose is prepared for the important part it is destined to take in the function of respir- ation. We have seen how delicately the bones about the nostrils are turned and coiled so as to increase the surface over which the air must pass on its way to the lungs, and that the result of this extension of surface is the warming of the cold air to the proper temper- ature for its reception into their more delicate cells. Ifow We Breathe. 69 If yon look now at the entrance to your nostrils, you will see how carefully it is guarded by little hairs, whose office it is to sift the air and thus render it still more fit for its be- coming "the breath of life." The lesson taught us by Moses in the above quotation from his history of the Creation, BO sublime in its simplicity, is emphasized by the anatomical study of the nostrils, and one is more and more deeply impressed with the profound in- sight of the "Man of God" into the designs of the Creator whose works he so faithfully studied. Many a writer of books upon anat- omy and physiology has since enforced the truth that the nose is the preparatory organ of respiration ; that the perfection of every function depends upon the thoroughness with which its initiatory work is done, and that all the higher orders of animal life breathe their air. while frogs and turtles and their kin swal- low it ; but no one of them all has said as much on pages as Moses said in this one brief sentence. Let us heed the lesson ! Let us apply it to every act of our lives, and so, by making our beginnings aright, shall we en- 70 How We Breathe. sure that success which crowns all work which is well begun ! Have you ever noted the imperfect breath- ing of people who, either from habit or from deformity, swallow their air, instead of taking it by the nostrils ? And have you observed the noise they make about it ? Audible breath- ing is not in accordance with the divine plan. All of nature's finest processes, like the growth of tissues, the circulation of sap and blood, and the entrance of the air into the lungs, are noise- less. Let the air enter as God meant to have it, and it will enter with no sound for the most sensitive ear at the ordinary distance between individuals ; but let it enter through a mouth which is habitually open, and the sound be- comes offensively apparent. " The worst wheel squeaks the loudest." Such breathers are an annoyance to their companions by day and a positive nuisance by night. There would be no snoring to echo through dormitories if all breathed as God meant they should, and one of the ways to prevent it is to hold the lips together by an apparatus recently invented by Dr. Wyeth for the purpose, for, those who have How We Breathe. 71 been allowed to develop the habit by the in- attention of their nurses in childhood. You will notice another characteristic of this class of breathers. They always seem to have a cold, as evinced by imperfect articula- tion and the other accompaniments of a "cold in the head." They generally have large ton- sils, too, and in this condition it is difficult to discriminate between cause and effect, for the large tonsils may have induced the habit of breathing with the mouth open, and, on the other hand, the mouth - breathing may have caused the enlargement of the tonsils; but, whichever may be the cause, the indications for treatment are identical, and point to the reduction of the size of the tonsils. This brings us to the consideration of the second part of our breathing apparatus, namely, the throat, at whose entrance stand the tonsils, but whose office is not yet accurately under- stood. Indeed, Dr. Robinson, writing upon the subject, goes so far as to say, " Were I to make a man, I do not think I would put tonsils in him. 5 ' But as we all have them, it is safe to conclude that they are essential, rather than superfluous, organs. It is no less safe to 72 How We, Breathe. conclude that if we learn and obey the laws by which the rest of the body is kept in healthy action, we shall not find them to be a source of annoyance and discomfort. Let us look, for a moment, at some of the other results incident to their enlargement, ad- ditional to the one already mentioned. From the throat there is a tube, on each side, which communicates with each ear. The closure of these tubes by the enlarged tonsils may lead to deafness, and often does. These three seri- ous results, namely, faulty respiration, muffled and imperfect vocalization, and deafness, are all common conditions among mouth-breathers. But a still more serious complication comes in as a result of large tonsils in growing children, in that the growth and development of the chest and lungs may be arrested in consequence of the interruption to complete filling of the lungs which large tonsils necessarily offer. This may be a cause of consumption in after life, for tliis destroyer finds its surest victims among those who have small, poorly-developed lungs. Thus you see what agents for evil these little bodies become if allowed to grow too laro;e. How We Breathe. 73 The question at once arises, How shall this enlargement be prevented ? Nothing could be simpler or more natural than the indication which at once suggests itself to the thoughtful, namely, to guard against excessive flow of blood to the parts in question the same point, you will remember, which was made prominent in our lessons upon circulation. Keep the blood in the right place, and all goes well, provided its quality is good. Granted an excess of it at any one point, and there is an inevitable protest at that point against the intrusion. If, for want of proper protection, the sur- face and extremities of the body are habitually chilled, especially in childhood and youth, dur- ing the whole growing period of twenty-five years, ic is more than probable that the above conditions will result. We are all of us, young women and middle-aged women, and children, too, inclined to muffle the throat too warmly, thereby inviting the blood to concentrate at that point, when it ought to be in the hands and feet, keeping them warm. Furs about the neck are in the wrong place. They should be on the feet and hands ; and the yards of 74: How We Breathe. woolen mufflers which one sees wound about the necks of children should be on their legs rather than there. But the best of all ways to insure one's self from sore throat and swollen tonsils is to keep the entire skin active and ruddy by making it as familiar with cold water as the hands and face are wont to be. Said Miss Jane Porter, the novelist, to her brother, who was a physi- cian : " I am always catching cold everywhere but in my face. I wish my body was all face." " Make it so," was his reply. It is easy to form the habit if one begins in early life ; and, when it is formed, the daily morning ablution in fresh, cold water becomes the one luxury which, of all others, we would least willingly forego ; while the perfect exemption from colds and sore throats which it secures is a state of things which makes life a constant joy. Can you think of any greater joy than to be always well and strong ? To be able to say, I can go and come in all weathers and at all times, because I never take cold ! We pass now from the tonsils to the larynx, or organ of vocalization. This is one of the most delicately formed organs in the body. How We Breathe. 75 Through it comes and goes every "breath of life," and upon its vocal cords hang the sweet- est harmonies of life. If the air is breathed through the nostrils, and by them warmed and sifted ; if the throat and tonsils are not sur- charged with blood which ought to be in the feet and cannot get there because of the bands and tight shoes in the way ; if, in short, Na- ture can carry the air through the larynx in her own good way, there will be no discord there. The mythical "music of the spheres" can be no more harmonious than the melody of a perfectly correct human voice. Says George MacDonald : " A sweet tone is a messenger of God ; and a right harmony and sequence of such is a little gospel." There has never been a time when the hu- man voice has not been an instrument of power, a charm, a delight. When we pass beyond history to the regions of fable, we find that, among the gods of the ancient Greeks, those were held in the highest honor whose voices o had a sound potent for good or evil. Jove, the imperial monarch of Olympus, had but to direct the lightning and command the thunder. 76 How We Breathe. Homer writes: "He speaks, and awful bends his sable brow, Shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod, The stamp of fate and sanction of a god. High Heaven, with trembling, the dread signal takes, And all Olympus to the center shakes." Of the nine muses, six reached gods and mortals through the voice ; and to Calliope, the muse of eloquence and poetry, was given the precedence. If we put faith in the grand opening of biblical history, it was the voice of the serpent that beguiled Eve ; and it was the soft voice of the first mother that, falling upon the ear and heart of Adam, betrayed him to his undoing; and, whether we accept the narrative literally or as an allegory, a hush falls upon the spirit as we read of the voice of the Lord God in the garden, calling upon the man and saying, "Where art thou?" Jubal was the father of those who played upon the harp, and there is little doubt that the first musical instruments, as are all later ones, were but feeble attempts to imitate the notes given forth by the human larynx, or to accompany the songs of joy and praise of tho people. How We Breathe. 77 Miriam sang, after the passage of the Red Sea, those magnificent words which form most thrilling passages in our sacred music and or- atorio, " Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously!" and Hebrew history, full of war and bloodshed, of idol worship and sin, as it is, is more than redeemed by Hebrew poetry. Nay, if we go from Earth to the Be- yond, we find the poets and seers, whoso fan- cies paint its attractions for mortals, as in the vision of John, telling us of ten thousand times ten thousand surrounding the throne, with voices and harps attuned to the majestic melo- dies of the skies. But if we fail to conceive, with our limited faculties, of celestial sounds, and listen only to mortal tones, we shall have the fullness and the glory of the human voice revealed to us even more forcibly than by any flight of the imagination. We know its compass, we ac- knowledge its power, we listen with rapture to its melodious utterances, we feel in our thrilled hearts its touching tenderness. The capacity of the human voice is beyond that of all the musical instruments ever in- vented. In its tones we can read the mind 78 Mbvj We Bivathe. of the speaker, without seeing his face. Hope, fear, anger, revenge, love, hatred, despair, are told with unerring directness. The voice of Parepa brought adoring thou- sands to her feet. Woman, through her words of love and tenderness, lias exercised a greater power over the race than have all the mon- archs, backed by all the armies, of the world. In sickness, her tones of tender sympathy are often more efficacious than medicine ; and the strong man, brought low by suffering, and the restless inlant are alike soothed to slumber by a woman's low voice. There is no characteristic in a mother, a teacher or a nurse which is more readily caught up and echoed than the habitual tone of her voice. A screaming, scolding, harsh -voiced mother or teacher will be very sure to find her own tones reflected to her by the little ones who are so unfortunate as to hear them. Thackeray says : " The world is a looking- glass, and gives to each individual the reflec- tion of the face he brings to it. Smile on it, and it will smile in return. Frown on it, and it will frown in return." Children are no less accurate mirrors, which reflect, in tone, mannei How we Breathe. 79 and action of all kinds, the habits of those whom they oftenest encounter. The most delightful school I ever saw was a primary school, of nearly a hundred children, presided over by one woman, whose voice was the very essence of gentleness. During a series of visits there I never heard her raise her voice above the ordinary tones of conversation ; but those tones were exquisitely modulated, and so clear and pure that they reached the most distant ears in all their purity. The children's voices were like hers. They never Bcreamed at her, for she never screamed at them. They never spoke in fretful or peevish tones to her, for she never spoke in any but cheerful tones to them. Do you ask the secret of her power over them, by which she kept them from rest- lessness and noisiness ? She loved them, and her voice showed that she loved them. Added to this tender child-love there was a self-control which, above all else, is essential to the control of others. She kept her whole body subject to the dictates of her reason. She knew that she could do little in her chosen profession, "To teach the immortal mind, no mean employ ;" 80 How We Breathe. unless she kept her body in health; and she knew that her voice depended upon large lungs for its power, its sweetness and its endurance. So she gave her lungs the largest liberty, in ways which you shall hear. CHAPTER YI. HOW WE BREATHE. Continued-. FROM the nostrils to the larynx, and from the larynx through the trachea and bronchi to the lungs, is not far, but "'tis enough" for all that Nature would do for ns there if she can have her own way. And how rare is the workmanship there displayed ! We saw, in our lesson upon the circulation of the blood, by what gradations in the animal scale she came to that perfection of function which results from a four-chambered heart, and it remains for us to trace out a no less striking gradation up to the human lung. All animals are classed as air-breathers or water-breathers, and all breathe either by means of tubes, gills or lungs. Respiration in ani- 82 How We Breathe. mals, whatever be its mode of execution, has always the same object, namely : the exchange of carbonic acid, or waste product of tissue wear, for oxygen. The earth, the air and the water are each and all so rich in this life- giving element that each and all can get the requisite amount from their native element, whatever that element be. The sponges and coral polyps, and all those very humble little people who are so small that it takes a microscope to find them, do not have any special apparatus set apart for the purpose of respiration, but they breathe at one part of the body just as well as at an- other. Certainly a very convenient arrange- ment, which we might be led to covet under some circumstances. The star-fishes, sea-urchins and their rela- tives have a curious " water-pipe system," by means of which their air and their blood and their water are carried round to them all at once. This plan has also ita obvious advan- tages; but when we rise to the estate of the clam and the oyster, who live in " marble halls" with folding-doors, we find a great ad- vance in the style of their breathing, in .that How We Breathe. 83 they have very elegantly constructed gills, most finely fringed, by means of which their blood comes to be of quite a select quality compared with that of the people below them, although it is neither blue blood nor yet red, but simply white. The fishes, however, have the perfec- tion of water -breathing apparatus, and you have only to lift the gill-covera of the next one you see to find how delicate and beautiful it is. You will find four or more strong arches supporting little fringes whose component parts consist of minute loops of arteries and veins, which meet here to exchange the carbonic acid CJ which has been picked up by the veins all over the body for the oxygen which the water brings to the waiting arteries. Those arches are the gill arches, and the fringes on them are the gills, and the gills are for the fish exactly what your lungs are for you : the sine qua non of his existence. Keep his gills wet, and life goes on smoothly for him. Let them get dry, and the way is rough. So, if you can get air for your lungs, life is a joy; but close up this sole avenue for your " breath of life," and your sun must go down in darkness. Not so with the insect world. They have air tubes 84 How We Breathe. all over the body. Catch a grasshopper and look on the sides of his abdomen, and you will see little openings, like a row of button-holes, through which the air enters and animates his body. Then take your microscope and find the coils of air-tubing all wound up in him, and you will understand why he is so very much alive : because he gets so much fresh air. No wonder he sings all the time ! Anybody feels like it when the body is full of pure oxygen. Do you know the story of the grasshoppers, aa told by Plato in the dialogue called " Pha3- drus" ? Listen to it : Socrates ia represented as having gone out to walk, at mid-day, with his friend. Seated under a plane-tree, he says: "A lover of music like yourself ought surely to have heard the story of the grasshoppers, who are said to have been human beings in an age before the muses. And when the muses came, and song appeared, they were ravished with de- light, and, singing always, never thought of eating and drinking, until at last they forgot, and died. And now they live again in the grasshoppers; and this is the return which the muses make to them : they hunger no more, How We Breathe. 85 neither thirst any more, but are always sing- ing, from the moment they are born, and never eating or drinking ; and when they die, they go and inform the muses who honor them 011 earth. They win the love of Terpsichore for the dancers by their report of them; of Erato for the lovers; and of the other muses for those who do them honor, according to the several ways of honoring them ; of Calliope, the eldest muse, and of her who is next to her, for the votaries of philosophy, for these are the muses who are chiefly concerned with heaven and the ideas, divine as well as human, and they have the sweetest utterance." All insects have these breathing-tubes dis- tributed all through their bodies. They are called tracheae, and correspond in function to the lungs of the higher vertebrates. The simplest form of the lung of the verte- brates may be seen in the frog. I wish every one of you would give herself the pleasure of seeing this wonder of creation at her first op- portunity. A toad will do just as well as a frog. You have only to put him in a bottle with a handkerchief saturated with sulphuric ether, and, us soon as he is sound asleep, open 86 How We Breathe. the skin of his abdomen with a sharp knife or scjssors. You will see the pretty lungs all inflated, and the little heart beating between them. Then cut out the little heart before he wakes, and he never will know that he has been cut, and you will have seen just how one of the air-cells of your lungs looks. Now you have only to imagine cluster after cluster of these delicate little sacs, all opening into the bronchial tubes, by the thousand, and you will have a very good picture of your own lungs. I hope you will also realize what an awfully wicked thing it is to squeeze the lungs. Be- lieve me, my dear girls, you can do your bodies no greater favor than to let your chests remain in just the shape your Maker left them. He knows very much better how to shape them than you or your dressmaker know. He has put no less than thirty-nine bones into the walls of your chests, and you need no more. There is a set of muscles between each pair of your ribs, and a diaphragm at the bot- tom of the chest, and He who put them, there mea-nt that they should be always in motion, from the time you draw your first breath till you die, and whenever you surround the ciiest How We Breathe. 87 with bands or boues you do just what the surgeon does for a broken bone : you put these muscles all in splints and hold them still, and from that moment you are only half as much alive as you ought to be. It matters not if you answer that your bands and your bonea are loose. Your broth- ers do not have bands and artificial bones to hold them in shape, and you have just as many bonea as they have. It matters not if you tell me that you cannot hold yourself up with- out corsets. You can do what you should do, and you should hold up your own bodies by the means which God has given you for that purpose. Hear what Canon Kingsley said to you in one of his best books, entitled " Health and Education r : "I suppose you will all allow that the Greeks were, so far as we know, the most beautiful race that the world ever saw. These people had made physical as well as intellect- ual education a science, as well as a study. Their women practiced graceful, and, in some cases, even athletic, exercises. They devel- oped, by a free and healthy life, those figures 88 How We Breathe. which remain everlasting and unapproachable models of human beauty. But they wore no Btays. The first mention of stays that I have found is in the letters of Synesius, Bishop of Gyrene, on the Greek coast of Africa, about four hundred years after the Christian era. " He tells us how, when he was shipwrecked on a remote part of the coast, and he and the rest of the passengers were starving on cockles and limpets, there was among them a slave- girl out of the far East, who had a pinched wasp-waist, such as you see on the old Hindu sculptures, and such as you see on any street in a British town. " And when the Greek ladies found her out, they sent for her from house to house, to see this new and prodigious waist, with which it seemed to them impossible for a human being to breathe or live ; and they petted the poor girl, and fed her as they might a dwarf, till she got quite fat and comfortable, while her owners hud not enough to eat. So strange and ridiculous seemed our present fashion to the descendants of those who, centuries be- fore, had imagined, because they had seen How We Breathe. 89 living and moving, those glorious statues which we pretend to admire, but refuse to imitate. " It seems to me that a few centuries hence, when mankind has learned to fear God more, and therefore to obey more strictly the laws of nature and of science, which are the will of God it seems to me that in those days the present fashion of corset-wearing will be looked back upon as a contemptible and barbarous superstition, denoting a very low level of civil- ization in the people who practiced it. " That for generations past women should have been in the habit not to please men, who do not care about the matter as a point of beauty, but simply to vie with each other in obedience to a something called Fashion that they should, I say, have been in the habit of deliberately crushing that part of the body which should be specially left free, contracting and displacing their lungs, their heart and all the most vital and important organs, and en- tailing thereby disease not only on themselves, but on their children after them ; that for fifty years past physicians should have been telling them of the folly of what they have been doing; and that they should, as yet, in 90 How We Breathe. the great majority of cases, not only turn a deaf ear to all warnings, but actually deny the offense, of which one glance of the physician or of the sculptor, who knows what shape the human body ought to be, brings them in guilty : this, I say, is an instance of what shall I call it ? which deserves the lash, not merely of the satirist, but of any theologian who really believes that God made the physical universe. " If one chooses a horse or a dog, whether for strength or for speed or for any useful pur- pose, the first thing to be looked at is the girth round the ribs : the room for heart and lungs. Exactly in proportion to that will be the ani- mal's general healthfulness, power of endur- ance, and value in many ways. " If you will look at eminent orators who have attained a healthy old age, you will see that in every case they are men of large size both in the lower and in the upper part of the chest ; men who had, therefore, a peculiar power of using the diaphragm to fill and clear the lungs, and therefore oxygenate the blood of the whole body. Now, it is just these lower ribfi, across which the diaphragm is stretched How We Breathe. 91 like the head of a drum, which stays contract to a minimum. "If you advised the owners of horses and hounds to put them into stays in order to increase their beauty, you would receive a very decided refusal. And if you advised an orator to put himself into stays, he would reply that to comply with the request would involve the giving up of public work, under the probable penalty of being dead within the twelvemonth. " And how much work of every kind, intel- lectual as well as physical, is spoiled or hin- dered ; how many deaths occur from consump- tion, and other complaints, which are the result of stays is known partly to the medical men, who lift up their voices in vain, and fully known to Him who will not interfere with the least of his own physical laws to save human beings from the consequences of their own willful folly." The good man who said all these good things to us has gone where corsets and other wicked things " cease from troubling/' but I am sure his blessing rests on the "dress-reform." of which I am going to tell you farther on, aiid which enables you to look your very pret- 92 How We Breathe. tiest, while it, at the same time, leaves your chest free to expand to its uttermost. And now, in reply to your questions about catarrh and colds, and BO on, I have only to say, as I have already done : Keep the blood in the right place, and leave all its channels un- fettered by any bands ; give the lungs the largest liberty ; keep the skin of the whole body active and familiar with fresh air and cold water ; do not muffle the neck too much, but be very sure that the feet are so clad that they are always warm. Catarrh in the head and cold feet always go together. Keep the feet warm and dry, and you cannot have catarrh. Do not expect to cure a catarrh by snuffs or any patent nostrum. Sublata causa, cessat ef- fectus: The cause removed, the effect ceasea. Above all tilings, avoid going to sit, stand or lie in a cool, breezy place when you are warm from active exercise. That is a sure way to catch the " death cold." Do not stand by open windows or open doors when the air of the house is warmer than that out. You are subjected to a strong draft which is sure to result in a " cold." Do not stop to talk in the doorway when parting from a friend. Say How We Breathe. 93 what you have to say in the house, and, when you get to the door, go on your way at once. Do not arrest a friend on a windy corner when walking, for a five minutes' chat. You may both get chilled fatally. Rather turn and walk in your friend's direction till your chat is over. Do not throw off your wraps too suddenly when coming in warm with exercise, but "let your moderation be known to all." Do not talk much when walking in a cold, frosty air, but keep the mouth closed, that the air may be warmed by the nostrils. Avoid very hot rooms, with the moisture all dried out of the air. Have a thermometer, and never tolerate a temperature above sixty- eight or seventy Fahrenheit. Change the air of your room every hour. An hour is long enough to remain in one position or in one room without change. Never sit, eat or sleep in a north room if you can help it. The north side of the house belongs to the refrigerator and the store-room. Let the sun shine into all your rooms as much as possible. You had better have faded carpets than faded faces. Be out doors two hours a 94 How We Breathe. day at the very least, and in fine weather let it be three or four. There is always some- thing to go out for. Every page of Nature's story-book is full of interest to her who will read it. The stones are always there to tell their sermons ; the everlasting hills, " whence cometh our help," are always there to remind us that there is too much grandeur in Nature for man to waste his time on strife and con- tention ; and when the glad spring, summer and autumn days come, what a joy there is in studying the flowers, the ferns, the butterflies, the birds and all the fair living creatures that people the woods and fields. Not time ! do you say ? But, my dear child, think of the time you put into filling canvas with yarn, in a vain attempt to make something which looks like a flower. Had it not better bo spent in studying the flower it- self? Believe me, when you learn to study Nature's book with the loving heart and eye of an Agassiz, you will be so accustomed to the real air of life that you will wonder how women can be content to stay indoors and make " pretty things to wear," with a great many pounds of not only superfluous, but act- How We Breathe. 95 uaily ruinous (in more senses than one), ruffles and furbelows, when they can be so much healthier, wealthier, wiser and happier in sim- ple attire, whose modest lines are lighted by the glow of cheeks whose bloom rivals the rose's, and by eyes whose sparkle rivals the sunlight. Finally, keep your noses educated up to the requisite point for the recognition of an air unfit for breathing. For that purpose the sense of smell is given you, and when it tells you the air of a place is foul, get out of it as quickly as you can, unless there is some way of bettering it so as to lit it for respiration. I once heard Mr. Beecher tell a crowded audience in Steinway Hall, New York, that there was no subject so much talked about and so little understood as the subject of ven- tilation, and that the air of that hall justified the assertion. He went on to say that, if we were asked to take into the mouth what had been once ejected from it, we should think it a very filthy tiling ; but ws do a much more filthy thing when we take into our lungs not only the breath we ourselves have ejected, but that of our neighbors, too. 96 How We Breathe. In the November, 1877, number of the "Popular Science Monthly" Dr. Felix Oswald has an interesting paper on "Modern Troglo- dytes," which you will do well to read. It will help to convince you that pure air and plenty of it, and large lungs in which to re- ceive it, are the essential elements of that beauty which you all covet, and which is found only in healthy bodies which have retained that likeness to their Maker expressed in the statement of the sacred historian, " So God created man in his own image." CHAPTER TIL THE BRAIN AND NERVES. "Bora in man and woman, the brain is the conservator of strength and the prolonger of xife. Poor brains, like weeds, will grow on any soil. The best brains are built by educa- tion in accordance with the plans of Nature. A human brain is the "consummate flower" of Nature's development on this planet. No per- fect brain ever crowns an imperfectly developed body." DR. EDWARD H. CLAEK ("The Build- ing of a Brain"). In our previous studies we have considered the different organs of the body principally with reference to their individual functions. We come now to the consideration of the man- ner in which all these functions are coordi- 98 The Brain, and Nerves. nated BO that a perfect harmony of action is secured throughout the entire structure. This harmony is the condition we call health, and the system of apparatus hy the action of which it is insured we call the nervous system. There is no form of animal life in which this coordinator of animal force is wanting. True, its manifestations are exceedingly simple in the lower forms, but it requires only the slightest touching of the tentacles of the sea- anemone to reveal its sensitiveness; and if we follow up this contact with the microscope and patience, we shall find the little threads of nerves, radiating from their nervous centers, by whose action the creature is able to so co- ordinate its sensations with its motions as to withdraw its tentacles from the point of con- tact. And all this in a creature which spends its whole life on the rock where that life be- gan, and which looks so very much like a flower that it has received a flower's name ! If we rise a step higher, to the starfish and sea-urchin, we have not only no difficulty in proving that they have nerves and nervous centers, but we can easily find them without the microscope. So, if we pass from the radi- The Brain and Nerves. 99 ates to the articulates, we shall find an even more elaborate system of nerves and nerve- centers, by which these creatures are rendered extremely sensitive, and also extremely motor, so that the bee and the butterfly are almost all motion. As we pass on to the vertebrates we find, first, a notable difference in the location of the nerve-centers as compared with the articulates, in that they are ranged along the lower or ventral region in the latter sub-kingdom, while all the vertebrates have their spines in their backs. Here, too, in the vertebrates we find, for the first time, a bony case for the lodgment and protection of nerve-centers ; hence they are the first to possess two quite distinct nervous systems, namely : the cerebro-spinal or volun- tary system, and the sympathetic or involuntary system ; the former, as its name indicates, pre- siding over all voluntary action, while the lat- ter is confined to the regulation of such invol- untary acts as breathing, the beating of the heart, and the digestion of food. There is quite a marked difference in the tissue composing these separate systems, as you would easily see on inspection ; and their differ- 100 The Brain and Nerves. ence in function is at once apparent when you recall the ease with which you open and close your eyelids, as compared with the difficulty of holding your breath for a few seconds. To the naked eye, the brain and spinal cord which constitute the center of the volun- tary system, and which are lodged in the skull and in the long canal formed by the succession of openings in the body of the vertebrae, of which we Bpoke in an earlier lesson nre com- posed of two differently colored substances, which are called the white and the grey matter. Examined with the microscope, this matter is made up of fibers and cells, and micro- scopists have decided, after much careful study, that the cell portion alone is capable of gener- ating nerve force. Examined chemically, this matter is found to consist of more than three- fourths water; while the phosphates, of which we spoke in the opening chapter under the designation of the " dust of the earth," con- tribute largely toward the remaining fourth. In this revelation of chemistry, which is but one of many facts both useful and beautiful which that wonderful science reveals, we are fortified in the assumption contained in the- The Jlrain and Nerves. 101 chapter on Foods, that eggs and the whole grains, crushed into edible form, constitute the best brain food, in that chemistry teaches that the germs of all life, both animal and vege- table, are rich in phosphorus, the " light- bringer." It* you look at the brain of any of the higher vertebrates (and any market will fur- nish you the opportunity), you will seo that it is thrown into convolutions. In this respect the brains of reptiles and of birds differ from those of the higher vertebrates, in that the former have no convolutions, and this fact has much significance as related to the degree of intelligence; so that, although size is also an important factor, the brain of the civilised man being larger by nearly thirty per cent, than the brain of the savage, it ia nevertheless true that anatomists rate intelligence quite as much according to the fineness of the brain convolu- tions as by the size of the organ : quality, not quantity, being the rule here as elsewhere. You may have observed heads with very prominent foreheads, or with excessive develop- ment upward, and possibly have been led to infer that their possessors had more than ordi- 102 The Brain and Nerves. nary intelligence, but it is probable that a closer acquaintance would fail to confirm your assumptions. If you look at the heads of any ot the Greek statues which are models, for all time, of the perfect human form you will note, above all other characteristics, their perfectly exquisite symmetry, while their size often pro- vokes the comment that the Greeks must have had small heads. We have spoken, thus far, only of the nerve-centers. We have now to speak of the nerves which have their origin in these centers. From the brain and spinal cord there arise forty-four pairs of nerves, twelve of them from the brain and thirty-two from the cord. The cord itself is described as having four columns, two anterior and two posterior ; and the very interesting fact that each of the spinal nerves has a double root, one corning from an anterior column and being exclusively motor in its function, the other coming from the posterior column arid being exclusively sensitive in func- tion, was never known until the present cen- tury, when Sir Charles Bell discovered it in 1810, his discovery being confirmed by Magen- die in 1822. Magendie divided, in the living The Brain and Nerves. 103 animal, first the posterior roots, and found that sensibility was lost, but that motion remained. Then he divided the anterior roots, and ob- tained reverse effects. Knowing this fact, the series of actions which goes on between the fibers which go to make up any pair of the nerves which animate the trunk muscles or the muscles of the ex- tremities may be aptly likened to an exchange of messages between two telegraphic stations. The finger, for instance, touches an offending object. The sensitive fibers of the double- rooted nerve which animates the finger carry in the announcement to the central office, or spinal cord, that something hot is at the other end of the line, from whose proximity it will bo expedient to withdraw. The order is at once issued to the motor fibers to attend to the withdrawal. This is the analysis of every vol- untary muscular action, and not only this, but the time occupied in the transit of the separate messages from without inward and from within outward has been estimated. We turn now from the spinal nerves to the consideration of some of the twelve pairs of cerebral nerves whose origin is limited to a 104: The, Brain and Nerves. very small space at the base of the brain, and to whose presence we owe our special senses of smell, sight, hearing and taste in a similar way to that in which we derive sensation and motion from the spinal nerves. Says Gerald Massey : " There are many ways in which the Creator seeks admittance into the sonl of man .... We see the flowers come to us every springtide, with messages uttered in lovely forms, and in fragrance which is the breath of the Divine. The winds blow, waters roll, the green leaves dance, the BUH- beams brighten, the colors burnish into beauty, the weeds grow an grace, the skylark mounts up, and l deep calleth unto deep, day unto day uttereth speech ' ; the springing earth laughs out in the light, the starry heavens kindle all aglow with the glory of God.... All nature reflects in some faint wise, in its infinite variety, the Image of the Infinite One. It is as if in man Nature found her heart of hearts her true meeting-place for the Creator, the Crea- tion, the Creature." And our five special senses may be regarded a8 the several gateways through which the Creator comes into our souls by these gracious . The Brain and Nerves. 105 manifestations of Himself. We are accustomed to call them five separate and distinct senses, yet closer thought suggests that the senses of smell, sight, hearing and taste are but so many modifications of the sense of touch, for do not the odorous particles which float off from the anthers of the rose impinge upon the terminal filaments of the nerve of smell, and by this contact give proof of their presence, as directly as the hot stove declares itself to the finger- tips through the general sense of touch ? Consider the sense of vision. Socrates asked : " Does it not look like a work of pre- science, because the eye is so delicate, to have furnished it with lids, which open when we want to see the light and close when we want to sleep ; to have fringed those lids with lashes, which, like a seive, strain the dusty wind and keep it from hurting the sight; and over the eyes to have placed brows, which, like eaves, carry off the sweat from hurting the sight ?" Let me entreat you, dear girls, to think of all this careful provision for the needs of your eyes, when you are tempted to hang a spotted lace veil before them to enhance the color of your cheeks, and forbear thus to profane and 106 The Brain and Nerves. irritate these most delicate organs. You can hardly offend the nerve of vision more seriously than by following this pernicious fashion. Your brothers would never endure Bueh a thing as a veil before their eyes, but would protest against it with all possible vigor, and your eyes are made exactly like theirs. If you would see the mechanism of the eye which is but the servant of the nerve of vision, sent off from the brain you can easily get the eye of an ox from your market, and examine it at your leisure. Note through what a variety of media the light must pass before it is permitted to impinge upon that delicate expansion of the optic nerve which we call the retina ! Just as you saw that the mouth is the preparatory organ for digestion, the nose for olfaction, so you see that the eye is the preparer of light for the brain. Treat the eyes properly, and they will remain your faithful servants for all your threescore and ten years, provided you treat the rest of your body as you should. Abuse them, and there is no power in Heaven or on Earth which can prevent you from paying the penalty therefor. Do not hang veils before them ; do not The Brain and Nerves. 107 bend over book or work, but sit always erect, and raise the book or work to the requisite height. Use an inclined book-rest for heavy- books. Raise the eyes from the book as often as two or three times in the half hour, for a restful look off into the distance "to the hills whence corneth our help," if possible and let the mind have time to think of the subject- matter. Do not sit with the light opposite the eyes, whether that light be sun light or artifi- cial light, but let it fall over the left shoulder, directly upon the page or the work. Never read or study by artificial light before break- fast. It is ruinous to the eyes. Do not read or sew by twilight. If the eyes require protec- tion from sun-light or snow-light, or light re- flected from water, or if the lids fail " to sift the dusty wind," obscured glasses are better for the purpose of protection than veils. The sense of hearing has the ear for its servant, and of all the organs of special sense this is the most complicated and the most beau- tiful. It is impossible for me to convey to you, by words, any idea of this most marvelous structure ; but let me ask you to study a model of it at your first opportunity, and I feel sure 108 The Brain and Nerves. you will thus find your whole soul so filled with reverence for the Maker of such a piece of workmanship that you will shrink from pro- faning its pavilion, as the external part is called, by punching a hole in it for the exhibi- tion of an ornament, which, however beautiful it may be, is a desecration to this " temple of the Holy Ghost." Keep these gateways for your Lord's in- coming ever open and ever in order ; BO shall you live in that nearness to Him which the " pure in heart " know, " for they shall see God." Do this " in the days of your youth," so that when you reach your meridian your brains shall be richly stored with the records of the impressions which the servants of the nerves will have brought in. So shall your last days be better than your first. Dr. Draper tells us that " a shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving there an in- delible trace, a trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out and our retirement can never be pro- The Brain and Nerves. 109 faned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done. " If, after the eyelids have been closed for some time, as when we first awake in the morning, we suddenly and steadfastly gaze at a brightly illuminated object, and then quickly close the lids again, a phantom image is per- ceived in the indefinite darkness beyond us. "We may satisfy ourselves that this is not a fiction, but a reality, for many details that we had not time to identify in the momentary glance may be contemplated at our leisure in the phantom. We may thus make out the pat- tern of such an object as a lace curtain hanging in the window, or the branches of a tree be- yond. By degrees the image becomes less and less distinct; in a minute or two it has disap- peared. It seems to float away iu the vacancy before us. If we attempt to follow it by mov- ing the eyeball, it suddenly vanishes. Such a duration of impressions on the retina proves that the effect of external influences on nerve- vesicles is not necessarily transitory. " In this there is a correspondence to the duration, the emergence, the extinction of im- pressions on photographic preparations. Thus, 110 The, Brain and Nerves. I have seen landscapes and architectural views taken in Mexico, developed, as artists say, months subsequently in New York : the images coming out, after the long voyage, in all their proper forms and in all their proper contrast of light and shade. The photograph had for- gotten nothing. It had equally preserved the contour of the everlasting mountains and the passing smoke of the bandit-fires. " Are there, then, contained in the brain more permanently, as in tho retina more tran- siently, the vestiges that have been gathered by tho more sensory organs ? Is this the ex- planation of memory the Mind contemplating, such pictures of past things and events as have been committed to her custody ? In her silent galleries are there hung micrographs of the living and the dead, of scenes that we have visited, of incidents in which we have borne a part ? Are these abiding impressions mere signal-marks, like the letters of a book, which impart ideas to the mind ? or are they actual picture-images, inconceivably smaller than those made for us by artists, in which, by the aid of a microscope, we can see, in a space not bigger The Brain and Nerves. Ill than a pin-hole, a whole family group at a glance ? " The phantom images of the retina are not perceptible in the light of day. Those that exist in the sensorium in like manner do not attract onr attention so long as the sensory organs are in vigorous operation and occupied in bringing in new impressions. But, when those organs become weary or dull, or when we experience hours of great anxiety, or are in twilight reveries, or are asleep, the latest appa- ritions have their vividness increased by the contrast, and obtrude themselves on the mind. " For the- same reason they occupy us in the delirium of fevers, and doubtless also in the solemn moments of death. During a third part of our life, in sleep, we are withdrawn from external influences ; hearing and sight and the other senses are inactive ; but the never- sleeping Mind, that veiled enchantress, in her mysterious retirement, loo.ks over the ambro- types she has collected ambrotypes, for they are truly unfading impressions and, combining them together as they chance to occur, con- structs from them the panorama of a dream . . . "Savage or civilized, we carry within us a 112 The Brain and Nerves. mechanism which presents us with mementoes of the most solemn facts with which we can be concerned. It wants only moments of repose or sickness, when the influence of external things is diminished, to come into full play, and these are precisely the moments when we are best prepared for the truths it is going to suggest. That mechanism is no respecter of persons. It neither permits the haughtiest to be free from the monitions, nor leaves the humblest without the consolations, of a knowl- edge of another life. Open to no opportunities of being tampered with by the designing or the interested, requiring no extraneous human agency for its effect, but always present with every man, wherever he may go, it marvel- ously extracts from vestiges of the impressions of the past overwhelming proofs of the realities of the future, and, gathering its power from what would seem to be a most unlikely source, it insensibly leads us, no matter where we may go, to a profound belief in the immortal and imperishable, from phantoms which have scarcely made their appearance before they are ready to vanish away." History of Conflict Between Science and Religion. CHAPTER VIII. NERVES AND NERVOUSNESS. HAYING considered the structure and func- tions of the cerebro-spinal or voluntary nerve system, it remains to speak more in detail of the great sympathetic or involuntary system, whose nerve-centers, or ganglia, have no bony case for their lodgment, and in this respect are allied to the nerve-centers of the radiates, the mollusks and the articulates, being distributed about among the various internal organs of the four cavities of the body, namely : the skull, the chest, the abdomen and the pelvis. Be- sides these, there is a double row of them lying against the anterior surface of the spinal column, which might be compared to a double string of loosely-threaded pearls, so far as the 114 Nerves and Nervousness. appearance which they present to the naked eye is regarded. From these various ganglia, of which it is estimated there are upward of sixty in the heart alone, numberless delicate nerve fila- ments are given off from each internal organ, which unite not only with similar filaments from neighboring organs, but also with fila- ments sent off from the ccrebro-spinal nerves; by which means you will understand that all the internal organs are not only intimately associated with each other, but also with the body which they inhabit. It is this fact which gives the name "Great Sympathetic" to this system. It is also called the " Great Organic," for the same reason. To the microscopist and the chemist the structure of this system pre- sents some significant variations from that of the cerebro-spinal system ; while to the physi- ologist there is a very wide variation in func- tion, in that a very much longer space of time is requisite for conveying impressions to its centers than is required to convey messages to the brain or spinal cord Thus, if the hand or foot come in contact with a cold or hot foreign body, the intelligence Nerves and Nervousness. 115 is carried in to the brain in less time than it takes to describe the process even to the extent here attempted ; but if we " catch a cold," as the expression goes, the sympathetic nerve- centers dp not evince their recognition of the fact until twenty-four hours or more after the occurrence which gave rise to the condition. There is another very important fact con- nected with this sympathetic system, namely : that, although the entire weight of the internal organs is only about one-tenth that of the body, yet one-half of all the blood of the body is sent to these organs. I desire to impress this fact upon you with all possible emphasis, for upon its recognition your comfort depends in large measure. You will remember that in the chapter on " Circulation " I have endeav- ored to impress upon you the fact that physical suffering generally implies blood in the wrong place, and that all remedial measures point to a removal of it to some place remote from the seat of pain. Now you all understand that the nerves are the sentinels which report this want of equilib- rium in the circulation, by means of an ache of some kind. Not one of them will allow an 116 Werves and Nervousness. excess of blood in its vicinity without protest- ing ; therefore, I say again, as I have already snid to you, Keep the blood clean and in the right place, and your nerves will never give you painful reminders of their presence. All painful, inflammatory conditions, like pneumonia, dysentery, and uterine, or ovarian, inflammations, mean this and nothing more. I knew a young lady who stood with her head out of an open window for five minutes, in mid -winter, to gossip with a passer-by. In twenty-four hours she had the initiatory chill of pneumonia, and in a week the passer-by attended her funeral. I knew another, who played croquet on the damp ground in early May, going directly out from a warm dining-room, with thin shoes and but little protection from a cold wind. A violent attack of dysentery followed, from which she barely escaped with her life. Neuralgia has been defined as the "prayer of the nerve for healthy blood," but the nerve prays no less fervently for the right quantity than for the right quality of the vital fluid. Doubtless many of you have felt the pangs of neuralgia, and would like to be informed Nerves and Nervousness. 117 Low to avoid their recurrence. Let me tell yon, then, right here, that all the anodyne lotions and doses which ever were or will be compounded will never cure neuralgia as long as the cause of it remains, and, in nine cases out of ten, the cause of neuralgia in young women is traceable to want of equilibrium in the circulation. The poor body is so cramped and distorted and loaded down with the thou- sand and one devices for making it look "styl- ish," that the blood has very hard work to get round it at all, to say nothing of getting round on time. Take the " corset-liver," for instance, as medical students have learned to call the livers of the female subjects which go to the dissect- ing-room. It is the rule, rather than the excep- tion, for these livers to be so deeply indented where the ribs have been crowded against them by improperly worn clothing, that the wrist may easily be laid in the groove. And this in an organ which is a mass of blood- vessels, through which every particle of blood ought to circulate freely on its way to the heart. Of course, it cannot get through the squeezed portions, and the inevitable result of 118 Nerves and Nervousness. the half-done work of the liver is an unclean condition of the blood, which utters its cry by means of aching nerves. "A sick simpleton asks, What shall I take? A sick philosopher asks, What shall I do ? " "What shall I take for my nervousness?" is the question which comes daily, I might almost say hourly, to the physician " that un- fortunate individual," as Voltaire said, "who is hourly expected to perform a miracle ; name- ly: to reconcile health with intemperance." All nervous people are intemperate in some respect, because they are deficient in that fundamental element of stability, self-control. There would be no need of any temperance- reform movements if we were all taught the proper lessons of self-control in childhood. T^ie woman who stimulates herself to extra exertion on strong tea ia just as much an inebriate as he who rolls in the gutter because he stimu- lates on alcohol ; and the young girl who never can pass a candy-store without indulging in her favorite sweets is just aa surely on the road to ruin, of one kind, as is the boy who prides himself on being able to smoke cigars. The animal appetite is master in each case, and Nerves and Nervousness. 119 self control is as deficient as in a creeping in- fant, who lias no higher thought than to eat as often and as long as it can. Inactivity ranks next to intemperance as a fruitful cause of nervousness. Some of " our girls" are fond enough of activity of a certain kind. They can dance all night and " never feel tired,'' but they cannot walk a mile with- out getting the back-ache ; so they will shut themselves indoors all day, away from the life- giving air and sunlight, and read emotional novels, and then go to the doctor to get some valerian for their nerves ! Alas ! poor souls ! If you would only go to the woods and to the fields, to the rocks and to the streams, for your books, and let the novels lie on the shelves till your mothers tell you which ones to read ! And then if you would spend your evenings with the best authors, and go to bed at nine o'clock, and do your dancing by sun- light, you would never know anything about nervousness. " Nervousness and hypochondria and hys- teria were unknown to the ancients. Perhaps if we emulate them, seeking to be as strong as the Romans, as high-minded as the Greeks, 120 Nerves and Nervousness. they may in time be unknown to us." Good muscles are the best possible balance for the nerves. People who use their muscles as they should never have hysteria. Nor yet do peo- ple who use their brains as they should have it. Well-directed mental effort never yet made a case of hysteria, nor of its relative, insanity. It is intemperate brain-work, with worry, which leads astray. In the annual reports of the Massachusetts Lunatic Asylums for 1876, the superintend- ents all concurred in asserting that "there can be no permanent decrease in the number of the insane till people learn to control their passions, sleep well, and 'keep cool.' " Children and older students must take ex- ercise, and the robust and vigorous must be taken from cruel exercise and sports, and put to study and more placid employments. Self- control is, above all things, essential. The marriages of those tainted with insanity should be forbidden. Brain-workers contribute a very immaterial percentage to the total number of the insane." It is' a perfectly easy matter to select from a school of young ladies those who will be Nerves and Nervousness. 121 liable to attacks of hysteria at the test exam- inations of the closing weeks of the term ; and they will not be those who have been " temperate in all things," and faithful not only to each day's mental work, but faithful also to the body, in which the mind dwells, as regards its daily need of sunlight, water, fresh air, and exercise. The intemperate ones are they who will, under the spur of some excitement, walk ten miles one day, and then stay indoors, wrapped in shawls and drinking tea, for a week after it. They will sit up all night to " cram " for an examination, when those who have done every day's work in its own good time are quietly refreshing their brains for the test -work by that best of all restorers blessed, balmy sleep. The "crammers" will fidget and worry and make " great cry, but little wool," and when they are informed that they have fallen short of the mark they will fly off into hysteria like any poor crazy- brained creature. Then the opponents to the higher education of women come in and say, " I teld you BO ! That's what comes of cramming girls' heads full of Greek and Latin and science and all that 122 Nerves and Nervousness. stuff, that's of no use to 'cm ! Better let 'em stay at home and wash dishes !" Quite right ! That kind of girls had bet- ter stay at home and wash dishes or darn stockings, so that they do it well, than to make such a pitiful pretense at brain-work. Not what you do, but how you do it, is the test of your capacity. " Who sweeps a room, as by thy laws, Makes it and the action fine." The third factor, in addition to temperance and activity f , which is requisite for healthy nervea is cleanliness, as applied not only to the body itself, but also to the air which sur- rounds it, and to the clothing which covers it. It is asserted by good medical authority that unventilated clothing tends greatly to aggra- vate rheumatic complaints by its retention of the acid excretions of the skin. All clothing should be frequently exposed to direct sunlight, as should the body which wears it. So should all bedclothing and beds be daily exposed to this most beneficent agent when clouds do not obscure it. It is considered by some a proof of a very neat housewife when all the beds are made Nerves and Nervousness. 123 while the family are at breakfast ; but to the physiologist there could hardly be a more repugnant proof of untidiness. Indeed, I know of a lady who lives in a fine house where no window is opened from October till May. She has her bed made as soon as she and her hus- band leave it, and wonders what her neighbors can be thinking of to open their bedroom win- dows in midwinter. Her children have all died but one, and he is getting ready to go. He sleeps till nine or ten o'clock in the morn- ing, and always wakes with headache. He goes at once for mince-pie and jelly- cake, which are always at his command, and accom- panies them with sausage and doughnuts. Eis breath is simply horrible, his complexion is like that of a withered and sickly old man, and he is a constant sufferer from neuralgia or headache. The blood of such a body is un- clean beyond comparison, and " there is no health in it." Let us hear what Mr. John Weiss says about the health of the " Women of Shake- speare": " Shakespeare contrived to rear a race of women whose physical soundness was unim- 124 H^rvcs and Jtfervousncss. paired. Before the gymnasium and health lift were invented by the peevish persuasion of dyspeptics and invalids, who die by inches of fried food, furnace-air, fricassees of high-school programmes, and ragouts of French novels, his women earned their health on horseback in the broad English fields ; they called it down to them out of the sky where the hawk struck the heron and returned to perch upon the wrist ; they came upon its track in the sylvan paths which the startled deer extem- porized; they overtook it in long stretches of breezy walks upon the heathery downs and in the hawthorn -bounded lanes. The country's nature was their training-room, and its unso- phisticated habits their masters. " They saw the sun rise, and could not afford to outflare the setting crescent with gas- light streaming from overheated rooms ; nor did the stately minuet ravage like the " Ger- man " which is sustained into the small hours upon rations of beef-tea and various liquors. They drank small-beer for breakfast, and knew the taste of herrings before the Turks invaded the nerves of Christendom with coffee and the Chinese began to tan its stomach with the acid JVlirves and Nervousness. 125 of tea.... Not one of Shakespeare's women utters one line that is inspired by any form of hysteria; the perfect balance of the functions was not yet impaired, so that no nerve-center could exercise a petty tyranny, nor suggest the morbid fancies and curious superfluities which dedicate so many late romances to St. Yitus, the patron of spasm. .. .Nature was so prodigal of health to Shakespeare's women that it overflowed the clay-banks of their bod- ies, and spread in a freshet of gayety." Some of you have come to me with ques- tions about headache, about neuralgia, about nervousness, about sleeplessness, and so on, and often you ask me for " something to take" as if the doctor had only to put the hand in the medicine-chest and send a remedy direct to the seat of pain. My dear girls, let me tell you, once for all, that the medicines which cure all ills to which flesh is heir are found only in the advertisements. The true physi- cian effects more by his teaching than by his drugs. If you are suffering from headache, it is probably due either to errors in diet, or to fatigue, or to " a cold in the head," or to a 126 Nerves and Nervousness. constitutional tendency to neuralgia, either in- herited or acquired. In either case the remedy is the same rest. If the stomach has been offended by too much food or by too great variety (either will cause headache), by all means give it rest. Take a twenty-four-hour fast, and give Nature a chance to do her own repairing. She is mighty to prevail if you let her alone. We all incline to eat more than we need when the palate is pleased, and it is esti- mated that where one dies of starvation ten die by overfeeding. The Church of Rome does wisely by her children in one respect as to the matter of stated periods of fasting. If the head aches by reason of nerve-fatigue, there is no remedy like sleep ; and the way to court sleep is to take a warm foot-bath and then firmly resolve to go to sleep. If the mind, owing to the temporary failure of the nerve-power to control its vagaries, tends to go roaming about in such crazy fashion as to repel the sleepy god, then is the time to sum- mon up your self-control. You can, if you will, make it stay at home and count sheep going over a wall ; or any other simple device by Nerves and Nervousness. 12T which it is kept steady will suffice to allay that restlessness which drives away sleep. Bos well tells us that a few days before the death of Dr. Johnson, when hie physician ar- rived to pay his morning visit, he seemed very despondent, and broke out in the words of Shakespeare : " ' Canst thou minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?'" To which the physician replied, quoting from the same great poet : " ' therein the patient Must minister to himself.'" Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application. On another day, when talking on the sub- ject of prayer, the Doctor repeated from Ju- venal : lil Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano? " Let us now briefly recapitulate the essen- tial conditions for healthy brains and nerves: First, be temperate in all things. Eat and drink such things only as will contribute to 128 Nerves and Nervousness. the building of good blood, in accordance with the instructions already given you. Let, also, the times and the manner of taking the food O be regulated in accordance with those instruc- tions. Be temperate in your observance of the proper hours of study and reading. Mental indigestion is just as sure to result from inor- dinate cramming with book-lore as is gastric indigestion sure to follow food-cramming. Be temperate in respect to your hours of waking and sleeping. Nature puts her flowers and her animals to sleep along with the going down of the sun, and no human being can disregard this example to the extent of turning night into day without, sooner or later, paying the penalty in shattered nerves. The best hours for sleep are those between ten and two, and no amount of sleep prolonged into the daylight can compensate for the loss of these precious hours. Be ready for bed at nine o'clock in the evening, and you will have no disposition to linger in bed after the sun rises. Be temperate and systematic in your ob- servance of hours of exercise in the open air, Nerves and Nervousness. 129 and never, under any circurastances 5 allow yourselves to study in the hour which should be devoted to exercise. Such study is a weari- ness to the flesh, and also to the brain and nerves. You have probably threescore and ten years to live, if you live as you should, and there is time enough to do all youi work well in that time. Do not endeavor to crowd just so many lessons into one term because your companion does so, but let each one be guided by her own individual capacities. Think now totally immaterial it will appear to you ten. years hence whether you graduated with your own class or with the following one. Be temperate in your attention to personal adornings. Much valuable time is wasted upon personal attire. It is the duty of each one to always look just as beautiful as she can, and no young girl can fail to look beautiful if she is in perfect health, her entire apparel in per- fect order, her hair tidily and tastefully ar- ranged, her teeth and nails perfectly clean, and her dress made in the simplest possible manner consistent with the prevailing mode. The young girl who presents herself at the break- fast-table with half her hair in crimping-pins ISO Nerves and Nervousness. and the other half in a frowsy state, her feet ic shabby shoes or slippers, her dress half ad- justed, her collar and cuffs, or ruffles, soiled and crumpled, and everything about her in disorder, can never appear beautiful to the eyes that behold her thus, no matter how much she may strive to adorn herself for the evening dissipation. Such a girl is sure to be intem- perate in her conduct of life. Secondly, be active in all good ways, if you would be free from neuralgia and nervousness. Idleness is no less the parent of hysteria than of other vices. People who lead busy lives never find time to have hysteria. Be active in the open air. The sun should never set on the day when you have failed to be out an hour or more in the open air, unless the weather is exceedingly inclement. Ladies of the pres- ent day thanks to the great improvement in outdoor attire can go out in all weathers as perfectly secure from ill effects from exposure as their brothers can. We each must have a pound of oxygen per day to consume the waste matter whose accu- mulation in our blood causes neuralgia, and we cannot get it even in the best ventilated apart- Werves and Nervousness. 131 ments. We must go outdoors for it, or we shall pay the penalty of our neglect by despond- ency, by neuralgia, by hysteria, and perhaps, eventually, by insanity. Thirdly and lastly, be clean. Probably few, if any, of you are negligent of the use of soap and water to the extent of the ordinary demands of propriety ; but I have not failed to observe a disregard of the fact that cleanliness consists in constant vigilance. By this I do not mean that restless scrutiny which leads fussy housewives to be forever armed with the duster, the broom and the fly chaser, but I refer to that timelv forethought which forbids us ever V O to incur the risk of leaving any accumulations of decomposing animal or vegetable matter where it can taint the air. I have seen young ladies allow the water to stand in vases of flowers until the air of the room was foul with emanations therefrom. I have noticed that young ladies who wear cor- sets often continue to wear them unwashed so long that the odor of the perspiration from the axillee announces their presence even before one sees them. These are but few of many little points of nicety in regard to our personal 132 Nerves and Nervousness. habits the sum of which constitutes cleanliness. I need not remind you that if you engage in the occupation of street-sweeping as your voluntary contribution toward the sanitary good of the city, the skirts which you use for this purpose should be changed before you enter the drawing-room. You certainly would not invite the man who is hired to do this work into your parlor until he had first changed his clothes, and you certainly must be as untidy as he, even though yours has been a labor of love where his has been hired service. Of course, it is evident that each of you also needs to go to the bath as often as you engage in this occupation. The last cause of unclean blood of which I have to speak is that very common condition of the alimentary canal known as obstinate constipation. Ask any physician what he or she is oftenest called upon to treat among wo- meu who wear corsets, and who spend much time in sedentary, indoor occupations, or in idleness, and you will find it to be this. It is the inevitable result of such lives, and the foul breath attending the condition is only one of many accompaniments, all of which combine, Nerves and Nervousness. 133 at frequent intervals, to induce an aching head or a violent attack of neuralgia in some one or more sets of nerves. Such people are good patrons of patent pills, and are never without them. Uncleanness is stamped upon every drop of blood, where such a condition prevails, and the only blood-purifiers for those who are thus afflicted are fresh air, with large lungs for its inhalation ; fresh water, with plenty of clean towels for rubbing the skin, and heroic doses of muscular exercise in garments which leave the diaphragm and all the muscles of the ab- domen as free to move as if the body had no covering but its own. CHAPTER IX. HOW PLANTS AND ANIMALS ARE PER- PETUATED. WE have confined ourselves, thus far, to the study of the individual life of different ani- mals. We come now to the consideration of the mode in which their succession is insured. Your observation of plant life, however lim- ited it may have been, has shown you that no plant, however simple its form or however humble its place on the pages of Nature's book, ever dies without having first matured some seeds or spores by which its type is destined to bo maintained. Its whole life, whether it be long or short, points forward to this, its ulti- mate office. The delicate fronds of the ferns continue to grow in strength and verdure and beauty until their spore-cases mature, and then Plants and Animals. 135 they droop and wither and return to the dust from which they came. So the violet and the anemone, the rose and the clematis, the aster and the golden-rod, and all the other bright attendants of the swift-going seasons, grow in grace and beauty until their seed-cups, or ova- ries, have matured, and with that maturing their lives begin to decline and they to tend downward to the sheltering arms of Mother Earth, from whose bosom they sprang and to whose bosom they return. As with the plant, so with the animal. The ovule of the former and the ovum of the latter carry the potential successors of the par- ent life. If the animal expels its ovum for a period before the young is matured, and keeps it warm in a nest with its feathers, as the bird does ; or leaves it in the sand, to be kept warm there, like the turtle ; or leaves it on the river bank, to be warmed by the sun, like the fish it is said to be an oviparous animal: but if it carries its ovum in a uterus, instead of laying it in a nest, until its little one is ready to begin its visible existence, it is said to be a viviparous animal. All animals which bear their young alive are also called mammals, 136 Plants and Animals. from the Latin mamma, a breast; because they all feed their young at the breast. Some mammals, like the whale and the seal, live in the sea, but most of the mammals are land- dwellers . Every form of infant life, whether that life be vegetable or animal, has its father and its mother; and in all cases, whether the infant life be that of a violet, a bird, or a child, its mother has the larger and more responsible share in the work of its maturing. To each one of you, dear girls, is assigned this holiest and highest of all human responsibilities, name- ly: the bearing and rearing of your own young, and to you each is assigned a special set of organs, separate from any of those we have yet studied, yet associated in very close relation to them by means of the "Great Sympathetic" nerve system of which we hive already spoken. These organs, in mammals, are called the ovar- ies and uterus. They are located in a cavity with firm, bony walls which we call the pelvi.*, or basin, and this cavity joins the abdomen. By a neglect of the laws of health touching these important organs, the woman who is not in some way afflicted with a female weakness is the exception and not the rule. Plants and Animals. 13'j Hopeful to us all is the fact that she may, if she will, learn nay, that she is seeking to leirn wherein she has erred, in order that she may become what God meant she should be: a companion for Adam, strong in her woman- liness as he is in his manliness; beautiful in her healthf ulness as he is in his; and so, fit to become his help, meet for all good works. Some one says, "Nothing is so conducive to a right appreciation of the truth as a right appreciation of the error by which it is sur- rounded." We have been trying to study God's woman the true woman. We are now to search for the causes of the diseases which years have heaped upon her since Eve sprang from the Creator's hand, in the perfect beauty of a healthy womanhood a womanhood which is to-day, for the greater part, but an ideal in the mind of the poet, the painter and the sculptor. Said the Hon. Horace Mann: "I hold it morally impossible for God to have created, in the beginning, such men and women as we find the human race, in their physical condi- tion, now to be. Examine the book of Genesis, which contains the earliest annals of the human 136 Plants and Animals. from the Latin mamma, a breast; because they all feed their young at the breast. Some mammals, like the whale and the seal, live in the sea, but most of the mammals are land- dwellers. Every form of infant life, whether that life be vegetable or animal, has its father and its mother; and in all cases, whether the infant life be that of a violet, a bird, or a child, its mother has the larger and more responsible share in the work of its maturing. To each one of you, dear girls, is assigned this holiest and highest of all human responsibilities, name- ly: the bearing and rearing of your own young, aiid to you each is assigned a special set of organs, separate from any of those we have yet studied, yet associated in very close relation to them by means of the "Great Sympathetic" nerve system of which we hive already spoken. These organs, in mammals, are c-lled the ovar- ies and uterus. They are located in a cavity with firm, bony walls which we call the pelvi.*, or basin, and this cavity joins the abdomen. By a neglect of the laws of health touching these important organs, the woman who is not in some way afflicted with a female weakness is the exception and not the rule. Plants and Animals. 13'j Hopeful to us all is the fact that she may, if she will, learn nay, that she is seeking to leirn wherein she has erred, in order that she may become what God meant she should be: a companion for Adam, strong in her woman- liness as he is in his manliness; beautiful in her healthf ulness as he is in his; and so, fit to become his help, meet for all good works. Some one says, "Nothing is so conducive to a right appreciation of the truth as a right appreciation of the error by which it is sur- rounded." We have been trying to study God's woman the true woman. We are now to search for the causes of the diseases which years have heaped upon her since Eve sprang from the Creator's hand, in the perfect beauty of a healthy womanhood a womanhood which is to-day, for the grcatsr part, but an ideal in the mind of the poet, the painter and the sculptor. Said the Hon. Horace Mann: "I hold it morally impossible for God to have created, in the beginning, such men and women as we find the human race, in their physical condi- tion, now to be. Examine the book of Genesis, which contains the earliest annals of the human 140 Plants and Animals. family. As is commonly supposed, it comprises the first two thousand three hundred and sixty- nine years of human history. With child-like simplicity this book describes the infancy of mankind. Unlike modern histories, it details the minutest circumstances of social and indi- vidual life. Indeed, it is rather a series of biographies than a history. The false delicacy of modern times did not forbid the mention of whatever was done or suffered. And yet, over all that expanse of time, for more than one- third part of the duration of the human race, not a single instance is recorded of a child born blind or deaf or dumb or idiotic, or malformed in any way. " During the whole period, not a single case of a natural death in infancy or childhood or early manhood, or even of middle manhood, ia to be found. The simple record is, 'And he died'; or he died in a good old age and fall of years ; or he was old and full of days. No epidemic, nor even endemic, diseases prevailed ; showing that they died the natural death of healthy men, and not the unnatural death -of distempered ones. Through all this time (ex- cept in the single case of Jacob, in his old age, Plants and Animals. 141 and then only a day or two before his death) it does not appear that any man was ill, or that any old lady or young lady fainted. Bodily pain from disease is nowhere mentioned." Certainly it does not appear that any such array of "female weaknesses" has ever dis- graced womankind in any age as characterize the women of this nineteenth century. Says Dr. Edward Clark, in hie most sug- gestive and truthful book, "Sex in Education": "Let the statement be emphasized and reiter- ated until it is heeded, that woman's neglect of her own organization, though not the sole explanation and cause of her many weaknesses, more than any single cause adds to their num- ber and intensifies their power. It limits and lowers her action very much, as man is limited and degraded by dissipation. The saddest part of it all is, that this neglect of herself in girl- hood, when her organization is ductile and im- pressible, breeds the germs of diseases that, in later life, yield torturing or fatal maladies." Prominent among these maladies are dis- eases of the uterus, which involve its position. Only just so much space being assigned to it in the pelvis, if it is turned forward or back- 142 Plants and Animals. ward or to one side or to the other, there is at once a protest from the nerves of the adjacent organs in the way of pain. The prominent causes of these false positions are, first, the unnatural weight of the organ, which is the inevitable result of a mode of drees which forces too much blood to it; and, second, a flabby condition of its texture, which is the natural result of this habitual congestion. Not less common than false positions of the organ are unnatural conditions of the mucous membrane which lines it. It is the function of all mucous membranes, when in health, to se- crete enough mucus to keep the surface moist. As soon as this mucous membrane becomes unhealthy, this natural moisture increases to the extent known as a catarrhal discharge; and, whether this discharge be a nasal or a uterine one, its character is the same and its cause the same, namely: congestion. This discharge, oc- curring from the uterus or from the vagina which is the canal leading from the uterus is called a leucorrhu'a. If it occurs from the Dose, it is called a catarrh. Prominent among ovarian diseases is the condition known as ovarian cyst, where one or Plants and Animals. 143 more of the egg-sacs already spoken of become enormously distended with a fluid, because the ovaries have no mucous lining, like that of the nostrils, the uterus and the vagina, by whose help they can relieve their congestion ; hence they become " dropsical," since they cannot become catarrhal. Each and all of these conditions, as we shall see, only express some constitutional de- rangement of organ or of function, induced by one or more of the following causes, as given by Dr. T. G. Thomas in his work on the " Diseases of Women " : " First Want of fresh air and exercise. " Second Improprieties in dress. " Third Excessive development of the nerv- ous system and errors in education. " Fourth Imprudence daring menstruation. " Fifth Imprudence after parturition. " Sixth Prevention of conception and in- duction of abortion. u Seventh Marriage with existing uterine disease." This is a concise and candid statement of the causes of a line of woman's diseases in Vvhose treatment Dr. Thomas has won a world- 144: Plants and Animals. wide reputation for success, and the women who daily crowd hia office for treatment now are only so many confirmations of the state- ments above made. I have no desire, my dear girls, to appall you with any needless pictures of misery. I come to you only with timely warnings, if haply I may lead you to take my ounce of prevention rather than that you go blindly on in your disregard of the laws of health until you are compelled to take Dr. Thomas' pound of cure in the form of a pessary, or some inev- itable method of local treatment. This you must unavoidably come to if you persist in weighting down your pelvic organs with long, heavy skirts hung upon your hips; if you per- sist in compressing your chests with corsets or bands so that their contents crowd upon the abdominal organs, causing them to crowd, in their turn, upon the pelvic organs ; and if you disregard any or all of the other laws of health which I have tried to detail to you. "As in that which is above nature, so in nature itself, he that breaks one physical law is guilty of all. The \vhole universe, as it were, takes up arms against him ; and all na Plants and Animals. 145 ture, with her numberless and unseen powers, is ready to avenge herself on him, and on his children after him, he knows not when nor where. " He, on the other hand, who obeys the laws of nature, with his whole heart and mind, will find all things working together to him for good. He is at peace with the physical universe. He is helped and befriended alike by the suu above his head and the dust beneatli his feet; because he is obeying the will and mind of Him who made sun and dust and all things, and who has given them a law which cannot be broken." HEV. CHARLES KLNGSLEY ( il Health and Education"). CHAPTER X. HOW TO BECOME BEAUTIFUL. have now studied the four separate stories of the house we live in ; have learned something of the furniture contained in each, and have seen how perfectly each separate piece is adapted to its individual uses. Wo have also learned how all the four stories are brought into the most intimate relations with each other by means of the blood-vessels, which, like water-pipes which go all over the houses made with hands, permeate every cavity and every cell of this most complex structure. We have also learned that two very com- plicated nervous systems accompany and ani- mate these many-branched tubes, through which the life-blood circulates, by whose presence each How to Become Beautiful. 147 department is kept constantly informed of the condition of tilings in all the other departments, so that no one organ or set of organs can suf- fer derangement without having the fact known all through the house. "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you/' Y\ T e can easily extend our comparison of the human body with the houses made with hands still further, and liken the blood-vessels to the water-pipes, and the nerves to the gas-pipes, for the nerves are indeed our light-bringers, in that all intelligence is due to them ; we shall then realize how entire is this mutual interdependence of all parts of the body. We might call the pelvis the basement story, for upon the organs contained in it rests the whole weight of the responsibility of the continuance of animal life. So might the ab- domen be likened to the cook rooms where rare and fine products are elaborated from raw materials ; while the thorax or chest may be likened to the drawing-room, where fair forms 148 JTow to Become Beautiful. of thought and art are ventilated, and the head may fitly rank as an observatory. Now, we all know that if the basement story is not maintained in the most perfect order, the fact 13 sure to assert itself in the upper stories, and this is no less true of the houses " not made with hands " than of those which man fabri- cates, so that a headache is often referable to a wrong state of affairs in the pelvis ; indeed, this is one of the commonest causes of head- ache, and all the headache cures that ever were invented will avail you nothing so long as their cause remains unsought and unheeded. But we have not yet covered our house, and it remains for us now to speak of the skin and its appendages. Let us first glance at the long array of ma- terials which Dame Nature has made use of with which to cover her creatures down in the lower ranks of Creation ! Note the firm, crusty skin which protects the soft coral insect, and remember that when you adorn yourself with this memento of a departed life you perpetuate the memory of these " Toilers of the Sea " as efi'ectually as you immortalize your friend whose How to Become Beautiful. hair is woven into the ornaments you most prize. The pearl, too, which lends you its lustrous light, is but the secretion from the soft mantle of skin which invests the mollusk, whether he be oyster or mussel, and which is but the preface to his harder skin his shell. So, too, the beetle and the bee have their crusty skins, some of them most gorgeously colored, as you know, far beyond imitation by man's device. Then there are the scales of the fishes ; the horny plates of the tortoise ; the feathery over- coat of the butterfly, the moth and the bird; and lastly, the woolly and hairy coats of the quadru- peds. What a bounteous storehouse of resources and materials is Dame Nature's workshop ! Let us now confine ourselves to the struc- ture and uses of our own natural covering. If d you could look at a very much magnified verti- cal section of your skin, you would see a most marvelous array of apparatus for keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer, as well as for carrying off your waste material. AVhat a network of minute blood-vessels is there spread out ! and how the bright tint of blood, which is all aglow with fresh air and sunlight, 150 How to Become Beautiful. shines through the superficial layer of this won- drous structure ! !No outward application of paint or powder can possibly compare in beauty with the natural color of a clean, healthy eldn. Emerson says : " The lesson taught by the study of Greek and of Gothic art, of antique and of pre-Raphaelite painting, was worth all the research, namely : that all beauty must be organic ; that outside embellishment is deform- ity. . . .The tint of the flower proceeds from its root, and the lusters of the sea-shell beinn \vith ' O its existence." So thoroughly is your skin a part of your body that it reveals as infallibly the state of affairs within as it reports to your nerve- centers the temperature of the air and objects without, by means of the countless nerve termi- nals which are imbedded in its layers. This complicated network of arteries, veins and nerves is sustained in position by a foundation structure of cell tissue in comparison with whose delicacy and beauty your choicest laces are mere bungling imitations; while all around and about vein and artery and nerve are glands for collecting the perspiration, and tubes for carry- ing it off tubes whose whole extent, taking How to Become Beautiful. 151 the entire skin into account, is estimated at no less than twenty-eight miles, while the openings in the skin by which these drainage tubes dis- charge their contents upon the outside of your body number no less than three thousand five hundred and twenty eight to the square inch in the palm of the hand. Think of allowing this sewage to accumulate upon the body and its garments ! Can you wonder that filth and disease go hand in hand ? Besides all this array of tubes and nerves and fibers and glands there are the bulbs in which each individual hair has its origin, and O t into these bulbs there is poured the nicest of natural pomade, which is elaborated in little oil glands which are put there for this very purpose. A clean and healthy scalp will keep its own hair oiled without any aid from profes- sional hair-dressers, with rancid oils disguised by strong perfumes. And last of all is that fine array of tactile corpuscles, or little bodies of touch, by which we get that exquisite sensibility of the finger* tips which enables them to act as eyes for the blind. Look at your finger-tips, and note the ridges, which are quite apparent to the naked 152 How to Become Beautiful. eye. Those ridges contain such numbers of these little bodies of touch that Meissner tells us he counted one hundred and eight of them in the space of about one-fiftieth of a square inch on the inner surface of the tips of one finger. The skin has its own muscles, too, by which it is capable of drawing itself up into little papillae the condition known as " goose-flesh." You have seen horses curl up their skins to shake off the flies. Their skin muscles are more highly developed than yours because they are no longer supplied with five fingers, what- ever may have been their condition in the ages gone by, and they are obliged to walk upon the tip of the one finger which remains to them. Let us pass now to the consideration of the uses of all this mechanism. The physiologists have agreed upon quite an array of functions for the skin, namely : protection, secretion, ex- cretion, absorption, regulation of temperature, and general sensation. You have all realized the value of the skin as & protector if you have torn it away from the nerve sentinels which are so thickly stationed under its cuticle, and the How to Become Beautiful. 153 bit of court-plaster, or otherwise, to which you at once resort, serves yon kindly in that it acta as a temporary substitute for the lost cuticle while your vital forces make a new one for you. The functions of t secretion and excretion have already been alluded to in speaking of the oil glands and sweat glands. The amount of the waste matter excreted upon the skin, by means of the twenty-eight miles of sew r er-pipe already mentioned, varies between two and three pounds a day, according to the tempera- ture of the atmosphere. This fact is a sufficient argument in favor of a daily ablution of the whole body. The function of absorption is taken advan- tage of for the administration of medicines in the way of ointments, liniments, lotions, etc. Anointing or inunction is one of the most prim- itive methods of medication. Isaiah refers to oil as ointment in medical treatment. The Grecian athletes anointed themselves for their games. Homer, in the Odyssey, says : "Sweet Polycaste took the pleasing toil To bathe the prince and pour the fragrant oil." Juno, in the Iliad, anoints herself with "oil ambrosial sweet," and Yenus anoints the body 15-i How to Jjecome Beautiful. of Hector with oil scented with roses. In the Roman baths of Diocletian anointing was car- ried to great perfection, and various spices among them, cloves, cinnamon, lavender and roses were used in the process. The rich had precious ointments, which they carried to the baths in small vials of alabaster. It is recorded that the emperor Hadrian, seeing a veteran soldier rubbing himself against the marble of the public baths, asked him why lie did so. " I have no slave to rub me," was the answer. Upon which the emperor gave him two slaves and sufficient to maintain them. Another' day several old men rubbed themselves against the wall in the emperor's presence, hoping to be favored in a similar manner, when the shrewd emperor, perceiving their object, directed them to rub one another. Modern practice favors the use of oils in fevers, especially scarlet fever, where the skin is parched, hot and dry ; and it is claimed that thorough inunction not only does not choke the pores of the skin, but actually encourages their opening, forcing the ointment through the outer skin and stimulating the absorbing ves- sels to take it up. How to Become Beautiful. 155 If, then, the skin, by reason of its absorbent qualities, is capable of taking in what is deemed salutary for it, it is plain that it is no less ready to absorb obnoxious substances which may come in contact with it. This fact is a sufficient ar- gument in favor of frequent changes of the clothing which is worn next the person, and for its thorough ventilation ; also for a complete change at night from the clothing worn through the day ; also for the most thorough daily ven- tilation of the bed and its belongings in short, for supplying it with the purest possible air at all times. To appreciate the fact that the skin is a regulator of temperature, we have only to re- call the discomfort of a hot, dry skin as com- pared with the relief afforded when a natural perspiration ensues, which, by the process of evaporation, speedily reduces the temperature of the whole body. We can also recall the lassitude of a hot summer day when the air is surcharged with moisture to such an extent that the evaporation from the body is checked, and we long to see the sun disperse the heavy clouds, so that our clouds may vanish, too, by the power of his upward attraction. 156 How to Become Beautiful. That the skin is the seat of a most nice sense of touch needs no proof. It is even affirmed that the blind are able to tell colors by this sense. "We come now to the consideration of the hygiene of this most complicated texture. It will be plain to you at once that the same rules \vhich govern the other parts of the body are also dominant here. The skin must have plenty of light, plenty of air and plenty of water to insure its health and its beauty. If it is kept perfectly familiar with these three essentials, the whole body will be full of light and air and comfort. Said Mr. John Quiucy Adams, in his ninetieth year : "Men and women rarely ever allow the fresh air of heaven to touch any part of their bodies except their hands and face, and even to these the ladies are sys- tematically unjust by wearing gloves and veils. The surface of the beautiful human form re- quires to be for a certain period of every day exposed to the action of the atmosphere. I take my air-bath regularly every morning, and walk in my bedroom, in puris naturalibus, with all the windows open, for a full half hour. i also take a water-bath daily. I read and How to Become Beautiful. 157 write for eight hours a day. I sleep eight hours, and devote another eight to exercise, conversation, and meals. I feel in myself a reserve of bodily strength, which, I think, will carry me to a hundred years, unless I die by accident or am shot or hanged." "Why should not the whole skin have its daily share of air and light and water ! Why give it all to the skin of the face and hands ! Indeed, the amount of chronic hydrophobia (fear of water) which afflicts the human race is simply astounding, and goes far toward ex- plaining why they suffer, in so many needless ways, from catarrh, bronchitis, fevers, " colds in the head," and rheumatism. You will never find that a person whose whole skin knows the daily luxury of an air and water bath is in the habit of " taking cold." The importance attached by the hardy Ro- mans to baths is evidenced by the number and magnificence of such establishments : that built by Diocletian accommodated three thousand at a time. Moses and Mahomet made cleanliness religion. Some one says that Dirt, Debt and the Devil make the Trinity of Evil. Says Dr. Playfair : " For a thousand years 158 How to Become, Beautiful. after the civilization of the Egyptians, the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans faded, there was not a man or woman in Europe that ever took a bath. Hence arose the wondrous epi- demics of the Middle Ages, which cut off one* fourth of the population of Europe : the spotted plague, the black death, the sweating sickness, and the terrible mental epidemics which fol- lowed in their train the dancing mania, the o t mewing mania, and the biting mania. The monks made no little mischief, imitating the ' O foul habits of the hermits and saints of early Christian times ; and the association of filth with religion led men to cease to connect dis ease with nncleanliness, and to resort to shrines and winking virgins for cures of maladies pro- duced by their own physical and moral impu- rities." It was an Arab motto, " Renew thyself daily. Do it again and again, and forever again." I suppose those "hermits and saints of early Christian times" were acting under the delusion that the more they mortified their flesh the more they deified the spirit; so they wore the hair-shirt until it was literally alive How to Become Beautiful. 159 with vermin; and it was not until the advent of the Moore into Spain, with their Mahometan habits of cleanliness, that Christian Europe learned the mistake it had made in so falsely interpreting the religion of Jesus. Indeed, it appears that modern Christianity has so largely occupied itself with the idea of self-chastisement that it has almost lost sight of the joy and sweetness which flow through all the life of Jesus, just as the old painters put only sorrow and suffering into their pictures of him, with never a trace of the joy which he must have known by the very consciousness of his own purity. In this spirit painted Guido Reni, who, it is said, actually stabbed the man who sat for his picture of Christ, in order that he might most vividly portray the agony which he, in common with all the old masters, made the dominant characteristic in the face of him who came to inaugurate the kingdom of love, joy, and peace. And so, to-day, the nearer a people are to the darkness and the errors and the gross superstitions of the Middle Ages, the less do they appreciate the good that lies all about us in the abundant butflowing of God's free air and water and joy-giving sunshine. It 160 How to Become Beautiful. is pitiful to note this in the large cities, where the degraded victims of the poverty which al- ways goes hand in hand with ignorance and vice herd together in dens of darkness which reek with filth. During a practice of several months in one of the New York dispensaries, where the poor get plenty of medicines and plenty of prescrip- tions from newly - fledged doctors, "without money and without price," I WHS again and again shocked, not only by the fear of water which prevails among this class of misguided beings, but also by the immense doses of medi- cine which they require to enable them to live without air and water. As a rule, they don't want any advice about living so as to get along without medicine, and they estimate the med- ical skill of their adviser by the amount of medicine given. No medicine, no brains! I remember a very filthy woman who used to come every Saturday for pills. All the accumulated filth upon the surface of her body would defy description. As it was in the heat of midsummer, I ventured to propose that she take fewer pills for the inner self and more water for the outer self. In short, I copied How to Become Beautiful. 161 Mr. Dick's prescription for little Davy when his aunt Betsy Trotwood asked, " What shall we do with him?" "Wash him!" I wish there were any words by which I might pict- ure for you the expression with which she asked me, "What! all over?" She then in- formed me that she had never done such a thing in her life, and should be ashamed to o / tell of it if she had. Medicine she must have. God's pure air and water and sunshine she was afraid of. I think I succeeded in getting the whole of that filthy body washed by in- ducing her to take it by installments. I gave her a half dozen powders of carbonate of soda, told her to dissolve one in a basin of water and apply externally until the whole body was thus medicated. The medicine (!) induced her to try this plan of ablution. You will, perhaps, say this is an exagger- ated case; but I assure you "such things are common." Even in .ny intercourse with young ladies in schools, to whom I advocate the daily ablution of the entire surface of the body, I am frequently met with the objection, " I can- not spare the time." And this, when five min- utes are all that are required. A basin of 162 How to Become Beautiful. cold water, where the bath - tub is wanting, and two clean towels, with brisk action of the hands and arms, are all that are required. Let the whole person be denuded at once, and in cold weather let the work be done as briskly as possible. The tonic influence of such a bath in the morning (for the morning is the time for the cold bath, warm baths being indicated only at bedtime) will last all through the day, and is the best possible safe- guard against " taking cold." If you are obliged to have a room-mate, a little ingenuity will en- able you to improvise a screen. I hope the time will come when the putting two girls into one bed and one dressing-room will be recognized as an injustice to each. The pres- ent practice in boarding and other schools, in this respect, is pernicious. Let it be understood that in giving these directions to young girls for daily ablutions in cold water, I assume that I address those in health. Invalids must remember that the fam- ily physician must be their guide in this mat- ter. An emphatic proof of the danger of stop- ping up the pores of the skin is afforded in How to Become Beautiful. 163 history by the case of the child whose skin was gilded to represent the golden age at the brilliant fete which celebrated the election ot Pope Leo the Tenth. The child died in con- sequence of the application. Foucault, a French experimenter, covered animals with a coat of varnish. They died more quickly than if the whole skin had been removed. Horses hud catarrh, dogs had congestion of liver and in- flammation of bowels, and all died in convul- sions. Think of this, dear girls, when you are tempted to follow the example of those mis- taken mortals who apply paints and powders and enamels to the face in order to appear beautiful (?) in the eyes of men. The late Dr. Edward Clark, in his most truthful book on " Sex in Education," has given you all the help you need to become beautiful, as follows : " ' When one sees a godlike countenance,' said Socrates to PhsedruB, 'or some bodily form that represents beauty, he reverences it as a god, and would sacrifice to it.' From the days of Plato till now all have felt the power of woman's beauty, and been more than willing to sacrifice to it. The proper, not 164: How to Become Beautiful. exclusive, search for it is a legitimate inspira- tion. The way for a girl to obtain her por- tion of this radiant halo is by the symmetrical development of every part of her organization 1 muscle, ovary, stomach, and nerve and by a physiological management of every function that correlates every organ ; not by neglecting, or trying to stifle or abort, any of the vital and integral parts of her structure, and sup- plying the deficiency by invoking the aid of the milliner's stuffing, the colorist's pencil, the druggist's compounds, the doctor's pelvic sup- porter, and the surgeon's spinal brace." " What is good for pimples ?" Water and work. Pimples indicate that there is an excess of something in the blood which the internal organs of excretion have been unable to dispose of, and they have called in the excretory power of the skin to their aid. If you take very little exercise and live indoors, it follows that you must also take very little food. You know what the result is if you keep putting coal on the fire and neg- lect to open the draughts. There can be no life in the grate nor in your body unless oxy- gen is supplied to each in proportion to tho IIow to Become Beautiful. 165 carbon which is brought in. Your candies and sweetmeats are so much carbon, and you need a pound of oxygen per diem to burn up your carbon. In order to make sure of this daiJy pound of oxygen you must make your mus cles work in the open air. Take long, vigo- rous walks, and let the sun shine on you with his life-giving power. Find useful work to do! Said an eminent Western lawyer, writing upon the subject of health reforms and reforms in general : " If I had supreme power, or could give one direction which should be followed, and would, in my judgment, do more than any other one thing to reform the world, and especially young ladies, I would say, ' "Work !' I mean manual labor. Every man, woman and child should work. It is the idle ones who become the wicked ones. I do not rec- ollect ever to have seen a downright indus- trious man or woman who was very bad; and it seems to me that a reform in this direction is more needed in the United States than anv- where else. All the American youth are con- triving how to get a living without work, under the silly notion that work is disgraceful. 166 How to Become Beautiful. How clearly I can see that the Germans in this country are getting ahead of the natives ! They pay their debts, and their families are almost all in comfortable circumstances. It is because they are willing to work. " It seems to me that there is another de- cided defect in the bringing up and education of girls ; and that is, that they are too super- ficial. They canter over a great variety of studies, get a smattering of each, and nothing is thoroughly mastered. 'To get on in life' means to be so much the master of your art that you make it for the interest of the world to employ you." And he is right. Happy is it for each one of you who is dependent upon her owii exer- tions for a maintenance. Work is the best of tonics and the best of beautiiiers. The list- lessness, the sallowness and the shallowness of her who has nothing to do but to try to look pretty are pitiful to contemplate. No less are you happy who, though not dependent upon your own labor for maintenance, have sought and found ways of work which call out your best powers. You are both out of danger of rusting, and, in large degree, you are out of How to Become Beautiful. 1"7 danger of falling "into the hands of the phvsi- 3 o 1 */ cian," as \vc read that he shall do "who sin- neth against his Maker"; for it is the idls, and not the industrious, who are prone to vice. And all these principles of ethics are directly applicable to the question in hand. A lazy skin, which lacks the stimulus afforded by act- ive exercise and by daily contact with air and water, is sure to be the pimpled and blotched skin. " What makes freckles, and how may we get rid of them ?' Freckles are sun-spots, and the more act- ively you make the skin work and perspire the sooner they will disappear. Do not shut yourselves away from sunlight for fear of them. The best complexions are often the most sensi- tive to these sun-impressions, and you had far better wear a freckled skin than to look like the cellar potato-sprout, lank and pale and un- comely, for lack of sunlight. " What are moth-patches, and what can one do for them ?'' Moth-patches are allied to the fungi which one sees on the north side of buildings, where 108 How to Become Beautiful. the sun never shines. " Walk in the light " for them ! "What will make the hair grow?" Water and air and light. The hairs are but so many appendages of the skin, and their health and vigor and luxuriance depend upon its health and vigor. Any excess of artificial applications to the head, which deprive its skin of air and light, lessen its vigor, and so tend to hasten the decay of its hairy covering. The head should be kept just as clean as the rest of the body, and the hair should have its ends clipped as often as once a month, else it soon comes to resemble the lawns which know not the lawn-mower. Masses of dead women's hair, or of jute, or any fofeign substance which heats and burdens the head, are not favorable to the health of the hair. It is marvelous how little regard is paid, as a rule, by young ladies to the style of the individual head and face in the choice of the style for the arrangement of the hair. A new style comes into vogue, and all at once, like a flock of sheep following the leader the long-faced and the round-faced, the thin- faced and the wide-faced, the high-headed and How to Become Beautiful. 169 the fiat-headed, the big-headed and the little- headed rush to adopt, it, utterly regardless of the question of fitness. I Leg you, if you be lacking in a sense of the fitness of things, to choose from among your friends her who is most truthful and most competent to counsel you in this matter, and, above all other con- siderations, I pray you to put that of tidiness of arrangement first and foremost. o Finally, to quote once more from Mr. Em- erson on Beauty : " It is a rule of largest ap- plication, true in a plant, true in a loaf of bread, that, in the construction of any fabric or organism, any real increase, of fitness to its end is an increase of beauty." Also upon Behavior : " I have seen man- ners that make a similar impression with per- sonal beauty ; that give the like exhilaration, and refine UB like that ; and, in memorable ex- periences, they are suddenly better than beauty, and make that superfluous and ugly. But they must be marked by fine perception, the ac- quaintance with real beauty. They must al- ways show self-control : you shall not be facile, apologetic, or leaky, but king over your word ; and every gesture and action shall indicate 170 HJW to Become Beautiful. power at rest. Then, they must be inspired by the good heart. There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like t/ie wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us." CHAPTER XI. THE- USES AXD ABUSES OF DRESS. " THE first purpose of clothes was not warmth or decency, but ornament. . . .The sav- age found warmth in the toils of the chase, or amid dried leaves in the hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto ; but for decora- tion he must have clothes. Nay, among wild people we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration, as, indeed, we Btill see among the barbarous classes in civil- ized countries. . . .Clothes, which be^an in fool- t tj ishest love of ornament, what have they not become to us ! .... Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, social polity. Clothes have made men of us ; they are threatening to make 172 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. clothes-screens of us." THOS. CAKLYLE ("Sar- tor Resartus"). Since man is the only wearer of artiiicial clothing his natural covering being generally conceded to be insufficient for his needs he has the privilege of choosing his extra suits from among the wardrobes of all the animals below hirn in the scale of creation. Looking about in his own sub-kingdom that of the vertebrates he finds little, if any, use for the scaly suits of the fishes, nor can he appropriate the feathered suits of the birds to any extent beyond that of ornament. Thus he finds him- self, for the most part, restricted to the hairy and woolly quadrupeds for the materials which are destined to supply the deficiencies in his wardrobe. History, in the records it gives us of the early Christian monks, tells us that Thomas a Becket, and others like him, wore the hair- cloth shirt until it was a loathsome mass of vermin ; that this example was imitated by the common people ; and that the Saracens, about the eighth century, were the first to introduce into Europe "the often - changed and often- washed undergarment, which still passes among The Us&s and Abuses of Dress. 173 ladies under its old Arabic name " (Dr. Dra- per). Under such circumstances it is easy to see that the chemise was a godsend ; but ten cen- turies have brought us a step further, and to- day the best-dressed woman is not the woman who wears a chemise. That garment has had its day. Reason and common-sense alike reject it and the hair-cloth garment which it super- seded, while they substitute for its bagginess a neat and comely-fitting garment of wool which covers the entire body as if it grew there. It is not, like the chemise, gathered up into a superfluous mass of drapery round the waist, whose dimensions that garment needlessly in- creases ; it is not, like it, forever slipping off one shoulder; and it does not, like it, leave the body exposed to the harsh vicissitudes of cli- mate. On the contrary, it is everywhere adapt- ed and fitted to the form ; it cannot slip off one shoulder, for all hygienic laws require that the whole body be uniformly covered, the shoulders just like all other parts, and it shields us from sudden climatic changes aa tenderly as it did the lambs from whose fleeces it came. The best thought of the day has been 174 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. devoted, in large measure, to this reform in woman's under-clothing, as well as to one in her outer clothing. For years the gentlemen physicians have been uttering their protests against the abuses which woman was heaping upon her body by means of her errors of dress. What I have in previous chapters quoted to you from Dr. Wil- lard Parker and Dr. T. G. Thomas, of New York, and from the late Dr. Edward H. Clark, of Boston three names among the highest in the medical profession are but a few of the many emphatic utterances upon this point. But what could they do more ? They never had to wear the abominable gear, and of course they were incompetent to criticise or amend it in detail. They could only reiterate, in a help- less way, what our gentlemen professors in the Woman's Medical College used to say as often as a woman came to the clinical lecture to be examined for chest or other diseases which re- quired her disrobing, " Why will women tie so many miserable strings roimd their bodies !" Meanwhile, the world was moving, and it had come to see that a man doctor was not good for much unless he was a good nurse. The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 175 So it finally carne to think it possible that, since women were very good nurses without a medical education, they might be still better nurses with such an education, and the women began to go to Medical College. It only re- quired one look at the internal mechanism of their bodies in the dissecting-room to show them the inevitable results of putting strings or bands or bones around these bodies ; and so, little by little, out of their convictions, added to those of earnest, thinking women in Boston, there grew the dress-reform movement, which, like many other lights which rose in the East, has spread across the continent even to Cali- fornia, shedding its beams abroad in all the prominent cities of New England and many of the Western cities. In IS"ew York city it has its headquarters only next door to that emporium of fashion, Madame Demorest's establishment, so that it really begins to look as if Fashion herself was preparing to become hygienic, and so common- sensible. The principles of this reform are natural principles, and are concisely stated as follows: " First That the vital organs in central 176 The Uses and Abuses of Dress, regions of the body should be allowed unim- peded action. " Second That a uniform temperature of the body should be preserved. " Third That weight should be reduced to a minimum. " Fourth That the shoulders, and not the hips, should form the base of support." Soon after the inauguration of this reform the prominent thinkers among the women of Boston and New York co-operated in arrang^ ing for a course of free lectures upon " The Effect of Misapplied Clothing upon the Health of Women," to be given by women physicians, simultaneously, in the two cities. The leading churches in both cities were placed at their dis- posal, and the press reported the lectures at length in the daily papers. Thus was the leaven introduced into the immense lump of prejudice which still blinds the eyes of BO many, many women. Some one has said, " There is nothing so painful to hu- man nature as the pain of a new idea; it is, aa the common people say, ' so upsettinV " You remember how I " upset " the woman at the dispensary to whom I ventured to suggest an The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 177 external application of soap and water to her entire person. I have to confess to you, even now, that it is almost as " upsettin' " to a woman to ask her to give up her chemise and drawers for a single, whole garment, which has all the uses and none of the abuses of the two, as it was to that poor woman to be asked to take a bath. Yet I do not lose my faith in the ultimate success of the movement. All reforms must pass through at least three periods on their way to acceptation, namely: the stage of rid- icule, the stage of abuse, and the stage of in- difference. Mr. Emerson, in his essay on Beauty, says : "Many a good experiment, born of good sense, and destined to succeed, fails only because it is offensively sudden. I suppose the Parisian milliner, who dresses the world from her im- perious boudoir, will know how to reconcile the Bloomer costume to the eye of mankind, and make it triumphant over Punch himself, * by interposing the just gradations." Surely, ten centuries for the chemise is a warrantable gradation to its successor, the com- bination garment, which, in its varied nomen* 178 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. clature of " chemiloon," " chemilette," and " chemille,' 1 still retains enough of its Arabic etymology to give it the dignity of age. Nor is it by a eudden leap that we have come to this happy combination. The first gradation from the chemise toward it is to be found in the " pantalettes," which less than half a cen- tury ago were the only coverings worn by feminine legs, in their individual capacity, ex- cept the hose. These bantam-chicken attach- ments were tied around the leg, below the knee, by a string which fastened both them and the stocking, leaving the entire surface of the extremities from there to the waist ex- posed, except so far as the curtains hung about them, in the form of chemise and skirts, offered a show of protection. Think of wading through snow-drifts in that attire ! Yet women did so, and it was considered quite the proper thing. The next gradation was from " pantalettes " to drawers, which are fastened about the waist by a band or a string, and which are now the rule in the feminine wardrobe, where they were the exception a quarter of a century since. In- deed, they are still the exception in some parts The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 179 of Germany and in secluded country towns in the United States. Now, all that the dress-reform aims at is to combine the chemise and drawers in one garment which shall cover the bqdy and its extremities like another skin, and thus dispense with any bands or strings either about the ex- tremities or the body. By this means all su- perfluous folds about the waist are dispensed with, and thus its symmetry is preserved. Fur- thermore, all the interference with the circu- lation of the blood through its various channels is avoided; for it is impossible for this to go on as it should in any body which is girt about by bands, or whose extremities have strings tied about them tightly enough to keep either the hose or any other garments adjusted. An additional inducement to those who regard economy is the securing of one "piece," in place of two, for the laundry. This one principle is adhered to in all the undergarments and in all the overgarments of the reform costume, namely : the unity which dispenses with waist-bands, instead of the dual- ity which renders them indispensable, and thus puts restrictions upon that most important of 180 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. all muscles, the diaphragm. It asks you to do nothing, by way of change in costume, which shall make you grotesque, or even conspicuous, among your companions, except in the results which are sure to follow its adoption, by way of a fresher bloom on your cheeks, or clearer light in your eyes, and greater vigor to your whole carriage, than they can ever enjoy who persist in fettering themselves in ways which have proved, beyond all question, pernicious. Of the close-fitting undergarments, there may be one of wool, worn next the person, ol light and airy quality for summer, and of close, warm texture for winter. Over this may be worn a second, of cotton or linen, which can be ornamented at your discretion, and which can be so neatly and elegantly fitted to your person as to more than compensate you for the relinquishment of that instrument of tor- ture and bane of woman's health the corset. Hygeia, the goddess of health, admits no such foe to health as this into her wardrobe. There was a time when this horrible structure was even applied to babies and little girls. That day has passed, and, as a rule, modern mothers are accustomed to dress their little girls in The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 181 accordance with the requirements of health, and so in accordance with the design of the dress-reform. Let the world rejoice and take hope in the fact that some of them already see that the grown girl needs to make no change in the mode of applying her clothing when she steps from childhood to womanhood. So much for the general principles relating to undergarments. For further details and for patterns you are referred to the various agen- cies already established in our principal cities. That iu Boston is at 2^- Hamilton place. That in New York is at 6 East Fourteenth street. Other addresses or patterns may be obtained from these sources. We come now to the consideration of the outer garments. Here the question is largely one of ornamentation ; for the claims of com- fort and decency are, for the most part, satis- fied by the system of undergarments already advocated. " We must have poetry and art in woman's dress; but poetry and art are never at odds with common -sense and vigorous health.... Fashion must be respected, so far as the pain- ful impressions produced upon the eje by 182 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. marked and obvious departures from her arbi- trary rules ; but fashion is seldom a good physi- ologist." New York Tribune. The hygiene of dress does not demand the renunciation of drapery. The artistic eye will not yet accept even the masculine statue in trowsers, as proved by the outcry against the statue of Mr. Lincoln in the Union Square park, New York, and others of similar angu- larity, elsewhere located. Much less, then, will it tolerate either the feminine statue or the feminine personality divested of all the grace which it has come to associate with u robes loosely flowing." It only asks woman to bring her reason and her common-sense to her aid in the matter of the selection and adjustment of her attire, in conformity with the following considerations : First, health. I cannot do better here than to call your attention to a sensible little manual entitled " Hints on Dress," by Ethel C. Gale, published in 1872 in the Putnam's "Handy- Book" series. This is what she says on the corset subject, under the health consideration : " The idea that a disproportionately small waist is beautiful is one of the immature and The, Uses and Abuses of Dress. 183 epidemic fancies of sweet sixteen. Once let it enter a school, and, in spite of physiology and the teachers, it spreads like the measles. Said an elderly gentleman one day, ' Where do the girla get such perverted notions of beauty ? Here were my own daughters, never were taught anything of that sort at home, but when, they returned from school they were drawn up in packs of torturing bones, till they looked as pinched and starved as weasels. Couldn't walk forty rods without fainting ; couldn't take a long breath ; couldn't laugh ; couldn't do any- thing but look as miserable as if they were on their way to the gallows ! I told the girls I'd disown 'em if they didn't take the things off; and so they did, and soon looked like them- selves again.' " Hero follow some pertinent suggestions con- cerning the clothing of the feet, which you will do well to read and heed. There has been such a marked improvement in the matter of women's foot-attire durina- the last decade that o they are inexcusable, to-day, if they allow their personal comfort or their health to be inter- fered with for want of suitably-made shoes or by reason of misapplied hose. The dress-reform 184 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. has perfected a mode of keeping the hose ad- justed so that no bands, elastic or otherwise, are allowed, either on the extremities or about the waist. This disposes of one of the common- est causes of cold feet and aching heads. It also provides a shoe whose sole is shaped like the sole of the natural foot, and whose heel is so low and so broad that it cannot tip the wear- er's spinal column from its natural line ; thus disposing of one of the commonest causes of aching backs. French heels may fit French feet, and Chinese heels may fit Chinese feet, but the American woman had best wear home- made shoes. You should also be mindful of the fact that the slipper should be limited to the dressing- room during cold weather. The change from the high walking-shoe to the slipper, for gen- eral home wear, leaves too much of the foot with comparatively less covering than any other part of the body, and is a common cause of sore throats. Second only to health in importance among the essentials for beinsr well dressed is neatness. o Upon this point Miss Gale says, very aptly: "We often see much- bedraggled clothes The L^es and Abuses of Dress. 185 worn by women who consider themselves en- titled to be called ladies. But, in whatever circle she may move, we feel certain that the woman cannot be self-respecting who can trail a long skirt across a muddy street, entailing not only the ruin of the dress, but the certain bedaubing of stockings and underclothes, with which the soiled petticoats must come in con- tact. .. .Another point in which neatness is often offended is in wearing 'about house' shabby finery, rather than neater and plainer dresses. There are many who seem to imagine that, when wearing an antiquated, spotted, and even ragged silk, they are better dressed than when attired in something that, though whole and clean, is of plainer fashion and material. .... Infinitely better does a woman clad in a simple, but fresh and tasteful, calico, deserve the epithet well-dressed, than one attired in the most expensive materials, if these, by long use, or from any other cause, have become soiled or frayed. " The same is true, in even greater degree, in regard to underclothes. The most elaborate needlework only adds to the disgust one feels if the garments it adorns are begrimed or torn; 186 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. while those of plainest fashion, if clean and whole, or neatly mended, are always pleasing to the eye. " The third essential to good dressing ia becomingness. " One may be attired in the most healthful of costumes, and both person and every article of clothing may be in the most spotless condi- tion, and yet shock the eye of taste. " To be well dressed, one must always take into consideration the complexion, age, features and figure of the wearer, and the harmony of the different parts of the costume. Thus, the brunette cannot wear the delicate shades so beautiful for the blonde ; and the woman of sixty becomes ridiculous if tricked out with the fluttering ribbons and bright colors appro- priate at sixteen. The sylph who scarcely turns the scales at a hundred pounds cannot carry the flowing mantles which have become necessary to obscure the too-expansive outlines of the matron whose position in a carriage ia sufficiently indicated by the condition of the springs. The woman whose sharp, hatchet-like features seem fashioned to hew her way through the world should not follow the Japanese style The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 187 of hair-dressing ; nor should the woman whose head resembles a large red cabbage deck her- self in big butterfly bows of scarlet ribbon, a jaunty little round hat, and a chignon emu- lating the proportions of the rotunda of our national capitol." The fourth point to be considered is, " What we can honestly afford " ; the fifth, " Our sta- tion in life " ; and the sixth and last, " Our present occupation." It will be quite obvious to yon all, dear girls, that all these points are worthy of your faithful consideration ; and let me exhort you especially to bear in mind that it is just a9 much your duty to your immediate family cir- cle to always appear at breakfast neatly, be- comingly and suitably attired as it is incumbent upon you to always look your best for the evening sociable ; nay, it is a more imperative duty : for to whom do you owe such high honor as to the parents who preside over the home ? I find it not uncommon for young ladies t* appear at breakfast-table with the hair in crimp, ing-pins and curl-papers; and I always decide that if I were a young man in search of a wife, 188 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. I should turn my back upon all such girls as that. No woman should ever pour my coflee in the morning who would take more pains to look her prettiest for the evening caller than phe would for me. That is what I should feel if I were a wife-hunter. Let me further exhort you, dear girls, to keep the buttons and button -holes on your gowns in good working order. There ia hardly one more common or more repulsive sight than that presented by a pinned-up gown, with here and there a button missing. I, as physician, have had some sanguinary experiences in this matter while trying to minister to the needs of fainting girls. Of course, when a girl faints I go for her corset-strings for she who faints out of corsets is the exception and I have more than once stabbed my fingers most wo- fully witli these abominable pins, on my way to the corset-strings. Please bear in mind that this is your first service to be rendered on such occasions, namely: to cut the corset -strings. That is far more essential than to run for the camphor-bottle. The next service is to open the windows ; the next is to sprinkle a few drops of cold water in the face ; while all the The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 189 time you must send the curious away, and allow no one to remain in the room, or near the patient, to vitiate the air for her. Give her plenty of air and plenty of chest -room, and nature will do the rest, in most cases. And now I have a word to say to you upon the subject of ear-rings. Do you not honestly think, down in your real hearts, that it is about as much a barbarity to punch holes in the ears for the setting of jewels as it is to punch them in the nose for that purpose ? Yet you call yourselves civilized, and the nose-punchers bar- barous. For one, 1 see no difference, except as a matter of taste, concerning which, you know, there can be no fair discussion, so capri- cious is that sense we name " taste " the same sense which leads the women of one nation to tattoo the chin, while the men pierce the lips and insert a double-headed sleeve-button into the aperture. We, Christians (?), punch holes in our ears and dangle bangles on our wrists, and send out missionaries to tell the people who are a score of centuries or more older than we that they are heathens, because they jingle bangles on their ankles and hang jewels in their noses ! 190 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. We are wont to speak of the "heathen Greeks," but they never professed to believe they were created in the image of their most honored deity without striving to be like the same. They did not claim to be created in the image of the goddess Hygeia, and then seek, by hideous and unnatural contrivances, to de- stroy the harmony and symmetry of that image. They did not pray to be delivered from sick- ness and sudden death, and then rush into fol- lies that are certain to bring one, if not both. They did not utter daily the words, " Lead us not into temptation," and immediately after- ward rush into it. No, Hygeia stood ever to them as a beneficent divinity, providing against disease, rather than as a physician vainly at- tempting to cure that which should never have been contracted. She stood then, as she stands now, the teacher of the laws of health. In Lander's "Imaginary Conversations" be- tween some of these "heathen Greeks " occurs the following, between Aspasia and Cleone : " Epimedea has been with me in my cham- ber. She asked me whether the women of Ionia had left off wearing car-rings. I answered that I believed they always had worn them, The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 191 and that they were introduced by the Persians, who had received them from nations more re- mote. 'And do you think yourself too young,' said she, ' for such an ornament ? ' producing, at the same time, a massy pair, inlaid with the largest emeralds. 'Alas! alas!' said she, 'your mother neglected you strangely. There is no hole in the ear, right or left ! We can mend that, however : I know a woman who will bring us the prettiest little pan of charcoal, with the prettiest little steel rod in it; and, before you can cry out, one ear lets light through. These are yours,' said she. . . .' Generous Epimedea !' said I, ' do not say things that pain me. I will accept a part of the present ; I will wear these beautiful emeralds on one arm. Think- ing of nailing them in my ears, you resolved to make me steady; but I am unwilling they should become dependencies of Attica.' ' All our young women wear them ; the goddesses, too.' ' The goddesses are in the right,' said I 'their ears are marble; but I do not believe any one of them would tell us that women were made to be the settings of pearls and emeralds.' " I had taken one, and was about to kiss 192 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. her, when she said : ' Do not leave me an odd ear-ring ; put the other in the hair.' l Epime- dea,' said I, ' I huve made a vow never to wear on the head anything but one single flower, one single wheat-ear, green or yellow, and ivy or vine-leaves. .. .Our national dress, very dif- ferent from the dresses of barbarous nations, is not the invention of the ignorant or the slave ; but the sculptor, the painter and the poet have studied how best to adorn the most beautiful objects of their fancies and contemplations. The Indians, who believe that human pains and sufferings are pleasing to the Deity, make in- cisions in. their bodies and insert in them im- perishable colors. They also adorn the ears and noses and foreheads of their gods. These were the ancestors of the Egyptians. We chose handsomer and better-tempered ones for our worship, but retained the same decoration in our sculpture, and to a degree which the sobri- ety of the Egyptian had merely reduced and chastened. Hence, we retain the only mark ol barbarism which dishonors our national dress the use of ear-rings. If our statues should all be broken by some convulsion of the earth, would it be believed by future ages that, in The U&es and Abuses of Dress. 193 the country and age of Sophocles, the women tore holes in their ears, to let rings into, as the more brutal of peasants do with the snouts of sows ? ' " I beg you to note Aspasia's resolution "never to wear on the head anything but one single flower, one single wheat-ear, green or yellow, and ivy or vine-leaves," for neither art nor fashion ever has or ever can invent BO appropriate an ornament for the human head as this. Nor can all the combined efforts of Parisian perfumers ever supply you with any perfumes which you can so safely carry about you as those of natural flowers. Be guarded, I beg you, in your use of ar- tificial perfumes. Let them never be so loud as to be intrusive. Loud perfumes and loud costumes and loud manners generally go in company with each other, and each and all indicate a lack of that refinement which marks the real lady. For special occasions you require special suits. For mountain climbing or for rambles by the seashore nothing could be better than the short flannel dress, with drawers to match. The Uses and Abuses of Dress. For promenade nothing could be bettei 1 than the Princess walking- dress, minus the train, with the neat and comfortable walking- jacket. The train is elegant in its place in the spacious drawing-room or on the platform ; but for a woman en promenade to be ever restricted to one hand, because her other is detailed to carry her train, argues a defect in her sense of " the eternal fitness of things." Shawls are unfit for the promenade, because they restrict the free use of the arms in walk- ing, and should be reserved for driving, where extra wraps are always needed. For the same reason the muff is objectionable as a part of the walking-costume, and should be reserved, with the shawl, for the drive. There can be no real grace of motion for the woman who walks with her hands in a muff; nor does she secure that full expansion of the chest, and so that full benefit of a walk in the open air, which are insured when the shoulders are thrown back and the arms lefb to assist, as Nature meant they should, in tho act of walking. "We are but quadrupeds, privi- leged, by reason of very slight variations in the arrangement of our skeletons, to walk \vitlv The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 195 spines erect, instead of horizontal; but this erect position, while it enables us to look down upon most of the other quadrupeds after we emerge from the quadrupedal manner of progression with which we inaugurate our walk through life, by no means leaves us independ- ent of our upper extremities for purposes of locomotion. The sealskins and other skins which go to make muffs hud much better be put into the form of gloves and mittens, and the same skins, which custom has wrapped about the throat, are much more needed about the feet and an- kles than there. We invite many a sore throat by our pernicious habit of wearing furs about the neck till it is in a free perspiration from exercise, and then throwing them off in the church or other public place, so that the tem- perature is suddenly reduced. A pretty bit of lace or of ribbon or of knitted zephyr is as much protection as a young lady in good health requires, in our climate, about tho neck. Finally, I beg you to strive to dress in such quiet ways, when out on promenade, and on all ordinary occasions, that you shall not be con- spicuous by reason of your clothes. It is aptly 196 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. said that the best-dressed persons in any as- sembly are those who have impressed us so much more by their good manners than by their good clothes that we cannot remember what they wore when the occasion is past. I have met young ladies in society and on the promenade who made a powerful impression of ruffles. I could never afterward recall any- thing above this overpowering sense of ruffles when thinking of them. There is daily opportunity for you to exer- cise moral courage in this, as in the weightier details of life, by giving your preference to such modes of dress as are consistent with health and one's daily pursuits, rather than by following the idle caprices of fashion. " Do you object to the morning wrapper in the breakfast-room ?" By no means. Only let it be clean and whole, and worn with clean collar and cuffs or ruffs, and with whole shoes. The shoes need not be as thick as the outdoor walking-shoe, but they had better be as high, for the cold weather. Above all things, do not wear shabby shoes, with the buttons off and the stockings exposed, either indoors or out. The Uses and Abuses of Dress. 197 I have seen this done with elegant morning wrappers ; and the same ladies habitually ap- peared at breakfast with the hair in curl-papers or crimping-pins. " But how shall we keep our hands warm without muffs?'' In the same way your brothers do : by warm mittens or gloves. You can get very nice seal-skin gloves for the money which a rnuff costs. I observe that the hand which carries the train never gets cold, even though covered only with a close-fitting kid glove provided that glove be a " three-button " of the most approved shade. " But what shall we do with all our pretty chemises ?" Get a pattern for the union garment, and make the chemises and drawers over. This is very easily done. Only summon up half the resolution by which you can manage to make over an old dress so as to make it appear new and "stylish," and the change is achieved by which you substitute " an ounce of prevention " for the pounds of cure which you will have to take if you persist in hanging skirts on your 198 The Uses and Abuses of Dress. hips and in buttoning or tying their bands about your waists. " Where there is a will there is a way " and a woman's will, which is proverbial, both for determination and inven- tion, ought not in so easy a matter to fail. CHAPTER XII. THE MATE AND THE HOME. "O FORTUNATE, O happy day, "When a new household finds its place Among the myriad homes of earth, Like a new star just sprung to birth And rolled on its harmonious way Into the boundless realms of space." LONGFELLOW ("The Hanging of the Crane"). You have learned, in the foregoing chap- ters, that no single life, either of the plant or the animal world, ever fulfills its Creator's whole design. Such is the lesson of physiol- ogy. It matters not how simple the organism or how lowly the rank in the scale of creation, there is everywhere and always the dual ele- ment, the maternal and the paternal these twain made one supplementing and complet- ing the individual incompleteness. 200 The Mate and the Home. The rose is never a perfect rose until, by its marriage of stamens and pistil, its crowning work the rearing of other roses becomes possible. This is the end and aim of all mar- riage- the perpetuation of the species and every new marriage implies a "new house- hold." There is no moment in the whole life of a woman which is- so big with possible joy or woe as that one which decides who is to be her mate in that " new household " ; and if there is any one warning which I would im- press upon your hearts and souls and minds with an emphasis which shall make it indelible, it is that you be not hasty or inconsiderate in making this decision. There cannot, by any possibility of accumulation of misery, come into your life so terrible a woe as that which results from a hasty, precipitate and rash mar- riage. The most forlorn " old maid " that lives now, or ever has lived, or ever will live, is supremely happy in comparison with her who, like the beetles in summer-time, has rushed headlong into the matrimonial flame and been singed for life. As I have already told you, marriage is the ultimate end aud aim of every life, and The Mate and the Home. 201 the true marriage is the holiest of all possible relationships. It is of God's own ordaining. The true wife and mother is the queen among women yea, among all created beings. All men honor her, and are ready to accord her the highest place in creation. Second only to her is she who has had the courage to remain single because the right man never came ; for I am of those who believe that no woman is ever single, for her lifetime, for lack of the opportunity to marry at some time in her life; and whenever I meet an " old maid," I am ready to do her honor for living up to the principle, "The best, or none/" Said a little girl, who has just said her "Seven times one," to me, "Auntie, what do you want I should be when I'm a woman?" Said I, " I would like to see you just such a woman as your dear mamma, with a good husband and some very nice little children, all iu a nice, pleasant home." " Well," said she, " I'll gc3t a husband if I can find a good one ; and if I can't, I won't have any; would you, auntie?" There, dear girls, is your motto for your matrimonial game. You can find nothing bet- 202 The Mate and the Home. ter in the whole range of literature. " The best, or none ! " And what constitutes "the best"? First, and always, the healthiest ! And who is the healthiest ? First, and always, the most tem- perate; and Temperance, you remember, means self control. The young man who smokes has lost his self-control. His appetite has run away with him, and it will carry him to other forms of intemperance just as surely as night follows day. Beware of him ! Temperance is personal cleanliness ; is mod- esty ; is quietness ; is reverence for one's elders and betters ; is deference to one's mother and sisters ; is gentleness ; is courage ; is the with- holding from aught which leads to excess in daily living ; is the eating and drinking only of that which will insure the best body which the best soul is to inhabit nay, Temperance is all these, and more Let me tell you a true story. I know a man and woman who took a sudden fancy to each other upon their first meeting. They were both old enough to know better, but they rushed into matrimony, like two idiots, on a six weeks' acquaintance. Of course, they were terribly The, Mate and the Home. 203 disappointed in each other, and have been ter- ribly punished for their folly. They had never heard of each other till they met ; they knew nothing of each other's antecedents, nor any- thing of each other's personal habits, likes and dislikes, caprices or principles, or lack of prin- ciples. The man is eleven years older than the woman, and is one of those who " enjoy poor health " to snch an extent that they follow up every new disease until they know and experi- ence all its symptoms. At one time he had five different doctors prescribing for him while he was attending to his daily occupation. He would take medicines by the wholesale, but was as averse to taking a bath as the woman, of whom I told you, in the New York Dis- pensary. He counted his pulse at every odd chance during the day, and looked at his tongue- with a corresponding devotion. He believed that night air is a deadly poison, and that hu- man beings should shut themselves indoors at sunset, all the year round; close all the doors and windows, and keep them closed till sunrise. The woman was nineteen at the time they met. She had never known anything about 204: The Mate and the Home. " poor health," and was quite unprepared to unite with this man in enjoying it. She had always been accustomed to her daily bath, and regarded every one as intolerably filthy who did not follow her example, for she was of a very intense nature, and what she believed she believed with an overpowering force which tolerated no dissent on the part of her imme- diate associates. In short, she was something, in temperament, like what is implied by the term " bottled lightning. 1 ' Their domestic life was very much like that of the cats of Kilkenny, as you may well suppose. She stormed, and took her baths, and opened the windows. He cried, took no baths, shut the windows, and called the doc- tors. There is no law of man's enactment for the punishment of such intemperance as they were guilty of, nor is any needed. They broke God's laws of the eternal fitness of things, and God has punished them in his own way; and they stand to-day, as do many others who have done likewise, as living examples of what men and women should not do. I beg you all to take warning, and do not likewise. Do not trust yourself and your The Mate and the Home. 205 whole future to one who attracts you simply by a fair exterior, but acquaint yourself with his personal habits, his family antecedents, his associations, his tastes and his distastes, his be- liefs and his disbeliefs. Remember that the marriage contract binds you for life to one who is to be to you like another self, so close is the marriage relation, and you can no more get away from that other self, if he prove to be odious to you, than you can escape from your own self if you make yourself odious. There he must be, day after day, perhaps one of the " unwashed," with a breath horribly offensive, either by reason of his unwashed person or by reason of the use of tobacco or of rum, ever by your side, " till death do you part." Ah, my dear girls, if you could only learn to look beyond the orange-blossoms far enough to see the rue which so soon succeeds them, in too many cases, you would learn to be duly cautious in this momentous matter. " The best, or none!" And do not trust your own unaided judgment, but give your whole confi- dence to your mother, or to her who stands in her place, if you be motherless ; for the ex- 206 The Mate and the Home. perience of twenty years or more is of untold value in a woman's ability to counsel you in this respect. And even as you demand "the best" in the husband, so is it his to demand " the best " in the wife. The best man is he who will look wisely and well for his other self. To win him you must be worthy of him; and to be worthy of him you must be, like him, first of all, healthy, and temperate in all things in order that you be healthy. You must be cour- ageous enough to resist every temptation to go in ways which your better self rejects, and to even be unfashionable, if to be fashionable means to do things which will conflict with o God's eternal laws for your well-being. You must be self-reliant and self-control- ling, for the exigencies of married life call for these qualities in the highest degree. The hysterical wife may tempt the best man to "full from grace," for he is mortal. You must be prudent, in speech as in ac- tion; for to be prudent provident is in all respects opposed to thoughtlessness or heed- lessness, or any intemperate word or deed. The wise woman " openeth her mouth with The Mate and the Home. 207 wisdom ; and in her tongue is the law of kind- ness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idle- ness. Her children arise up and call her bless- ed; her husband also, arid he praiseth her" (Proverbs xxxi). You must be unselfish. It is all very nice to be admired and courted, and to have him say fair and flattering words to you along with the bouquets and sweetmeats; but these are only BO many little preliminaries. You might as well understand, in the beginning, that mar- riage requires the utmost unselfishness on both sides, and that each is to find his and her .great- est happiness in giving, not in receiving. I have seen some sad instances of the grossest selfishness in homes where the one is always giving and the other is always taking. Some- times it is the husband who gives his every thought and his every effort to an exacting, selfish, peevish and forever-discontented woman. The more he does for her happiness, the more unhappy she becomes, yet he carries him- self serenely over all the ruggedness of her ways, and possesses his soul in patience. Such a man is but " little lower than the angels," 208 The Mate and the Home. and I have seen him. He is comely to be- hold. And I have seen homes where the wife does all the giving. It is her daily and hourly study to so order her household and her sur- roundings as that the delicate sensibilities of her lord and master may never be jarred. In- stead of carrying his half of the burdens of life, he puts both halves upon her shoulders, and she meekly trudges on, bending a little and a little more lowly as the years go on, and soon she will fall by the wayside, and he will never know why, for his thoughts are fixed wholly npon himself. He is the kind of man whom George MacDoriald describes as " so sensitive that he shuts his ears to his sister's griefs, because it spoils his digestion to think of them." Yet he is a very proper man in the eyes of society, and very " respectable " in the way alluded to by the same writer when he puts these words into the mouth of Robert Fal- coner : " But one thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness." The man who is selfish in his own home, and with his own w r ife and children, was, beyond The Mate and the Home. 209 all question, equally selfish with his mother and sisters before he had a wife ; and so I say to you again, dear girls, observe how your young men treat their mothers and sisters, and guide yourselves accordingly. "But you are terribly practical!" is the reflection which doubtless fills your minds while I hold your attention down to the de- tails of e very-day life, instead of painting for you fair pictures of ideal homes in cloud-land. Dear hearts, you can build all the air castles without any of my help. You are at just the age when that kind of architecture prevails. And the more imaginative your temperament, the more of such castles you will build. You will have no difficulty in investing the hand- some young man who paid you such flattering homage last evening, and who heaped his floral offering with still more attractive flowers of sentiment, with a halo which shall preclude all such questions as, Is he temperate ? Is he un- selfish ? Is he clean, morally and physically and mentally ? That was the case with the unhappy pair whose story I have told you. Their vivid im- aginations idealized each other to the utter 210 The Mate and the Home. extinction of all common-sense. He was tall and handsome, and of honeyed sweetness of manner, and he took her out sailing by moon- light (the night air had no poison in it then !), and told her that the light of the moon and of the stars was dim compared with the light in her eyes, and that the blush of the roses he brought her was put to shame by the bloom of her round cheeks. Of course she forgot to find out whether he washed himself once a year, or once in a life- time, or never. She could never be BO fear- fully practical and unpoetical as that. But the orange-blossoms had not yet faded when she made discoveries even worse than I can tell you here, and which proved the assumption that unclean souls are most at home in unclean bodies. And he found out that the " eyes which put the stars to shame " could flash lightning at him in most terrific fashion. Alas ! poor souls ! If they only had listened to the practical promptings of common-sense, what a world of misery they would have es- caped ! .But I must not dweU longer upon the choice of a mate, and will assume that vou The Mate and the Home. 211 have chosen deliberately, wisely, and well. He is healthy. That is, he inherits, so far as you can learn from his family physician (for that is the one who should decide upon the titness of parties for marriage), no scrofula, no consumption, and no insanity. He is temper- ate. That is, he neither eats nor drinks that which can do him harm, nor has he, by excesses of any kind, so weakened his digestion that he is obliged to smoke a cigar in order to digest his dinner. He is clean, physically and mor- ally. He is industrious, else he must be vicious. You are now, from this time onward, by all the love and honor which you entertain for each other, bound to order your lives in high- est and holiest conformity with the one ulti- mate end and aim of marriage, namely, the establishment of " a new household," and the rearing of immortal souls. Do not, I beg you, rush into that fashionable, but fatal, error 01 getting married before your own nest is built and taking up your abode in another's nest, like the cuckoo, the thief among birds. The practice of marrying and boarding leads to more vice and crime than is known to any but 212 The jUCate and the Home. physicians. I, with only a limited experience as medical practitioner, can count a score of brides who have come to me to beg me to murder their unborn children, because they were "boarding," and it was not "convenient to have a family " ! Most horrible of horrors ! Most foolish of follies ! Yet any physician can tell you the same terrible fact. That " idleness is the parent of vice " is another fact which finds sad confirmation in the life of many a young woman who begins her married life in a boarding-house. She has nothing to do, as a rule, but to fix up in her new clothes and look pretty. After a time she fails to find satisfaction in being ad- mired by one man ; and as there are generally a half dozen idle men for every industrious one, it happens too often, sad as it is to relate, that she comes to court and receive the admi- ration of the six idle ones while her husband is engaged in honest labor. Therefore, I say again, and always again, dear girls, do not be in haste to marry, for any reason whatever. The French proverb is no less susceptible of application here than else- where : " He who tires not, tires adversity. Tfa ?Ji>.te and the Home. 213 All coryos ri i>;ht to him who can afford to