Nations differ in their degrees of civilization. We shall select one for the subject of our inquiries which is most familiar to us; I mean the British nation. Here we behold subordination and classes of mankind established by government, commerce, manufactures, and certain customs common to most of the civilized nations of Europe. We shall trace the origin of their diseases through their customs, in the same manner as we did those of the Indians. I. It will be sufficient to name the degrees of heat, the improper aliment, the tight dresses, and the premature studies children are exposed to, in order to show the ample scope for diseases, which is added to the original defect of stamina they derive from their ancestors. II. Civilization rises in its demands upon the health of women. Their fashions; their dress and diet; their eager pursuits and ardent enjoyment of pleasure; their indolence and undue evacuations in pregnancy; their cordials, hot regimen, and neglect, or use of art, in child-birth, are all so many inlets to disease. Humanity would fain be silent, while philosophy calls upon us to mention the effects of interested marriages, and of disappointments in love, increased by that concealment which the tyranny of custom has imposed upon the sex[11]. Each of these exaggerates the natural, and increases the number of artificial diseases among women. [11] "Married women are more healthy and long-lived than single women. The registers, examined by Mr. Muret, confirm this observation; and show particularly, that of equal numbers of single and married women between fifteen and twenty-five years of age, more of the former died than of the latter, in the proportion of two to one: the consequence, therefore, of following nature must be favourable to health among the female sex." Supplement to Price's Observations on Reversionary Payments. p. 357.