The Education of American GirlsBrackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)
General
The Education of American Girls
Brackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)
Women -- Education -- United States
"Women above actual want seldom suffer from extreme labor or from
excessive indulgence, but they seldom enjoy their full vitality, either
in exertion or in pleasure. Whether from this reason or not, their most
frequent illnesses are those connected with deficient vitality, such as
can keep them in lingering misery for years; affecting chiefly those
organs whose activity is not immediately necessary to life. Not half the
illness of this kind is under the care of a doctor. When he is
consulted, it is, if possible, at second-hand, and he is very likely to
hear only half the symptoms. * * * It is natural to point to the
multitude of women under constant medical care, and the number of
doctors whose practice lies chiefly among female patients. But if those
could be counted who are endeavoring to cure themselves by traditional
remedies, by quack medicines, by advice at second-hand, by the use of
means that have been recommended by some doctor to some other woman,
they would outnumber the former ten-fold. And it must be remembered,
that most of the first class belong also to the second, as often as they
dare."
This testimony as to the health of English women, as coming from a
woman, is of course doubly valuable; and it comes, too, as a mere
digression in the article from which it is quoted, the subject of which
is "Feminine Knowledge." It remains yet to be proved, it seems to us,
that American women are, as a whole, suffering from more derangement of
their peculiar functions than women of other countries. Do accurately
compiled statistics from full and trustworthy sources, warrant us in
asserting that American women are more unhealthy than European women, or
are we only assuming the fact from their general external appearance--a
criterion by no means a certain one? In the old story, the pail of water
containing the living fish was, after all the discussion, found to weigh
about as much as the pail with the dead one. Are we sure of our facts?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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