Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/105

Rh irregularity in eating, late hours, exposure to draughts of air, the atmosphere of crowded rooms, thin dressing, tight lacing, and various other things, injure her health. But she eats four meals to-day, and two to-morrow; she stands at the front door without additional covering to her neck, or any thing on her head, to talk with a departing friend; and she attends balls, the theatre, and concerts, two or three times a week, wearing thin dresses and thin shoes: all this she does for a time, without feeling in herself any ill effects; or, if she feels them, she will not believe in the true cause. Such being the case, it is almost impossible to make her sensible that she is sowing in her system the seeds of incurable diseases, the germination and growth of which no after care will prevent, and which will either bring her early to the grave, or entail upon her a life of suffering, attended with inability to discharge her duty to those most dearly loved, and for whose happiness and welfare she would be willing to make almost any sacrifice. That such is really the fact, the sad results of just such an abuse of health are to be seen all around us—results that all intelligent physicians, and all persons of observation and common sense, know must flow from the causes just set forth. Surely, then, an adequate motive