Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/638

616 Where is there a physician who does not know of countless numbers of women among the wealthier classes who are beset by all manner of ailments, for no other reason than because they have nothing to do, or rather because they have brought nothing into their lives which called forth the strong motive forces of their natures? The petty, selfish considerations which have dominated them have been too shallow to float them out into the broader channels, and they have become poor, stranded wrecks, with no interests but their aches and pains, no comfort but in the doctor's daily visit. The contemplation of these wasted lives, powers for good gone to rust and decay for lack of use, should make the angels weep. God forgive the man or woman who would wish to keep alive the baleful thrall of old prejudices and customs which work such irremediable evil to the human race! John Stuart Mill has said that "there is nothing after disease, indigence, and guilt so fatal to the pleasurable enjoyment of life as the want of a worthy outlet for the active faculties." He might have added that nothing so tends to promote disease and physical poverty as such a want.

Of the barbarous inflictions of fashion, of the effects of social dissipation upon the impressionable nervous system of a young girl, of the neglect of such exercise as is necessary to her vigorous health, I have no time to speak more fully, but among these are found some of the greatest hindrances to health, some of the most serious obstacles to motherhood.

One of the greatest of living physicians. Sir Spencer Wells, says: "As for the outcry against women taking up mens' work, it is breath wasted. For my own part, I think women capable of a great deal more than they have been accustomed to do in times past. If over-work sometimes leads to disease, it is morally more wholesome to work into it than to lounge into it, and if some medical practitioners have observed cases where mental overstrain has led to disease, I can not deny that I also have at long intervals seen some such cases. But for every such example I feel sure that I have seen at least twenty where evils equally to be deplored are caused in young women by want of mental occupation, by deficient exercise, too luxurious living, and too much amusement."

That a strong disinclination to bear children is manifested by many American women no one can deny, and the rich even more than the poor seem averse to giving themselves to the cares and deprivations incident to the rearing of a family. These women are ready and willing to marry, but they have no intention of burdening themselves with the laudable results of matrimony.

Women with one or two children, wealthy, living in palatial residences, will tell you that they can not afford to have more children; also that they are quite worn out with their present cares, and that to have a large family would break them down completely; so by their