Part 29 (2/2)
Health is obtained and preserved by the observance of those natural laws which the Creator has appointed for the government of our bodies.
The structure of these bodies we may do well to study for a few moments.
The Human Form Divine.--Go with us to one of the large cities, and we will show you one of the most marvelous pieces of mechanism ever invented, a triumph of ingenuity, skill, and patient, persevering labor for many years. This wonderful device is a clock which will run more than one hundred years. It is so constructed that it indicates not only the time of day, the day of the month and year, itself making all the necessary changes for leap year, but shows the motions of the earth around the sun, together with the movements and positions of all the other planets, and many other marvelous things. When it strikes at the end of each hour, groups of figures go through a variety of curious movements most closely resembling the appearance and actions of human beings.
The maker of this remarkable clock well deserves the almost endless praise which he receives for his skill and patience; for his work is certainly wonderful; but the great clock, with its curious and complicated mechanism, is a coa.r.s.e and bungling affair when compared with the human body. The clock doubtless contains thousands of delicate wheels and springs, and is constructed with all the skill imaginable; and yet the structure of the human body is infinitely more delicate.
The clock has no intelligence; but a human being can hear, see, feel, taste, touch, and think. The clock does only what its maker designed to have it do, and can do nothing else. The human machine is a living mechanism; it can control its own movements, can do as it will, within certain limits. What is very curious indeed, the human machine has the power to mend itself, so that when it needs repairs it is not necessary to send it to a shop for the purpose, but all that is required is to give nature an opportunity and the system repairs itself.
A Wonderful Process.--We have not s.p.a.ce to describe all the wonderful mechanism of this human machine, but must notice particularly one of its most curious features, a provision by which other human beings, living machines like itself, are produced. All living creatures possess this power. A single potato placed in the ground becomes a dozen or more, by a process of multiplying. A little seed planted in the earth grows up to be a plant, produces flowers, and from the flowers come other seeds, not one, but often a great many, sometimes hundreds from a single seed. Insects, fishes, birds, and all other animals, thus multiply. So do human beings, and in a similar manner. The organs by which this most marvelous process is carried on in plants and animals, including also human beings, are called s.e.xual organs. Flowers are the s.e.xual organs of plants. And flowers are always the most fragrant and the most beautiful when they are engaged in this wonderful and curious work.
Human Buds.--A curious animal which lives near the seash.o.r.e, in shallow water, attached to a rock like a water plant, puts out little buds which grow awhile and then drop off, and after a time become large individuals like the parent, each in turn producing buds like the one from which it grew. Human beings are formed by a similar process. Human buds are formed by an organ for the purpose possessed only by the female s.e.x, and these, under proper circ.u.mstances, develop into infant human beings.
The process, though so simply stated, is a marvelously complicated one, which cannot be fully explained here; indeed, it is one of the mysteries which it is beyond the power of human wisdom fully to explain.
The production of these human buds is one of the most important and sacred duties of woman. It is through this means that she becomes a mother, which is one of the grandest and n.o.blest functions of womanhood.
It is the motherly instinct that causes little girls to show such a fondness for dolls, a perfectly natural feeling which may be encouraged to a moderate degree without injury.
How Beauty is Marred.--As already remarked, mental, moral, and physical health are the requisites for true beauty, and to secure these, obedience to all the laws of health is required. The most beautiful face is soon marred when disease begins its ravages in the body. The most beautiful character is as speedily spoiled by the touch of moral disease, or sin. The face is a mirror of the mind, the character; and a mind full of evil, impure thoughts is certain to show itself in the face in spite of rosy cheeks and dimples, ruby lips and bewitching smiles. The character is written on the face as plainly as the face may be pictured by an artist on canvas.
To be more explicit, the girl who disregards the laws of health, who eats bad food, eats at all hours or at unseasonable hours, sits up late at night, attends fas.h.i.+onable parties and indulges in the usual means of dissipation there afforded, dancing, wine, rich suppers, etc., who carefully follows the fas.h.i.+ons in her dress, lacing her waist to attain the fas.h.i.+onable degree of slenderness, wearing thin, narrow-toed gaiters with French heels, and insufficiently clothing the limbs in cold weather, and who in like manner neglects to comply with the requirements of health in other important particulars, may be certain that sooner or later, certainly at no distant day, she will become as unattractive and homely as she can wish not to be. Girls and young ladies who eat largely of fat meat, rich cakes and pies, confectionery, iced creams, and other dietetic abominations, cannot avoid becoming sallow and hollow-eyed. The cheeks may be ever so plump and rosy, they will certainly lose their freshness and become hollow and thin. Chalk and rouge will not hide the defect, for everybody will discover the fraud, and will of course know the reason why it is practiced.
A Beauty-Destroying Vice.--But by far the worst enemy of beauty and health of body, mind, and soul, we have not yet mentioned. It is a sin concerning which we would gladly keep silence; but we cannot see so many of our most beautiful and promising girls and young ladies annually being ruined, often for this world and the next alike, without uttering the word of warning needed.
As before remarked, the function of maternity, which is the object of the s.e.xual system in woman, when rightly exercised is the most sacred and elevated office which a woman can perform for the world. The woman who is a true mother has an opportunity of doing for the race more than all other human agencies combined. The mother's influence is the controlling influence in the world. The mother molds the character of her children. She can make of their plastic minds almost what she will if she is herself prepared for the work. On the other hand, misuse or abuse of the s.e.xual organism is visited in girls and women, as in boys and men, with the most fearful penalties. Nothing will sooner deprive a girl or young lady of the maidenly grace and freshness with which nature blesses woman in her early years than secret vice. We have the greatest difficulty in making ourself believe that it is possible for beings designed by nature to be pure and innocent, in all respects free from impurity of any sort, to become so depraved by sin as to be willing to devote themselves to so vile and filthy a practice. Yet the frequency with which cases have come under our observation which clearly indicate the alarming prevalence of the practice, even among girls and young women who would naturally be least suspected, compels us to recognize the fact. The testimony of many eminent physicians whose opportunities for observation have been very extensive shows that the evil is enormously greater than people generally are aware. Instructors of the youth, of large experience, a.s.sert the same. Nor is the evil greater in America than in some other countries. One writer declares that the vice is almost universal among the girls of Russia, which may be due to the low condition in which the women of that country are kept.
Terrible Effects of Secret Vice.--The awful effects of this sin against G.o.d and nature, this soul-and-body-destroying vice, become speedily visible in those who are guilty of it. The experienced eye needs no confession on the part of the victim to read the whole story of sinful indulgence and consequent disease. The vice stamps its insignia upon the countenance; it shows itself in the walk, in the changed disposition and the loss of healthy vigor. It is not only impossible for a victim of this sinful practice to hide from the all-seeing eye of G.o.d the vileness perpetrated in secret, but it is also useless to attempt to hide from human eyes the awful truth.
Headache, side-ache, back-ache, pains in the chest, and wandering pains in various parts of the body,--these are but a few of the painful ailments from which girls who are guilty of this sin suffer. Many of the tender spines which cause great solicitude on the part of parents and physicians, who fear that disease of the spine is threatening the life of a loved daughter, not infrequently originate in this way. Much of the hysteria which renders wretched the lives of thousands of young ladies and the fond friends who are obliged to care for and attend them, arises from s.e.xual transgression of the kind of which we are speaking.
The blanched cheeks, hollow, expressionless eyes, and rough, pimply skins of many school-girls are due to this cause alone. We do not mean by this to intimate that every girl who has pimples upon her face is guilty of secret vice; but this sin is undoubtedly a very frequent cause of the unpleasant eruption which so often appears upon the foreheads of both s.e.xes. It would be very unjust, however, to charge a person with the sin unless some further evidence than that of an eruption on the face was afforded.
The inability to study, to apply themselves in any way except when stimulated by something of a very exciting character, which many girls exhibit, is in a large proportion of cases due to the practice of which we are writing. Often enough the effects which are attributed to overstudy are properly due to this debasing habit. We have little faith in the great outcry made in certain quarters about the damaging effects of study upon the health of young ladies. A far less worthy cause is in many cases the true one, to which is attributable the decline in health at a critical period when all the vital forces of the system are necessarily called into action to introduce the activity of a new function.
Hundreds of girls break down in health just as they are entering womanhood. At from twelve to eighteen years of age the change naturally occurs which transforms the girl into a woman by the development of functions previously latent. This critical period is one through which every girl in health ought to pa.s.s with scarcely any noticeable disturbance; and if during the previous years of life the laws of health were observed, there would seldom be any unusual degree of suffering at this time. Those who have before this period been addicted to the vile habit of which we are writing, will almost invariably show at this time evidences of the injury which has been wrought. The unnatural excitement of the organs before the period of p.u.b.erty, lays the foundation for life-long disease. When that critical epoch arrives, the organs are found in a state of congestion often bordering on inflammation. The increased congestion which naturally occurs at this time in many cases is sufficient to excite most serious disease. Here is the beginning of a great many of the special diseases which are the bane and shame of the s.e.x. Displacements of various sorts, congestions, neuralgia of the ovaries, leucorrhoea, or whites, and a great variety of kindred maladies, are certain to make their appearance at this period or soon after in those who have previously been guilty of self-abuse.
If the evil influences already at work are augmented by tight lacing, improper dressing of the extremities, hanging heavy skirts upon the hips, and fas.h.i.+onable dissipation generally, the worst results are sure to follow, and the individual is certain to be a subject for the doctors for a good portion of her life.
A talented writer some time since contributed to a popular magazine an article ent.i.tled, ”The Little Health of Women,” which contained many excellent hints respecting the influences at work to undermine the health and destroy the const.i.tutions of American women; but he did not even hint at this potent cause, which, we firmly believe, is responsible for a far greater share of the local disease and general poor health of girls, young women, and married ladies, than has been generally recognized. These are startling facts, but we are prepared to substantiate them.
Remote Effects.--Not all of the effects of the vice appear in girlhood, nor even during early life. Not infrequently it is not until the girl has grown up to be a wife and mother that she begins to appreciate fully the harm that has been wrought. At this time, when new demands are made upon the s.e.xual organism, when its proper duties are to be performed, there is a sudden failure; new weaknesses and diseases make their appearance, new pains and sufferings are felt, which no woman who has not in some way seriously transgressed the laws of health will suffer.
In not a few instances it is discovered that the individual is wholly unfitted for the duties of maternity. Often, indeed, maternity is impossible, the injury resulting from the sins committed being so great as to render the diseased organism incapable of the functions required.
In the great majority of cases these peculiar difficulties, morbid conditions, and incapacities are attributed to overwork, overstudy, ”taking cold,” ”getting the feet wet,” or some other cause wholly inadequate to account for the diseased conditions present, although in many instances it may be true that some such unfortunate circ.u.mstance may be the means of precipitating the effects of previous sin upon organs already relaxed, debilitated, and thus prepared readily to take on disease.
Causes which Lead Girls Astray.--The predisposing causes of s.e.xual vices have already been dwelt upon so fully in this volume that we shall devote little s.p.a.ce to the subject here. We may, however, mention a few of the causes which seem to be most active in leading to the formation of evil habits among girls.
Vicious Companions.--Girls are remarkably susceptible to influence by those of their own age. A vicious girl who makes herself agreeable to those with whom she a.s.sociates can exert more influence over many of her companions than can any number of older persons. Even a mother rarely has that influence over her daughter that is maintained by the girl whom she holds as her bosom friend. The close friends.h.i.+ps which are often formed between girls of the same age are often highly detrimental in character. Each makes a confidant of the other, and thus becomes estranged from the only one competent to give counsel and advice, and the one who of all others is worthy of a young girl's confidence,--her mother.
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