EDUCATION AND THE HEALTH OF WOMEN. 823 



EDUCATION AS AN AID TO THE HEALTH OF 



WOMEN. 



By ELIZABETH CUMINGS. 



" In education we should endeavor to make a man change from one habit to 

 a better." Thk^tetus (Plato). 



THE relation between physical and psychical states is so intimate, 

 and the effects of the latter so nearly simulate disease, that phy- 

 sicians are often led into grave errors in diagnosis and treatment. 

 Nor is this the worst mischief ; the secondary stage of psychical excite- 

 ment may be actual disease, for the nerve-force expended is so much 

 withdrawn from the processes of nutrition and assimilation, and con- 

 tinued morbid action of any of the functions has a tendency to estab- 

 lish organic change. How far education may act as a conserver of 

 psychical, and secondarily of physical health, is therefore a legitimate 

 object of inquiry. 



Subject as the female organism is to a periodicity of alternate ex- 

 citation and depression, the nervous system must respond in a degree 

 to the increased or lowered tension of the veins and arteries. To this 

 physiological cause of emotional excitability are added the effects of 

 habitual in-door life, unhygienic dress, and avocations that are puerile, 

 or that tax the physical strength to the utmost. Instead of correcting 

 the natural tendency, the habits and pursuits of women superimpose 

 upon it an acquired nervous sensibility and irritability, till lack of 

 nerve equilibrium has come to be inherent in civilized women, and 

 Sydenham, generalizing from this point, says, "All women are hys- 

 terical " an assertion that thinking women, especially the mothers of 

 girls, would do well to consider. 



The social environment of women is, in its effect, somewhat like 

 the drug mentioned by Dr. Clark in his volume on " Visions," that, 

 taken into the system, paralyzes the nerves of motion, but leaves the 

 nerves of sensation unaffected. An appearance of well-being and con- 

 tent is required of them, at the same time they are exposed, much 

 more than men, to the hurts and wounds that touch what we call the 

 feelings. Without the diversion of work that employs their intellec- 

 tual faculties, they are constantly tempted to magnify the torments 

 of wounded self-love and the petty griefs that a properly developed 

 nature would not consider. Religion is their only solace, and that 

 incites them to bear their troubles in the martyr spirit, that is, by 

 sheer force of will, an effort that has a markedly anti-vital effect upon 

 the organic functions, rather than with the " sweet reasonableness " 

 which regards harassments as the common lot of all, and therefore 

 determinately turns the attention away from them to higher things. 



