274 ^-^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dence, which entails a change in the mental character of the child. 

 It instinctively exercises its new function of prehension, and is as 

 prone to bite as a woman is to love. 



And here let me recall what I said at the opening of this paper 

 upon errors of structure. This process of dentition will illustrate it, 

 and render its application to the diseases of ovarian function apparent. 

 It is during the formative process of dentition that the function may 

 be perverted, the shape and growth retarded. During this slow de- 

 velopment it is at the mercy of faulty nutrition and hygiene. Perfect 

 nutrition and ceaseless care are necessary to avert the dangers of 

 dentition. The effort to ward off these disasters would be useless 

 which confined itself to the completion of the act, to the neglect of 

 the formative process. And yet this is the manner in which the 

 sexual completion of woman is treated. How much we hear of the 

 woman, and how little of the child ! 



Mental changes are described as taking place as suddenly as those 

 of tlie body. There are of course some subjective mental impres- 

 sions which may be traced to the new ovarian function — the sense of 

 completion, and the new^ relation it establishes with others, and the 

 consciousness that half a lifetime wdll be under the dominion of a 

 strange periodicity, a mystery to herself. Aside from these there are 

 no newly-developed mental attributes which may be traced to sex. 

 Any thing new in mental vigor which may present itself at this 

 period of life is more clearly explained by the general maturity of 

 mind and body than by the action of a special function, and the state 

 of remote organs. 



It has been believed until recently that the removal of the OA'aries, 

 by operation or disease, would unsex the woman ; that the features 

 v\ould become thin and masculii^e, the voice harsh, and even a beard 

 develop. This is now known to be a wrong belief. It is true that the 

 removal of these organs has been over-estimated ; is it not possible 

 that the commencement of their functional activity has been given 

 undue importance in their reflex effect upon mind and body ? This is 

 answered by the fact that so gradual is the growth of mind, and the 

 expanding of the intellectual limits, that the closest observer will not 

 detect the dividing line between childhood and womanhood. Look 

 back, if you will, at the young woman who has grown up under your 

 daily notice, and point out the period of her life — be it one of months 

 or a year — in which sex has become, objectively, a part of brain-fibre. 

 For myself it is impossible to perceive the era of this change, so grad- 

 ually are the various stages of development m^erged into each other. 



A few words about the function itself concerning which so much 

 is being said. The periodic presence is regarded as an expression of 

 ovarian activity alone. This is in a great measure true ; but it is not 

 all the truth. Facts which have been coming to the light in the last 

 few years show that forces not of ovarian origin are engaged in deter- 



