522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of her sex, there can be no doubt that they shouhl not be forgotten, 

 having, as they do, a most important and practical influence on the 

 subject. 



From these considerations the conclusion may be drawn that woman 

 is structurally less powerful and vigorous than man, that she is less 

 capable of performing acts of physical exertion, of enduring fatigue 

 and exposure, and of combating against adverse circumstances. That, 

 moreover, the natural functions of her sex, when they do not actually 

 incapacitate her from action, render her specially liable, under disturb- 

 ing conditions, to deterioration of general health. 



The Nervous Conformation of Woman. — The whole nervous 

 system, in common with the other structures of the body, is smaller 

 and less voluminous in the female than in the male. Its function is 

 characterized by comparative weakness, as evidenced by great suscepti- 

 bility and instability, and also by promptness in responding to all kinds 

 of stimuli. In women there is less nervous capacity and vigor, dimin- 

 ished power of control, and a greater readiness to break down under 

 physical and mental strain. It is notorious that the conditions termed 

 nervous and hysterical are almost entirely confined to the female sex, 

 in which they are extremely common. Every physician at a hospital 

 who treats out-door patients knows that for every hundred men he 

 prescribes for he is called upon to treat at least five hundred women. 

 On the other hand, the male wards are always full, while many of the 

 female beds may be vacant. This simply indicates that serious disease 

 is most common in men, while trifling nervous ailments are almost 

 universal in women. Most women are naturally so predisposed that, 

 when subjected to fright, grief, anxiety, pain, and other such circum- 

 stances, they feel (in addition to the direct distressing efl'ects) various 

 remote subjective jjhenomena in the form of suffocations, spasms, 

 bodily pains, fainting, convulsions, and a general liability to violent 

 and explosive emotional demonstrations. If the causes are permanent 

 their effects may become so, and deteriorate the general health, and 

 there are thousands of women who are hopeless invalids, often for life, 

 from conditions acting on their susceptible and mobile nervous sys- 

 tems, which in the other sex would have produced no appreciable 

 results. There are, of course, in this as in other things, numerous 

 exceptions to the general rule, many women having their natures much 

 modified and approaching the male type, and in the same way there 

 are some men who are of a nervous and hysterical temperament. We 

 may, then, assert as a fact that the nervous system of the average 

 woman is more susceptible and impressionable than that of the average 

 man, that it is in consequence more readily unhinged by mental and 

 physical distress or fatigue, and that when thus disordered it reacts 

 upon the system, so as to cause permanent disease. 



The Intellectual Conformation of AYoman. — The cranium 

 of woman is smaller than that of man. The weight of the average 



