DR. CAROLINE HEDGER'S PAPER 



291 



CONSTIPATION IN RELATION TO MENSTRUATION. 



Age 



15 

 16 



17 

 18 



19 



20 



21 



22-24 



26-30 



31-33 



37-4 



have unstable menstruation. 



Between these two extreme groups, stands the 

 great mass of girls, some with only a slight deficiency 

 in one line, and otherwise admirably fitted to repro- 

 duce ; some with many deficiencies, and only a few- 

 chances that their reproduction would be desirable 

 for the race. On our treatment of them in the school 

 depends in part the future of this variable class. By 

 a rational treatment we might be able to eliminate 

 all the undesirable factors except a hereditary taint. 

 I have no doubt that to-day we are dragging down 

 the better types to the lower end of the scale, where 

 by nutritional and nervous faults we make it impossible 

 to get breast fed babies that can survive infancy and 

 come to effective maturity. 



You will at once urge, and I admit, that thorough 

 study of the relationship of menstruation to child- 

 bearing, and especially to the ability to nurse, has 

 never been made. It should be made. So eminent 

 an educator as G. Stanley Hall states in no uncertain 

 terms that in the developmental period in girls every- 

 thing should be subservient to establishing a normal 

 rhythm. And it seems a rational proposition that the 



