DISEASES PECULIAR TO WOMEN 569 



might appear to some persons of meager intellectual 

 endowments, and not gifted witli "scientific imagina- 

 tions, ' ' that women endure the cold season of the year 

 as well as men, not because their skirts afford them 

 better protection, but because they are less exposed to 

 the inclemencies of the season, their occupations being 

 indoors. 



The Professor continues: ''But as the occupations 

 of women are gradually becoming identical with those 

 of men, it appears to be desirable, on the score of con- 

 venience, that they should wear trousers, even at the 

 sacrifice of warmth and beauty. A woman command- 

 ing a steamboat would certainly be more efficient in 

 trousers than in long skirts. A saleswoman in a shop 

 would do her work with more comfort to herself, and 

 more to the satisfaction of her employer, if she were 

 disencumbered of the gown and petticoats that pre- 

 vent her from climbing step-ladders to get down goods, 

 or jumping over the counter, like her male rival. Even 

 as a physician, or as a nurse in a hospital, she would 

 more effectually perform her work if she wore trou- 

 sers, and thus had more freedom in the motions of her 

 lower limbs. A woman surgeon, for instance, called 

 upon to reduce a dislocation of the shoulder- joint, 

 would find skirts very greatly incommodious when she 

 came to put her heel into the axilla of the patient in 

 order to obtain the necessary fixed point to counter- 

 act the effects of her traction. Besides, the flowing 

 drapery worn by the woman physician and nurse is 

 more apt to absorb contagion than the closely fitting 

 trousers of man, and hence renders them carriers of 

 disease from house to house, or from person to person. 



''If I had the determination of the question, I 

 should prescribe trousers for all women that do man- 



