WHEN THE MOTHERS FAIL 23 



in the first place, the increase of athleticism among 

 young girls and women, the extension of their edu- 

 ction to the universities, and the opening to them 

 of many new industrial and commercial occupations 

 have done much towards rationalizing women's dress, 

 so that they are probably better dressed, from the 

 view-point of physiology and hygiene, than for many 

 centuries past. Occasionally some monstrous and 

 injurious feminine fashion appears, but it is usually 

 short-lived because of its being ill adapted to the 

 freedom of movement which characterizes modern 

 women, especially in athletics. Secondly, the dis- 

 ability is, apparently, not the result of a gradual 

 change in the anatomy of the female, such as might 

 be produced by tight-lacing, for example, in the 

 course of several generations. The human body is not 

 structurally modified to any very great degree in a 

 single generation. 



But in considering the phenomenon of lacteal fail- 

 ure in women we have to bear in mind that it appears 

 often in a single generation, fully developed, and as 

 an apparently permanent condition of the sex. My 

 friend. Dr. J. M. Morgan, who is a negro physician of 

 large practice, assures me that among his people it 

 is a very common thing to find young mothers en- 

 tirely unable to nurse their babies at all, or, in other 

 cases, for more than a few weeks, whereas their 

 mothers never experienced any such difficulty. The 



