ess
than many people suppose it to be. Lassitude and a feeling of general
debility are confined chiefly to the anaemic cases.

The mental symptoms clear up as the physical condition is improved, aided
by a sensible attitude toward the whole process. Often girls who suffer
some pain live through the whole month in dread of the period. This
attitude should be changed, by lessening the pain and by psychic therapy.
Psychic therapy has proved successful in obstinate cases.

The girl who suffers considerably from any of these disorders at the
monthly period should be relieved from the strain of examinations, the
classroom, and lessons which must be learned, although mental hygiene
requires that her mind be kept active and her interests in quiet pleasures
stimulated. She should not be left to introspection and morbidness or to
the sickly sentimental thoughts often recommended for her. This alone
would cause her to exhibit some of the so-called "phenomena" of
adolescence. Many of these phenomena are abnormal and are traceable to low
physical vitality and lack of strong mental interests. The menstrual
period should not be attended by pain or discomfort; nor should our girls
be brought up to regard it as a time of sickness. When our girls are
taught that normal girls experience no indisposition at this time, they
will not be resigned to pain. The high-school life of the girl below the
average in physical vitality cannot be regulated to her advantage in a
co-educational school. Cities should maintain girls' high schools, taught
by women teachers, for all girls upon whom the stress and strain of
competition with normal individuals would react unfavorably. In the
majority of cases, menstrual pain in girls is due to nerve tension, anaemia
and poor circulation, improper clothing, and mental attitude. The girls
who experience no pain are those who have led an active out-of-door life
and have never stopped playing.

The character and arrangement of a girl's clothing is one of the most
important matters in her whole regimen. Clothing may neutralize the
beneficial effects of her otherwise hygienic habits. The long-continued
even though light pressure of the corset--and it is seldom
light--interferes with the free circulation of the blood. The alteration
in intro-abdominal pressure is conducive to misplacements of abdominal and
pelvic organs; the anterior pressure on the iliac bones, the result of the
modern long hip corset, is a fruitfu