ewal of life. Beyond these limits it is a
hemorrhage, that, by draining away the life, becomes a source of
weakness and a perpetual fountain of disease.

The following case illustrates one of the ways in which our present
school methods of teaching girls generate a menorrhagia and its
consequent evils. Miss A----, a healthy, bright, intelligent girl,
entered a female school, an institution that is commonly but oddly
called a _seminary_ for girls, in the State of New York, at the age of
fifteen. She was then sufficiently well-developed, and had a good
color; all the functions appeared to act normally, and the catamenia
were fairly established. She was ambitious as well as capable, and
aimed to be among the first in the school. Her temperament was what
physiologists call nervous,--an expression that does not denote a
fidgety make, but refers to a relative activity of the nervous system.
She was always anxious about her recitations. No matter how carefully
she prepared for them, she was ever fearful lest she should trip a
little, and appear to less advantage than she hoped. She went to
school regularly every week, and every day of the school year, just as
boys do. She paid no more attention to the periodical tides of her
organization than her companions; and that was none at all. She
recited standing at all times, or at least whenever a standing
recitation was the order of the hour. She soon found, and this history
is taken from her own lips, that for a few days during every fourth
week, the effort of reciting produced an extraordinary physical
result. The attendant anxiety and excitement relaxed the sluices of
the system that were already physiologically open, and determined a
hemorrhage as the concomitant of a recitation. Subjected to the
inflexible rules of the school, unwilling to seek advice from any one,
almost ashamed of her own physique, she ingeniously protected herself
against exposure, and went on intellectually leading her companions,
and physically defying nature. At the end of a year, she went home
with a gratifying report from her teachers, and pale cheeks and a
variety of aches. Her parents were pleased, and perhaps a little
anxious. She is a good scholar, said her father; somewhat over-worked
possibly; and so he gave her a trip among the mountains, and a week or
two at the seashore. After her vacation she returned to school, and
repeated the previous year's experience,--constant, sustained work,
recitatio