In hot climates, man, like the vegetation, has a surprising rapidity of growth. Marriages are usual at twelve or fourteen years of age. p.u.b.erty comes to both s.e.xes as early as at ten and eleven years. We even read in the life of Mohammed, that one of his wives, when but ten years of age, bore him a son. Let another dozen years pa.s.s, and these blooming maidens have been metamorphosed into wrinkled, faded old women. The beauty of their precocious youth has withered almost literally like a flower which is plucked.
Very different is it in the cold and barren regions of the far north.
There man, once more partaking of the nature of his surroundings, yields as slowly to the impulses of his pa.s.sions as does the ice-bound earth to the slanting rays of the summer sun. Maturity, so quick to come, so swift to leave in the torrid heats, arrives, chilled by the long winters, to the girls of Lapland, Norway, and Siberia, only when they are eighteen and nineteen years of age. But, in return for this, they retain their vigor and good looks to a green old age.
Between these extremes, including as they do the whole second decade of existence, this important change takes place normally in different lat.i.tudes. We have said that in the middle temperate zone the proper age is fourteen years and six months. Let us now see what conditions lead to deviations from this age in our climate.
First on the list is that sacred fire handed down to us from our ancestors, which we call, in our material language, the _const.i.tution._
The females of certain races, certain families, it is often noticed, mature earlier than their neighbours. Jewesses, for example, are always precocious, earlier by one or two years. So are colored girls, and those of creole lineage. We can guess the reasons here. No doubt these children still retain in their blood the tropic fire which, at comparatively recent periods, their forefathers felt under the vertical rays of the torrid zone.
Nor is this all. It is well ascertained, from numerous observations, that brunettes develope sooner than their blonde sisters; that those who will grow to be large women are slower than those whose stature will be small; that the dark-haired and black-eyed are more precocious in this respect than the light-haired and blue-eyed; that the fat, sluggish girl is more tardy than the slender, active one; that, in general, what is known as the nervo-bilious temperament is ever ahead of that called the lymphatic or phlegmatic.
It is a familiar fact, that it is not a good sign to see this change before the usual average time. It betokens a weakly, excitable, diminutive frame. Hard labor, vigorous, regular muscular exertion--prime health, in other words--never tends to antic.i.p.ate this epoch, but rather to r.e.t.a.r.d it.
With this warning fresh in our ears, let us now rehea.r.s.e what causes constantly incline unduly to hasten p.u.b.erty, and thus to forestall wise Nature in her plans for health and beauty. They are of two kinds,--physical and mental.
Idleness of body, highly-seasoned food, stimulating beverages, such as beer, wine, liqueurs, and, in a less degree, coffee and tea, irregular habits of sleep,--these are the physical causes of premature development. But the mental causes are still more potent.
Whatever _stimulates the emotions_ leads to an unnaturally early s.e.xual life. Late hours, children"s parties, sensational novels, "flashy"
papers, love stories, the drama, the ball-room, talk of beaux, love, and marriage,--that atmosphere of riper years which is so often and so injudiciously thrown around childhood,--all hasten the event which transforms the girl into the woman. A particular emphasis has been laid by some physicians on the power of music to awaken the dormant susceptibilities to pa.s.sion, and on this account its too general or earnest cultivation by children has been objected to. Educators would do well to bear this caution in mind.
How powerfully these causes work is evident when we compare the average age of p.u.b.erty in large cities and in country districts. The females in the former mature from six to eight months sooner than those in the latter. This is unquestionably owing to their mode of life,--physically indolent, mentally over-stimulated. The result, too, is seen with painful plainness in comparing the st.u.r.dy, well-preserved farm-wife of thirty, with the languid, pale, faded city lady of the same age.
THE CHANGES IT WORKS.
Two short years change the awkward and angular girl of fourteen into the trim and graceful maiden of sweet sixteen. Wonderful metamorphosis! The magic wand of the fairy has touched her, and she comes forth a new being, a vision of beauty to bewitch the world.
Let us a.n.a.lyze this change.
The earliest sign of approaching p.u.b.erty is a deposit of fat in the loose cellular tissue under the skin. This gives roundness to the form, and grace to the movements. According to a distinguished naturalist (Buffon), it is first observable by a slight swelling of the groins.
Thence it extends over the whole body. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s especially receive additions, and develope to form the perfect bust.
Parts of the body previously free from hair become covered with a soft growth, and that which covers the head acquires more vigor and gloss, usually becoming one or two shades darker. The eyes brighten, and acquire unwonted significance. These windows of the soul betray to the close observer the novel emotions which are arising in the mind within.
The voice, too, shares in the transformation. The piping, slender articulation of the child gives way to the rich, melodious, soft voice of woman--the sweetest music man ever hears. To the student of humanity, to the observant physician, nothing is more symbolical of the whole nature than the voice. Would you witness a proof of its power? Watch how a person born blind unerringly discriminates the character of those he meets by this alone.
Beyond all external modifications, we find others, which indicate how profound is the alteration now taking place. The internal organs of the body a.s.sume new functions and new powers. The taste for food changes, hinting that the system has demands. .h.i.therto unknown. Those organs we have adverted to, called the ovaries, increase in size, as also does the uterus. The very framework of the structure does not escape. The bones increase in weight, and those around the hips expand, and give the female her distinctive form, upon the perfection of which her life and that of her children depend.
MENTAL CHANGES.
Such are the changes which strike the eye. But there are others which are not less significant, and which demand far more urgently our watchful heed. New thoughts, strange desires, are invading the soul. A novel relation is a.s.sumed to the world. It is vague, misunderstood, but disturbing all the same.
The once light-hearted girl inclines to reveries; she seeks solitude; her mother surprises her in causeless tears; her teacher discovers an unwonted inattention to her studies, a less retentive memory, a disinclination to mental labor; her father misses her accustomed playfulness; he, perhaps, is annoyed by her listlessness and inertia.
What does it all mean? What is the matter with the girl?
Mother, teacher, father, it is for you to know the answers to these questions. You have guarded this girl through years of helpless infancy and thoughtless childhood. At the peril of her life, and of what is of more value than life, do not now relax your vigilance. Every day the reaper Death reaps with his keen sickle the flowers of our land. The mothers weep, indeed; but little do they realize that it is because they have neglected to cherish them as was their duty, that the Lord of Paradise has taken them back unto Himself.
THE COMPLETION OF p.u.b.eRTY.
The symptoms increase until at length the system has acquired the necessary strength, and furnished itself with reserve forces enough to complete its transformation. Then the monthly flow commences.
In thoroughly healthy girls it continues to recur at regular intervals, from twenty-five to thirty days apart. This is true of about three out of four. In others, a long interval, sometimes six months, occurs between the first and second sickness. If the general health be not _in the least_ impaired, this need cause no anxiety. Irregularities are found in the first year or two, which often right themselves afterwards.
But whenever they are a.s.sociated with the _slightest_ signs of mental or bodily disorder, they demand instant and intelligent attention.
It used to be supposed that the periods of the monthly sickness were in some way connected with the phases of the moon. So general is this belief even yet in France, that a learned Academician not long since thought it worth while carefully to compare over four thousand observations, to see whether they did bear any relations to the lunar phases. It is hardly worth while to add that he found none.
We have known perfectly healthy young women who were ill every sixteen days, and others in whom a period of thirty-five or thirty-six days would elapse. The reasons of such differences are not clear. Some inherited peculiarity of const.i.tution is doubtless at work. Climate is of primary importance. Travellers in Lapland, and other countries in the far north, say that the women there are not regulated more frequently than three or four times a year. Hard labor and a phlegmatic temperament usually prolong the interval between the periodical illnesses.
An equal diversity prevails in reference to the _length of time_ the discharge continues. The average of a large number of cases observed in healthy women, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, is four days and a fraction. In a more general way, we may say from two to six days is the proper duration. Should it diverge widely from this, then it is likely some mischief is at work.
In relation to the _amount_ of the discharge, every woman is a law unto herself. Usually, it is four or five ounces in all. Habits of life are apt to modify it materially. Here, again, those exposed to prolonged cold and inured to severe labor escape more easily than their sisters petted in the lap of luxury. Delicate, feeble, nervous women--those, in other words, who can least afford the loss of blood--are precisely those who lose the most. Nature, who is no tender mother, but a stern step-mother, thus punishes them for disregarding her laws. Soft couches, indolent ease, highly spiced food; warm rooms, weak muscles,--these are the infractions of her rules which she revenges with vigorous, ay, merciless severity.
It is well known, too, that excitement of the emotions, whether of anger, joy, grief, hatred, or love increases the discharge. Even the vulgar are aware of this, and, misinterpreting it as half-knowledge always does, suppose it a sign of stronger animal pa.s.sions. It bears no such meaning. But the fact reads us a lesson how important it is to cultivate a placid mind, free from strong desire or fear, and to hold all our emotions in the firm leash of reason.
Physicians attach great importance to the _character_ of the discharge.
It should be thin, watery, dark-coloured, and never clot. If it clots, it is an indication that something is wrong.
THE DANGERS OF p.u.b.eRTY.
We have shown that there are constantly individual deviations, quite consistent with health, from any given standard. They only become significant of disease when they depart decidedly from the average, either in the frequency of the illness, its duration, the amount of the discharge, or the character. More or less pain, more or less prostration and general disturbances at these epochs, are universal and inevitable.
They are part of the sentence which at the outset He p.r.o.nounced upon the woman, when He said unto her, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception." Yet with merciful kindness He has provided means by which the pain may be greatly lessened, and the sorrow avoided; and that we may learn and observe these means, their neglect often increases a hundred-fold the natural suffering.
At this critical period, the seeds of hereditary and const.i.tutional diseases manifest themselves. They draw fresh malignancy from the new activity of the system. The first symptoms of tubercular consumption, of scrofula, of obstinate and disfiguring skin diseases, of hereditary insanity, of congenital epilepsy, of a hundred terrible maladies, which from birth have lurked in the child, biding the opportunity of attack, suddenly spring from their lairs, and hurry her to the grave or the madhouse. If we ask why so many fair girls of eighteen or twenty are followed by weeping friends to an early tomb, the answer is, chiefly from diseases which had their origin at the period of p.u.b.erty.
It is impossible for us here to rehea.r.s.e all the minute symptoms, each almost trifling in itself, which warn the practised physician of the approach of one of these fearful foes in time to allow him to make a defence. We can do little more than iterate the warning, that whenever, at this momentous epoch, any disquieting change appears, be it physical or mental, let not a day be lost in summoning _skilled_, _competent_ medical advice.
There is, however, a train of symptoms so frequent, so insidious, so fruitful with agony of mind and body, that we shall mention them particularly. They ill.u.s.trate, at once, how all-important is close observation, and how significant to the wise physician are trifles seemingly light as air.
If you notice a girl of fourteen or sixteen, who, in walking, always gives one arm in preference to the other to her companion; if, in sleeping, she mostly lies on the same side; if, in sitting, she is apt to prefer a chair with a low back, and throws one arm over its back; if you perceive that she always sits with one foot a little in advance of the other; if she, on inquiry, confesses to slight, wandering pains in one side of her chest,--do not chide her for awkwardness. These are ominous portents. They mean _spinal disease_, than which a more fearful malady is hardly known to medicine.
Not less stealthy is the approach of disease of the hip-joint, of white swelling of the knee, of consumption,--all curable if taken in hand at the very first, all well-nigh hopeless when they have once unmasked their real features.
Apart from these general dangers, to which those of thoroughly sound const.i.tutions are not exposed, there are disorders called functional, to which all are subject.
GREEN SICKNESS.
When we speak of the "green sickness," we mention perhaps the most common of all, and one of which every mother has heard. Doctors call it _chlorosis_, which also means _greenness_; for one of its most common and peculiar symptoms is a pale complexion with a greenish tinge.
It never occurs except at or near the age of p.u.b.erty, and was long supposed to be merely an impoverishment of the blood. Now, however, we have learned that it is a disease of the nervous system, and one very often confounded by physicians with other complaints.
Its attack is insidious. A distaste for exertion and society, a fitful appet.i.te, low spirits,--these are all the symptoms noticed at first.
Then, one by one, come palpitation of the heart, an unhealthy complexion, irregularity, dyspepsia, depraved tastes,--such as a desire to eat slate-pencil dust, chalk, or clay,--vague pains in body and limbs, a bad temper; until the girl, after several months, is a peevish, wretched, troublesome invalid.
Then, if a physician is called in, and gives her iron, and tells her nothing is the matter, or is himself alarmed, and imagines she has heart disease or consumption, it is a chance if she does not rapidly sink, out of mere fright and over-much dosing, into some fatal complaint. Let it be well understood that chlorosis, though often obstinate and obscure, is always curable if properly and promptly treated. The remedies must be addressed to the nervous system, and can be administered with intelligence only by a competent medical adviser. It can be prevented by a hygienic mode of life, and, as its most common causes are anxiety, home-sickness, want of exercise, or overwork at school, nothing is so salutary in its early stages as a change of air and scene, cheerful company, a tour to the mountains or some watering-place, and regular exercise.