# Letters to Mothers/Letter VII

Part of this text was imported from the Letters to Mothers page at Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture hosted by the University of Virginia.
​LETTER VII.
HEALTH.
WE have all of us seen, with pity and regret, a sickly mother, burdened with the cares of her household. She has felt that there were employments, which no one could discharge as well as herself, modifications of duty, in which the interest of her husband, the welfare of her children, the comfort of the family, were concerned, which could not be deputed to another, without loss. Therefore, she continues to exert herself, over, and beyond her strength.
Still, her step is languid, and her eye joyless. The "spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Her little ones observe her dejected manner, and grow sad. Or, they take advantage of her want of energy, and become lawless. She, herself, cannot long persist in a course of labour, that involves expense of health, without some mental sympathy. The most amiable temper will sometimes become irritable, or complaining when the shrinking nerves require rest, and the demands of toil, and the claims upon painful thought, are ​perpetual. Efforts, which to one in health, are like dew-drops shaken from the eagle's wing, seem to the invalid, like the ascent of the Alps, or like heaping Pelion upon Ossa.
Admitting, that a sickly woman has sufficient self-control, to repel the intrusion of fretfulness, and preserve a subdued equanimity, this, though certainly deserving of praise, is failing short of what she would wish to attain. The meek look of resignation, though it may cost her much to maintain, is not all that a husband wishes, who coming from the vexed atmosphere of business or ambition, would fain find in his home, the smile of cheerfulness, the playful charm of a mind at ease. Men prize more than we are aware, the health-beaming countenance, the elastic step, and all those demonstrations of domestic order, in which unbroken activity delights. They love to see a woman equal to her own duties, and performing them with pleasure. They do not like to have the principal theme of domestic conversation a detail of physical ills, or to be expected to question like a physician, into the variety of symptoms which have supervened since their departure. Or if this is occasionally borne with a good grace, where ill health is supposed to be temporary, yet the saddening effects of an enfeebled constitution, cannot always be resisted by him who expected in his wife a " yoke-fellow," ​able to endure the rough roads, and sharp ascents of life. A nature, possessing great capacities for sympathy and tenderness, may doubtless be improved by the exercise of those capacities. Still the good gained, is only from the patient, or perhaps, the christian endurance of a disappointment. But where those capacities do not exist, and where religious principle is absent, the perpetual influence of a sickly and mournful wife, is as a blight upon those prospects which allure men to matrimony. Follies, and lapses into vice, may be sometimes traced to those sources which robe home in gloom.
If to a father, the influence of continued ill ​and happy have sought its chamber of discipline, feeling that it was as the "very gate of heaven." The smile of chastened resignation has a beauty, an eloquence, which the flush of prosperity may not boast. The young, seated by the pillow of such a monitor, are in the way of wisdom. Suffering endured with holy acquiescence, sublimates the character and conforms it to its Divine Exemplar.
Still I have thought it right to give a strong delineation of the disappointed earthly hope, which a broken constitution often creates, that I might incite mothers to early attention to the health of their daughters, "if by any means, I might provoke to emulation, these which are my flesh, and might save some of them."
But if to manhood, the influence of perpetual debility, in the partner of its joys, is so dispiriting, how much more oppressive is it to those little ones, who are by nature allied to gladness. Childhood, whose richest heritage is its innocent joy, must hush its sportive laugh, and repress its merry footstep, as if its plays were sins. Or if the diseased nerves of the mother, do not habitually impose such sacrifices, it learns from nature's promptings, to fashion its manners, or its voice, or its countenance, after the melancholy model of the sufferer whom it loves, and so forfeits its beautiful heritage of young delight. Those sicknesses to which the ​most robust are subject, by giving exercise to self-denial, and offices of sympathy from all the members of a household, are doubtless, often blessed as the means of improvement, and the messengers which draw more closely the bonds of true affection.
But it must be sufficiently obvious, that I speak of that want of constitutional vigour, or of the confirmed feebleness of habit, which either create inability for the duties, which in our country devolve upon a wife, a mother, and the mistress of a family, or cause them to be discharged in languor and wretchedness. And I speak of them, that the attention of those, who conduct the earliest physical education of females, may be quickened to search how evils of such magnitude may he obviated.
Mothers, is there any thing we can do, to acquire for our daughters a good constitution? Is there truth in the sentiment sometimes repeated, that our sex is becoming more and more effeminate? Are we as capable of enduring hardship as our grand-mothers were? Are we as well versed in the details of house-keeping, as able to bear them without fatigue, as our mothers? Have our daughters as much stamina of constitution, as much aptitude for domestic duty, as we ourselves possess? These questions are not interesting to us simply as individuals. They affect the ​welfare of the community. For the ability or inability of woman, to discharge what the Almighty has committed to her, touches the equilibrium of society, and the hidden springs of existence.
Tenderly interested as we are, for the health of our offspring, let us devote peculiar attention to that of our daughters. Their delicate frames require more care, in order to become vigorous, and are in more danger through the prevalence of fashion. Frequent and thorough ablutions, a simple and nutritious diet, we undoubtedly secure for all our children.
But I plead for the little girl, that she may have air and exercise, as well as her brother, and that she may not be too much blamed, if in her earnest play, she happen to tear, or soil her apparel. I plead that she be not punished as a romp, if she keenly enjoy those active sports, which city gentility proscribes. I plead that the ambition to make her accomplished, do not chain her to her piano, till the spinal column which should consolidate the frame, starts aside like a broken reed; nor bow her over her book, till the vital energy which ought to pervade the whole system, mounts into the brain, and kindles the death-fever.
Mothers, if you would do your duty, get a treatise on Anatomy, and become familiar with its rudiments. At least, acquaint yourself with the ​physiology of the skin, the lungs, the circulation of the blood, and the digestive organs. I cannot flatter myself that I am imparting any thing new, when I mention that the former is composed of three laminae or layers, and that the inner one, is a tissue of nerves and blood-vessels, so minute, that the point of the finest needle cannot be introduced, without puncturing some of them. Through these ever-open, and invisible ports, the waste matter of our continually changing bodies escapes, equalling in weight, more than twenty ounces every twenty-four hours. This evacuation, if checked, so overtaxes other excretory organs, as to produce disease, and if retained on the surface, and returned through the absorbents, acts as a poison in the system. Daily and entire ablution, with correspondent friction, is necessary to preserve in a healthful state, an organ of such great importance to the animal economy.
The sympathy between the skin and lungs is so established, and intimate, that a neglected state of the former, has much to do with the production, and progress of pulmonary disease, that frequent and favourite messenger of death. Food, after being received into the stomach, sends forth its nutritious portions, in the form of chyle, to be mingled with the blood. This junction is formed at the right side of the heart, but the mixture of new and old fluid, is not fitted to sustain life, until ​propelled through the left side of the heart, it is submitted by the agency of the lungs to the air; then taking its true colour, it is transmitted through the arteries to the most remote extremity, and called back again from its life-giving visits, to pass review in its sleepless citadel. Thus the whole volume of blood, which in an adult is from three to four gallons, passes once every three minutes through the heart, on its way to and from the lungs. And those unresting labourers, the heart and lungs, from the first moment of existence, till we return to dust, continue their labours, independent of our volition, wondrous symbols of that Almighty goodness which, whether we wake or sleep, is "new every morning, fresh every moment."
Outlines of the mysterious mechanism of our clay-temple, we ought certainly to study, that we need not through ignorance interfere with those laws on which its organization depends. Rendered precious, by being the shrine of an undying spirit, our ministrations for its well-being, assume an almost fearful importance. Appointed as the mother is, to guard the harmony of its architecture, to study the arts on which its symmetry depends, she is forced to perceive how much the mind is affected by the circumstances of its lodgement, and is incited to cherish the mortal, for the sake of the immortal. ​Does she attach value to the gems of intellect? Let her see that the casket which contains them, be not lightly endangered, or causelessly broken. Does she pray for the welfare of the soul? Let her seek the good of its companion, who walks with it to the gate of the grave, and rushes again to its embrace, on the morning of the resurrection.
Mothers ought to be ever awake to the evils of compression, in the region of the heart and lungs. A slight ligature there, in the earlier stages life, is fraught with danger. To disturb or impede those labourers, who turn the wheels of life, both night and day, how absurd and ungrateful. Samson was bound in fetters, and ground in the prison-house, for awhile, but at length he crushed the pillars of the temple, and the lords of the Philistines perished with him. Nature, though she may be long in resenting a wrong, never forgets it. Against those who violate her laws, she often rises as a giant in his might, and when the least expect it, inflicts a fearful punishment. ​Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/89 ​Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/90 ​Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/91 ​Fashion seems long enough, to have attacked health in its strong holds. She cannot even prove that she has rendered the form more graceful, as some equivalent for her ravages. In ancient Greece, to whom our painters and sculptors still look for the purest models, was not the form left untortured? the volume of the lungs allowed free play? the heart permitted without manacles to do the great work which the Creator assigned it?
The injuries inflicted by compression of the vital parts, are too numerous to be here recounted. Impaired digestion, obstructed circulation, pulmonary disease, and nervous wretchedness, are in ​their train. A physician distinguished by practical knowledge of the Protean forms of insanity, asserted, that he gained many patients from that cause. Another medical gentleman of eminence, led by philanthropy, to investigate the subject of tight-lacing, has assured the public, that multitudes annually die, by the severe discipline of busk and corset. His theory is sustained by collateral proof, and illustrated by dissections.
It is not sufficient, that we mothers, protect our younger daughters, while more immediately under our authority, from such hurtful practices. We should follow them, until a principle is formed, by which they can protect themselves, against the tyranny of fashion. It is true, that no young lady acknowledges herself to be laced too tight. Habits that shun the light, and shelter themselves in subterfuge, are ever the most difficult to eradicate. A part of the energy which is essential to their reformation, must be expended in hunting them from their hiding-places. Though the sufferer from tight-lacing will not own herself to be uncomfortable, the laborious respiration, the suffused countenance, the constrained movement, perhaps, the curved spine, bring different testimony.
But in these days of diffused knowledge, of heightened education, is it possible that any female can put in jeopardy, the enjoyment of health, even the duration of existence, for a circumstance of ​dress? Will she throw an illusion over those who strive to save her, and like the Spartan culprit, conceal the destroyer that feeds upon her vitals? We know that it is so. Who that has tested the omnipotence of fashion, will doubt it? This is by no means, the only sacrifice of health that she imposes. But it is a prominent one. Let us, who are mothers, look to it. Let us, be fully aware of the dangers of stricture on the lungs and heart, during their season of developement.
Why should not we bring up our daughters, without any article of dress which could disorder the seat of vitality. Our sons hold themselves erect, without busk, or corset, or frame-work whalebone. Why should not our daughters also? Did not God make them equally upright? Yes. But they have "sought out many inventions."
Let us educate a race who shall have room to breathe. Let us promise, even in their cradle, at their hearts shall not be pinioned as in a vice, nor their spines bent like a bow, nor their ribs forced into the liver. Doubtless, the husbands and fathers of the next generation, will give us thanks.
Yet if we would engage in so formidable a work, we must not wait until morbid habits have gathered strength. Our labour must be among the elements of character. We must teach in the nursery, that "the body is the temple of the Holy ​Ghost." We must leave no place in the minds of our little ones, for the lunatic sentiment, that the mind's healthful action, and the integrity of the organs on which it operates, are secondary to the vanities of external decoration. If they have received from their Creator, a sound mind, and a sound body, convince them that they are accountable for both. If they deliberately permit injury to either, how shall they answer for it before their Judge?
And how shall the Mother answer it, in whose hand the soul of her child was laid, as a waxen tablet, if she suffer Fashion to cover it with fantastic images, and Folly to puff out her feverish breath, melting the lines that Wisdom pencilled there, till what Heaven would fain have polished for itself, loses the fair impression, and becomes like common earth.