The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-03-20
Physical Degeneracy of American
Women.

A woman with abOunding physical
health, to whom the mere Joy of exist
ence is an intoxication, has become ex-
ceptional, not to say phenomenal. Most
women call themselves well, if they are
not i'll enough to be driven to bed. And
for every one woman who cOddles i'm
aginary ailments and thinks it interest
ing to be a little delicate, 100 women go
through the weary toll of daily house
keeping, who live and labor through
force of ambition and not through force
of muscle. We take much credit to
ourselves because we do not permit our
women to do feld-lahor, but it is safe
to assert that no feld-labor is so ex-
hausting as the endless toll of ''smart"
American housekeeper who is poor, but
who, being American, must be genteel.
She is cook, maid-of-all-work, seam
stress, tailoress, child's nurse She
feels it right that the girls should have
ruf1ed petticoats, and the boys plenty
of changes, and the sewing-society four
kinds of cake when it meets at her
house, and her own gowns such trim
ming as appears in her favorits monthly
fashion magazine. What Dutch or
Irish peasant woman who easily tills
her field could stand this pitiless strain?
Many causes are assigned for the de-
generate physique of modern American
women, but this is one folly of over
s,raining nerves and muscles in this
climate, which itself overstrains all SEN
sitive organisms, is the chiefest cause,
we think. Corsets and a weight of
skirts no doubt slay or MAIN their
thousands. But we should remember
that the corset of to-day IS a cobweb
vest compared, let us say, to the straight
jacket of buckram and iron which is on
view at Pilgrim hall as a relic of that
fair Puritan, Mistress Alice Bradford.
And the fashionable hmpness of our
period has notably reduced the load of
muslin which the mode of twenty years
ago made indispensable. While it must
be remembered that our grandmothers,
who were held up as examples of rosy
health, endured both the busked stays
and the pounds of pendent drapery
Too many hours study in and out of
school, and neglect of Out-Of-door exer-
else, are doubtless bleaching and desic-
eating their victims. Complex and
badly-cooked food, too much sewing
and too little shouting, too much dan
cling and too little walking, all have
their evil part. But the very fact that
our girls can dance a whole night, or sit
at the machine and hem the measure
less web of tarlatan In which they
dance, or live on the culinary stones
that are offered them In place of bread,
or study 10 hours a day and practice
three, and not die, shows that women
a tremendous reserve of power, a tre-
mendous resistance to disease, which
can easily be transformed into health.
It is apparently true that, the simpler
| the food, the less luxurious the life, the
| freer tle exercise, the stronger the
body and the more capable of resisting
fatigue. Fortunately, the road to health
/ is cheap and easy. And it behooves
4 the women to ask for work in handicraft
and trade to take this road forthwith
Intelligent disease will do less in the
world in the long run than stupid
health. American women are seldom
stupid, but they are very generally dis
eased. IF, with that forcefulness which
is part of their fine endowment, they
will reconstruct their bodily constitu-
ton, then both stupidity and disease
viii vanish, and intelligent health, de
manding of all doors of occupation
that they open, viii be obeyed.- Hearth
mud EE,,Foa