Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-16
SECRETS OF DOCTORS.
What the Wise Men Say About Wo'
men When off by Themselves.
IMPeVERIsHMENT OF THE BLOOD.
Whist Happened to Girl Who Fastened Her
Corset by the Bedpost.
THE RESULTS, OF LOvESI0KNEsS
rwnrrrHN Fon THE pIsrArCH.j

rwnrrrEN FOR THE pIsPArCH.j
Doctors are the only class Of men who un-
derstand women and fatter them least, except
in business way, or by implication. with
fingers on pulse. The stress CT scientific ac-
curacy compels man to habit of truth,
and the more he knows Of woman's brain,
nerves and the organs which balance them
the less is it possible for him to PROSTATE
himself before her physically or mentally.
He pays better tribute in doing her Justice.
You can't induce clear headed doctor to
subscribe to the superiority of a sex he sees
demoralized by hysteria, headaches and in
digestions to the point of telling outrageous
tarradiddles about themselves which his
own eyes contradict and whose elemental
scraps of morality get mixed in the slightest
jar to those exceedingly ticklish nerves and
prepossessions. The lawyer may guess at
the immortality of his client-the doctor
knows it, taking morality In broader sense
than the very limited one to which women
assign it. He shares the opinion of all SEN
slble men about women, but like sensible
man he meyer tells what that is in society.
DOCTORS TALK AMONG THEMSELVES
| When doctors get together in the county
or city medical associations truth escapes,
and the air is thick with it as with the fumes
of their cigars. I shall never tell where the
opinions which follow were uttered, but the
| speakers were among the most highly hon.
ored of their profession. The subject under
discussion was the anemia of women, which
wastes their roundness and dulls complexion
and energies. 1t is the later description of
what used to be classed as general debility,
caused by lack of red matter in the blood.
DR.. Prentiss says although anemia is OBJ
served more frequently in women than in
men, it is not result of sex, but of condi-
tions-in part the outcome of civilization.
If the woman would lead the lite of man
she would to large extent be freed from
her susceptibility to anemia. DR.. Johnston,
OF Washington, says: "Women are more
liable to anemia than men, but bear It bet.
ter, and as a rule are more easily cured.
But there are cases in which broken down
health is not restored. This, commencing
most frequently after marriage, child bear
ing and nursing, does not disappear, but re-
sists all efforts at complete cure. The
cause of this incurability is one of grest in
terest.
WHAT THE DISEASE rs
"Why Is it that, with the consumption Of
a large amount of albuminous food daily, its
apparent digestion and absorption, with no
evidence of organic disease, there is yet no
increase in the blood or its richness and no
gain in tissue? There are facts which 60
far to solve the problem" Innerman says
the organism in severe anemia has only
limited power of renewing the blood ma
terial which 1t has lost. Bauer's exLeri-
ments show the destructive change Of tissues
Is increased in anemia. Digestion and
on orau INN rfo hA SfrJn {r1fn
from ane1nic animals failing to digest like
that of healthy ones. When anemia is
caused by lack of nutritious food, by indi-
gestion or hemorrhage of any nature, the
organs from want of blood grow inactive,
nutrition lessons, the organ shrinks in size
and function, with actual loss of tissue.
This, the inevitable result Of prolonged
anemia, forbids return of perfect activity.
An impoverished blood supply to the heart
leads to feeble heartbeat, aud, if chronic,
the heart and vessels undergo a reduction in
size which becomes permanent barrier to
recovery.
NARROWING THE DIGESTION,
One result Of hemorrhage Is that IN
short time the heart and blood vessels be-
come positively narrower than they were
before, and chronic contraction of the ducts
and intestines occurs as a result of limited
food supply. 1t may be also the result of
taking highly nutritious food in small guam
tity, as in cases where milk, beef juice and
prepared foods are taken for any length
of time there will be narrowing of the
whole digestive tube from the mouth down.
This condition once established is perma-
nent obstacle to the cure of wasting and
anemia-
Here will be found the cause of the ex-
treme thinness for which women insistently |
4 aud r,o{o hat %ha
into which they have trained themselves |
since their first roundness of girlhood is not |
one to be corrected by few weeks dieting. |
The American does not narrow her physical |
culture to the point which Brillat Savarin |
says is the study of Frenchwoman's life:
ITO have Just enough plumpness, not
whit too much or too little" The Ameri
can is too apt to be in extremes. A promi-
nent physician and writer who has given
the subject of looks much thought, pays the
consolation that stit is better by far for a
woman of any attractions to be thin as a
rail than to descend to the commonplaceness
of fat, destructive of every line and hue of
beauty"
CAUSE OF THE TRoUBLE
Still women have a prejudice against
thinness, from an idea that men demand
plumpness as indispensable to beauty, quite
shutting out the fascination which exceed
ingly slender creatures exert. There is a
fine condition, where nervous activity, with
its incessant scourge, keeps the flesh under
which is one of the highest conditions of
humanity. But wasting, emaciation with
loss of strength and force is repellant to
both sexes, and we must study its cure be-
fore the habit becomes hopeless and fixed
upon the race.
The causes which doctors find for this un-
happy state of things are worthy of serious
attention. DR.. Prentiss finds anemia and
wasting in part the outcome of civilization,
especially the mode of dressing. The tight
ly laced corset displaces the abdominal
and thoracic organs, presses upon the
nerves, digestion is deranged and malnutri-
tion follows. On New Years Day he was
called to see young lady attacked with
tainting and the very vulgar attendant
symptom, not quoted in sympathetic novels,
If vomiting. He was told by her hostess
hat she had seen the girl tie her lacings to |
he bedpost and thus tighten her corsets to |
he utmost. She refused to loosen them be-
,ause she would not be able to fasten her
lress
WHEN MEN THINK ABOUT IT.
Those marked slender waists over which !
he plaid dress or the sailor suit sits so
moothly are liable to this arraignment. Is
They do not charm the eye so much after
he arm has once been round their hard,
tuffed contents and heard the creak of the {
tiff coutille, and-pardon-the internal I
,urgles which betray the condition of the !
domestic economy within. Gentlemen after
helping ladies on the cars by the fashion of ,
Al laoino tho hands aooh side tho or