Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-02-22

the general delicate condition of the
health Of modern woman has been largely
caused by the foolishness of mothers who
followed the dictates of fashion, or as
they attempted to follow them. / know
growing girl who has become a sufferer
from catarrh, to painful degree, because
her foolish mother has dressed her I'M
suitably in severe cold weather. 1t is time
thrown away to try to reason with q wo-
man who blinds her reason to this pre-
vailing folly in dress, but 1t would be
an eye-opener IL the number of such in,
durable children could be estimated and
tabulated.
| 1t would be wise df it was possible to
carry out the plan) to compel public
school teachers to send such faulty
dressed children home whenever they
came into the school room improperly
| clothed for severe weather as a health
precaution.
Vanity is one of the besetments of the
sex, and a young girl with fancy frock
on, will be inclined to show it of il every
nerve in her body is tingling with cold,
and II she is encouraged at home, she
will risk her health every time rather
than fail to show 1t of wherever she
goes. Exposed limbs Will soon engender
chronic Inflammation in the joints. and
the same cause which has provoked the
painful joints will soon extend to the
heart, lungs and pleura, according to this
writer on rheumatism.
General debility will ensue, Of course.
| accompanied by anemia. Impoverished
blood will cause both anemia and gene
raj debility, and when a child is allowed
to gorge on unhealthy diet, to pack it's
stomach full of unwholesome candies.
incipient rheumatism is getting in
| its work. We can account for much of
| disease, without going crazy over hook
worms" or inherited tuberculosis
Nature will assert itself. 1t win get
its pay somewhere and somehow, after
| the human frame has been maltreated
| by its owner.
can hardly foresee the suffering that
| awaits this growing girl, who has be-
come victim of catarrh, because her
health was neglected that her frocks
| might attract attention.
She is sallow, easily upset with her
stomach. inert in her lack of outdoor
exercise, and bids fair to become con-
firmed invalid before she gets half
| through her teens.
AS soon as she marries. as nearly all
girls do marry, she will subside into
another specimen of the class of invalid
mothers, who are a burden to everyone
that touches their lives, except the doc
| tors, who make a fat living from their
| complaints and infirmaties.
II children come into the world, they
are subject to all the parents infirm-
tiles and this condition of things will
account for many inherited diseases,
| among them the tendency to rheumatism
A rheumatic child will naturally be-
come dull in brain as well as diseased
in body. Its growing pains may sub
| side, as they viii subside II the child
is well fed, well clothed and forced to
take reasonable exercise, but IL the con-
| trary condition is allowed, we need ex-
pect nothing better than a cripple In
mental and physical being. to the end
Of the chapter.
It is the duty of the physicians to
make these things plain to the public,
and then care should not end with the
treatment of one child In family where
other children may be infected. I am
satisfied that injudicious dressing in
childhood as we'll as womanhood will ac-
count for a large proportion Of Invalid
womankind that we see so constantly.