INTRODUCTORY.

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clothing is worn, and postures are assumed, in the processes of manufacture; the constant association of both sexes in the shoe-shop, the factory, and the store; the temperature, excitement of emulation, etc., are all actively operative for evil in this direction, in our industrial system. It is an influence whose dangers to societys best interests are co-extensive with its operation.

I have thus reviewed, in an imperfect but suggestive way, the relations of the health of the young female worker, as affected by her vocations, to the welfare of the com­monwealth. This review would seem to indicate, that large numbers of her class are of - an age at which unfavorable conditions of employ act with dire results against her especial sexual attributes; that severe re­quirements of brain-exercise, specially inimi­cal to sexual function, are exacted by many processes of industry in which the female is engaged; that there are associate in­fluences of brain-labor in industry of extreme deleterious effect, not occurring with the