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 society’s 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