OBJECTIVE.
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The age at which we permit the young girl to leave a life of animal growth, and become a part of an occupation or a machine.
‘ ‘ The establishment of the sexual power at puberty, and its extinction with advancing age, both exert important influence on the constitution. At both of these epochs there is an increased liability to disease, and, at the former, a marked increase in the rate of mortality.”*
It is evident, that to maintain that condition of life which shall best promote the normal establishment and course of a function so beset with danger, and on whose due exercise so much depends, should be a first concern of all who have any interest in the future welfare of the community. It is
* Dr. West on Diseases of Women, p. 18. “It is not enough,” says the same author, “to take precautions till menstruation ha3 for the first time occurred : the period for its return should, even in the healthiest girl, be watched for, and all previous precautions should be once more repeated ; and this should be done again and again, until at length the habit of regular, healthy menstruation is established. If this be not accomplished during the first few years of womanhood, it will in all probability never be attained.”