112
SEX IN INDUSTRY.
characteristic that it is performed standing.*
An inquiry among those engaged in this department, and into the factory record of those who have been so employed, establishes the following: —
Young girls of the forming period are not now put upon the work at all, it having been found that it was impossible for them to continue it long.
With those of more advanced age, the menopause is more or less affected, the gen-
* “The same causes of ill health, physical and mental, which obtain in many schools, and which to my mind are very efficient in mischief to the developing woman, are found, as we all know, in shops and factories, in constant operation, and in the most aggravated form. I consider those employments which require girls from twelve to twenty to stand at the counter or loom from eight to twelve hours a day, week in and week out, as little short of suicidal, murderous perhaps I should say. Table and nursery girls, in hotels and city houses, are notable subjects of menorrhagia, anaemia, chlorosis, and often of hysterical excitement or melancholia. These things are matters of experience to every physician, though hard to present in statistical form.” — Theo. W. Fisher, M. D.: Letter to author.