CHIEFLY PHYSIOLOGICAL.
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“ The ovaries, which constitute,” says Dr. Dalton, “ the ‘ essential parts ’ * of this apparatus, and certain accessory organs, are now rapidly developed.” Previously they were inactive. During infancy and childhood all of them existed, or rather all the germs of them existed; but they were incapable of function. At this period they take on a process of rapid growth and development. Coincident with this process, indicating it, and essential to it, are the periodical phenomena which characterize woman’s physique till she attains the third division of her tripartite life. The growth of this peculiar and marvellous apparatus, in the perfect development of which humanity has so large an interest, occurs during the few years of a gill’s educational life. No such extraordinary task, calling for such rapid expenditure of force, building up such a delicate and extensive mechanism within the organism, — a house within a house, an engine within an engine, — is imposed upon the male
* Human Physiology, n. 546.