Almost a Woman Part 4

"And what is the furniture in the different stories?"

"O, the upper story is called the thorax, and the one big room in it is the thoracic cavity. It contains the heart and lungs. The next story below is the abdominal cavity and it has a number of articles of furniture, the liver, the stomach, the spleen, the bowels, etc. Then the lower story is--O, I've forgotten what it is called."

"The lower story is called the pelvis."

"O, yes, and the pelvic cavity contains the reservoirs for waste material. I remember you told me that once."

"That is right. The pelvic cavity contains the bladder, which is the reservoir for waste fluid, and the r.e.c.t.u.m, the outlet for waste solids.

But it contains more than these. It is here in the pelvis that these organs of which you have not heard are located. You remember when you asked me about yourself and how you came into the world I told you of a little room in mother's body where you lived and grew until you were large enough to live your own independent existence. Did you ever wonder where this room is?"

"Why, I never thought much about it. I guess I just thought it was in the abdominal cavity. Isn't it?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"No, the room is a little sac that lies here in the pelvis. I can best explain it to you by a picture. Here it is. You see it looks like a pear hanging with the small end down. It lies just between the bladder and the r.e.c.t.u.m, and a pa.s.sage leads up to it."

"O, I see. Doesn't the bladder empty itself through that pa.s.sage?"

"No, the outlet to the bladder is just at the very entrance to this pa.s.sage, but does not open into the pa.s.sage at all. This pa.s.sage is called the v.a.g.i.n.a, and the little room has two names. One is Latin, uterus; the other is Saxon, womb--it means the place where things are brought to life. The Latin word is used by scientists, but the Saxon word is used in the Bible and by poets. Do you remember when Nicodemus came to Jesus that he was told he must be born again, and he said in surprise, 'Can a man enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?'"

"O, I see now what he meant. I could not understand it before. Of course, he knew that was impossible, and so he could not see what Jesus meant."

"David says, 'Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' Poets sometimes speak of the womb of the morning, meaning the place where morning lies and grows until it is ready to burst forth in beauty on the world."

"I like the Saxon word better than the Latin one, don't you?"

"Yes, but as scientists use the Latin word we shall use that, so that we will know how to talk on these subjects scientifically. The uterus hangs suspended by two broad ligaments (marked _ll_ in the picture).

There are also round ligaments from the back and front which hold it loosely in place. On the back of each broad ligament is an oval body called the ovary (marked _o_).

"Do you remember once seeing in a hen that Ellen was preparing for dinner a great number of eggs of all sizes? That was the hen's ovary.

_Ovum_ means an egg, and _ovary_ means the place of the eggs."

"O, mother, women don't have eggs, do they? I don't like that."

"Well, if you do not like to use the word egg we can say _ovum_, which, you know, is the Latin word for egg. The plural is _ova_. Or we may call the _ovum_ the germ, which means the primary source. The ovum or germ is a very tiny thing, so small that it cannot be seen without a microscope; 240 laid side by side would make only one inch in length."

"O, mother, that is wonderful."

"Yes, dear. The whole process of life is very wonderful and very beautiful. The uterus and ovaries belong to what is called the reproductive system. As I said, until now your vital forces have been employed in keeping you alive. Your nutritive system, your muscular system, your nervous system and so on, have all been busy taking care of you only; but soon your reproductive system will awaken and begin to take on activity."

"And what does that mean, mother?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ova.]

"It means that you are entering on what is known as the maternal period of your life; are actually becoming a woman with all a woman's power of becoming a mother."

"But you don't mean that a girl of fourteen could become a mother?"

"Yes, it might be possible; but no girl of fourteen should be a mother, for she is not fully developed and her children will not be strong as if she had not married until after she were twenty."

"But tell me, mother, all about it. I don't see now how the baby grows?"

"Well, I was showing you the ovary in which are many ova. As the girl nears the age of fourteen, these ova start to grow and once a month one ripens and is thrown out of the ovary. It is taken up by the Fallopian tube, marked _od_ in the picture, and it pa.s.ses down the tube into the uterus and through the v.a.g.i.n.a out into the world."

"Can one tell when it pa.s.ses?"

"No, but there is a sign that this change has taken place. The uterus is lined with a membrane in which are many blood vessels, and when the girl has reached this stage of development and becomes a woman, the vessels become very full of blood, so full that it oozes out through the walls of the blood vessels into the cavity of the uterus, and when it pa.s.ses out of the v.a.g.i.n.a the girl becomes aware of it and knows that she has become a woman.

"This process takes place once a month and is called menstruation, from the Latin _mensum_, a month."

"Isn't it painful, mother?"

"It ought not to be and is not, if the girl is perfectly well. But sometimes girls have dressed improperly and have displaced their internal organs, or they have exhausted themselves with pleasure-seeking, or in some other way have injured themselves, in which case they may suffer much pain. When girls get about this age mothers are very anxious about them, very desirous that they shall naturally and easily step over into the land of womanhood."

"I should think that girls ought to be taught about themselves, so that they would not do the things which injure them."

"I think they should, and that is why I am telling you all this to-day so that when the change comes to you, you will not be frightened and maybe do something from which you will suffer all your life long, as many girls have done.

"The question of tight clothing becomes now much more important than ever before. You can see at once that the restriction of the clothing comes just over the part of the body where there is the least resistance."

"Oh, yes, I remember about the seven upper ribs, that are fastened to both spine and breast-bone; and the five lower ribs, that are fastened directly only to the spine and are attached in front to the breast-bone by cartilage; and the two floating ribs, lowest of all, and fastened only to the spine. I have often wondered why the important organs of the abdominal cavity should not have been better protected."

"It was needful to leave the front of the body covered only with muscular structure, or it could not be bent and twisted about as we can now bend it, and that would have hindered our activity. Just imagine yourself going about encased in bone from your shoulders to your hips."

Helen laughed merrily. "I shouldn't like it," she said, "but that is just what is done by the corset, and folks get used to that."

"Yes, they become accustomed to the pressure because the nerves lose their sensitiveness and no longer report their discomfort to the brain; but the injury continues, nevertheless."

"Mother, I wish you'd tell me just how tight clothing is injurious. So many of the girls laugh at me because I don't wear a corset, and they declare it does not hurt them. They all say they wear their clothes perfectly loose and they think they prove it by showing me how they can run their fists up under their dress waists."

"Certainly, that can be done even with a very tight dress, by just pressing a little more air out of the lungs; but that is not a true measurement. To learn if the dress is tight, one should unfasten all of the clothing, draw in the breath slowly until the lungs are filled to their utmost capacity. Then, while the lungs are held full, see if the clothing can be fastened without allowing any air to escape. If it can, then it is not tight; but if the lungs must be compressed, ever so little, in order to allow the clothing to be fastened, it is too tight.

You see, the power we have to breathe is the measure of our power to do, and to lessen our breathing capacity is to lessen our ability in all directions.

"I saw a statement yesterday that will interest you. It was a recital of an experiment made by Dr. Sargent on twelve girls in running 540 yards in 2 minutes 30 seconds. The first time they ran without corsets and their waists measured 25 inches. The pulse was counted before running and found to beat 84 times a minute. Again, it was counted after running and found to have risen to 152. The second run was made in the same length of time, but with corsets on, which reduced the waist measure to 24 inches. Pulse before running 84; after running 168, showing the extra effort the heart was obliged to make because of the restriction of the waist and consequent lessening of the breathing power. He also found that the corset reduced the breathing capacity one-fifth.

"Let me read you another little item:

"'Dr. d.i.c.kenson has been studying the pressure of the corset. He says that in the ordinary breathing we have to overcome in the resistance and elasticity of chest and lungs a force of 170 pounds. If the woman whose waist measure is 27 inches wears a corset of the same size, so that her waist is not compressed at all, there is added a force of 40 pounds. If her natural waist measure is 27 inches and is reduced by the corset to 25-1/2 inches, the pressure is 73 pounds.'

"When Dr. Lucy Hall was physician at Va.s.sar College, she made some observations as to the mental powers manifested by those who wore and those who did not wear corsets. In a graduating cla.s.s in which there were thirty-five girls, nineteen wore no corsets; eighteen members of the cla.s.s took honors, and of these thirteen wore no corsets; seven of the cla.s.s were appointed to take part in public on Commencement Day, and six of these wore no corsets. All who took prizes for essays wore no corsets; five girls were cla.s.s-day orators, and four of these wore no corsets; five had not missed a day in four years, and one had not missed a day in six years. That speaks pretty loudly in favor of doing without corsets, doesn't it?"

"Yes, indeed; but some of the girls care more for looks than for cla.s.s honors. They say a girl looks so queer without a corset."

"That is because we have set up false standards of beauty. If we examine the finest statuary of all ages, we shall not find a single figure that has been accustomed to tight clothing. The artist copies G.o.d's ideal figure of the woman, not that of the fashion plate. You see, we have become so accustomed to the deformed figure that we call it beautiful, just as the Chinese woman thinks her deformed foot is beautiful."

"O, isn't it dreadful that the Chinese bind up the feet of the little girls as they do?"

"It certainly is; but not as dreadful as that Christian women bind up the vital parts of the body and prevent their working as they should.