skilful medical men to recommend sexual intercourse to young men suffering from genital debility. But for suffering woman no one has yet raised his voice, no one has applied to her case the only true and scientific remedy; that remedy which is the keystone of female therapeutics, and without which ali treatment or prevention of female disease is a vanity and a delusion. The great mass of female sexual diseases, even more than those of men, arise from sexual enfeeblement, consequent on the want of a healthy and sufficient exercise for this important part of the system. From the want of this, the green sickness. menstrual irregularities, hysterical affections without number, proceed; and it is utter vanity to expect to cure, and still more to prevent these miserable diseases, without going to the root of the matter. It is a certain and indubitable fact, that unless we can supply to the female organs their proper natural stimulus, and a healthy and natural amount of exercise, female disease will spring up on every side around us, and all other medical appliances will be powerless against the hydra. I would entreat the reader not to prejudge this most important question, nor to allow his mind to be diverted from a calm and earnest investigation of the real facts of the matter, by the vehemence of sexual prejudices, which all of us know are so very violent in this country. Let him survey the state of the sexual world; let him think of the fearful amount of prostitution, of venereal and genital disease; of the impenetrable ignorance brooding over the subject, and the tide of headlong and irrational feelings, which are connected with sexual topics; and he will acknowledge that surely there must be some grand error somewhere, to account for so much misery. Love indeed, instead of being one of the sweetest blessings of life, seems rather to be a curse, to such innumerable evils and miseries does it give rise. Let him now review our code of sexual morality, and try it by the grand touchstone of nature; he will find it a chaos of theories, on which no two nations are agreed. and in which nature has been almost wholly left out of sight, and authority and blind prejudices allowed to take her place. Physical as well as mental health has been disregarded in framing these codes, and if he open his eyes to their working, he will see the ground strewn with sexual victims. It is absolutely certain, that nature meant the sexual organs in either sex to have a due amount of exercise, from the time of their maturity till their decline; and no one who knows anything of the bodily laws, can doubt, that every departure from the course she points out, is a natural sin; and she shows this herself by the punishments she inflicts. She forms no organ, that she does not intend to be exercised; rouses no desires merely to torment by their self-denial. It is not by shutting our eyes to these facts, that we can hope to progress either in knowledge or in virtue. I know the great natural difficulties, which lie in the way of the sufficient exercise of the sexual organs in each individual, and shall speak of these hereafter, and examine how far they are insurmountable. But whether or not it is possible to attain this desirable result, we must recognise, that the diseases, which arise from sexual abstinence, are always a proof of a sin against nature, even though from social considerations it be impossible to avoid them. The principle of population, as Mr. Malthus has so admirably pointed out, is the true difficulty, which stands in the way of the sufficient exercise of the sexual organs in each individual; and it is upon this natural foundation that all the false reasoning on chastity, self-denial, and self-mortification is really supported. I shall speak hereafter of the best way of meeting this difficulty; and meanwhile proceed to give a description of the chief forms of female sexual disease. CHLOROSIS. It THIS disease is a very common one, and therefore of great importance. It is generally found in young girls about, and shortly after puberty, but it may occur at any age during the continuance of menstruation, and is not unfrequently found in married women who have been exhausted by various causes, such as miscarriages, over-lactation &c. very rarely, if ever, occurs before puberty, or after menstrual decline. It seems therefore, evidently to be connected with the sexual system; and it is a disease peculiar to women, for although pallor and debility occur in man, yet genuine chlorosis does not. The symptoms of the disease are as follows. A young girl, who has perhaps been always rather delicate, approaches the period of puberty. At this time, instead of an increase in the strength and vigor of the frame, coincident with the natural developement of the sexual organs, her health gets worse, she becomes more delicate, and does not pass on to womanhood. The sexual system does not develope itself, or but imperfectly; and menstruation, which must be preceded by this sexual developement, is either absent, or scanty and pale. The disease also very frequently arises after puberty and menstruation have been established, from causes which weaken the general health, and especially from such, as interfere with the sexual functions, or disappoint the sexual desires. The patient becomes very pale and sickly, and from this deadly paleness the disease may generally be at once recognised. She loses her appetite, her strength declines, and slight exercise produces fatigue, palpitation of the heart, and breathlessness; her stomach becomes disordered, her digestion difficult, and her bowels are generally constipated. Her spirits flag, she becomes listless, and prone to melancholy and solitude. If the disease be allowed to advance, the symptoms all become aggravated. The stomach is greatly disordered, there is flatulence and heartburn; frequently a total want of appetite, and at other times a craving for unwholesome food, such as green fruit, or sometimes even chalk or slate-pencils. The tongue is pasty and white, and the breath foul. The pallor becomes deeper, the face is deadly white, with often a kind of dirty greenish-yellow hue, (whence the name of the disease). The lips and gums are pale and bloodless. Headaches of fearful intensity are very frequent, with the pain, or a feeling of weight and pressure, often confined to the top of the head. There is impairment of all the senses; sight and hearing are weakened. The mental powers are greatly impaired; memory and concentrativeness fade, while an impotent listlessness and apathy overpower the mind, or the patient resigns herself to despair. Hysterical symptoms also generally occur. In short, there is not a function or faculty of the body or mind, which is not more or less interfered with; all of them become enfeebled. The reason of this is, that the blood itself, which nourishes all these organs, is impoverished. Chlorosis essentially consists in a watery state of the blood. That fluid is found in this disease to have lost a great part of its solid constituents; the clot is very small and dark-coloured, when it separates, on standing, from the serous or watery part. It is this watery state of the blood, which causes the deadly pallor, the great debility, the arrest of the catamenial and fæcal secretions, and the failure of the bodily and mental powers. If we listen with the stethoscope over the heart or one of the large veins, a morbid rushing noise is heard, made by the watery blood in passing along the vessels. The serous part of the blood, when the disease is far advanced, often exudes through the vessels, and causes dropsy of the legs, eyelids, or other parts. In different cases different organs are most interfered with. Thus in one case the prominent symptoms may be connected with the head and nervous system, such as intense headaches, and neuralgic or paralytic affections of various parts of the body. In another, the digestion may be chiefly disordered; while in another, the chest may be the principal part to suffer. It is in this last case, that there is the greatest danger; for a fatal issue does not frequently attend on chlorosis, unless from consumption. Unless there be a scrofulous taint in the constitution, whether hereditary or not, chlorosis does not generally tend towards consumption, nor indeed to the establishment of any organic disease, although the derangements of the nervous, digestive, circulatory, and other systems are often so very violent. But when a girl of a consumptive family becomes chlorotic, symptoms of consumption are very apt to attend, and unless prompt and efficient remedies be used, fatal organic disease will very probably be established. In such a case the pulse is generally rapid, there is a short hacking cough, with pain in the chest, and there may be night-sweats, with the other symptoms of incipient consumption. Let us now examine, what are the causes of chlorosis. They consist in all those general influences which weaken the young girl; and more especially in those which weaken or prevent the developement of the sexual system. The education of young girls is exceedingly erroneous. In our boarding schools, and other places of female instruction, very little attention is paid to the developement of the bodily powers. Stiff and false ideas of what is proper for young ladies prevail, vigorous and exhilarating sports and games are discountenanced, and exercise is limited to a formal walk. There is a much greater want of physical religion in the training of young women, than even of men. Bodily strength, physical courage and activity, are not regarded at all as female excellences, indeed they are rather looked upon as unfeminine; and gentleness, quietness, and an amiable amount of timidity are rather cherished-qualities which flatter the pride of man, in his mistaken character of protector of the weaker sex. In But there is no such natural distinction between man and woman. woman, exactly as in man, superior bodily strength, physical daring, and nervous power, are indispensably requisite to form a fine character; and these are only to be obtained by strengthening the frame, and by training the nervous system to a healthy and elevated vigour. It is not true, that the masculine and feminine virtues are frequently in contrast with each other. The two natures are built on the same original model, and in the main, they are alike in their laws. The great law of exercise of every part applies equally to both sexes; and in woman, as in man, physical strength is more virtuous than weakness; courage than timidity; nervous power, than nervous debility; and it is a sign of an effeminate and unnatural theory of life that these truths are not deeply felt by all of us. In all the physical virtues, which are just as important as the moral ones, woman is dreadfully deficient. Her education, and the erroneous views prevailing as to what is admirable or beautiful in the female character, bring her up weak in body and mind: her strength is not developed by sports and proper exercises, and she is feeble and delicate; her courage is not brought out by cultivation, but on the contrary repressed, from the mischievous idea that timidity is rather amiable in a woman, and therefore she becomes nervous and hysterical. Her mind also is left feeble by the exclusion of the solid parts of knowledge from her studies, as being unfitted for her narrow sphere in life. Again, the crippling idea of chastity and female decorum binds her like an invisible chain, wherever she moves, and prevents her from daring to think, feel, or act, freely and impulsively. She must not do this, she must not study that; she has nothing to do with a knowledge of her own frame or its laws; she may not read the works, nor acquire the knowledge that is open to men; she must not sport nor play boisterously, nor ge out unattended, nor in the evening walk alone in the streets, nor travel alone, nor make use of the thousand and one privileges, which are open to the more fortunate sex. If we examine into the origin and meaning of these singular ideas with regard to woman, we shall find that they are based upon no natural distinction between the two sexes, but upon the erroneous views of man, and especially upon the mistaken ideas as to the virtue of female chastity. It is to guard this supposed virtue, that all the restrictions on female liberty and female developement in body and mind have arisen. In all ages and in all countries the treatment of woman has been very irrational. We know how very oppressive it is at the present day in China and Turkey; but even among ourselves, the liberty and privileges of women are very far behind what is just and natural. Their erroneous education leads to infinite forms of misery, debility, and disease. "Were our present system of female education altered," says Dr. Ashwell, in his admirable and standard work on Female Diseases, "chlorosis and the allied affections would be rare, instead of as at presen |