Cascadilla Place : an institution for the treatment of the sick, and the education of females as physicians and nurses : address / by S.S. Nivison.

  • Nivison, S. S. (Samantha S.), 1833-1906.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cascadilla Place : an institution for the treatment of the sick, and the education of females as physicians and nurses : address / by S.S. Nivison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the wise and comprehensive answer, nervous debility. But without once stopping to refer us to the causes of said ner- vous debility, the great labor to which all seem to be reli- Rtously devoteil, is to prescribe each their favorite nostrum. Pills, powders, Byrups, according to the wisdom of every age and individual, are freely handed out with the consoling surance accompanying each, that it is an unfailing panacea! Stop to think of'it for a moment! Suppose this bo called nervous debility among women was suddenly done away. I would like to nave the druggists in this town, or any other town, announce to me their profits on drugs at the end of a year. I venture to affirm that not one out of ten would be able to pay their rent from the proceeds of their business! Now I say for once, let us strike at the root of the matter; let us determine to know what all this nervous debility — cropping out as it does in a thousand multifarious forms— signifies, what are its causes, and what are its remedies. Why is it that women, as a class, are not as healthy and robust as men—born of the same fathers and mothers, brought up on the same food, reared in the same homes—why should there be such disparity in the health of the girls and boys, or rather of the young men and women of a household ? The difference cannot be in the amount of labor they perform, for, taking girls and women as a whole, they perform as much labor, and as severe labor, according to their constitutions, as boys and men do. There are as many idlers among men as there are among women ; hence it is no use trying to force an answer to this great question on the ground that tin; amount of woman's labor is less than man's. I know you say the sons learn trades and professions and practice them, and the girls do not; that while the father, husband or brother are hard at work earning the substance of life, the mothers and daughters in the homes of the rich and fashionable are mere idle pension- ers on their bounty. But I do not consent to the charge. I contend that if there is an ever busy, over-worked class of be- ings on the face of the earth, it is these same women who are supposed to be fashionable idlers. The demands which a false and fashionable society makes on the time and strength of this class of women are too severe, too innumerable to eompute. This keeping an establish- ment is a most ravishing idea, is the most bewitching and beguiling ambition to the heart of woman of all others, as she contemplates it in the distance. To be the Queen, the Priest- ess of some gorgeous temple which she can preside over and