The whole question, however, is not one of probability or of possibility, but of fact. Hence, the last persons capable of judging in the matter, are those who have been vividly impressed with those circumstances that furnish, or may be made to furnish, food for the imagination. Of these, Michelet is perhaps the type, but certainly many of the reviewers who have been occupied with Dr. Clarke's book, must be ranked in the same class. Would it be disrespectful to Dr. Clarke's far better informed judgment and technical knowledge to suggest, that he himself does not seem to be perfectly free from the influence of the glamour that invests the study of physiological peculiarities in women, wherever these can be made to tell upon any social or moral relations? Dr. Clarke does not indeed affirm, with Michelet, that women are essentially diseased. "_La femme est une malade._" Where Michelet leaves to the healthiest women but a single week of every month for normal existence, Dr. Clarke believes that one week out of the month alone requires any special precautions, and that, with decent care at this time, "an immense amount of work" can be accomplished in the remainder. He is careful to say, and even to repeat, that the intellectual labor to which such disastrous results are attributed, is not in itself incompatible with the nature of the woman, nor, even when improperly pursued, can it be considered as the sole cause of the delicate health of American girls. Dr. Clarke indeed guards his every assertion with a care and precision that is worthy of imitation by those who draw such large deductions from his book. When, however, all illegitimate inferences have been set aside, and we come to the propositions really and categorically maintained, we find the following:
1st. During the catamenial period, _i.e._, during one week out of every month, a woman should abandon intellectual or physical labor, either because she is already incapacitated for it, or because she will be so ultimately, if she does not take the precautionary rest.
2d. A large number of American girls become affected with amenorrhea[35] or menorrhagia[36] solely on account of excessive mental exertion at such periodical epochs of incapacity.