So she finally had to go to the doctor, who found a frightful state of things――one ovary ruined for life. For three years she remained an invalid, and the shock she received, added to the drugs she had taken, had made her one of those many unfortunate women which fill our land.
All heavy lifting is dangerous to the womb and ovaries during the growing period; therefore all the apparatus in the gymnasiums for testing the strength of arms and back should be avoided. Many a foolish or uninstructed girl has made herself a girl of muscles, but ruined her WOMANLY POWERS in so doing. Save all your strength and force for what Nature intended a woman to DO; don’t throw it away in doing gymnasium stunts. No real youth or man likes to see a girl do these things; his applause does not come from the heart, but only from the head. Such a girl may have strong arms in which to carry a baby, but the chances are some other woman will have to give her the baby to carry. Of course every girl should exercise, but it must be such exercises as is governed with her sexual organs ever in view. As an example, dancing is good recreation and exercise, but it should not be indulged in two days BEFORE the menstrual period and not until two days AFTER.
Another thing which affects the womb――retention of urine. That is, keeping the bladder full. Many girls have been brought up in such ignorance and under such false ideas of prudery that they will suffer pain from distention of the bladder rather than allow the slightest hint to escape them that they need immediate relief. This brings about not only a weakness of the bladder, which will in later life be very annoying and really embarrassing, but the pressure of a full bladder on the surrounding parts――the womb and its attachments――is apt to displace it and irritate it. Then again, a girl may be within a few days of her flow, and here the pressure of a full and hard bladder may set up an inflammation and bring on the period before its time. All this tends to start an irregularity, and when this irregularity is fairly established, the girl’s, and later on the woman’s, life is only an existence full of misery.
In fact, I think I am justified in saying that ninety per cent. of the women suffering from nervousness, hysteria, restlessness and pain, comes from the sexual organs being out of place, twisted, early inflammations and general lack of care of them from want of knowledge.