indisposition.

My readers may wonder why I dwell upon a subject that baffles even the
most eminent physicians in the country. It is because I feel that each
of us women has in herself the only check to the nervousness which we
all dread. We, as Americans, cannot afford to trifle with our
unfortunate inheritance, but must use every means at our command to
subjugate the evil instead of being subjugated by it. Too many women,
especially among the lower classes, think it "pretty" to be nervous.
The country practitioner will tell you of the precious hours he loses
every week in hearkening to the recital of personal discomforts as
poured into his professional ears by farmers' wives. And the
beginning, middle, and end of all their plaints is "my nerves."
Anything, from a sprained ankle to consumption, is attributed to or
augmented by these necessary adjuncts to the human anatomy.

Not long ago I was talking to the ignorant mother of a jaundiced,
colicky child of two years of age.

"What does she eat?" I asked.

"Well, she takes fancies, and her latest notion is that she won't eat
nothin' but ginger-nuts and bananas. So she mostly lives on them.
Sometimes she suffers awful."

"From indigestion?"

"Oh, no!" patronizingly. "She inherits all my nervous weakness. Her
nerves get the upper hand of her, and she turns pale and shivers all
over, and then she looks as if she would go into the spasms."