nineteen, the first scholar, and an invalid. Again her parents were
gratified and anxious. She is overworked, said they, and wondered why
girls break down so. To insure her recovery, a second and longer
travel was undertaken. Egypt and Asia were added to Europe, and nearly
two years were allotted to the cure. With change of air and scene her
health improved, but not so rapidly as with the previous journey. She
returned to America better than she went away, and married at the age
of twenty-two. Soon after that time she consulted the writer on
account of prolonged dyspepsia, neuralgia, and dysmenorrhoea, which
had replaced menorrhagia. Then I learned the long history of her
education, and of her efforts to study just as boys do. Her attention
had never been called before to the danger she had incurred while at
school. She is now what is called getting better, but has the delicacy
and weaknesses of American women, and, so far, is without children.

It is not difficult, in this case, either to discern the cause of the
trouble, or to trace its influence, through the varying phases of
disease, from Miss A----'s school-days, to her matronly life. She was
well, and would have been called robust, up to her first critical
period. She then had two tasks imposed upon her at once, both of which
required for their perfect accomplishment a few years of time and a
large share of vital force: one was the education of the brain, the
other of the reproductive system. The schoolmaster superintended the
first, and Nature the second. The school, with puritanic
inflexibility, demanded every day of the month; Nature, kinder than
the school, demanded less than a fourth of the time,--a seventh or an
eighth of it would have probably answered. The schoolmaster might have
yielded somewhat, but would not; Nature could not. The pupil,
therefore, was compelled to undertake both tasks at the same time.
Ambitious, earnest, and conscientious, she obeyed the visible power