Let us take the next illustration from a walk in life different from
either of the foregoing. Miss C---- was a bookkeeper in a mercantile
house. The length of time she remained in the employ of the house, and
its character, are a sufficient guaranty that she did her work well.
Like the other clerks, she was at her post, _standing_, during
business hours, from Monday morning till Saturday night. The female
pelvis being wider than that of the male, the weight of the body, in
the upright posture, tends to press the upper extremities of the
thighs out laterally in females more than in males. Hence the former
can stand less long with comfort than the latter. Miss C----, however,
believed in doing her work in a man's way, infected by the not
uncommon notion that womanliness means manliness. Moreover, she would
not, or could not, make any more allowance for the periodicity of her
organization than for the shape of her skeleton. When about twenty
years of age, perhaps a year or so older, she applied to me for advice
in consequence of neuralgia, back-ache, menorrhagia, leucorrhoea, and
general debility. She was anemic, and looked pale, care-worn, and
anxious. There was no evidence of any local organic affection of the
pelvic organs. "Get a woman's periodical remission from labor, if
intermission is impossible, and do your work in a woman's way, not
copying a man's fashion, and you will need very little apothecary's
stuff," was the advice she received. "I _must_ go on as I am doing,"
was her answer. She tried iron, sitz-baths, and the like: of course
they were of no avail. Latterly I have lost sight of her, and, from
her appearance at her last visit to me, presume she has gone to a
world where back-ache and male and female skeletons are unknown.

Illustrations of this sort might be multiplied but these three are
sufficient to show how an abnormal method of study and work may and