Portrait of Eliza Lyman from "The Coming Woman."
In the past few weeks, some wonderful 19th century books on home health care and what might be loosely called “advice manuals,” particularly for women, have come into our collection.
Here are a few highlights…
From The Coming Woman by Eliza Barton Lyman: “She shall possess physical and mental equipose; she shall be the co-laborer with and equal of man; she shall be the patron of Art, Science, and Literature; she shall unite factions, cement home interests; shall be the friend and guide of the youth; she shall love, reverence, defend, and advance the interests of all women.” (12)
From Talks to My Patients by Rachel Brooks Gleason: “Piano-playing seems to exhaust nerve-power very rapidly. … When confined to it earlier…the body fails to develop, and the little girl keeps little longer than she ought; with a flat chest and undeveloped form she enters her teens looking like a little old lady, poor and sallow.” (19)
From The Young Woman’s Book of Health by William A. Alcott: “Let the young woman, then, as she is inclined, by all means seek happiness. Let her seek it; but let her seek it in God’s own appointed way. It may be paradoxical to some, when I affirm it,–but it is a truth from which I must not dare to shrink,–that she who aims at health or beauty, or at the former in order to secure the latter, can only be permanently successful when she seeks it in the path of holiness.” (21)
And from The Young Lady’s Private Counselor by Melville C. Keith: “Why Am I A aWoman This question has been asked countless times, and we have never seen any satisfactory answer to it. The differences in the sex are accounted for in the following manner. When there is union between the parents directly after the menstrual period, there will be a girl. If a period of six to fourteen days elapse, the offspring will be male.” (16)
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!