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Co-operative housekeeping

it follows that I should hope to see a great stimulus given to it by co-operative housekeeping; for then, if any woman possessed a peculiar gift for it, the association could take care of the bulk of her domestic concerns for her until she had received a regular medical training, and was qualified to be put in charge of the health department. Should she, out of respect to the resident physicians, decline to practise medicine, still she will have a noble function in the prevention of disease and physical deterioration, and in the assisting of physical development. She will keep a strict eye on everything that goes out of the kitchen and clothing-house, to see that nothing injurious to health, either in food or clothing, be ignorantly adopted by the community, and that whatever is necessary to bodily well-being and beauty be in constant use in every family. Defective teeth, thin hair, pale cheeks, flat and narrow chests, spindling legs and arms, boniness and wrinkles instead of roundness and dimples,—all this melancholy physical deficiency that haunts society and makes home unhappy, exists because we do not know how to live physically; because we are ignorant what elements should preponderate in food and drink, in order to counteract the effects of our dry and stimulating climate; because we do not make our own and our children's muscular development in gymnasium and in the open air a solemn duty, or care what hours we keep, and what injurious customs we follow. The judicious head of the health department will, however, gradually change all this; and when the new generation grows up she will point with pride to the blooming Hebes and Junos all about as the just results of her enlightened physical teaching. Even before the children are born, she will watch over the expectant mothers, that the formation of the new human beings may go on with every favourable concurrence; and I suppose that in this connection a mass of phenomena is waiting to be studied by acute and experienced doctresses, of which the medical world little dreams. Another function of the co-operative doctress would be the training of her staff of nurses. It is in sickness, indeed, that perhaps