It is precisely between the ages of fifteen
and twenty-three, as Stockman found by an analysis of his own
cases (_British Medical Journal_, December 14, 1895), that the
majority of cases occur; there was, indeed, he found, no case in
which the first onset was later than the age of twenty-three. A
similar result is revealed by the charts of Lloyd Jones, which
cover a vastly greater number of cases.
We owe to Lloyd Jones an important contribution to the knowledge
of chlorosis in its physiological or normal relationships. He has
shown that chlorosis is but the exaggeration of a condition that
is normal at puberty (and, in many women, at each menstrual
period), and which, there is good reason to believe, even has a
favorable influence on fertility. He found that
light-complexioned persons are more fertile than the
dark-complexioned, and that at the same time the blood of the
latter is of less specific gravity, containing less haemoglobin.
Lloyd Jones also reached the generalization that girls who have
had chlorosis are often remarkably pretty, so that the tendency
to chlorosis is associated with all the sexual and reproductive
aptitudes that make a woman attractive to a man. His conclusion
is that the normal condition of which chlorosis is the extreme
and pathological condition, is a preparation for motherhood (E.
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