Now there's a traffic-stopper of a headline! Reading makes you - young women - insane. But not just insane, but "incurably" insane. Well, lead me to Bedlam!
Read some excerpts from this devilishly insane article from History Buff:
In 1886, homeschooling pioneer Charlotte Mason wrote that “the girl who sits for hours poring over a novel to the damage of her eyes, her brain, and her general nervous system, is guilty of a lesser fault of the nature of suicide.” Strange as it may sound, Mason's belief that reading fiction was physically dangerous for girls and women was actually held by many medical doctors of her day.
A few years earlier, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg—the same guy who invented corn flakes in an attempt to "cure" people of masturbation—called novel reading “one of the most pernicious habits to which a young lady can be devoted. When the habit is once thoroughly fixed, it becomes as inveterate as the use of liquor or opium.”
Read entire article here @ History Buff and learn more about Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) here @ All Day.
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