Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 31

9. REV. LEONARD DAWSON.--"How rapidly conjugal prudence might lift a nation out of pauperism was seen in France.--Let them therefore hold the maxim that the production of offspring with forethought and providence is rational nature. It was immoral to bring children into the world whom they could not reasonably hope to feed, clothe and educate."

10. MRS. FAWCETT.--"Nothing will permanently offset pauperism while the present reckless increase of population continues."

11. DR. GEORGE NAPHEYS.--"Having too many children unquestionably has its disastrous effects on both mother and {231} children as known to every intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr.

Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. There are also women to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it is nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered before marriage--The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day.

It is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome--This wholesale, fas.h.i.+onable murder, how are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist by this slaughter of the innocent."

12. REV. H. R. HAWEIS.--"Until it is thought a disgrace in every rank of society, from top to bottom of social scale, to bring into the world more children than you are able to provide for, the poor man's home, at least, must often be a purgatory--his children dinnerless, his wife a beggar--himself too often drunk--here, then, are the real remedies: first, control the family growth according to the family means of support."

13. MONTAGUE COOKSON.--"The limitation of the number of the family--is as much the duty of married persons as the observance of chast.i.ty is the duty of those that are unmarried."

14. JOHN STUART MILL.--"Every one has aright to live. We will suppose this granted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be supported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all pretension to the last. Little improvement can be expected in morality until the production of a large family is regarded in the same light as drunkenness or any other physical excess."

15. DR. T. D. NICHOLLS.--"In the present social state, men and women should refrain from having children unless they see a reasonable prospect of giving them suitable nurture and education."

16. REV. M. J. SAVAGE.--"Some means ought to be provided for checking the birth of sickly children."

17. DR. STOCKHAM.--"Thoughtful minds must acknowledge the great wrong done when children are begotten under adverse conditions. Women must learn the laws of life so as to protect themselves, and not be the means of bringing sin-cursed, diseased children into the world. The remedy is in the prevention of pregnancy, not in producing abortion."

{232}

Small Families and the Improvement of the Race.

1. MARRIED PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES.--It is the fas.h.i.+on of those who marry nowadays to have few children, often none. Of course this is a matter which married people must decide for themselves. As is stated in an earlier chapter, sometimes this policy is the wisest that can be pursued.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

2. DISEASED PEOPLE.--Diseased people who are likely to beget only a sickly offspring, may follow this course, and so may thieves, rascals, vagabonds, insane and drunken persons, and all those who are likely to bring into the world beings that ought not to be here. But why so many well-to-do folks should pursue a policy adapted only to paupers and criminals, is not easy to explain. Why marry at all if not to found a family that shall live to bless and make glad the earth after father and mother are gone? It is not wise to rear too many children, nor is it wise to have too few. Properly brought up, they will make home a delight and parents happy.

3. POPULATION LIMITED.--Galton, in his great work on hereditary genius, observes that "the time may hereafter arrive in far distant years, when the population of this earth shall be kept as strictly within bounds of number and suitability of race, as the sheep of a well-ordered moor, or the plants in an orchard-house; in the meantime, let us do what we can to encourage the multiplication of the races best {233} fitted to invent and conform to a high and generous civilization."

4. SHALL SICKLY PEOPLE RAISE CHILDREN?--The question whether sickly people should marry and propagate their kind, is briefly alluded to in an early chapter of this work. Where father and mother are both consumptive the chances are that the children will inherit physical weakness, which will result in the same disease, unless great pains are taken to give them a good physical education, and even then the probabilities are that they will find life a burden hardly worth living.

5. NO REAL BLESSING.--Where one parent is consumptive and the other vigorous, the chances are just half as great. If there is a scrofulous or consumptive taint in the blood, beware! Sickly children are no comfort to their parents, no real blessing. If such people marry, they had better, in most cases, avoid parentage.

6. WELFARE OF MANKIND.--The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, while the reckless marry, the inferior members will tend to supplant the better members of society.

7. PREVENTIVES.--Remember that the thousands of preventives which are advertised in papers, private circulars, etc., are not only inefficient, unreliable and worthless, but positively dangerous, and the annual mortality of females in this country from this cause alone is truly horrifying. Study nature, and nature's laws alone will guide you safely in the path of health and happiness.

8. NATURE'S REMEDY.--Nature in her wise economy has prepared for overproduction, for during the period of pregnancy and nursing, and also most of the last half of each menstrual month, woman is naturally sterile; but this condition may become irregular and uncertain on account of stimulating drinks or immoral excesses.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

{234}

The Generative Organs.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE MALE GENERATIVE ORGANS AND THEIR STRUCTURE AND ADAPTATION.

1. The reproductive organs in man are the p.e.n.i.s and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and their appendages.

2. The p.e.n.i.s deposits the seminal life germ of the male. It is designed to fulfill the seed planting mission of human life.

3. In the accompanying ill.u.s.tration all the parts are named.

4. URETHRA.--The urethra performs the important mission of emptying the bladder, and is rendered very much larger by the pa.s.sion, and the s.e.m.e.n is propelled along through it by little layers of muscles on each side meeting {235} above and below. It is this ca.n.a.l that is inflamed by the disease known as gonorrhoea.

5. PROSTRATE GLAND.--The prostrate gland is located just before the bladder. It swells in men who have previously overtaxed it, thus preventing all s.e.xual intercourse, and becomes very troublesome to void urine. This is a very common trouble in old age.

6. THE PENAL GLAND.--The penal gland, located at the end of the p.e.n.i.s, becomes unduly enlarged by excessive action and has the consistency of India rubber. It is always enlarged by erection. It is this gland at the end that draws the s.e.m.e.n forward. It is one of the most essential and wonderful constructed glands of the human body.

7. FEMALE MAGNETISM.--When the male organ comes in contact with female magnetism, the natural and proper excitement takes place. When excited without this female magnetism it becomes one of the most serious injuries to the human body. The male organ was made for a high and holy purpose, and woe be to him who pollutes his manhood by practicing the secret vice. He pays the penalty in after years either by the entire loss of s.e.xual power, or by the afflictions of various urinary diseases.

8. NATURE PAYS all her debts, and when there is an abuse of organ, penalties must follow. If the hand is thrust into the fire it will be burnt.

THE FEMALE s.e.xUAL ORGANS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANATOMY OR STRUCTURE OF THE FEMALE ORGANS OF GENERATION.]

1. The generative or reproductive organs of the human female are usually divided into the internal and external. Those regarded as internal are concealed from view and protected within the body. Those that can be readily perceived are termed external. The entrance of the v.a.g.i.n.a may be stated as the line of demarcation of the two divisions. {236}

[Ill.u.s.tration: Impregnated Egg. In the first formation of Embryo.]

2. HYMEN OR v.a.g.i.n.aL VALVE.--This is a thin membrane of half moon shape stretched across the opening of the v.a.g.i.n.a. It usually contains before marriage one or more small openings for the pa.s.sage of the menses. This membrane has been known to cause much distress in many females at the first menstrual flow. The trouble resulting from the openings in the hymen not being large enough to let the flow through and consequently blocking up the v.a.g.i.n.al ca.n.a.l, and filling the entire {237} internal s.e.xual organs with blood; causing paroxysms and hysterics and other alarming symptoms. In such cases the hymen must be ruptured that a proper discharge may take place at once.

3. UNYIELDING HYMEN.--The hymen is usually ruptured by the first s.e.xual intercourse, but sometimes it is so unyielding as to require the aid of a knife before coition can take place.

4. THE PRESENCE OF THE HYMEN was formerly considered a test of virginity, but this theory is no longer held by competent authorities, as disease or accidents or other circ.u.mstances may cause its rupture.

5. THE OVARIES.--The ovaries are little glands for the purpose of forming the female ova or egg. They are not fully developed until the period of p.u.b.erty, and usually are about the size of a large chestnut. The are located in the broad ligaments between the uterus and the Fallopian tubes.

During pregnancy the ovaries change position; they are brought farther into the abdominal cavity as the uterus expands.

6. OFFICE OF THE OVARY.--The ovary is to the female what the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e is to the male. It is the germ vitalizing organ and the most essential part of the generative apparatus. The ovary is not only an organ for the formation of the ova, but is also designed for their separation when they reach maturity.

7. FALLOPIAN TUBES.--These are the ducts that lead from the ovaries to the uterus. They are entirely detached from the glands or ovaries, and are developed on both sides of the body.

8. OFFICE OF THE FALLOPIAN TUBES.--The Fallopian tubes have a double office: receiving the ova from the ovaries and conducting it into the uterus, as well as receiving the spermatic fluid of the male and conveying it from the uterus in the direction of the ovaries, the tubes being the seat of impregnation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OVUM.]