Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 32

9. STERILITY IN FEMALES.--Sterility in the female is sometimes caused by a morbid adhesion of the tube to a portion of the ovary. By what power the mouth of the tube is directed toward a particular portion of an ovary from which the ovum is about to be discharged, remains entirely unknown, as does also the precise nature of the cause which effects this movement.

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THE MYSTERIES OF THE FORMATION OF LIFE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ripe Ovum from the Ovary.]

1. SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.--Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, Tyndall, Meyer, and other renowned scientists, have tried to find the _missing link_ between man and animal; they have also exhausted their genius in trying to fathom the mysteries of the beginning of life, or find where the animal and mineral kingdoms unite to form life; but they have added to the vast acc.u.mulation of theories only, and the world is but little wiser on this mysterious subject.

2. PHYSIOLOGY.--Physiology has demonstrated what physiological changes take place in the germination and formation of life, and how nature expresses the intentions of reproduction by giving animals distinctive organs with certain secretions for this purpose, etc. All the different stages of development can be easily determined, but how and why life takes place under such special condition and under no other, is an unsolved mystery.

3. OVARIES.--The ovaries are the essential parts of the generative system of the human female in which ova are matured. There are two ovaries, one on each side of the uterus, and connected with it by the Fallopian tubes. They are egg-shaped, about an inch in diameter, and furnish the {239} germs or ovules. These germs or ovules are very small, measuring about 1/120 of an inch in diameter.

4. DEVELOPMENT.--The ovaries develop with the growth of the female, so that finally at the period of p.u.b.erty they ripen and liberate an ovum or germ vesicle, which is carried into the uterine cavity of the Fallopian tubes.

By the aid of the microscope we find that these ova are composed of granular substance, in which is found a miniature yolk surrounded by a transparent membrane called the zona pellucida. This yolk contains a germinal vesicle in which can be discovered a nucleus, called the germinal spot. The process of the growth of the ovaries is very gradual, and their function of ripening and discharging one ovum monthly into the Fallopian tubes and uterus, is not completed until between the twelfth and fifteenth years.

5. WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS.--After the s.e.xual embrace we know that the sperm is lifted within the genital pa.s.sages or portion of the v.a.g.i.n.a and mouth of the uterus. The time between the deposit of the s.e.m.e.n and fecundation varies according to circ.u.mstances. If the sperm-cell travels to the ovarium it generally takes from three to five days to make the journey. As Dr.

Pierce says: "The transportation is aided by the ciliary processes (little hairs) of the mucous surface of the v.a.g.i.n.al and uterine walls, as well as by its own vibratile movements. The action of the cilia, under the stimulus of the sperm, seems to be from without, inward. Even if a minute particle of sperm, less than a drop, be left upon the margin of the external genitals of the female, it is sufficient in amount to impregnate, and can be carried, by help of these cilia, to the ovaries."

6. CONCEPTION.--After intercourse at the proper time the liability to conception is very great. If the organs are in a healthy condition, conception must necessarily follow, and no amount of prudence and the most rigid precautions often fail to prevent pregnancy.

7. ONLY ONE ABSOLUTELY SAFE METHOD.--There is only one absolutely safe method to prevent conception, entirely free from danger and injury to health, and one that is in the reach of all; that is to refrain from union altogether.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PATIENT MOTHER.]

1. The question is always asked, "Can Conception be prevented at all times?" Certainly, this is possible; but such an interference with nature's laws is inadmissible, and perhaps never to be justified in any case whatever, except in cases of deformity or disease.

2. If the parties of a marriage are both feeble and so adapted to each other that their children are deformed, insane or idiots, then to beget offspring would be a flagrant wrong; if the mother's health is in such a condition as to forbid the right of laying the burden of motherhood upon her, then medical aid may safely come to her relief. If the man, however, respects his wife, he ought to come to her relief without the counsel of a physician. {241}

3. FORBEARANCE.--Often before the mother has recovered from the effects of bearing, nursing and rearing one child, ere she has regained proper tone and vigor of body and mind, she is unexpectedly overtaken, surprised by the manifestation of symptoms which again indicate pregnancy. Children thus begotten cannot become hardy and long-lived. By the love that parents may feel for their posterity, by the wishes for their success, by the hopes for their usefulness, by every consideration for their future well-being, let them exercise precaution and forbearance until the wife becomes sufficiently healthy and enduring to bequeath her own rugged, vital stamina to the child she bears in love.

4. IMPOSTORS.--During the past few years hundreds of books and pamphlets have been written on the subject, claiming that new remedies had been discovered for the prevention of conception, etc., but these are all money making devices to deceive the public, and enrich the pockets of miserable and unprincipled impostors.

5. THE FOLLIES OF PREVENTION.--Dr. Pancoast, an eminent authority, says: "The truth is, there is no medicine taken internally capable of preventing conception, and the person who a.s.serts to the contrary, not only speaks falsely, but is both a knave and a fool. It is true enough that remedies may be taken to produce abortion after conception occurs; but those who prescribe and those who resort to such desperate expedients, can only be placed in the category of lunatics and a.s.sa.s.sins!"

6. PATENT MEDICINES.--If nature does not promptly respond, there are many patent medicines which when taken at the time the monthly flow is to begin, will produce the desired result. Let women beware; for it is only a question of a few years when their const.i.tution, complexion, and health will be a sorry evidence of their folly. The woman who continually takes a drug to prevent conception, cannot retain her natural complexion; her eyes will become dull, her cheeks flabby, and she will show various evidences of poor health, and her s.e.xual organs will soon become permanently impaired and hopelessly diseased.

7. FOOLISH DREAD OF CHILDREN.--What is more deplorable and pitiable than an old couple childless. Young people dislike the care and confinement of children and prefer society and social entertainments and thereby do great injustice and injury to their health and fit themselves in later years to visit infirmities and diseases upon their children. The vigilant and rigid measures which have to be resorted to in order to prevent conception for a period of years unfits many a wife for the production of healthy children.

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8. HAVING CHILDREN under proper circ.u.mstances never ruins the health and happiness of any woman. In fact, womanhood is incomplete without them. She may have a dozen or more, and still have better health than before marriage. It is having them too close together, and when she is not in a fit state, that her health gives way. Sometimes the mother is diseased; the outlet from the womb, as a result of laceration by a previous child-birth, is frequently enlarged, thus allowing conception to take place very readily, and hence she has children in rapid succession.

Besides the wrong to the mother in having children in such rapid succession, it is a great injustice to the babe in the womb and the one at the breast that they should follow each other so quickly that one is conceived while the other is nursing. One takes the vitality of the other; neither has sufficient nourishment, and both are started in life stunted and incomplete.

9. "THE DESIRABILITY AND PRACTICABILITY of limiting offspring," says Dr.

Stockham, "are the subject of frequent inquiry. Fewer and better children are desired by right-minded parents. Many men and women, wise in other things of the world, permit generation as a chance result of copulation, without thought of physical or mental conditions to be transmitted to the child. Coition, the one important act of all others, carrying with it the most vital results, is usually committed for selfish gratification. Many a drunkard owes his life-long appet.i.te for alcohol to the fact that the inception of his life could be traced to a night of dissipation on the part of his father. Physical degeneracy and mental derangements are too often caused by the parents producing offspring while laboring under great mental strain or bodily fatigue. Drunkenness and licentiousness are frequently the heritage of posterity. Future generations demand that such results be averted by better pre-natal influences. The world is groaning under the curse of chance parenthood. It is due to posterity that procreation be brought under the control of reason and conscience.

10. "IT HAS BEEN FEARED THAT A KNOWLEDGE of means to prevent conception would, if generally diffused, be abused by women; that they would to so great an extent escape motherhood as to bring about social disaster. This fear is not well founded. The maternal instinct is inherent and sovereign in woman. Even the pre-natal influences of a murderous intent on the part of parents scarcely ever {243} eradicate it. With this natural desire for children, we believe few women would abuse the knowledge or privilege of controlling conception. Although women shrink from forced maternity, and from the bearing of children under the great burden of suffering, as well as other adverse conditions, it is rare to find a woman who is not greatly disappointed if she does not, some time in her life, wear the crown of motherhood.

"An eminent lady teacher, in talking to her pupils, once said: 'The greatest calamity that can befall a woman is never to have a child. The next greatest calamity is to have one only.' From my professional experience I am happy to testify that more women seek to overcome causes of sterility than to obtain knowledge of limiting the size of the family or means to destroy the embryo. Also, if consultation for the latter is sought, it is usually at the instigation of the husband. Believing in the rights of unborn children, and in the maternal instinct, I am consequently convinced that no knowledge should be withheld that will secure proper conditions for the best parenthood.

11. "MANY OF THE MEANS USED TO PREVENT conception are injurious, and often lay the foundation for a train of physical ailments. Probably no one means is more serious in its results than the practice of withdrawal, or the discharge of the s.e.m.e.n externally to the v.a.g.i.n.a. The act is incomplete and unnatural, and is followed by results similar to and as disastrous as those consequent upon _masturbation_. In the male it may result in impotence, in the female in sterility. In both s.e.xes many nervous symptoms are produced, such as headache, defective vision, dyspepsia, insomnia, loss of memory, etc. Very many cases of uterine diseases can be attributed solely to this practice. The objection to the use of the syringe is that if the sperm has pa.s.sed into the uterus the fluid cannot reach it. A cold fluid may, in some instances, produce contractions to throw it off, but cannot be relied upon."

12. IS IT EVER RIGHT TO PREVENT CONCEPTION? We submit the following case of the _Juke_ family, mostly of New York State, as related by R. L. Dugdale, when a member of the Prison a.s.sociation, and let the reader judge for himself:

"It was traced out by painstaking research that from one woman called Margaret, who, like Topsy, merely 'growed' without pedigree as a pauper in a village on the upper Hudson, about eighty-five years ago, there descended 673 {244} children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, of whom 200 were criminals of the dangerous cla.s.s, 280 adult paupers, and fifty prost.i.tutes, while 300 children of her lineage died prematurely. The last fact proves to what extent in this family nature was kind to the rest of humanity in saving it from a still larger aggregation of undesirable and costly members, for it is estimated that the expense to the State of the descendants of Maggie was over a million dollars, and the State itself did something also towards preventing a greater expense by the restrain exercised upon the criminals, paupers, and idiots of the family during a considerable portion of their lives."

13. THE LEGAL ASPECT.--By the Revised Statutes of the United States it is provided "that no obscene, * * * or lascivious book, picture, or any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or producing of abortion shall be carried in the mail, and any person who shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery any of the hereinbefore mentioned things shall be guilty of misdemeanor,"

etc. In New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and District of Columbia we find no local law against abortion. Nine states, viz.: New Hamps.h.i.+re, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, Dakotas, Wyoming and California punish the woman upon whom the abortion is attempted; while Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas and California punish the advertising or furnis.h.i.+ng of means for the prevention of conception; and Ohio makes it a crime to even have such means in one's possession.

There is exception made in favor of every case where the early birth of the infant is necessary to save the life of the mother. It will be noticed that the common law punishes the furnis.h.i.+ng or advertising of means for the prevention of conception, and hence regards it as a crime. There is, however, no ban of the civil law on Nature's law as laid down by Nature's G.o.d and discovered by medical science, which we here make known.

14. IS NATURE'S METHOD RELIABLE?--Dr. Cowan says: "s.e.xual excitement hastens the premature ripening and meeting of the germ cell with the sperm cell, and impregnation may result, although intercourse occurs only in the specified two weeks' absence of the egg from the uterus."

This is just possible under certain peculiar circ.u.mstances of diseased conditions, or after long separation of husband and wife. However, it seldom happens, and married people in normal health, temperate in the s.e.xual relation, desirous of controlling the size of their family, can usually depend upon this law.

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15. MODERATION.--Continence, self-control, a willingness to deny himself--that is what is required from the husband. But a thousand voices reach us from suffering women in all parts of the land that this will not suffice; that men refuse thus to restrain themselves; that it leads to a loss of domestic happiness and to illegal amour, or it is injurious physically and morally; that, in short, such advice is useless because impracticable.

16. NATURE'S METHOD.--To such we reply that Nature herself has provided, to some extent, against over-production, and that it is well to avail ourselves of her provision. It is well known that women, when nursing, rarely become pregnant, and for this reason, if for no other, women should nurse their own children, and continue the period until the child is at least nine months or a year old. However, the nursing, if continued too long, weakens both the mother and the child, and, moreover, ceases to accomplish the end for which we now recommend it.

17. ANOTHER PROVISION OF NATURE.--For a certain period between her monthly illness, every woman is sterile. Conception may be avoided by refraining from coition except for this particular number of days, and there will be no evasion of natural intercourse, no resort to disgusting practices, and nothing degrading. The following facts have been established, without a doubt: The Graafian Vesicle, containing the egg in the ovary, enlarges during menstruation and bursts open to let the egg escape usually on the first day after the flow ceases, and seldom, if ever, later than the fourth day. It then takes from two to six days for the egg to pa.s.s down through the Fallopian tube into the womb, where it remains from two to six days, when, if not impregnated, it pa.s.ses down through the v.a.g.i.n.a from the body.

After the egg has pa.s.sed from the body, conception is not possible until after the next menstrual flow.

The period, therefore, from after the sixteenth to within three days of the following menstrual discharge is one of almost absolute safety. We say within three days of the next menstruation, because the male seminal fluid may be retained there till the egg leaves the ovary, and in that way impregnation might follow. Impregnation would, however, rarely occur if the period was extended to from the twelfth day after menstruation close up to one day before it began again.

The above is the only physiological method (and it is no secret to a great many people) by which conception can be limited, without the employment of such means as involve danger and serious evils.

18. WARNING.--Let women be warned in the most emphatic manner against the employment of the secret methods constantly advertised by quacks. Such means are the almost certain cause of painful uterine diseases and of shortened life. They are productive of more misery by far than over-production itself.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: [1]New Revelation for Women.]

v.a.g.i.n.aL CLEANLINESS.

1. The above Syringe has a patent tube known as the v.a.g.i.n.al cleanser. This keeps the sides of the v.a.g.i.n.a apart and permits the water to thoroughly clean and cleanse the organ. It will be found a great relief in both health and sickness, and in many cases cure barrenness and other diseases of the womb. It can be used the same as any other syringe. The tube can be procured at almost any drug store and applied to either bulb or fountain syringe. Many women are barren on account of an acid secretion in the v.a.g.i.n.a. The cleanser is almost a certain remedy and cure.

2. CLEANLINESS.--Cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness. Without cleanliness the human body is more or less defiled and repulsive. A hint to the wise is sufficient. The v.a.g.i.n.a should be cleansed with the same faithfulness as any other portion of the body.