find the ovum still active and dangerously receptive on the second and
third day after cessation of the menses. And so the girl-child, which is
conceived _after_ the period (although in a different month to that of
the boy) suffices to undermine the old adage, “Girls before, boys after.”
It is, no doubt, this anomaly which explains, to a large extent, the
utter lack of practical conclusions reached on this question during past
centuries of biological thought. The vast numbers of test-cases collected
during the last twenty years, and proved to the hilt, entirely dispose
of the idea that boys _only_ can be conceived after a period.
But it so happens that girls, if conceived after a period, generally
start during the so-called “fruitless” month. Innumerable cases may be
cited of girls conceived on the fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth day
of period. This is much to be regretted, for it is easy to see that an
ovum fertilised during the actual flow of a menstrual period has not the
best chance of growing and developing into a healthy infant. The womb
is in a perturbed state, and its lining hardly offers a suitable bed on
which the delicate ovum can rest.
The Old Testament has warned us sufficiently against this evil.[22]
Abortions are liable in the early months of pregnancy, and everywhere
we see the results of such intercourse. Many women with skin troubles,
blotches, or marked with the ugly “port-wine stain,” or nævus spot,
are examples of relations at this period. To every hundred women thus
disfigured you will find scarcely one man. Another result of this unwise
intercourse is a large number of big moles all over the face, especially
on the left side. The fact that this condition is rarely found in men
shows that the conception of boys during actual period is very rare, if
not almost unknown. The earliest date recorded of boy-conception is the
third evening of period. The seventh day is the earliest date probable
after menstruation, counting from the first day.
When one realises that conception at the menstrual period is actually due
to a morbid condition of the uterus, dependent on a slightly abnormal
ovary, one can gauge the undesirability of risking the advent of such
offspring. Indeed, it is important that the self-respecting mother should
see that no child of hers be tainted with the reproach of the premature
intercourse above described.
If girls are conceived in the first three days _after_ period (during the
sixth, seventh, eighth days), that is another matter: they may be the
healthy offspring of a slightly abnormal mother who generally can only
conceive at that _one_ time. For instance, Lady D. writes:
I can never start a baby at any time except immediately after
my period. It is always “early” and too profuse.... I have
three girls, and do not seem able to have a boy.
It should, however, be understood clearly that no woman, in a normal
healthy state, conceives girls in the “fruitless month.” Invariably all
the cases observed of this nature occur among women suffering from the
results either of a severe boy-confinement, or an abortion which has
seriously affected the male ovary and left it in a diseased state. Again
it may happen where the right ovary is naturally weak or has been injured
in early youth. From India, a lady writes:
I have a little girl ... but I had several miscarriages before
she arrived, from which I have never rightly recovered. It was
partly the climate, and also I did far too much....
Mrs. B. wrote to me from East Africa:
I shall be forty next birthday. My first was a girl, then came
a boy born at six months, who only lived a few hours, and I was
desperately ill. Then came three girls in succession.
With regard to the offspring of the freak ovary, there certainly seems
to result a less healthy pregnancy all the way through, a more difficult
and generally premature confinement, and a smaller and weaker infant. I
should add, however, for the comfort of mothers, that these children,
given suitable environment, often grow up to be as fine and healthy as
those generated from a more normal ovary.
It is only right to acknowledge that, in the researches which have
enabled me to fathom the complex problem of the “freak” ovary, my best
friend has often proved to be my sex. It takes a thief to catch a
thief—it required the intuitive brain of a woman to understand another
woman, and to investigate with success the most capricious of her organs.
XIII
LATERAL DECUBITUS
“Lie on the right for a boy, on the left for a girl.”—ALBERTUS
MAGNUS.
Whenever I am asked to provide a formula for the benefit of those seeking
advice on the subject of pre-determination, I have always expressed
the opinion that a slight inclination to the right, during and after
intercourse, is helpful to the conception of boys, and vice versa for
girls. No doubt this flavours of an “old wives’ tale,” and is not new
to many married folk. Indeed, it was known as far back as 1582, when
Albertus Magnus gave his support to the theory, which subsequently
remained a more or less popular idea. At the same time, it is interesting
to note that anatomy supports this time-honoured theory in every way.
Stock-breeders still make use of it when they place a mare or cow on
ground sloping away from the side they wish fertilised. But it succeeds
only when they happen to fall on the month suitable to the discharge of
the ovum desired.
When I touch on the relation of animals to my theme I do not mean to
imply that they function on parallel lines to women, as regarding the
alternate month. It is true that the principal laws of nature apply to
them in similar fashion, but in this case there is a distinct difference.
A certain veterinary surgeon was, in a hundred cases, successful in the
use of “side-sloping” with cattle, but the lack of further knowledge
concerning times and dates produced the small number of exceptions which
acted as a deterrent to renewed efforts in this direction. And yet there
should really be no difficulty as to times and dates, the only problem
being to select the male month or the female.
Thus a heifer should be watched from the time of the first “rut,” which
means the activity of the left ovary. Her times, right and left, should
be systematically noted from then on, until she goes to the bull. If
the first calf be a heifer, the next heat will accompany activity of
the right ovary. A month should be skipped (a good thing in itself for
the vitality of her next progeny) and the following heat fertilised if
another heifer is required. A well-known doctor in South Africa made
observations on a cow he owned in 1897 which had a bull-calf at foot; she
had a heifer-calf the next year. He then tried the experiment of missing
the next rut—that is twenty-one days after the birth of the heifer, by
keeping the cow stalled for a month. She was then allowed to mate, with
the result that the next calf was a heifer. He repeated this three times
in succession, each time obtaining a heifer. To prove that the cow was
normal he allowed her to mate within three weeks of the birth of the
last heifer and she gave a bull-calf. This satisfied him that sex can be
regulated at will, and that the whole question lies within the functions
of the female. That is just one clear case in point, but innumerable
similar successes have been recorded by others who have experimented on
these lines. The differences of the organic functions of a mare or cow
explain why there can be no question of “before or after,” as in the
case of women. But one thing I have observed, and that is the importance
of taking advantage of the early “heat” to ensure success for a heifer,
while the later “heat,” or the second day of the “heat” is more suitable
for a male pregnancy.
With regard to the position of the fœtus in the cow, there is a marked
difference according to the sex of the fœtus. If heavy with bull-calf,
she will usually lie on her right side; similarly it will be noticed that
the weight and movements are much more to the right and the side will be
most inclined to hang. With female progeny the conditions are reversed.
The left side is now the largest and heaviest, and the cow will lie on it
most readily.
In animals producing numerous offspring each time, such as cats, rabbits,
etc., both ovaries function simultaneously. The spermatozoa must run
equally into both sides of their uterus, for the reason that it is
not a simple cavity, but divided by a deep cleft into two parts with
a corresponding projection inside the cavity. Therefore, as cats and
rabbits have litters of mixed sexes, it is impossible to draw inference
beforehand as to their condition.
Then, just as two conditions, time and position, are necessary for
the successful fertilisation of cattle, so must the three following
conditions be accepted by women, if the results are to be what they
desire:
1. The fruitful month must be assured. This cannot be foretold
until after the birth of the first child, but it is of little
importance compared with the second and third conditions.
2. The day, in the fruitful month, proper to the sex desired
must be carefully chosen.
3. The inclination to right or left, which assists access of
the seminal fluid to the male or female Fallopian tube must be
observed.
Among all the theories for sex-determination advanced of late years,
that concerning Lateral Decubitus is the best supported by evidence. Dr.
R. von Braun discovered the earliest evidence of pregnancy in a furrow
which forms and divides the uterus into two _lateral halves_ differing
in shape, the pregnant half and the non-pregnant. Montgomery speaks of a
“boy conceived after the period” and lying “in the right iliac region,”
whose mother had complained of muscular pains “round the right Fallopian
tube.” Dr. Tuckey, on several occasions, found that the position of the
placenta, (the vascular bed to which the fœtus is attached and through
which it is nourished) differed according to the sex of the fœtus.
It was, in many instances, attached to the left side of the mid-line
when the child was a girl, to the right when it was a boy, Montgomery
mentions also that a “female fœtus is turned towards the left side.”
There is much evidence to show that a girl fœtus is always carried in
this position, while the boy faces to the right. Hence the movements are
felt towards the left with a girl and towards the right with a boy.
It may often be observed that a woman starting a female pregnancy is
quite unconsciously inclined to hold her left side, as if experiencing
a slight discomfort. With her, the first movements of the child will be
felt in the left groin, while in a boy-pregnancy the opposite will be the
case. I have by me a letter from a Mrs. B., which runs as follows:
I had a very bad pain on the _left_ side, when my last girl was
born. My periods are always early now.
Mrs. M. writes:
I have had four sons ... in carrying the last two I used to get
severe pains in my right groin, caused, I was told, by pressure.
Lady R. writes:
I always lie on my right side: in fact, I feel comfortable in
no other position.
She had three sons.
I have frequently been able to diagnose the sex of the child as early
as nine weeks after conception, by the presence of a small round
protuberance which appears high in the left groin if a girl, lower down
to the right side if a boy. In a fair number of cases I have found
the fœtus lying so much to one side or the other that the opposite
side appears to be filled only with a fluid, so soft and elastic is it
compared to the other. When this condition prevails one can foretell
the sex with _unerring certainty_. The woman pregnant of a male child,
according to French authorities, walks right foot foremost, and the right
breast will be harder and larger than the left. These differences, of
course, are not so discernible in some women as in others.
In the matter of symptoms there is a distinct dissimilarity between boy
and girl-pregnancies, which also goes to prove the theory of right
or left sides. For instance a woman with male pregnancy will complain
of cramp down the right leg, and of soreness in the right breast. The
reverse will be found in girl-pregnancy. Less sickness is experienced
in boy-pregnancies, and there the mother suffers much less from the
presence of distressing “whites.” Many women suffer from the latter to a
most troublesome degree when carrying a girl, although with their male
pregnancies they experience nothing of the kind.
The movements of a male fœtus are stronger, heavier, and slower than in
the opposite sex, and so also is the pulsation of the placenta. It is
easier to locate the heart-beat of the male than the female fœtus. It can
generally be located by the use of a stethoscope, and if it be a male
fœtus, the beats will be low down in the right groin: or if the position
be sessile (one in which the breech is presenting) the heart-beat will be
high up on the right side. With a girl the beats will be heard either
low on the left side or towards the mid-line, and if sessile, high up on
the left side. In any case they are always more difficult to discern, as
the girl lies to the left with the heart turned away from the surface of
the womb. In certain cases the heart-beats of the female fœtus have been
heard on the right side, especially where the child has been extremely
lively and restless. But it may safely be said that, in nearly every
case where this has been noted, the mother was suffering from a kind of
semi-sterility, where the uterus appeared to be governed wholly by the
left ovary, which in such cases assimilates the characteristics of the
right ovary, and thus the woman is sterile in regard to one sex.
It should be remembered of course that the uterus naturally inclines to
the right, and in some cases the attraction to the left, noticeable in a
female pregnancy, does not take place spontaneously. Especially will this
be so if there be a strong adhesion binding the womb to the right ovary.
Such adhesions often bring about a disability of that ovary, although
the fœtal position may appear, falsely, to indicate a _male_ pregnancy.
It must be here pointed out, that, as a general rule, it is rather the
exceptional and abnormal cases that are brought to a doctor’s notice, and
seldom those that are healthy or normal. This, no doubt, fully explains
why so often medical men have been led to make their deductions from
evidence quite contrary to that to be found, if looked for, in the great
majority of normal cases.
When all is said and done then, it may be safely concluded that for
useful purposes Lateral Decubitus, though not, perhaps, a potent factor,
may prove of use in the pre-determination of sex. It is certainly a
popular theory, and so far no evidence has been adduced sufficient to
disprove its relative efficacy, while some support can be gained from the
facts of female anatomy. I have given it in my formula for many years,
and so far have never had it disputed, or even questioned.
XIV
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS: AFTER-EFFECTS
“Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend,
A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend.”—POPE.
I have already in a previous chapter remarked upon the noticeable
differences which arise between male and female pregnancy.
A boy may possibly cause a difficult first confinement not only because
he comes into the world with a larger head, but also because his average
weight is one pound more than that of a girl. It is some compensation to
know that the after-effects of a boy-confinement frequently prove more
pleasant and straightforward than those which attend upon the birth of a
girl.
It is often said that the majority of still-born babies are boys, though
this has never been fully proved, probably because so many still-born
illegitimates are not registered; my own experience is rather to the
contrary. “Placenta prævia” more often occurs with female issue, and it
is generally due to the fertilised ovum embedding itself in the anterior
or posterior wall of the uterus near the cervix. It may be that the
position of the left ovary, which is on a higher level in the pelvis
during intercourse, accounts for this frequent aberration of the ova.
Phlebitis, or inflammation of the veins, is likewise a more common
complaint with girl-confinements. It is explained by the fact that any
activity on this side more directly affects the functions of the heart.
After the advent of a girl-baby, obstinate backache and symptoms of
depression are also frequently noticeable, owing to the weaker ovary
having greater difficulty in the healing of the corpus luteum and in the
control of its own more obstinate discharge. Attention is called to this
by the provision in Leviticus “If a woman have conceived seed, and borne
a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days ... she shall then
continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days ... but if
she bear a maid-child, then she shall be unclean two weeks ... she shall
continue in the blood of her purifying three score and six days.”[23] The
Jews thus made allowance for the discharge lasting twice as many days
after the birth of a female child as after the birth of a male.
There is no doubt whatever, that, even if the left ovary is not rendered
_hors de combat_ more easily than the right, it will always give the
maximum of trouble on the smallest pretext. During pregnancy there may
sometimes be a slight “show” at the ninth week, and sometimes after,
which, though generally fairly trifling, is sufficient to be alarming.
With a boy-pregnancy this may occur in the fifth week, but should it
happen later on, it would mean a mishap. With a girl-pregnancy, however,
it may often happen, and does not necessarily impede the satisfactory
development of the female fœtus. Brierre de Boismont states that out
of 1,200 cases, eight showed menstruation during the second, third and
fourth months after conception, three showed menstruation occurring
throughout the whole period of pregnancy, and one was the case of a woman
who menstruated throughout her eight pregnancies.[24] Dr. Nicholson,
writing from St. John’s Island, says: “A regular monthly discharge during
pregnancy is not an infrequent occurrence in this island, particularly
with the whites of a sanguine temperament.”[25] It would be safe to say
that the result of such an anomaly would be the birth of a girl, for I
do not know of a single case of a boy living longer than a few days, or
possibly weeks, after such a gestation.
The first sure symptom of parturition with a female child is generally
a “show.” In the case of male issue, in normal circumstances, this is
rarely observed until after the waters are discharged. In fact, in
practically 80 per cent. of all cases, the parturition of boys begins
with the breaking of the waters. A similar proportion of girls herald
their advent with a slimy mucus followed by red discharge. These facts
go far to confirm the old French saying that “the sanguine temperament
begets boys, and the lymphatic begets girls.” It may be that the male
child assimilates more red globules and sanguineous tissue in its
composition, whilst the female feeds readily on the _lymphus_ and white
particles of blood nutriment.
As time goes on experience teaches that the condition of the blood when
a girl is carried has different characteristics from those in a male
pregnancy. The quantity of fat and albumen is rather increased in the
former and the proportion of fibrin and hæmatoglobulin possibly greater
in the later. Certain deductions, as to these points of difference, have
been gathered by the presence of fatty tissue all over the body affecting
even the finger tips during pregnancy of a female child, whilst the
contrary condition exists in the state of male pregnancy.
“Flooding” is more frequent after the birth of a girl than that of a boy,
and the wearisome symptoms of over-profuse menstruation, appearing for
months or even years after childbirth, are infinitely more persistent
when a girl-baby has produced the weakness. Again, the displacement
of the womb, and its inability to return to its normal size after
confinement, is a distressing trouble due to the greater inherent
weakness of the left side.
It is important to bear in mind that many unhealthy and delicate mothers
would miscarry with a male fœtus whilst a girl-pregnancy might go full
time.
As regards the actual labour, the first pangs, with a female child, are
more apparent in the back and left groin, and the advent of the discharge
soon makes the mother willing to lie up. With a boy, however, the pains
are more apt to be felt in the stomach and down the right thigh, and it
is easier to keep up and about until the last moments. A curious anomaly
is that “after pains,” generally supposed to be unknown at a first birth,
are frequently present in first _girl_ confinements. I have not heard of
a single instance where “after pains” accompanied the birth of a first
child who was a boy. In a tedious labour, it is the first stages that are
lingering and difficult with a girl, with a boy the latter stages are the
worst.
One cannot sufficiently reiterate to all young women the criminal idiocy
of attempted abortion. As a result of my clinical experience I have
come to the most definite conclusion that the right ovary, lying as it
does lower down in the pelvis, is the most easily damaged. Any adverse
conditions affecting the womb may interfere seriously with its functions;
such an occurrence as _bleeding_, as the result of an abortion, may so
react on the right ovary and the Fallopian tube as to paralyse them and
prevent all subsequent activity.
Where this occurs the left ovary straightaway takes upon itself the
functions of both and with redoubled activity, discharges its ova,
“capturing the trade” of its rival, so to speak. As we have seen, this
ovary produces only female ova; so, henceforth, as a natural consequence,
only female offspring will be produced by the damaged womb.
After a first fatal abortion, whether accidental or voluntary, too
often a trail of girls will ensue, and I could tell of countless such
instances. A lady, pregnant of her first child, slipped downstairs; as
a result she gave birth to a still-born boy; the next six children were
all girls. I know of another case where eleven daughters followed the
premature advent of a male child. In yet another case sheer folly brought
about the miscarriage at first pregnancy of a male fœtus; only after many
years was the woman in question able to give birth to three children—all
girls. In each of the above instances the birth of an heir was of the
utmost importance in view of title or estates.
A lady who had given birth to seven daughters had subsequently five
mishaps, each at four months, and every time she proved to have been
pregnant of a male. Another lady consulted me, because after eight girls,
she longed for a son; she became pregnant but miscarried at four months
of a boy. I learnt that she had had two similar mishaps before her
daughters were born.
It is safe to say that 80 per cent. of all miscarriages are the result
of male pregnancies. I am able to give such a figure and to be positive
as to its accuracy in my own wide experience, because of the possibility
of diagnosing the sex of a fœtus at a very early stage. A striking
demonstration of what can be done in this direction was given by Nagel,
who distinguished a testicle in the youngest embryo ever successfully
analysed with reference to sex; it was exactly five weeks old. And any
abortion younger than that does not need to be considered in relation to
sex determination.
All women then should be warned early in married life against any risk
of miscarriage, that they may be on their guard against such deplorable
results, the bane of motherhood. “Fore-warned is fore-armed,” and a huge
percentage of the waste of life and energy which now prevails could be
prevented if only a more sensible and normal view could be taken on the
question of initiating young girls and women into the wonderful, yet
simple, laws of maternity, on which all human welfare depends.
XV
SIDE-THEORY
“Conception may take place even though there coexisted an
immense amount of disease in the ovaries, provided one of them
retained as much of one ovary sound as belongs to one mature
vesicle.”—MORGANI.