Custom prescribes a journey immediately after marriage, of a week or a

month or two. It is an unwise provision. The event itself is disturbance

enough for the system; and to be hurried hither and thither, stowed in

narrow berths and inconvenient carriages, troubled with baggage, and

annoyed by the importunities of cabmen, waiters, and hangers-on of every

description, is enough, in ordinary times, to test the temper of a

saint.

The foundation of many an unhappy future is laid on the wedding tour.

Not only is the young wife tried beyond all her experience, and her

nervous system harassed, but the husband, too, partakes of her weakness.

Many men, who really love the women they marry, are subject to a slight

revulsion of feeling for a few days after marriage. 'When the veil

falls, and the girdle is loosened,' says the German poet Schiller, 'the

fair illusion vanishes.' A half regret crosses their minds for the jolly

bachelorhood they have renounced. The mysterious charms which gave their

loved one the air of something more than human, disappear in the prosaic

sunlight of familiarity.

Let neither be alarmed, nor lose their self-control. Each requires

indulgence, and management, from the other; both should demand from

themselves patience and self-command. A few weeks, and this danger is

over; but a mistake now is the mistake of a lifetime. More than one

woman has confessed to us that her unhappiness commenced from her

wedding tour; and when we inquired more minutely, we have found that it

arose from an ignorance and disregard of just such little precautions as

we have been referring to.

Yet it is every way advisable that the young pair should escape the

prying eyes of friends and relatives at such a moment. Let them choose

some quiet resort, not too long a journey from home, where they can

pass a few weeks in acquiring that more intimate knowledge of each

other's character as essential to their future happiness.

THE WIFE.

_THE WEDDING NIGHT._

We now enter upon the consideration of the second great period in the

life of Woman. The maiden becomes a Wife. She is born into a new world.

She assumes new relationships,--the sweetest, and, at the same time, the

most natural of which she is capable.

The great object of the conjugal union is the transmission of life,--a

duty necessary in order to repair the constant ravages of death, and

thus perpetuate the race. In the fulfilment of this sublime obligation,

woman plays the more prominent part, as she is the source and depositary

of the future being. It is of moment, therefore, that she should not be

altogether ignorant of the nature and responsibilities of her position.

Ignorance here means suffering, disease, and sometimes death. Let us

then interrogate science in regard to these matters, among the most

interesting of all human concerns.

The initiation into marriage, like its full fruition, maternity, is

attended with more or less suffering. Much, however, may be done to

avert and to lessen the pain which waits upon the first step in this new

life. For this purpose, regard must be had to the selection of the day.

We have said that a time about midway between the monthly recurring

periods is best fitted for the consummation of marriage. As this is a

season of sterility, it recommends itself on this account, in the

interest of both the mother and offspring. The first nuptial relations

should be fruitless, in order that the indispositions possibly arising

from them shall have time to subside before the appearance of the

disturbances incident to pregnancy. One profound change should not too

quickly succeed the other. About the tenth day after menstruation should

therefore be chosen for the marriage ceremony.

It sometimes happens that marriage is consummated with difficulty. To

overcome this, care, management, and forbearance should always be

employed, and anything like precipitation and violence avoided. Only the

consequences of unrestrained impetuosity are to be feared. In those rare

cases in which greater resistance is experienced than can be overcome by

gentle means, the existence of a condition contrary to nature may be

suspected. Violence can then only be productive of injury, and is not

without danger. Medical art should be appealed to, as it alone can

afford assistance in such an emergency.

Although the first conjugal approaches are ordinarily accompanied by

slight flooding, a loss of blood does not always occur. Its absence

proves nothing. The appearance of blood was formerly regarded as a test

of virginity. The Israelites, Arabs, and others carefully preserved and

triumphantly exhibited the evidence of it as an infallible sign of the

virtue of the bride. They were in error. Its presence is as destitute of

signification as its absence; for it is now well known that widows, and

wives long separated from their husbands, often have a like experience.

The temperament is not without its influence. In those of lymphatic

temperament, pale blondes, who often suffer from local discharge and

weakness, the parts being relaxed, there is less pain and little or no

hæmorrhage. In brunettes, who have never had any such troubles, the case

is reversed. The use of baths, unguents, etc., by the young wife,

however serviceable they might prove, is obviously impracticable. This

great change sometimes also produces swelling and inflammation of the

glands of the neck.

Marital relations ordinarily continue during the first few weeks to be

more or less painful. General constitutional disturbance and disorders

of the nervous system often result. These troubles are all increased by

the stupid custom of hurrying the bride from place to place, at a time

when the bodily quiet and the mental calmness and serenity so desirable

to her should be the only objects in view. Too frequent indulgence at

this period is a fruitful source of various inflammatory diseases, and

often occasions temporary sterility and ill-health. The old custom

requiring a three days' separation after the first nuptial approach was

a wise one, securing to the young wife the soothing and restoring

influence of rest. Nothing was lost by it, and much gained.

In a little while, however, all irritation should subside, and no

suffering or distress of any kind, whether general or local, should

attend upon the performance of this important function. The presence of

suffering now becomes indicative of disease. Of this we will speak

hereafter.

SHALL HUSBAND AND WIFE OCCUPY THE SAME ROOM AND BED?

One-third of life is passed in sleep. This period of unconsciousness and

rest is necessary for the renewal of vital strength, and upon its proper

management depends much of the health not merely of the husband and

wife, but of their offspring. A great deal has been written upon the

effect on health and happiness of occupying separate apartments,

separate beds in the same apartment, or the same bed. This vexed

question it is impossible to settle by absolute rules, suitable to all

cases. In general, it may be asserted that there are no valid

physiological reasons for desiring to change the custom which now

prevails in this and most other countries. When both parties are in good

health, and of nearly the same age, one bed-chamber, if sufficiently

roomy, may be used without any disadvantage to either. Such an

arrangement is also to be commended, because it secures closer

companionship, and thus developes and sustains mutual affection.

It is said that in Zurich, in the olden time, when a quarrelsome couple

applied for a divorce, the magistrate refused to listen to them at

first. He ordered that they should be shut up together in one room for

three days, with one bed, one table, one plate, and one cup. Their food

was passed in by attendants, who neither saw nor spoke to them. On the

expiration of the three days, it was usual to find that neither of them

wanted a separation.

As before stated, there are conditions under which sleeping together is

prejudicial to the health. A certain amount of fresh air during the

night is required by every one. Re-breathed air is poisonous. During

sleep constant exhalations take place from the lungs and from the skin,

which are injurious if absorbed. A room twelve feet square is too small

for two persons, unless it is so thoroughly ventilated that there is a

constant change of air. In fact, a sleeping apartment for two persons

should contain an air-space of at least twenty-four hundred cubic feet,

and the facilities for ventilation should be such that the whole amount

will be changed in an hour,--that is, at the rate of forty cubic feet

per minute; for it has been ascertained that twenty cubic feet of fresh

air a minute are required for every healthy adult.

Very young and very old people should never occupy the same bed. When

the married couple hold the relation to each other, in regard to age, of

grandfather and granddaughter, separate apartments should be insisted

upon.

Certain diseases can be produced by sleeping together. The bed of a

consumptive, it is well known, is a powerful source of contagion. In

Italy it is the custom, after death, to destroy the bed-clothes of

consumptive patients. Tubercular disease has, within the past few years,

been transferred from men to animals by inoculation. Authentic cases are

upon record of young robust girls of healthy parentage, marrying men

affected with consumption, acquiring the disease in a short time, and

dying, in some instances, before their husbands. In these significant

cases, the sickly emanations have apparently been communicated during

sleep. When, therefore, either husband or wife is known to have

consumption, it would be highly imprudent for them to pass the long

hours of the night either in the same bed or in the same room.

WHAT KIND OF BED IS MOST HEALTHFUL?

Feather-beds are not conducive to the health of either sex. Mattresses

made of wool, or of wool and horsehair, are much better. The bed should

be opened, and its contents exposed to the air and sunlight, once every

year. Beds long saturated with the night exhalations of their occupants

are not wholesome. A number of ancient writers have alleged--and it has

been reasserted by modern authorities--that sleeping on sponge is of

service to those who desire to increase their families. The mattresses

of compressed sponge recently introduced, therefore, commend themselves

to married people thus situated. Hemlock boughs make a bed which has a

well-established reputation for similar virtues.

The odor of cone-bearing trees has a well-known influence upon the

fruitfulness of wedlock. Those who live in pine forests have ordinarily

large families of children.

Excessive clothing at night is highly injurious. So also is a fire in

the bed-room, except in case of sickness. If the body be too much heated

during sleep, perspiration occurs, or the action of the heart is

increased, and the whole economy becomes excited. Either condition

prevents sound sleep and reinvigoration of the body. Wives in feeble

health, and those liable to attacks of flooding, should therefore have a

particular regard to the quantity of clothing on their beds.

THE DIGNITY AND PROPRIETY OF THE SEXUAL INSTINCT.

A distinguished medical writer has divided women into three classes in

regard to the intensity of the sexual instinct. He asserts that a larger

number than is generally supposed have little or no sexual feeling. A

second class of women, more numerous than these, but still small as

compared with the whole of their sex, are more or less subject to strong

passion. Those of the first class can no more form an idea of the

strength of the impulse in other women, than the blind can of colors.

They therefore often err in their judgments. The third class comprises

the vast majority of women, in whom the sexual appetite is as moderate

as all other appetites.

It is a false notion, and contrary to nature, that this passion in a

woman is a derogation to her sex. The science of physiology indicates

most clearly its propriety and dignity. There are wives who plume

themselves on their repugnance or their distaste for their conjugal

obligations. They speak of their coldness and of the calmness of their

senses, as if these were not defects. Excepting those afflicted with

vices of conformation, or with disorders of sensibility,--which amount

to the same thing,--all wives are called upon to receive and pay the

imposts of love; and those who can withdraw themselves from the

operation of this mysterious law without suffering and with

satisfaction, show themselves by that fact to be incomplete in their

organization, and deficient in the special function of their being.

There should be no passion for one which is not shared by both.

Generation is a duty. The feeling which excites to the preservation of

the species is as proper as that which induces the preservation of the

individual. Passionate, exclusive, and durable love for a particular

individual of the opposite sex, it has been well said, is characteristic

of the human race, and is a mark of distinction from other animals. The

instinct of reproduction in mankind is thus joined to an affectionate

sentiment, which adds to its sweetness and prolongs infinitely its

duration.

Many physiologists have assigned to the feelings an important _rôle_ in

conception, the possibility of which has even been doubted if there be

no passion on the side of the woman. Although this extreme view is not

tenable in the light of modern research, yet all recent authorities

agree that conception is more assured when the two individuals who

co-operate in it participate at the same time in the transports of which

it is the fruit. It is also without doubt true that the disposition of

the woman at that time has much power in the formation of the foetus,

both in modifying its physical constitution and in determining the

character and temperament of its mind. The influence, long ago

attributed by Shakspeare to 'a dull, stale, tired bed' in creating a

'tribe of fops,' is not a mere poet's fancy.

In this manner also may be explained the results of prolonged continence

upon the offspring, for desires are usually vivid in proportion to the

previous period of rest. The father of Montaigne, returning after an

absence of thirty-two years, during which he was engaged in the wars of

Italy, begot his son, so justly celebrated in French literature. The

father of J. J. Rousseau, after a considerable absence in

Constantinople, brought to his wife the reward of a long fidelity.

Sexual passion exerts, therefore, a marked influence upon the future

being before conception, by the impression made upon the elements which

come together to form it. The question now occurs; What effect does its

presence and gratification produce upon the parents? We answer; It is a

natural and healthful impulse. Its influence is salutary. A marked

improvement in the physical condition of delicate women often follows a

happy marriage. This sometimes occurs even in those cases where, from

the nature of the disorder, the reverse might be expected. The utility

of the passions, well directed, has become a maxim in medicine as in

morality. And what passion is more important and fervent than that of

which we write? The fathers in medicine, and their modern followers,

agree in ascribing to the pleasures of love, indulged in with

moderation, activity and lightness of the body, vigor and vivacity of

the mind.

Music, apart from its immense influence on the nervous system in

general, seems sometimes to exercise a special action on the sexual

instinct. Science possesses at the present day some facts beyond

dispute, which prove the great power of music in this respect.

ON THE INDULGENCE AND THE RESTRAINT OF SEXUAL DESIRE.

The act of generation is a voluntary one. But nature has so placed it

under the empire of pleasure, that the voice of discretion is no longer

heard, and the will is often led captive. Hence it is well, for hygienic

reasons, to consider its laws.

The too frequent repetition of the reproductive act is known to be

followed by consequences injurious to the general health. Too rigid

continence is not unattended, in many constitutions, with danger, for

the victory over passion may be dearly bought. Science recommends the

adoption of a wise mean between two extremes equally destructive. By

following her counsel, women may escape from the hysterical and other

disorders which often wait as well upon excess as upon too great denial

of that passion, which claims satisfaction as a natural right.

As men have made laws upon all subjects, we need not be surprised to

learn that they have legislated upon this. History informs us that the

legislators of ancient times have not failed to occupy themselves with

this grave question of conjugal economy. The ordinances of Solon

required that the married should acquit themselves of their duties at

least three times a month; those of Zoroaster prescribed once a week.

Mohammed ordered that any wife neglected by her husband longer than a

week could demand and obtain a divorce. It is not, however, in these,

and other enactments which might be quoted, that guidance is to be

sought. The principles derived from nature and experience are more

valuable than human laws, however venerable; for these too often serve

only to reflect the profound ignorance of their makers.

Moderation should here prevail. Health is thus preserved and

strengthened, and the gratification doubled. The art of seasoning

pleasures in general, consists in being avaricious with them. To abstain

from enjoyment, is the philosophy of the sage, the epicurism of reason.

Proper self-denial in the gratification of the wants of physical love is

a source of good, not only to the individual practising it, but to the

community, as we shall show hereafter. It may be observed for one's own

profit only, or for the benefit of another. The latter is in the end

more conducive to self-interest than the former. A double advantage is

derived therefrom,--gratitude and sympathy returned, and increase of

appetite and of power for future enjoyment. Excess of indulgence results

in the pain of surfeit and the extinction of affection. Earnest love,

satisfying itself with small gratifications, is a more copious source of

happiness than that frequently quenched by full gratification.

What, then, is this moderation which both Hygeia and Venus command?

Here, again, invariable rules are not possible. Science rarely lays down

laws so inflexible as those of the Medes and Persians. She designates

limits. The passage between Scylla and Charybdis is often a wide one.

The folly of the ancient statutes which have been referred to, consists

mainly in their failure to recognise the diverse influence of age,

temperament, seasons, etc.

It almost appears as if there were but one _season_ for generation, that

in which the sun re-warms and vivifies the earth, trees dress in

verdure, and animals respire the soft breath of spring. Then every

living thing reanimates itself. The impulse of reproduction is excited.

Now, also, its gratification is most beneficial to the individual and to

the species. Children conceived in the spring time have greater

vitality, are less apt to die during infancy, than those conceived at

any other time of the year. The statistics of many thousand cases,

recently carefully collated in England, prove this beyond peradventure.

It is well known that a late calf, or one born at the end of the summer,

is not likely to become a well-developed and healthy animal. This has

been attributed to the chilling influence of approaching winter; but it

is capable of another and, perhaps, a truer explanation. Nature's

impulses, therefore, in the spring of the year are for the good of the

race, and may then be more frequently indulged without prejudice to the

individual. Summer is the season which agrees the least with the

exercise of the generative functions. The autumn months are the most

unfruitful. Then, also, derangements of the economy are readily excited

by marital intemperance.

The _temperaments_ exert over reproduction, as over all the other

functions of the body, a powerful influence. Love is said to be the

ruling passion in the sanguine temperament, as ambition is in the

bilious. There is also in some cases a peculiar condition of the nervous

system which impels to, or diverts from, sexual indulgence. In some

women, even in moderation, it acts as a poison, being followed by

headache and prostration, lasting for days.

With advancing years, the fading of sexual desire calls attention to the

general law, that animals and plants, when they become old, are dead to

reproduction. What in early life is followed by temporary languor, in

matured years is succeeded by a train of symptoms much graver and more

durable.

Those who are in feeble health, and particularly those who have delicate

chests, ought to be sober in the gratification of love. Sexual

intercourse has proved mortal after severe hæmorrhages.

All organized beings are powerfully affected by propagation. Animals

become depressed and dejected after it. The flower which shines so

brilliantly at the moment of its amours, after the consummation of that

act, withers and falls. It is wise, therefore, in imparting life, to

have a care not to shorten one's own existence. Nothing is more certain

than that animals and plants lessen the duration of their lives by

multiplied sexual enjoyments. The abuse of these pleasures produces

lassitude and weakness. Beauty of feature and grace of movement are

sacrificed. When the excess is long continued, it occasions spasmodic

and convulsive affections, enfeeblement of the senses, particularly that

of sight, deprivation of the mental functions, loss of memory,

pulmonary consumption and death. One of the most eminent of living

physiologists has asserted that 'development of the individual and the

reproduction of the species stand in a reverse ratio to each other,' and

that 'the highest degree of bodily rigor is inconsistent with more than

a very modest indulgence in sexual intercourse.'

The general principles we have just enunciated are of great importance

in the regulation of the health. They are more suggestive and useful

than the precise rules which have from time to time been laid down on

this subject.

TIMES WHEN MARITAL RELATIONS SHOULD BE SUSPENDED.

There are times at which marital relations are eminently improper. We

are told, I Cor. vii. 3, 4, that neither husband nor wife has the power

to refuse the conjugal obligation when the debt is demanded. But there

are certain legitimate causes for denial by the wife.

A condition of intoxication in the husband is a proper ground for

refusal. Fecundation taking place while either parent has been in this

state has produced idiots and epileptics. This has happened again and

again. The cases on record are so numerous and well-authenticated, as to

admit of no doubt in regard to the fatal effect upon the mind of the

offspring of conception under such circumstances.

Physical degeneracy is also often a consequence of procreation during

the alcoholic intoxication of one or both parents. A peculiar arrest of

growth and development of body and mind takes place, and, in some

instances, the unfortunate children, although living to years of

manhood, remain permanent infants, just able to stand by the side of a

chair, to utter a few simple sounds, and to be amused with childish

toys.

During convalescence from a severe sickness, or when there is any local

or constitutional disease which would be aggravated by sexual

intercourse, it should be abstained from. There is reason for believing

that a being procreated at a period of ill-humour, bodily indisposition,

or nervous debility, may carry with it, during its whole existence, some

small particles of these evils. When there exists any contagious

disease, refusals are of course valid, and often a duty to the unborn.

Poverty, or the wish to have no more children, can only be exceptionally

allowed as a reason for the denial of all conjugal privileges.

The opinion that sexual relations practised during the time of the

menses engender children liable to scrofulous disease, is a mere popular

prejudice. But there are other and better-founded reasons for continence

during these periods.

The question of intercourse during pregnancy and suckling will come up

for consideration when speaking of these conditions hereafter.

CONDITIONS WHEN MARITAL RELATIONS ARE PAINFUL.

Nature has not designed that a function of great moment to the human

race--one involving its very existence--should be attended with pain.

The presence of pleasure is indicative of health, its absence of

disease. But to a woman who has systematically displaced her womb by

years of imprudence in conduct or dress, this act, which should be a

physiological one, and free from any hurtful tendencies becomes a source

of distress and even of illness. The diseases of the womb which

sometimes follow matrimony are not to be traced to excessive indulgence

in many cases, but to indulgence _to any extent_ by those who have

altered the natural relation of the parts before marriage. A prominent

physician, Prof. T. Gaillard Thomas, of New York, has said that 'upon a

woman who has enfeebled her system by habits of indulgence and luxury,

pressed her uterus entirely out of its normal place, and who perhaps

comes to the nuptial bed with some marked uterine disorder, the result

of imprudence at menstrual epochs, sexual intercourse has a _poisonous_

influence. The taking of food into the stomach exerts no hurtful

influence on the digestive system; but the taking of food by a

dyspeptic, who has abused and injured that organ, does so.'

When excessive pain exists, and every attempt occasions nervous

trepidation and apprehension, it is absolutely certain that there is

some diseased condition present, for which proper advice should be

secured at once. Delay in doing so will not remove the necessity for

medical interference in the end, while it will assuredly aggravate the

trouble. Prompt intelligent aid, on the contrary, is usually followed by

the happiest results in such cases.

STERILITY.

Wives who never become mothers are said to be sterile or barren. This

condition is frequently a cause of much unhappiness. Fortune may favor

the married couple in every other respect, yet if she refuse to accord

the boon of even a single heir to heart and home, her smiles will bear

the aspect of frowns. It is then of some interest to inquire into the

causes of this condition, and how to prevent or remedy their operation.

Dr. Duncan, of Edinburgh, has shown, by elaborate research, that in

those wives who are destined to have children, there intervenes, on the

average, about seventeen months between the marriage ceremony and the

birth of the first child, and that the question whether a woman will be

sterile is decided in the first three years of married life. If she have

no children in that time, the chances are thirteen to one against her

ever having any. In those cases, therefore, in which the first three

years of married life are fruitless, it is highly desirable for those

wishing a family to ascertain whether or not the barrenness is dependent

upon any defective condition capable of relief.

The age of a wife at the time of marriage has much to do with the

expectation of children. As the age increases over twenty-five years,

the interval between the marriage and the birth of the first child is

lengthened. For it has been ascertained that not only are women most

fecund from twenty to twenty-four, but that they begin their career of

child-bearing sooner after marriage than their younger or elder sisters.

Early marriages (those before the age of twenty) are sometimes more

fruitful than late ones (those after twenty-four). The interesting

result has further been arrived at in England, that about one in

fourteen of all marriages of women between fifteen and nineteen are

without offspring; that wives married at ages from twenty to twenty-four

inclusive, are almost all fertile; and that after that age the chances

of having no children gradually increases with the greater age at the

time of marriage.

There are two kinds of sterility which are physiological, natural to all

women,--that of young girls before puberty, and that of women who are

past the epoch of the cessation of the menses. In some very rare cases,

conception takes place after cessation. In one published case, it

occurred nine months afterwards, and in another eighteen months. In some

very rare cases, also, conception has taken place before the first

menstruation.

The older a woman is at the time of her marriage, the longer deferred is

the age at which she naturally becomes sterile. She bears children later

in life, in order to compensate, as it were, for her late commencement.

But although she continues to have children until a more advanced age

than the earlier married, yet her actual child-bearing period is

shorter. Nature does not entirely make up at the end of life for the

time lost from the duties of maternity in early womanhood; for the

younger married have really a longer era of fertility than the older,

though it terminates at an earlier age.

A wife who, having had children, has ceased for three years to conceive,

will probably bear no more, and the probability increases as time

elapses. After the first, births take place with an average interval, in

those who continue to be fertile, of about twenty months.

Nursing women are generally sterile, above all, during the first months

which follow accouchement, because the vital forces are then

concentrated on the secretion of the milk. In a majority of instances,

when suckling is prolonged to even nineteen or twenty months, pregnancy

does not take place at all until after weaning.

Climate has also an influence upon the fertility of marriages. In

southern regions more children are born, fewer in northern. The number

of children is in inverse proportion to the amount of food in a country

and in a season. In Belgium, the higher the price of bread the greater

the number of children, and the greater the number of infant deaths.

The seasons exert a power over the increase of population. The spring of

the year, as has already been stated, is the most favourable to

fecundity. It is not known whether day and night have any effect upon

conception.

The worldly condition seems to have much to do with the size of a

family. Rich and fashionable women have fewer children than their poor

and hard-worked neighbours. Wealth and pleasure seem to be often gladly

exchanged for the title of mother.

But it is our more particular object now to inquire into the _causes of

absolute sterility_ in individual cases, rather than to discuss the

operation of general laws upon the fertility of the community at large,

however inviting such a discussion may be. When marriages are fruitless,

the wife is almost always blamed. It is not to be supposed that she is

always in fault. Many husbands are absolutely sterile; for it is a

mistake to consider that every man must be prolific who is vigorous and

enjoys good health. Neither does it follow, because a woman has never

given birth to a living child, that she has not conceived. About one

marriage in eight is unproductive of living children, and therefore

fails to add to the population. The seeds of life have, however, been

more extensively sown among women than these figures would seem to

indicate. If the life of an infant for a long time after birth is a

frail one, before birth its existence is precarious in the extreme. It

often perishes soon after conception. A sickness, unusually long and

profuse, occurring in a young married woman a few days beyond the

regular time, is often the only evidence she will ever have that a life

she has communicated has been ended almost as soon as begun. A tendency

to miscarriage may therefore be all that stands in the way of a family.

This is generally remediable.

It is a well-known fact that frigidity is a frequent cause of

barrenness, as well as a barrier to matrimonial happiness. Its removal,

so desirable, is in many cases possible by detecting and doing away with

the cause. The causes are so various, that their enumeration here would

be tedious and unprofitable, for most of them can only be discovered

and remedied by a practical physician who has studied the particular

case under consideration. So also in regard to the various displacements

and diseases of the womb preventing conception. Proper medical treatment

is usually followed by the best results.

While the fact that pleasure is found in the marital relation is a

favourable augury for impregnation, it has been long noticed that

Messalinas are sterile. It was observed in Paris, that out of one

thousand only six bore children in the course of a year, whereas the

ordinary proportion in that city for that time is three and a half

births for every one hundred of the population.

In some women, nothing seems amiss but too intense passion. Such cases

are much more rare than instances of the opposite extreme producing the

same effect.

A condition of debility, or the presence of certain special poisons in

the blood, may prevent conception, or, what is to all intents the same

thing, cause miscarriage. Many apparently feeble women have large

families. But in numerous instances a tonic and sometimes an alternative

constitutional treatment is required before pregnancy will take place.

On the contrary, there are well-authenticated cases of women who were

stout and barren in opulence becoming thin and prolific in poverty.

The stimulus of novelty to matrimonial intercourse imparted by a short

separation of husband and wife, is often salutary in its influence upon

fertility.

To show upon what slight constitutional differences infertility often

depends, it is merely necessary to allude to the fact, known to every

one, that women who have not had children with one husband often have

them with another. This condition of physiological incompatibility is

evidently not altogether one of the emotional nature, for it is observed

in animals, among whom it is by no means rare to find certain males and

females who will not breed together, although both are known to be

perfectly fruitful with other females and males. The ancients, believing

that sterility was more common with couples of the same temperament and

condition, advised, with Hippocrates, that blonde women should unite

with dark men, thin women with stout men, and _vice versâ._

Barren women should not despair. They sometimes become fecund after a

long lapse of years. In other words, they are sterile only during a

certain period of their lives, and then, a change occurring in their

temperament with age, they become fruitful. History affords a striking

example of this eccentricity of generation, in the birth of Louis XIV.,

whom Anne of Austria, Queen of France brought into the world after a

sterility of twenty-two years. Catherine de Medicis, wife of Henry II.,

became the mother of ten children after a sterility of ten years. Dr.

Tilt, of London, mentions the case of a woman who was married at

eighteen, but although both herself and her husband enjoyed habitual

good health, conception did not take place until she was forty-eight,

when she bore a child. Another case is reported where a well-formed

female married at nineteen, and did not bear a child until she had

reached her fiftieth year.

Families often suffer from the effects of sterility. Civilised nations

never do. Recent researches have been carefully instituted in several

countries to determine the exact power of the human race to preserve its

numbers against the ravages of death. It has been ascertained that

during periods of peace the population can be maintained to the same

point by the additions made to it through the procreating capacity of

only one-half of the women in the community. Nature, therefore, has made

ample provision for preventing a decrease of population through failure

of reproduction.

She has also instituted laws to prevent its undue increase. It would

seem as if the extension of material mental and social comfort and

culture has a tendency to render marriage less prolific, and population

stationary or nearly so. So evident is this tendency, that it has been

laid down as a maxim in sociology by Sismondi, that 'where the number of

marriages is proportionally the greatest, where the greatest number of

persons participate in the duties and the virtues and the happiness of

marriage, the smaller number of children does each marriage produce.'

Thus, to a certain extent, does nature endorse the opinions of those

political economists who assert that increase of population beyond

certain limits is an evil happily averted by wars, famines, and

pestilences, which hence become national blessings in disguise. She,

however, points to the extension of mental and moral education and

refinement as gentler and surer means of reducing plethoric population

than those suggested by Malthus and Mill.

Many causes of sterility, it will therefore be seen, are beyond the

power of man to control. They operate on a large scale for the good of

the whole. With these we have little concern. But there are others which

may be influenced by intelligent endeavor. Some have been already

alluded to, and the remedy suggested; but we will proceed to give more

specific

ADVICE TO WIVES WHO DESIRE TO HAVE CHILDREN.

It has long been known that menstruation presents a group of phenomena

closely allied to fecundity. The first eruption of the menses is an

unequivocal sign of the awakening of the faculty of reproduction. The

cessation of the menstrual epochs is a sign equally certain of the loss

of the faculty of reproduction. When conception has taken place, the

periodical flow is interrupted. Labor occurs at about the time in which

the menses would have appeared. In short, it is a fact, now completely

established, that the time immediately before, and particularly that

after the monthly sickness, is the period the most favorable to

fecundation. It is said that, by following the counsel to this effect

given him by the celebrated Fernel, Henry II., the King of France,

secured to himself offspring after the long sterility of his wife before

referred to. Professor Bedford, of New York, says that he can point to

more than one instance in which, by this advice, he has succeeded in

adding to the happiness of parties who for years had been vainly hoping

for the accomplishment of their wishes.

Repose of the woman, and, above all, sojourn on the bed after the act of

generation, also facilitates conception. Hippocrates, the great father

of medicine, was aware of this, and laid stress upon it in his advice to

sterile wives.

The womb and the breasts are bound together by very strong sympathies:

that which excites the one will stimulate the other. Dr. Charles Loudon

mentions that four out of seven patients, by acting on this hint, became

mothers. A similar idea occurred to the illustrious Marshall Hall, who

advised the application of a strong infant to the breast. Fomentations

of warm milk to the breasts and the corresponding portion of the spinal

column, and the use of the breast-pump two or three times a day, just

before the menstrual period, have also been recommended by good medical

authorities. Horseback exercise, carried to fatigue, seems occasionally

to have conduced to pregnancy.

The greatest hope of success against sterility is to change the dominant

state of the constitution. But this can only be effected under suitable

medical advice. The treatment of sterility--thanks to the recent

researches of Dr. Marion Sims--is much more certain than formerly; and

the intelligent physician is now able to ascertain the cause, and point

out the remedy, where before all was conjecture and experiment. The

sterile wife should, herefore, be slow in abandoning all hope of ever

becoming a mother.

ON THE LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING.

No part of our subject is more delicate than this. Very few people are

willing to listen to a dispassionate discussion of the propriety or

impropriety of limiting within certain bounds the number of children in

a family. On the one side are many worthy physicians and pious

clergymen, who, without listening to any arguments, condemn every effort

to avoid large families; on the other, are numberless wives and

husbands, who turn a deaf ear to the warnings of doctors and the

thunders of divines, and, eager to escape a responsibility they have

assumed, hesitate not to resort to the most dangerous and immoral means

to accomplish this end.

We ask both parties to lay aside prejudice and prepossession, and

examine with us this most important social question in all its bearings.

Let us first inquire whether there is such a thing as

_over-production_--having _too many_ children. Unquestionably there is.

Its disastrous effects on both mother and children are known to every

intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr.

Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. Hardly a day

passes that a physician in large practice does not see instances of

debility and disease resulting from over-much child-bearing. Even the

lower animals illustrate this. Every farmer is aware of the necessity of

limiting the offspring of his mares and cows. How much more severe are

the injuries inflicted on the delicate organization of woman! A very

great mortality, says Dr. Duncan of Edinburgh, attends upon

confinements when they become too frequent.

The evils of a too rapid succession of pregnancies are likewise

conspicuous in the children. There is no more frequent cause, says Dr.

Hillier,--whose authority in such matters none will dispute,--of rickets

than this. Puny, sickly, short-lived offspring follows over-production.

Worse than this, the carefully compiled statistics of Scotland show that

such children are peculiarly liable to idiocy. Adding to an already

excessive number, they come to over-burden a mother already overwhelmed

with progeny. They cannot receive at her hands the attention they

require. Weakly herself, she brings forth weakly infants. 'Thus,'

concludes Dr. Duncan, 'are the accumulated evils of an excessive family

manifest.'

Apart from these considerations, there are certain social relations

which have been thought by some to advise small families. When either

parent suffers from a disease which is transmissible, and wishes to

avoid inflicting misery on an unborn generation, it has been urged that

they should avoid children. Such diseases not unfrequently manifest

themselves after marriage, which is answer enough to the objection that

if they did not wish children they should not marry. 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, and therefore cannot be provided against by a single

life. Can such women be asked to immolate themselves?

It is strange, says that distinguished writer, John Stuart Mill, that

intemperance in drink, or in any other appetite, should be condemned so

readily, but that incontinence in this respect should always meet not

only with indulgence but praise. 'Little improvement' he adds, 'can be

expected in morality until the producing too large families is regarded

with the same feeling as drunkenness, or any other physical excess.' A

well-known medical writer, Dr. Drysdale, in commenting on these words,

adds: 'In this error, if error it be, I also humbly share.'

'When dangerous prejudices,' says Sismondi, the learned historian of

southern Europe, 'have not become accredited, when our true duties

towards those to whom we give life are not obscured in the name of a

sacred authority, no married man will have more children than he can

bring up properly.'

Such is the language of physicians and statesmen; but a stronger appeal

has been made for the sake of morality itself. 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.

Testimony from all quarters, especially from New England, has

accumulated within the past few years to sap our faith in the morality

and religion of American women. This wholesale, fashionable murder, how

are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities

subsist by this slaughter of the innocents, and flaunt their ill-gotten

gains--the price of blood--in our public thoroughfares. Their

advertisements are seen in the newspapers; their soul and body

destroying means are hawked in every town. With such temptation strewn

in her path, what will the woman threatened with an excessive family

do? Will she not yield to evil, and sear her conscience with the

repetition of her wickedness? Alas! daily experience in the heart of a

great city discloses to us only too frequently the fatal ease of such a

course.

In view of the injuries of excessive child-bearing on the one hand, and

of this prevalent crime on the other, a man of genius and sympathy, Dr.

Raciborski of Paris, took the position that the avoidance of offspring

to a certain extent is not only legitimate, but should be recommended as

a measure of public good. 'We know how bitterly we shall be attacked,'

he says, 'for promulgating this doctrine; but if our ideas only render

to society the services we expect of them, we shall have effaced from

the list of crimes the one most atrocious without exception, that of

child-murder, before or after birth, and we shall have poured a little

happiness into the bosoms of despairing families, where poverty is

allied to the knowledge that offspring can be born only to prostitution

or mendicity. The realization of such hopes will console us under the

attacks upon our doctrines.'

It has been eagerly repeated by some, that the wish to limit offspring

arises most frequently from an inordinate desire of indulgence. We reply

to such, that they do not know the human heart, and that they do it

discredit. More frequently the wish springs from a love of children. The

parents seek to avoid having more than they can properly nourish and

educate. They do not wish to leave their sons and daughters in want.

'This,' says a writer in _The Nation_ (of New York), in an article on

this interesting subject,--'this is not the noblest motive of action, of

course, but there is something finely human about it.'

'Very much indeed is it to be wished,' says Dr. Edward Reich, after

reviewing the multitudinous evils which result to individuals and

society from a too rapid increase in families, 'that the function of

reproduction be placed under the dominion of the will.'

Men are very ready to find an excuse for self-indulgence; and if they

cannot get one anywhere else, they seek it in religion. They tell the

woman it is her duty to bear all the children she can. They refer her to

the sturdy, strong-limbed women of early times, to the peasant women of

northern Europe, who emigrate to America, and ask and expect their wives

to rival them in fecundity. Such do not reflect that they have been

brought up to light indoor employment, that their organization is more

nervous and frail, that they absolutely have not the stamina required

for many confinements.

Moreover, they presume too much in asking her to bear them. 'If a woman

has a right to decide on any question,' said a genial physician in the

Massachusetts Medical Society a few years since, 'it certainly is as to

how many children she shall bear.' 'Certainly,' say the editors of a

prominent medical journal, 'wives have a right to demand of their

husbands at least the same consideration which a breeder extends to his

stock.' 'Whenever it becomes unwise that the family should be

increased,' says Sismondi again, '_justice_ and _humanity_ require that

the husband should impose on himself the same restraint which is

submitted to by the unmarried.'

An eminent writer on medical statistics, Dr. Henry MacCormac, says: 'The

brute yields to the generative impulse when it is experienced. He is

troubled by no compunction about the matter. Now, a man ought not to act

like a brute. He has reason to guide and control his appetites. Too

many, however, forget, and act like brutes instead of as men. It would,

in effect, prove very greatly conducive to man's interests were the

generative impulses placed absolutely under the sway of right reason,

chastity, forecast, and justice.'

There is no lack of authorities, medical and non-medical, on this point.

Few who weigh them well will deny that there is such a thing as too

large a family; that there does come a time when a mother can rightfully

demand rest from her labours, in the interest of herself, her children,

and society. When is this time? Here again the impossibility meets us of

stating a definite number of children, and saying, 'This many and no

more.' As in every other department of medicine, averages are of no

avail in guiding individuals. There are women who require no limitation

whatever. They can bear healthy children with rapidity, and suffer no

ill results. There are others--and they are the majority--who should use

temperance in this as in every other function; and there are a few who

should bear no children at all. It is absurd for physicians or

theologians to insist that it is either the physical or moral duty of

the female to have as many children as she possibly can have. It is

time that such an injurious prejudice was discarded, and the truth

recognised, that while marriage looks to offspring as its natural

sequence, there should be inculcated such a thing as marital continence,

and that excess here as elsewhere is repugnant to morality, and is

visited by the laws of physiology with certain and severe punishment on

parent and child.

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 our 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 amours, or that it is injurious

physically and mentally,--that, in short, such advice is useless,

because impracticable.

To such sufferers we reply that Nature herself has provided to some

extent against over-production, and that it is well to avail ourselves

of her provisions. 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 a year old. Be it remembered, however, that nursing, continued too

long, weakens both mother and child, and, moreover, ceases to accomplish

the end for which we now recommend it.

Another provision of nature is, that for a certain period between her

monthly illnesses every woman is sterile. The vesicle which matures in

her ovaries, and is discharged from them by menstruation, remains some

days in the womb before it is passed forth and lost. How long its stay

is we do not definitely know, and probably it differs in individuals.

From ten to twelve days at most are supposed to elapse after the

_cessation_ of the flow before the final ejection of the vesicle. For

some days after this the female is incapable of reproduction. But for

some days _before_ her monthly illness she is liable to conception, as

for that length of time the male element can survive. This period,

therefore, becomes a variable and an undetermined one, and even when

known, its observation demands a large amount of self-control.

There is one method widely in use in this country for the limitation of

offspring which deserves only the most unqualified condemnation, which

is certain to bring upon the perpetrators swift and terrible

retribution, and which is opposed to every sentiment of nature and

morality. We mean

THE CRIME OF ABORTION.

_From the moment of conception_ a new life commences; a new individual

exists; another child is added to the family. The mother who

deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by want of care, or

by taking drugs, or using instruments, commits as great a crime, is just

as guilty, as if she strangled her new-born infant, or as if she

snatched from her own breast her six-months' darling and dashed out its

brains against the wall. Its blood is upon her head, and as sure as

there is a God and a judgment, that blood will be required of her. The

crime she commits is _murder_, _child-murder_,--the slaughter of a

speechless, helpless being, whom it is her duty, beyond all things else,

to cherish and preserve.

This crime is common; it is fearfully prevalent. Hundreds of persons are

devoted to its perpetration. It is their trade. In nearly every village

its ministers stretch out their bloody hands to lead the weak woman to

suffering, remorse, and death. Those who submit to their treatment are

not generally unmarried women who have lost their virtue, but the

mothers of families, respectable _Christian_ matrons, members of

churches, and walking in the better classes of society.

We appeal to all such with earnest and with threatening words. If they

have no feeling for the fruit of their womb, if maternal sentiment is so

callous in their breasts, let them know that such produced abortions are

the constant cause of violent and dangerous womb diseases, and

frequently of early death; that they bring on mental weakness, and often

insanity; that they are the most certain means to destroy domestic

happiness which can be adopted. Better, far better, to bear a child

every year for twenty years than to resort to such a wicked and

injurious step; better to die, if needs be, in the pangs of childbirth,

than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.

There is no need of either. By the moderation we have mentioned, it is

in the power of any woman to avoid the evils of an excessive family,

without injury and without criminality.

We feel obliged to speak in plain language of this hidden sin, because

so many are ignorant that it is a sin. Only within a few years have

those who take in charge the public morals spoken of it in such terms

that this excuse of ignorance is no longer admissible.

Bishop Coxe, of New York, in a pastoral letter, the late Archbishop

Spaulding, Catholic Primate of the United States, in an address at the

close of a recent Provincial Council at Baltimore, the Old and New

School Presbyterian Churches, at a meeting in Philadelphia, have all

pronounced the severest judgments against those guilty of antenatal

infanticide. Appeals through the press have been made by physicians of

high standing, and by eminent divines, which should be in the hands of

every one.

The chiefest difficulty hitherto has been, that while women were warned

against the evils of abortion, they were offered no escape from the

exhaustion and dangers of excessive child-bearing. This difficulty we

have fully recognised and fairly met, and, we believe, in such a manner

that neither the accuracy of our statements nor the purity of our

motives can be doubted. Should our position be attacked, however, the

medical man must know that in opposing our views, he opposes those of

the most distinguished physicians in Europe and in America; and the

theologian should be warned that, when a neglect of physical laws leads

to moral evil, the only way to correct this evil is to remedy the

neglect. In this case the neglect is over-production; the evil is

abortion.

NATURE OF CONCEPTION.

The theories which have been advanced to explain the manner in which the

human species is continued and reproduced are very numerous. Including

the hypotheses of the ancient philosophers, some two hundred and fifty

have been promulgated by the greatest thinkers of all times. The older

ones do not deserve mention, as they are replete with absurdities. Such,

for instance, is that of Pythagoras, which supposed that a vapor

descended from the brain and formed the embryo. The Scythians therefore

took blood from the veins behind the ears to produce impotence and

sterility. Modern science has shown the total error of this and many

other views formerly entertained on this subject. Has galvanism or

electricity any share in the mysterious function? Some among the modern

physiologists have supposed that there is an electrical or magnetic

influence which effects generation. Even within a few months, Dr. Harvey

L. Byrd, Professor of Obstetrics in the Medical Department of Washington

University of Baltimore, has asserted that he has 'every reason for

believing that fecundation or impregnation is always an electrical

phenomenon; ... it results from the completion of an electric

circle,--the union of positive and negative electricities.' This,

however, is not accepted by all as the dictum of modern science.

Physiology has clearly established that the new being is the result of

contact between the male element, an independent, living animal, on the

one part, and the female element, a matured egg, on the other, involving

the union of the contents of two peculiar cells. Without such contact,

fecundation cannot take place.

The only matter of practical moment in connection with this most

interesting function which we have to announce, is the influence of the

mind on the offspring at the time of generation. This influence has long

been remarked in regard to animals as well as men. Jacob was aware of it

when he made his shrewd bargain with Laban for 'all the speckled and

spotted cattle' as his hire. For we are told that then 'Jacob took him

rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled

white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters

in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should

conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the

rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. And

Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks towards

the ringstraked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his

own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it

came to pass, whenever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid

the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might

conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them

not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.'

The impressions conveyed to the brain through the sense of sight are

here asserted by the writer of Genesis to have influenced the system of

the ewes so that they brought forth young marked in the same manner as

the rods placed before their eyes. It is not said that there was any

miraculous interposition; but the whole account is given as if it were

an everyday, natural, and well-known occurrence.

The Greeks, a people renowned for their physical beauty, seemed to be

aware of the value of mental impressions; for in their apartments they

were lavish of statues and paintings representing the gods and

goddesses, delineated in accordance with the best models of art.

Dionysus, tyrant of Syracuse, caused the portrait of the beautiful Jason

to be suspended before the nuptial bed, in order to obtain a handsome

child.

The following is related of the celebrated Galen:--A Roman magistrate,

little, ugly, and hunch-backed, had by his wife a child exactly

resembling the statue of Æsop. Frightened at the sight of this little

monster, and fearful of becoming the father of a posterity so deformed,

he went to consult Galen, the most distinguished physician of his time,

who counseled him to place three statues of love around the conjugal

bed, one at the foot, the others, one on each side, in order that the

eyes of his young spouse might be constantly feasted on these charming

figures. The magistrate followed strictly the advice of the physician,

and it is recorded that his wife bore him a child surpassing in beauty

all his hopes.

The fact that the attributes of the child are determined to an important

extent by the bodily and mental condition of the parents at the time of

conception, explains the marked difference almost constantly observed

between children born to the same parents, however strong the family

likeness may be among them. The changes constantly going on in the

physical, intellectual, and emotional states of the parents, produce a

corresponding alteration in offspring conceived at successive intervals.

Twins generally resemble each other very closely in every respect.

Inasmuch, therefore, as the moment of generation is of much more

importance than is commonly believed in its effect upon the moral and

physical life of the future being, it is to be wished that parents would

pay some attention to this subject. It is the moment of creation,--that

in which the first vital power is communicated to the new creature. Not

without reason has nature associated with it the highest sensual

exaltation of our existence. Dr. Hufeland, the author of _The Art of

Prolonging Life_, has said, 'In my opinion it is of the utmost

importance that this moment should be confined to a period when the

sensation of collected powers, ardent passion, and a mind cheerful and

free from care, invite to it on both sides.'

SIGNS OF FRUITFUL CONJUNCTION.

There are some women in whom the act of conception is attended with

certain sympathetic affections, such as faintness, vertigo, etc., by

which they know that it has taken place.

Swelling of the neck was regarded in ancient times as a sign of

conception. Its truthfulness has been reaffirmed by modern authorities.

It has also been asserted that impregnation generally excites a

universal tremor in all parts of the body, and that it is associated

with more than an ordinary degree of pleasure.

It must not be supposed, however, that enjoyment and impregnation bear

necessarily to each other the relation of cause and effect, although

this is the popular opinion. From too implicit a reliance upon this

current belief, wives are often incredulous as to their true condition.

It is a fact that in some cases sickness at the stomach manifests itself

almost simultaneously with the act of fecundation. Authentic instances

are on record of wives reckoning their confinement nine months from the

first feeling of nausea, without ever making a mistake.

In conclusion, it may be said that peculiar sensations are often

experienced, frequently of a character difficult to explain; and many

modern authors attach to them a marked value. In this manner it is

possible for a woman to be satisfied at the moment as to the change

which has taken place; yet the evidence is often deceptive, and

sometimes nothing peculiar is noticed.

From the period of conception the mother has no direct knowledge of the

process that is going on within, excepting by the effects of the

increasing pressure upon other parts, until 'quickening' takes place,

which belongs to another part of our subject.

The signs and symptoms of pregnancy will be explained in full when we

come to treat of the pregnant condition in a future chapter.

HOW TO RETAIN THE AFFECTIONS OF A HUSBAND.

Ah! this is a secret indeed!--worth the wand of the magician, the lamp

of Aladdin, or the wishing-cap of the fairy. What could any of these

give in exchange for the love of a husband? Yet this pearl of great

price, how often is it treated as lightly and carelessly as if it was

any bauble of Brummagem!

'My husband,' we have heard young wives say, 'why, it is his duty to

love me. Why did he marry me if he is not going to love me, love me

fondly, love me ever?'

Yes, we all know

Love the gift, is love the debt.

But in this world of ours it is often hard to get one's own; and when

got, our care must never cease, lest it be wrested from us. The plant

you bought at the greenhouse, and that now blossoms on your window-sill,

became yours by purchase, but it has required your daily care to keep it

alive and persuade it to unfold its blossoms. Infinitely more delicate

is this plant of love. It, too, you purchased. You gave in exchange for

it your own heart. It too, you must daily tend with constant solicitude,

lest it wither and die.

In this country, some women think that anything is good enough to wear

at home. They go about in slatternly morning dresses, unkempt hair, and

slippers down at heel. 'Nobody will see me,' they say 'but my husband.'

Let them learn a lesson from the wives of the Orient.

In those countries a married woman never goes abroad except in long

sombre robes and thick veil. An English lady visiting the wife of one of

the wealthy merchants, found her always in full dress, with toilet as

carefully arranged as if she were going to a ball.

'Why!' exclaimed the visitor, at length, 'is it possible that you take

all this trouble to dress for nobody but your husband?'

'Do, then,' asked the lady in reply, 'the wives of Englishmen dress for

the sake of pleasing other men?'

The visitor was mute.

Not that we would wish our women to be for ever in full costume at home.

That would be alarming. But she who neglects neatness in attire, and,

above all, cleanliness of person, runs a great danger of creating a

sentiment of disgust in those around her. Nothing is more repugnant to

the husband's senses than bad odors, and, for reasons which every woman

knows, women who neglect cleanliness are peculiarly liable to them. When

simple means do not remove them, recourse should be promptly had to a

medical adviser.

So it is with bad breath. This sometimes arises from neglect of the

teeth, sometimes from diseases of the stomach, lungs, etc. A man of

delicate olfactories is almost forced to hold at arm's length a wife

with a fetid breath.

There are some women--we have treated several--who are plagued with a

most disagreeable perspiration, especially about the feet, the arms,

etc. Such should not marry until this is cured. It is a rule among army

surgeons, to be chary about giving men their discharge from military

service on surgeon's certificate. But fetid feet are at times so

horribly offensive, that they are considered an allowable cause for

discharge. No doubt, in some of our States they would be received as a

valid ground for divorce!--certainly with quite as much reason as many

of the grounds usually alleged.

In short, the judicious employment of all the harmless arts of the

toilet, and of those numerous and effective means which modern science

offers, to acquire, to preserve, and to embellish beauty, is a duty

which woman, whether married or single, should never neglect. With very

little trouble, the good looks and freshness of youth can be guarded

almost to old age; and, even when hopelessly gone, simple and harmless

means are at hand to repair the injuries of years, or at least to

conceal them. But this is an art which would require a whole volume to

treat of, and which we cannot here touch upon.

INHERITANCE.

We now come to the consideration of a very wonderful subject,--that of

inheritance. It is one of absorbing interest, both because of the

curious facts it presents, and of the great practical bearing it has

upon the welfare of every individual.

In order to the better understanding of this matter, it is necessary

at the outset to make a distinction between four kinds or varieties of

inheritance. The most generally recognised is _direct inheritance_,--that

in which the children partake of the qualities of the father and

mother. But a child may not resemble either parent, while it bears a

striking likeness to an uncle or aunt. This constitutes _indirect_

inheritance. Again, a child may be more like one of its grandparents

than either its father or mother. Or, what is still more astonishing,

it may display some of the characteristics possessed only by a

remote ancestor. This form of inheritance is known by the scientific

term _atavism_, derived from the Latin word _atavus_, meaning an

ancestor. It is curious to note in this connection that sometimes a son

resembles more closely his maternal than his paternal grandsire in some

male attribute,--as a peculiarity of beard, or certain diseases confined

to the male sex. Though the mother cannot possess or exhibit such male

qualities, she has transmitted them through her blood, from her father to

her son.

The fourth variety of inheritance is that in which the child resembles

neither parent, but the first husband of its mother. A woman contracting

a second marriage, transmits to the offspring of that marriage the

peculiarities she has received through the first union. Breeders of

stock know this tendency, and prevent their brood-mares, cows, or sheep

from running with males of an inferior stock. Thus the diseases of a man

may be transmitted to children which are not his own. Even though dead,

he continues to exert an influence over the future offspring of his

wife, by means of the ineffaceable impress he had made in the conjugal

relation upon her whole system, as we have previously mentioned. The

mother finds in the children of her second marriage

'... the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still.'

A child may therefore suffer through the operation of this mysterious

and inexorable law, for sins committed not by its own father, but by the

first husband of its mother. What a serious matter, then, is that

relation between the sexes called marriage! How far-reaching are its

responsibilities!

A distinction must here be drawn between hereditary transmission and the

possession of qualities at birth, which have not been the result of any

impression received from the system of father or mother, but due to

mental influences or accidents operating through the mother. A child may

be born idiotic or deformed, not because either parent or one of its

ancestors was thus affected, but from the influence of some severe

mental shock received by the mother during her pregnancy. This subject

of maternal impressions will come up for separate consideration in the

discussion of pregnancy. Again, a child may be epileptic, although there

is no epilepsy in the family, simply because of the intoxication of the

father or mother at the time of the intercourse resulting in conception.

Such cases are not due to hereditary transmission, for that cannot be

hereditary which has been possessed by neither the parents nor any other

relatives.

In considering the effects of inheritance, we will first pass in review

those connected with the physical constitution. These are exceedingly

common and universally known. Fortunately, not merely are evil qualities

inherited, but beauty, health, vigor, and longevity also.

BEAUTY.

Good looks are characteristic of certain families. Alcibiades, the

handsomest among the Grecians of his time, descended from ancestors

remarkable for their beauty. So well and long has the desirable

influence of inheritance in this respect been recognised, that there

existed in Crete an ancient law which ordained that each year the most

beautiful among the young men and women should be chosen and forced to

marry, in order to perpetuate the type of their beauty. Irregularities

of feature are transmitted from parent to child through many

generations. The aquiline nose has existed some centuries, and is yet

hereditary in the Bourbon family. The hereditary under-lip of the House

of Hapsburg is another example. When the poet Savage speaks of

'The tenth transmitter of a foolish face,'

he scarcely exaggerates what is often seen in families where some

strongly-marked feature or expression is long predominant or reappears

in successive generations.

NECK AND LIMBS.

The form and length of the neck and limbs are frequently hereditary, as

is also the height of the body. The union of two tall persons engenders

tall children. The father of Frederick the Great secured for himself a

regiment of men of gigantic stature, by permitting the marriage of his

guards only with women of similar height. A tendency to obesity often

appears in generation after generation of a family. Yet such cases are

within the reach of medical art.

COMPLEXION.

Even the complexion is not exempt from this influence. Blondes

ordinarily procreate blondes, and dark parents have dark-skinned

children. An union in marriage of fair and dark complexions results in

an intermediate shade in the offspring. Not always, however; for it has

been asserted that the complexion chiefly follows that of the father.

The offspring of a black father and a white mother is much darker than

the progeny of a white father and a dark mother. In explanation of this

fact, it has been said that the mother is not impressed by her own

color, because she does not look upon herself, while the father's

complexion attracts her attention, and thus gives a darker tinge to the

offspring. Black hens frequently lay dark eggs; but the reverse is more

generally found to be the case.

PHYSICAL QUALITIES TRANSMITTED BY EACH PARENT.

In general, it may be said that there exists a tendency on the part of

the father to transmit the external appearance, the configuration of the

head and limbs, the peculiarities of the senses and of the skin and the

muscular condition; while the size of the body, and the general

temperament or constitution of the child, are derived from the mother.

Among animals, the mule, which is the produce of the male ass and the

mare, is essentially a modified ass having the general configuration of

its sire, but the rounded trunk and larger size of its dam. On the other

hand, the hinny, which is the offspring of the stallion and the she-ass,

is essentially a modified horse, having the general configuration of the

horse, but being a much smaller animal than its sire, and therefore

approaching the dam in size as well as in the comparative narrowness of

its trunk. The operation of this principle, though general, is not

universal. Exceptions may easily be cited. In almost every large family

it will be observed that the likeness to the father predominates in some

children, while others most resemble the mother. It is rare to meet with

instances in which some distinctive traits of both parents may not be

traced in the offspring.

HAIR.

Peculiarities in the colour and structure of the hair are transmitted.

Darwin mentions a family in which, for many generations, some of the

members had a single lock differently coloured from the rest of the

hair.

TEMPERAMENT.

The law of inheritance rules in regard to the production of the

temperament. The crossing of one temperament with another in marriage,

produces a modification in the offspring generally advantageous.

FERTILITY.

A peculiar aptitude for procreation is sometimes hereditary. The

children of prolific parents are themselves prolific. It is related that

a French peasant woman was confined ten times in fifteen years. Her

pregnancies, always multiple, produced twenty-eight children. At her

last confinement she had three daughters, who all lived, married, and

gave birth to children,--the first to twenty-six, the second to

thirty-one, and the third to twenty-seven. On the contrary, sometimes a

tendency to sterility is found fixed upon certain families, from which

they can only escape by the most assiduous care.

LONGEVITY.

In the vegetable kingdom, the oak inherits the power to live many years,

while the peach-tree must die in a short time. In the animal kingdom,

the robin becomes grey and old at ten years of age; the rook caws

lustily until a hundred. The ass is much longer-lived than the horse.

The mule illustrates in a striking manner the hereditary tendency of

longevity. It has the size of the horse, the long life of the ass. The

weaker the ass, the larger, the stronger, and the shorter-lived and more

horse-like the mule. It is also a curious and instructive fact, that

this animal is the toughest after it has passed the age of the horse:

the inherited influence of the horse having been expended, the vitality

and hardiness of the ass remain.

It is universally conceded, that longevity is the privileged possession

of some lineages. That famous instance of old age, Thomas Parr, the

best authenticated on record, may be mentioned in illustration. It is

vouched for by Harvey, the distinguished discoverer of the circulation

of the blood. Parr died in the reign of Charles the First, at the age of

152, after having lived under nine sovereigns of England. He left a

daughter aged 127. His father had attained to a great age, and his

great-grandson died at Cork at the age of 103.

DEFORMITIES.

Deformities are undoubtedly sometimes transmitted to the progeny. It is

by no means rare to find that the immediate ancestors of those afflicted

with superfluous fingers and toes, club-feet, or hare-lips, were also

the subjects of these malformations. There are one or two families in

Germany whose members pride themselves upon the possession of an extra

thumb; and there is an Arab chieftain whose ancestors have from time

immemorial been distinguished by a double thumb upon the right hand.

Darwin gives many similar instances. A case of curious displacement of

the knee-pans is recorded, in which the father, sister, son, and the son

of the half-brother by the same father, had all the same malformation.

PERSONAL PECULIARITIES.

Gait, gestures, voice, general bearing, are all inherited. Peculiar

manners, passing into tricks, are often transmitted, as in the case,

often quoted, of the father who generally slept on his back with his

right leg crossed over the left, and whose daughter, whilst an infant

in the cradle, followed exactly the same habit, though an attempt was

made to cure her. Left-handedness is not unfrequently hereditary. It

would be very easy to go on multiplying instances, but we forbear.

HOW TO HAVE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN.

A practical question now naturally suggests itself. How can the vices of

conformation be avoided, and beauty secured? The art of having handsome

children, known under the name of _callipædia_, has received much

attention, more, perhaps, in years gone by than of late. The noted Abbot

Quillet wrote a book in Latin on the subject. Many other works, in which

astrology plays a prominent part, were written on this art in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

We have already stated that well-formed parents will transmit these

qualities to their children, with scarcely an exception. Like begets

like. Unfortunately, all parents are not beautiful. Yet all desire

beautiful offspring. The body of the child can be influenced by the mind

of the parent, particularly of the mother. A mind habitually filled with

pleasant fancies and charming images is not without its effect upon the

offspring.

The statues of Apollo, Castor and Pollux, Venus, Hebe, and the other

gods and goddesses which were so numerous in the gardens and public

places in Greece, reproduced themselves in the sons and daughters of the

passers-by. We know also that marriages contracted at an age too early

or too late, are apt to give imperfectly-developed children. The

crossing of temperaments and of nationalities beautifies the offspring.

The custom which has prevailed, in many countries, among the nobility,

of purchasing the handsomest girls they could find for their wives, has

laid the foundation of a higher type of features among the ruling

classes. To obtain this desired end, conception should take place only

when both parents are in the best physical condition, at the proper

season of the year, and with mutual passion. (We have already hinted how

this can be regulated.) During pregnancy the mother should often have

some painting or engraving representing cheerful and beautiful figures

before her eyes, or often contemplate some graceful statue. She should

avoid looking at, or thinking of ugly people, or those marked with

disfiguring diseases. She should take every precaution to escape injury,

fright, and disease of any kind, especially chicken-pox, erysipelas, or

such disorders as leave marks on the person. She should keep herself

well nourished, as want of food nearly always injures the child. She

should avoid ungraceful positions and awkward attitudes, as by some

mysterious sympathy these are impressed on the child she carries. Let

her cultivate grace and beauty in herself at such a time, and she will

endow her child with them. As anger and irritability leave imprints on

the features, she should maintain serenity and calmness.

INHERITANCE OF TALENT AND GENIUS.

The effects of inheritance are perhaps more marked upon the mind than

upon the body. This need not surprise us. If the peculiar form of the

brain can be transmitted, the mental attributes, the result of its

organization, must necessarily also be transmitted.

It is a matter of daily observation, that parents gifted with bright

minds, cultivated by education, generally engender intelligent children;

while the offspring of those steeped in ignorance are stupid from birth.

It may be objected, that men the most remarkable in ancient or modern

times, as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakspeare, Milton, Buffon,

Cuvier, etc., have not transmitted their vast intellectual powers to

their progeny. In explanation, it has been stated that what is known as

genius is not transmissible. The creation of a man of genius seems to

require a special effort of Nature, after which, as if fatigued, she

reposes a long time before again making a similar effort. But it may

well be doubted whether even those complex mental attributes on which

genius and talent depend are not inheritable, particularly when both

parents are thus endowed. That distinguished men do not more frequently

have distinguished sons, may readily be accounted for when it is

recollected that the inherited character is due to the combined

influence of both parents. The desirable qualities of the father may

therefore be neutralized in the offspring by the opposite or defective

qualities of the mother. That contrasts in the disposition of parents

are rather the rule than the exception, we have already shown. Every one

tends to unite himself in friendship or love with a different character

from his own, seeking thereby to supplement the qualities in which he

feels his own nature to be deficient. The mother, therefore, may weaken,

and perhaps obliterate, the qualities transmitted by the father. Again,

the influence of some remote ancestors may make itself felt upon the

offspring through the operation of the law of atavism, before alluded

to, and thus prevent the children from equaling their parents in their

natural endowments. Notwithstanding the workings of these opposing

forces, and others which might be mentioned, we find abundant

illustration of the hereditary nature of talent and character.

Of six hundred and five names occurring in a biographical dictionary

devoted to men distinguished as great founders and originators, between

the years 1453 and 1853, there were, as has been pointed out by Mr.

Galton, no less than one hundred and two relationships, or one in six.

Walford's _Men of the Time_ contains an account of the distinguished men

in England, the Continent, and America, then living. Under the letter A

there are eighty-five names, and no less than twenty-five of these, or

one in three and a half, have relatives also in the list; twelve of them

are brothers, and eleven fathers and sons. In Bryan's _Dictionary of

Painters_, the letter A contains three hundred and ninety-one names of

men, of whom sixty-five are near relatives, or one in six; thirty-three

of them are fathers and sons, and thirty are brothers. In Fétis's

_Biographie Universelle des Musiciens_, the letter A contains five

hundred and fifteen names, of which fifty are near relatives, or one in

ten. Confining ourselves to literature alone, it has been found that it

is one to six and a half that a very distinguished literary man has a

very distinguished literary relative; and it is one to twenty-eight that

the relation is father and son, or brother and brother, respectively.

Among the thirty-nine Chancellors of England, sixteen had kinsmen of

eminence; thirteen of them had kinsmen of great eminence. These thirteen

out of thirty-nine, or one in three, are certainly remarkable instances

of the influence of inheritance. A similar examination has been

instituted in regard to the judges of the Supreme Court of

Massachusetts, and other American States, with like results. The Greek

poet Æschylus counted eight poets and four musicians among his

ancestors. The greater part of the celebrated sculptors of ancient

Greece descended from a family of sculptors. The same is true of the

great painters. The sister of Mozart shared the musical talent of her

brother. As there are reasons, to be detailed hereafter, for believing

that the influence of the mother is even greater than that of the

father, how vastly would the offspring be improved if distinguished men

united themselves in marriage to distinguished women for generation

after generation!

INFLUENCE OF FATHERS OVER DAUGHTERS; OF MOTHERS OVER SONS.

We have already called attention to the parts of the physical

organization transmitted by the father and by the mother. It would seem,

moreover, that each parent exercises a special influence over the child

according to its sex. The father transmits to the daughters the form of

the head, the framework of the chest and of the superior extremities,

while the conformation of the lower portion of the body and the inferior

extremities is transmitted by the mother. With the sons this is

reversed. They derive from the mother the shape of the head and of the

superior extremities, and resemble the father in the trunk and inferior

extremities. From this it therefore results, that boys procreated by

intelligent women will be intelligent, and that girls procreated by

fathers of talent will inherit their mental capacity. The mothers of a

nation, though unseen and unacknowledged in the halls of legislation,

determine in this subtle manner the character of the laws.

History informs us that the greater part of the women who have been

celebrated for their intelligence, reflected the genius of their

fathers. Arete, the most celebrated woman of her time, on account of the

extent of her knowledge, was the daughter of the distinguished

philosopher Aristippus, disciple of Socrates. Cornelia, the mother of

the Gracchi, was a daughter of Scipio. The daughter of the Roman emperor

Caligula was as cruel as her father. Marcus Aurelius inherited the

virtues of his mother, and Commodus the vices of his. Charlemagne shut

his eyes upon the faults of his daughters, because they recalled his

own. Genghis-Khan, the renowned Asiatic conqueror, had for his mother a

warlike woman. Tamerlane, the greatest warrior of the fourteenth

century, was descended from Genghis-Khan by the female side. Catherine

de Medicis was as crafty and deceitful as her father, and more

superstitious and cruel. She had two sons worthy of herself,--Charles

IX., who shot the Protestants, and Henry III., who assassinated the

Guises. Her daughter, Margaret of Valois, recalled her father by her

gentle manners. The cruel deeds of Alexander VI., the dark records of

which will for ever stain the pages of history, are only rivaled in

atrocity by those of his children, the infamous Borgias. Arete, Hypatia,

Madame de Staël, and George Sand,--all four had philosophers for their

fathers. The mother of Bernardo Tasso had the gift of poetry. Buffon

often speaks of the rich imagination of his mother. The poet Burns,

'Rare Ben Jonson,' Goethe, Walter Scott, Byron, and Lamartine,--all were

born of women remarkable for their vivacity and brilliancy of language.

Byron, in his journal, attributes his hypochondria to a hereditary taint

derived from his mother, who was its victim in its most furious form;

and her father 'was strongly suspected of suicide.' He was said to have

resembled more his maternal grandfather than any of his father's family.

The daughter of Molière was like her father in her wit and humor.

Beethoven had for a maternal grandmother an excellent musician. The

mother of Mozart gave the first lessons to her son. A crowd of composers

have descended from John Sebastian Bach, who long stood unrivaled as a

performer on the organ, and composer for that instrument. It may be

remarked here, that it is almost invariably true that the ability or

inability to acquire a knowledge of music is derived from the ancestry.

Parents who cannot turn a tune or tell one note from another, bring

forth children equally unmoved 'with concord of sweet sounds.' Examples

could easily be adduced at still greater length, illustrating the direct

influence of the father over the daughter, and of the mother over the

son. Those given will suffice.

INFLUENCE Of EDUCATION OVER INHERITED QUALITIES.

In correcting the evil effects of inheritance on the mind, education

plays a very important part. A child born with a tendency to some vice

or intellectual trait, may have this tendency entirely overcome, or at

least modified, by training. So, also, virtues implanted by nature may

be lost during the plastic days of youth, in consequence of bad

associations and bad habits.

Education can therefore do much to alter inherited mental and moral

qualities. Can it be invoked to prevent the transmission of undesirable

traits, and secure the good? Everything that we have at birth is a

heritage from our ancestors. Can virtuous habits be transmitted? Can we

secure virtues in our children by possessing them ourselves? Science

sadly says, through her latest votaries, that we are scarcely more than

passive transmitters of a nature we have received, and which we have no

power to modify. It is only after exposure during several generations to

changed conditions or habits, that any modification in the offspring

ensues. The son of an old soldier learns his drill no more quickly than

the son of an artisan. We must therefore come to the conclusion with Mr.

Galton, that to a great extent our own embryos have sprung immediately

from the embryos whence our parents were developed, and these from the

embryos of their parents, and so on for ever. Hence we are still

barbarians in our nature. We show it in a thousand ways. Children, who

love to dig and play in the dirt, have inherited that instinct from

untold generations of ancestors. Our remote forefathers were barbarians,

who dug with their nails to get at the roots on which they lived. The

delicately-reared child reverts to primeval habits. In like manner, the

silk-haired, parlor-nurtured spaniel springs from the caressing arms of

its mistress, to revel in the filth of the roadside. It is the breaking

out of inherited instinct.

TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE.

Perhaps the most important part of the subject of inheritance, is that

which remains for us to consider in relation to the transmission of

disease, or of a predisposition to it.

Consumption,--that dread foe of modern life,--is the most frequently

encountered of all affections as the result of inherited predisposition.

Indeed some of the most eminent physicians have believed it is never

produced in any other way. Heart disease, disease of the throat,

excessive obesity, affections of the skin, asthma, disorders of the

brain and nervous system, gout, rheumatism, and cancer, are all

hereditary. A tendency to bleed frequently, profusely and

uncontrollably, from trifling wounds, is often met with as a family

affection.

The inheritance of diseased conditions is also _influenced by the sex_.

A parent may transmit disease exclusively to children of the same sex,

or exclusively to those of the opposite sex. Thus, a horn-like

projection on the skin peculiar to the Lambert family was transmitted

from the father to his sons and grandsons alone. So mothers have through

several generations transmitted to their daughters alone supernumerary

fingers, color-blindness, and other deformities and diseases. As a

general rule, any disease acquired during the life of either parent,

strongly tends to be inherited by the offspring of the same sex rather

than the opposite. We have spoken of the apparently reverse tendency in

regard to the transmission of genius and talent.

ARE MUTILATIONS INHERITABLE?

How, it may be inquired, is it in regard to the inheritance of parts

mutilated and altered by injuries and disease during the life of either

parent? In some cases mutilations have been practised for many

generations, without any inherited result. Different races of men have

knocked out their upper teeth, cut off the joints of their fingers, made

immense holes through their ears and nostrils, and deep gashes in

various parts of their bodies, and yet there is no reason for supposing

that these mutilations have been inherited. The _Comprachicos_, a

hideous and strange association of men and women, existed in the

seventeenth century, whose business it was to buy children and make of

them monsters. Victor Hugo, in a recent work, has graphically told how

they took a face and made of it a snout, how they bent down growth,

kneaded the physiognomy, distorted the eyes, and in other ways

disfigured 'the human form divine,' in order to make fantastic

playthings for the amusement of the noble-born. But history does not

state that these deformities were inherited; certainly no race of

monsters has resulted. The pits from small-pox are not inherited, though

many successive generations must have been thus pitted by that disease

before the beneficent discovery of the immortal Jenner. Children born

with scars left by pustules have had small-pox in the womb, acquired

through the system of the mother. On the other hand, the lower animals,

cats, dogs, and horses, which have had their tails and legs artificially

altered or injured, have produced offspring with the same condition of

parts. A man who had his little finger on the right hand almost cut off,

and which in consequence grew crooked, had sons with the same finger on

the same hand similarly crooked. The eminent physiologist Dr.

Brown-Séquard mentions, that many young guinea-pigs inherited an

epileptic tendency from parents which had been subjected to an operation

at his hands resulting in the artificial production of fits; while a

large number of guinea-pigs bred from animals which had not been

operated on were not thus affected. At any rate, it cannot but be

admitted that injuries and mutilations which cause disease, are

occasionally inherited. But many cases of deformities existing at birth,

as hare-lip, are not due to inheritance, although present in the father.

They arise from a change effected in the child while in the womb,

through an impression made upon the mind of the mother, as will be shown

hereafter.

LATE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF INHERITANCE.

Not only are diseases inherited which make their appearance at birth,

but those which defer their exhibition until a certain period of life

corresponding with that at which they showed themselves in the parents.

Thus in the Lambert family, before referred to, the porcupine

excrescence on the skin began to grow in the father and sons at the same

age, namely, about nine weeks after birth. In an extraordinary hairy

family, which has been described, children were produced during three

generations with hairy ears: in the father, the hair began to grow over

his body at six years old; in his daughter somewhat earlier, namely, at

one year; and in both generations the milk teeth appeared late in life,

the permanent teeth being deficient. Greyness of hair at an unusually

early age has been transmitted in some families. So, also, has the

premature appearance of baldness.

HOW TO AVOID THE TENDENCY OF INHERITANCE.

These facts suggest the practical consideration, that in those diseases

the predisposition to which alone is inherited, and which break out only

after a lapse of time, it is often altogether possible to prevent the

predisposition being developed into positive disease. Thus, for

instance, the inherited tendency to _consumption_ remains asleep in the

system until about the age of puberty, or later. Therefore, by the use

of a diet in which animal food forms a large portion, properly

regulated, and systematic exercise in the open air, the practice of the

long inhalations before recommended, warm, comfortable clothing,

together with a residence, if practicable, during the changeable and

inclement seasons of the year, in an equable climate, we can often

entirely arrest the development of the disease. Prevention here is not

only better than cure, but often all that is possible. Those in whom the

disease has become active, must too often, like those who entered

Dante's infernal regions, 'abandon hope.' Let our words of caution

therefore be heeded.

When there is reason to believe that an individual possesses an inherent

tendency to any disease, it is the duty of the medical adviser to study

the constitution of the patient thoroughly, and after such study to

recommend those measures of prevention best suited to avert the

threatened disorder. Above all, let the physician look closely to the

child at the period of life when any grave constitutional inheritable

disease attacked the parent. This supervision should be carried into

adult years, for there are instances on record of inherited diseases

coming on at an advanced age, as in that of a grandfather, father, and

son, who all became insane and committed suicide near their fiftieth

year. Gout, apoplexy, insanity, chronic disease of the heart, epilepsy,

consumption, asthma, and other diseases, are all more or less under the

control of preventive measures. Some hereditary diseases, such as idiocy

and cancer, we are impotent to prevent, in the present state of our

knowledge.

A singular fact in connection with the transmission of disease is the

readiness with which a whole generation is passed over, the affection

appearing in the next. A father or mother with consumption may in some

instances have healthy children, but the grandchildren will die of the

disease. Nature kindly favors one generation, but only at the expense of

the next.

Some diseases require, in addition to the general means of prevention to

be found in a strict observance of the laws of health, some special

measures in order to effectually ward off their appearance. But the

extent of this work will not admit of their discussion. Already, indeed,

have we unduly, perhaps, extended our remarks upon inheritance. The

interest and importance of the facts must be our justification.

WHY ARE WOMEN REDUNDANT?

It cannot be without interest to look into the relative proportion of

men and women now living. It will interest us still more to inquire into

the reason why one sex preponderates over the other in numbers. This

done, we will answer the question; Is the production of sex at all under

the influence of the human will?

The female sex is the more numerous in all thickly populated parts of

the world where we have trustworthy statistics. In Austria, England, and

Wales, there are nearly one hundred and five women for every one hundred

men. In Sweden they are as one hundred and nine to one hundred. In all

cities the disproportion is greater than in the country. In London there

are one hundred and thirteen women to every one hundred men; and in the

large towns of Sweden they stand as one hundred and sixteen to one

hundred.

This is not true, however, of newly-populated regions. The relative

difference is reversed in recent and thinly-settled localities. In our

Western States, for instance, the number of the men exceeds that of the

women. In California they are as three to one; in Nevada as eight to

one; in Colorado, twenty to one. In the State of Illinois there were,

according to a recent United States census, ninety-three thousand more

men than women. In Massachusetts, on the contrary, there are between

fifty and sixty thousand more women than men.

The disproportion of men to women in new countries is due to the

disinclination of women to emigrate. They are also unfitted for the

hardships of pioneer life.

How is this general preponderance in the number of women produced? Is it

because there are more girls born than boys? Not at all. The statistics

of over fifty-eight millions of persons show that there are one hundred

and six living boys born to every one hundred girls. In the state of

Rhode Island, for instance, the proportion for three years, from 1853 to

1855, was one thousand and sixty-four boys born to one thousand girls.

But now we meet with the wonderful arrangement of nature, that a larger

proportional number of male infants die during the first year of their

lives than of females. In the second year, the mortality, though less

excessive, still remains far greater on the male side. It subsequently

decreases, and at the age of four or five years is nearly equal for both

sexes. In after life, from the age of fifteen to forty, the mortality is

something greater among women, but not sufficiently so to make the

number of the two sexes equal. The greater tendency of male offspring to

die early is seen even before birth, for more male children are

still-born than female,--namely, as three to two. For this reason, the

term 'the stronger sex,' applied to men, has been regarded by some

authors as a misnomer. They are physically weaker in early life, and

succumb more readily to noxious influences.

Having thus pointed out that there are more women actually living in the

world than men, although a larger number of boys are born than girls, we

will consider for a moment some of the laws of nature which determine

the number of the sexes. Without giving the figures,--which would make

dry reading,--we will state in brief the conclusions derived from many

observations, extending over many years and many nationalities. The

relative age of the parents has an especial influence upon the sex of

the children. Seniority on the father's side gives excess of male

offspring. Equality in the parents' age gives a slight preponderance of

female offspring. Seniority on the mother's side gives excess of female

offspring. This tallies with the fact that in all civilized countries,

as has been stated, the proportion of male births is greater than that

of females; for, in accordance with the customs of society, the husband

is generally older than the wife. A curious instance, in confirmation

of this law, has recently come under our observation. A patient, married

for the second time, is ten years older than her husband. She has two

children by him, both girls. Singular to relate, her former husband was

ten years older than herself, and by him she had four children, of whom

three were boys, the fourth (a girl) having a twin brother.

Still, the relative age is not the sole cause which fixes the sex of the

child. Its operation is sometimes overruled by conflicting agencies. In

some districts of Norway, for example, there has been a constant

deficiency in boys, while in others the reverse has been the case. The

circumstance is well known, that after great wars, and sometimes

epidemics, in which a disproportionate number of men have died, more

boys are born than usual. Men who pass a sedentary life, and especially

scholars who exhaust their nervous force to a great extent, beget more

girls than boys. So, also, a very advanced age on the man's side

diminishes the number of males among the offspring. The quantity and the

quality of the food; the elevation of the abode; the conditions of

temperature; the parents' mode of life, rank, religious belief,

frequency of sexual intercourse,--have all been shown to be causes

contributing to the disproportion of the sexes, besides the relative

ages of the parents.

Some writers have stated that a southerly or warm and humid constitution

of the year is most favorable to the birth of female infants, while in

cold and dry years most males are produced. This statement has not been

supported by trustworthy statistics in regard to the human race, but in

respect of domestic animals the agriculturists of France have long

observed that the season has much to do with the sex. When the weather

is dry and cold, and the wind northerly, mares, ewes, and heifers

produce more males than when the opposite meteorological condition

prevails.

The saying among nurses, that 'This is the year for sons or daughters,'

is based upon the erroneous supposition that mothers bring forth more

male infants in one year than in another.

That, however, which concerns us the most in this connection, is the

question:

CAN THE SEXES BE PRODUCED AT WILL?

This question was asked many centuries ago. It was a hard one, and

remained without a satisfactory answer until quite recently. Science has

at last replied to it with authority. M. Thury, Professor in the Academy

of Geneva, has shown how males and females may be produced in accordance

with our wishes.

Some families are most anxious for male offspring, others ardently

desire daughters. And would it not often be a matter of national concern

to control the percentage of sexes in the population? Is it not a

'consummation most devoutly to be wished,' to bring about that Utopian

condition when there would be no sighing maids at home, nor want of

warriors in the field? The discussion of this subject is therefore

important and allowable.

It has been observed that queen-bees lay female eggs first, and male

eggs afterwards. So with hens: the first-laid eggs give female, the

last male products. Mares shown the stallion late in their periods, drop

horse-colts rather than fillies.

Professor Thury, from the consideration of these and other like facts,

formed this law for stock-raisers: 'If you wish to produce females, give

the male at the first signs of heat; if you wish males, give him at the

end of the heat.' But it is easy to form a theory. How was this law

sustained in practice? We have now in our possession the certificate of

a Swiss stock-grower, son of the President of the Swiss Agricultural

Society, Canton de Vaud, under date of February 1867, which says:

'In the first place, on twenty-two successive occasions I desired to

have heifers. My cows were of Schurtz breed, and my bull a pure Durham.

I succeeded in these cases. Having bought a pure Durham cow, it was very

important for me to have a new bull, to supersede the one I had bought

at great expense, without leaving to chance the production of a male. So

I followed accordingly the prescription of Professor Thury, and the

success has proved once more the truth of the law. I have obtained from

my Durham bull six more bulls (Schurtz-Durham cross) for fieldwork; and

having chosen cows of the same color and height, I obtained perfect

matches of oxen. My herd amounted to forty cows of every age.

'In short, I have made in all twenty-nine experiments after the new

method, and in every one I succeeded in the production of what I was

looking for--male and female. I had not one single failure. All the

experiments have been made by myself, without any other person's

intervention; consequently, I do declare that I consider as real and

certainly perfect the method of Professor Thury.'

A perfectly trustworthy observer communicates by the _Medical and

Surgical Reporter_ of Philadelphia for May 2, 1868, the results of

similar experiments on animals, with like conclusions.

The plan of M. Thury was also tried on the farms of the late Emperor of

the French, with, it is asserted, the most unvarying success.

What is the result of the application of this law to the human race? Dr.

F. J. W. Packman, of Wimborne, has stated in the _Lancet_, that, 'in the

human female, conception in the first half of the time between menstrual

periods produces female offspring, and male in the latter. When a female

has gone beyond the time she calculated upon, it will generally turn out

to be a boy.'

In the Philadelphia _Medical and Surgical Reporter_ for February 8,

1868, a respectable physician writes that, in numerous instances that

have come under his observation, Professor Thury's theory has proved

correct, 'Whenever intercourse has taken place in from two to six days

after the cessation of the menses, girls have been produced; and

whenever intercourse has taken place in from nine to twelve days after

the cessation of the menses, boys have been produced. In every case I

have ascertained not only the date at which the mother placed

conception, but also the time when the menses ceased, the date of the

first and subsequent intercourse for a month or more after the

cessation of the menses,' etc.

Again, a physician writes to the same journal for June 20, 1868,

recording the result of his own experience.

A farmer in Louisiana states, in the _Turf, Field, and Farm_, in support

of this law, that 'I have already been able in many cases to guess with

certainty the sex of a future infant. More than thirty times, among my

friends, I have predicted the sex of a child before its birth, and the

event proved nearly every time that I was right.'

The wife, therefore, who would wish, as Macbeth desired of his, to

'Bring forth men-children only,'

should avoid exposing herself to conception during the early part of the

time between her menstrual periods.

The prediction of the sex of the child before birth can now be with some

accuracy made by the intelligent and skilful physician. The method of

doing so will be mentioned in treating of pregnancy.

TWIN-BEARING.

As a rule, a woman has one child at a time. Twins, when they occur, are

looked upon with disfavor by most people. There is a popular notion that

they are apt to be wanting in physical and mental vigor. This opinion is

not without foundation. A careful scientific examination of the subject

has shown, that of imbeciles and idiots a much larger proportion is

actually found among the twins born than in the general community. In

families where twinning is frequent, bodily deformities likewise occur

with frequency. Among the relatives of imbeciles and idiots,

twin-bearing is common. In fact, the whole history of twin-births is of

an exceptional character, indicating imperfect development and feeble

organization in the product, and leading us to regard twins in the human

species as a departure from the physiological rule, and therefore

injurious to all concerned. Monsters born without brains have rarely

occurred except among twins.

The birth of twins occurs once in about eighty deliveries. A woman is

more apt to have no children than to have more than one at a time. In

view of the increased danger to both mother and child, this rarity of a

plural birth is fortunate.

WHY ARE TWINS BORN?

What are the causes or favouring circumstances bringing about this

abnormal child-bearing? For it is brought about by the operation of

laws. It is not an accident. There are no accidents in nature. By some

it is supposed to be due to the mother, by some to the father. There are

facts in favour of both opinions. Certain women married successively to

several men have always had twins, while their husbands with other wives

have determined single births. Certain men have presented the same

phenomenon. We can scarcely cite an example more astonishing than that

of a countryman who was presented to the Empress of Russia in 1755. He

had had two wives. The first had fifty-seven children in twenty-one

confinements; the second, thirty-three in thirteen. All the confinements

had been quadruple, triple, or double. A case has come under our own

observation in which the bearing of twins has seemed to be due to a

constitutional cause. The wife has nine children. The first was a single

birth, a girl; the others were all twin-births, and boys.

It has been asserted that compound pregnancies are more frequent in

certain years than in others. But that which seems to exert the greatest

actual influence over the production of twins is the age of the mother.

Very extensive statistics have demonstrated that, from the earliest

child-bearing period until the age of forty is reached, the fertility of

mothers in twins gradually increases. Between the ages of twenty and

thirty, fewest wives have twins. The average age of the twin-bearer is

older than the general run of bearers. It is well known that by far the

greater number of twins are born of elderly women. While three-fifths of

all births occur among women under thirty years of age, three-fifths of

all the twins are born to those over thirty years of age. Newly-married

women are more likely to have twins at the first labour the older they

are. The chance that a young wife from fifteen to nineteen shall bear

twins is only as one to one hundred and eighty-nine; from thirty-five to

thirty-nine the chance is as one to forty-five,--that is, the wives

married youngest have fewest twins; and there is an increase as age

advances, until forty is reached.

Race seems to have some influence over plural births. They occur

relatively oftener among the Irish than among the English.

INFLUENCE OF TWIN-BEARING ON SIZE OF FAMILIES.

Do women bearing twins have in the end larger families than those never

having but one at a time? Popular belief would answer this question in

the affirmative. Such a reply would also seem to receive support from

the fact, well established, that twins are more frequently additions to

an already considerable family than they are either the first of a

family or additional to a small family. But statistics have not answered

this question as yet positively. They seem, however, in favour of the

supposition that twin-bearing women have larger families than their

neighbors.

Women are more apt to have twins in their first pregnancy than any

other, but after the second confinement the bearing of twins increases

in frequency with the number of the pregnancy. It becomes, therefore, an

indication of an excessive family, and is to be deplored.