In introducing a subject of the nature treated of in this volume we are
perhaps treading upon interdicted if not dangerous ground, for the world
is not free from those pseudo-moralists, who would check, and, if
possible, arrest the onward progress of medical and physiological
science, and compel all to trudge on in the old beaten path, neither
turning to the left nor the right, much less to look forward, but cast
their glance backward. And although they behold every other science
marching with rapid strides to comparative perfection:—what through the
agency of steam and iron rails, space as it were, annihilated; what but
yesterday, comparatively speaking, required weeks to perform, a few
hours now suffice; nay the lightning fluid itself is made subservient to
man’s powers of discovery and ingenuity, transmitting intelligence from
distant points with the speed of thought:—yet, in physiological and
medical science, we are required to be as an immovable rock, upon which
the overwhelming billows of physiological science and discovery are to
wash fruitlessly and in vain, to recede back into the dark sea of
ignorance.
Truly, is it that in all that concerns man’s welfare and woman’s
happiness, we are to stand still, while improvements and discoveries, in
arts and sciences connected with agricultural and mechanical pursuits,
are rushing by with the impetus of a torrent? Is it that physiological
and medical science has long since reached that state of perfection that
improvement and discovery are impossible? Is it that preceding
generations had engrossed, in physiology, all the knowledge that could
be attained, and left nothing for succeeding generations to attain? Is
it that disease, decrepitude, bodily suffering and stinted and imperfect
physical development among mankind has no longer an existence? Is it
that every woman enjoys the full bloom, virgin freshness and beauty
belonging to the enjoyment of a perfect condition of health? Is it that
we no longer behold the deathly pale, sallow, sickly female of sixteen
or eighteen, in the last stage of some chronic disease, prepared for the
cold embrace of death? Is it that for the married woman six of the nine
months of pregnancy is often a state of suffering and anguish
destructive to her health and cutting off her days? Is it too, that it
never happens that she often has children only at the hazard of her own
life, and that of her offspring? Is it that children are invariably born
healthy and rugged, capable of enduring the ordinary maladies to which
infancy may be subject, to be reared into robust and virtuous sons and
daughters? Is it that by far the greatest proportion of those born,
survive, instead of, at the least, two-thirds being cut off in infancy?
No, indeed, it is not because of all this. It is because prejudice or
ignorance thinks that if men and women acquired the knowledge whereby to
improve their condition as social moral beings, guard against disease,
and preserve their health, that _perhaps_, it might lead to immorality
and vice. This is ever the pretext to arrest the progress of
physiological discovery.
Discoveries, then, so directly and intimately connected with the
personal individual happiness of every man, woman, and child, are alone
to see no progress; without being met at the threshold with the
senseless and idle cry of “vice and immorality.” Thus then, the
sufferings, the pains, the anguish, which have existed five hundred
years ago, are to be irremediable and endured in despite of any
discoveries _by which they can be prevented_. We must do nothing to
alleviate, or better still, to prevent, the sufferings of the wife,
daughter, or mother, because it was not done five hundred years ago!
Monstrously absurd as is this reasoning, yet it is of this kind which
the discoveries introduced before the public in this work will be met.
But the subject is one which embraces our social joys and comforts, the
endearments of home and the family fire-side, the health and well-being
of wives, mothers, and daughters, and cannot be retarded by the cobwebs
in its way, to stem its onward course. No female, either married, or
about to be married—no wife about becoming a mother—no mother having a
daughter—no father who desires to prolong the health, beauty, and vigor
of his offspring—no husband who has his own happiness, or the happiness
of the companion of his bosom at heart—no young man, even, having a
regard to his future welfare, should be without this important little
work. Here the wife, mother or daughter, can detect her own complaints,
trace them to their causes, and apply the remedy. This is all important.
For, how often does the young female (because of a supposed delicacy),
suffer in health rather than impart her malady to another, and
especially to a medical man; and thus, many diseases, which though
trifling in their origin, and at first easily removed, become seated and
confirmed in her constitution. How deplorable are the consequences
arising either from neglect or ignorance in the treatment of females who
are afflicted with a stoppage, irregularity, or entire suppression of
the menses or monthly turns, from which spring a train of diseases,
which it would, in this place, be useless to enumerate, but which make
our wives and daughters sickly, and our offspring short-lived.
It is also important that the female should understand the cause which
might occasion a stoppage of the menses to possess the information
contained in this work, by which it can be ascertained whether it may
not arise from pregnancy and thereby avoid that anxiety of mind arising
from an uncertainty as to her real situation, alternately imagining the
one or the other, as her inclinations or fears may tend.
During pregnancy, many a wife lives in almost perpetual bodily ailment
and suffering, which ought and should be prevented, and would not in
most cases exist if this work is perused. Here important truths and
discoveries are revealed, which may be the means of saving many an
affectionate wife and fond mother from a premature grave. How many
females marry, who, in becoming pregnant, jeopardize their life, would
learn, if they perused these pages, of the discovery by which _pregnancy
can be prevented_, by means at once safe, simple, certain, and healthy,
and thus many a victim would not fall a sacrifice to the Cæsarean
operation.
In respect, too, when a woman is threatened with miscarriage or abortion
it is important that the treatment, either to prevent it, or, when that
is impracticable, to assist and expedite it, should be thoroughly
understood, and its treatment made clear and simple, that no unnecessary
alarm need be occasioned when it occurs.
So, too, in regard to the various diseases accompanying and belonging to
pregnancy, every woman should know how to prevent the one and ameliorate
the other.
And finally, the subject of unfruitfulness, sterility, or barrenness, is
here presented in a manner, which, to some extent, demonstrates that in
most cases it can be cured, yet how many are pining in childless
loneliness, in utter despair of cure.
Such are some of the important topics treated of in these pages, so
intimately connected with every woman’s peace and happiness, with which
every woman should be conversant, and yet how little informed are most
females with what concerns themselves, their children, and their
husbands so much.