[Illustration: HEALTHY CHILDREN.]
1. ABORTION OR MISCARRIAGE is the expulsion of the child from the womb
previous to six months; after that it is called premature birth.
2. CAUSES.--It may be due to a criminal act of taking medicine for the
express purpose of producing miscarriage or it may be caused by certain
medicines, severe sickness or nervousness, syphilis, imperfect semen, lack
of room in the pelvis and abdomen, lifting, straining, violent cold, sudden
mental excitement, excessive sexual intercourse, dancing, tight lacing, the
use of strong purgative medicines, bodily fatigue, late suppers, and
fashionable amusements.
3. SYMPTOMS.--A falling or weakness and uneasiness in the region of the
loins, thighs and womb, pain in the small {254} of the back, vomiting and
sickness of the stomach, chilliness with a discharge of blood accompanied
with pain in the lower portions of the abdomen. These may take place in a
single hour, or it may continue for several days. If before the fourth
month, there is not so much danger, but the flow of blood is generally
greater. If miscarriage is the result of an accident, it generally takes
place without much warning, and the service of a physician should at once
be secured.
4. HOME TREATMENT.--A simple application of cold water externally applied
will produce relief, or cold cloths of ice, if convenient, applied to the
lower portions of the abdomen. Perfect quiet, however, is the most
essential thing for the patient. She should lie on her back and take
internally a teaspoonful of paregoric every two hours; drink freely of
lemonade or other cooling drinks, and for nourishment subsist chiefly on
chicken broth, toast, water gruel, fresh fruits, etc. The principal
homeopathic remedies for this disease are ergot and cimicifuga, given in
drop-doses of the tinctures.
5. INJURIOUS EFFECTS.--Miscarriage is a very serious difficulty, and the
health and the constitution may be permanently impaired. Any one prone to
miscarriage should adopt every measure possible to strengthen and build up
the system; avoid going up stairs or doing much heavy lifting or hard work.
6. PREVENTION.--Practice the laws of sexual abstinence, take frequent
sitz-baths, live on oatmeal, graham bread, and other nourishing diet. Avoid
highly seasoned food, rich gravies, late suppers and the like.
[Illustration]
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The Murder of the Innocents.
[Illustration: AN INDIAN FAMILY. The Savage Indian Teaches Us Lessons of
Civilization.]
1. MANY CAUSES.--Many causes have operated to produce a corruption of the
public morals so deplorable; prominent among which may be mentioned the
facility with which divorces may be obtained in some of the States, the
constant promulgation of false ideas of marriage and its duties by means of
books, lectures, etc., and the distribution through the mails of impure
publications. But an influence not less powerful than any of these is the
growing devotion of fashion and luxury of this age, and the idea which
practically obtains to so great an extent that pleasure, instead of the
health or morals, is the great object of life.
2. A MONSTROUS CRIME.--The abiding interest we feel in the preservation of
the morals of our country, constrains us to raise our voice against the
daily increasing practice of {256} infanticide, especially before birth.
The notoriety this monstrous crime has obtained of late, and the hecatombs
of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch, to gratify an unlawful
passion, are a sufficient justification for our alluding to a painful and
delicate subject, which should "not even be named," only to correct and
admonish the wrong-doers.
3. LOCALITIES IN WHICH IT IS MOST PREVALENT.--We may observe that the
crying sin of infanticide is most prevalent in those localities where the
system of moral education has been longest neglected. This inhuman crime
might be compared to the murder of the innocents, except that the
criminals, in this case, exceed in enormity the cruelty of Herod.
4. SHEDDING INNOCENT BLOOD.--If it is a sin to take away the life even of
an enemy; if the crime of shedding innocent blood cries to heaven for
vengeance; in what language can we characterize the double guilt of those
whose souls are stained with the innocent blood of their own unborn,
unregenerated offspring?
5. THE GREATNESS OF THE CRIME.--The murder of an infant before its birth,
is, in the sight of God and the law, as great a crime as the killing of a
child after birth.
6. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY.--Every State of the Union has made this offense
one of the most serious crimes. The law has no mercy for the offenders that
violate the sacred law of human life. It is murder of the most cowardly
character and woe to him who brings this curse upon his head, to haunt him
all the days of his or her life, and to curse him at the day of his death.
7. THE PRODUCT OF LUST.--Lust pure and simple. The only difference between
a marriage of this character and prostitution is, that society, rotten to
its heart, pulpits afraid to cry aloud against crime and vice, and the
church conformed to the world, have made such a profanation of marriage
respectable. To put it in other words, when two people determine to live
together as husband and wife, and evade the consequences and
responsibilities of marriage, they are simply engaged in prostitution
without the infamy which attaches to that vice and crime.
8. OUTRAGEOUS VIOLATION OF ALL LAW.--The violation of all law, both natural
and revealed, is the cool and villainous contract by which people entering
into the marital relation engage in defiance of the laws of God and the
laws of the commonwealth, that they shall be unincumbered with a family of
children. "Disguise the matter as you will," says Dr. Pomeroy, "yet the
fact remains that the first and {257} specific object of marriage is the
rearing of a family." "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,"
is God's first word to Adam after his creation.
9. THE NATIONAL SIN.--The prevention of offspring is preeminently the sin
of America. It is fast becoming the national sin of America, and if it is
not checked, it will sooner or later be an irremediable calamity. The sin
has its roots in a low and perverted idea of marriage, and is fostered by
false standards of modesty.
10. THE SIN OF HEROD.--Do these same white-walled sepulchres of hell know
that they are committing the damning sin of Herod in the slaughter of the
innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the crime of murder? Do
women in all circles of society, when practicing these terrible crimes
realize the real danger? Do they understand that it is undermining their
health, and their constitution, and that their destiny, if persisted in, is
a premature grave just as sure as the sun rises in the heavens? Let all
beware, and let the first and only purpose be, to live a life guiltless
before God and man.
11. 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, and 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.
12. DANGEROUS DISEASES.--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 need be, in the pangs of child-birth,
than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.
* * * * *
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