CRIMINAL ABORTION OR FETICIDE.
I HAVE so far endeavored to give a cursory description of _avoidable_
causes, which were inadvertantly or thoughtlessly encouraged, and it is
to be hoped that my friendly reproof and counsel will incite my readers
to modify their pernicious habits and direct the currents of their
thoughts into channels more or less in harmony with the hygiene that I
have been at liberty to suggest.
There are few persons, if any, who would voluntarily act and think in a
manner that would be prejudicial to their physical or moral welfare, if
they were educated to a standard of knowledge that gave them an insight
into the evil consequences. The law of _self-preservation_ is innate in
our natures, so that we are ready to cultivate the good and useful and
shun that which may do harm.
Among the avoidable causes there is none so prolific of disease as that
which is traced to the premature expulsion of the ovum or fetus from
the mother’s womb.
This appears self-evident, when we stop to consider that the function
of reproduction is at once by far the most complicated of the
physiological processes of the female economy, so that its sudden
interruption will naturally induce any one or all of the physical or
pelvic ailments which we are called upon to discuss.
For our purpose it will not be sufficient to consider the subject from
a medical standpoint alone, because the thoughts drift involuntarily,
as it were, from the physical into the metaphysical, from the material
into the spiritual part of our nature.
It is not within the scope of this work to enter upon an inquiry
into the scientific evidence of the existence of the soul or advance
any argument whatever in support of that doctrine, but I assume the
existence of an immortal soul to be a fact.
What I will endeavor to explain is when and where this mystic union
of the soul with the body takes place? Here the speculations of the
medical philosophers have been contradictory, on account of attributing
to the fetus different kinds of life, that is, an organic or vegetating
existence attached to the mother’s womb, and as such not possessed of
sentient principle, until the real or spiritual life imbues the fetus,
when it becomes a living soul.
Hippocrates, the most famous physician of antiquity, who, even in the
light of the nineteenth century, looms up as one of the most brilliant
intellects that the world ever had, lent the weight of his judgment to
this very unreasonable doctrine.
He supposed that animation occurred from thirty to forty-two days after
conception.
The Stoics went still further and maintained that there was no vitality
until after birth and the establishment of respiration.
The Academicians were of the opinion, that life was imparted to the
fetus during the period in which the mother carried it in the womb, but
they could not agree on the time when it began. Even the Roman Church,
which, in the main, is right on this question, speaks of _animate_ and
_inanimate_ fetuses. When it is remembered that there was no scientific
physiology upon which the ancients based their opinions, it is not at
all surprising that, in the light of modern research, they are shown to
be all wrong.
There is no time during the child’s sojourn in the mother’s womb that
life is less active than at another, and any opinion to the contrary is
manifestly absurd and unscientific.
I appreciate the distinction between _physical life_, or vital
activity, and spiritual life, but the one must necessarily be in the
other.
A central fountain of physical force is consistent with scientific
deductions, and physicists are inclined to admit such a source. Many of
the phenomena of the material world are explained upon this hypothesis.
The sun is supposed to be that central fountain of physical force which
inspires activity in matter on this planet. Matter in itself is inert
and motionless; the globe we inhabit has no energy in itself which
could keep it in motion, but the forces playing on and around it impart
to it its motive power.
The life of any complex organism, such as that of man, is in fact the
aggregate of the vital activity of all its component parts, and each
elementary part of the fabric has its own independent power of growth
and development. If we contemplate the history of the life of a plant,
we perceive that it grows from a germ or seed to a fabric, sometimes of
gigantic size,—it multiplies its species, by the production of germs
similar to that from which it originated. This it performs without
feeling or thinking or any effort of its own. All the functions of
which its life is composed are grouped together under the general
designation of organic functions, or vegetative life.
In the building up of the animal structure we have precisely the same
operations taking place, one minute cell added to the other, like the
stone mason running up a brick wall, each brick representing a cell,
until the structure is completed.
The question that we are particularly interested in is whether this
“animal life” which stimulates the growth of the fetus from its first
inception, can be any the less sacred at one time than at another?
There is a general impression among a large portion of the community
that the fetus first becomes endowed with life at the period of
quickening, which is between the fourth and fifth month of pregnancy.
The time when the mother first feels the motion is considered the
period when the child becomes animated, that is, when it receives its
spiritual nature into union with its human nature.
The English law recognized the truth of this infamous doctrine, in
varying the punishment of an attempt to procure abortion according
to whether the woman be “quick with child or not,” and in delaying
execution when a woman can be proved to be so, though the execution is
made to proceed, if she be not “quick,” even if she be unquestionably
pregnant. This was a most barbarous penal provision and hardly
excusable in a savage nation, much less among a Christian people,
because it is contrary to all fact, to all analogy, to reason, and at
variance with biological science.
If the embryo or fetus is simply an animal growing in the mother’s
womb, until the period of quickening or birth, it would not be a crime
to procure an abortion, at any time, before these events take place.
No sacrifice of a human life would be involved, so that the act would
be simply a “misdemeanor” regulated by the degree of injury which the
mother sustained as a result of the operation. This was the prevailing
opinion for many centuries, until, in the year 692, the Roman Empire so
amended its law that the procuring of an abortion at any time during
the period of gestation was _homicide_, murder, to be punished with
death.
France patterned after the Roman law for a time and made criminal
abortion punishable by inflicting the death penalty; during the French
revolution this law was amended by imprisonment for life; and later,
under Napoleon, in 1810, the law was again changed, and the punishment
lessened.
In England there has been a gradually growing moral sentiment to
protect the defenseless child in its mother’s womb, so that to-day
England has so amended her law that the fetus has the same protection
in the uterus before as after quickening, so that a conviction for the
procurement of criminal abortion at any time during gestation from
conception until birth is _felony_ and punished by imprisonment or
transportation.
In Germany the law makes abortion a State prison offense, and public
opinion is in such a healthy state there that anyone justly accused of
this crime is quite sure to meet with a punishment.
In America legislation on this subject differs widely in the different
States. In Massachusetts the barbarous distinction, “before quickening
and after,” was still recognized a few years ago, so that the crime of
abortion before quickening was not an indictable offense. In some of
the States the laws are stringent and conform with the physiological
facts of fetal life, but, like most of our “good laws,” they are.
observed only in the breach.
The essential peculiarity in the process of reproduction is the
absorption of a small cell of the male, the spermatozoon, by another
small cell of the female, the ovum. This coalescence of the two, _male_
and _female_ cells, is the fertilization of the ovum, and constitutes
_conception_.
The spermatic fluid of the male holds in suspension a large number
of very small bodies, or cells, which, from their usually remaining
in active motion for some time after they have quitted the human
body, have been erroneously considered animalcules. A more thorough
familiarity with these bodies, and careful microscopic examinations,
can distinguish nothing in the nature of structure within them. They
are simply little oval, flattened, transparent cells between the
one-six-hundredth and one-eight-hundredth of an inch in length, having
a little thread-like “tail,” gradually tapering to a fine point.
These measurements make the spermatozoa considerably larger than the
average red blood-corpuscle, which is one-thirty-two-hundredths of an
inch in diameter.
The spermatic fluid of a single emission of a healthy male contains
thousands of these little ciliated cells, the cilia or tails of which
are seen in an active vibratile undulatory motion, in the field
of the microscope, wriggling hither and thither, like a school of
frightened fishes. This lashing motion is continued for hours, and
under favorable circumstances for days. In the cases of microscopical
examinations of vaginal secretions of married women, for causes of
sterility, I was able to establish their activity thirty-six hours
after marital relations.
Through this peculiar lashing motion the ciliated cells are propelled
onward and upward, through the mouth and cervix of the womb, thence
along its body to the openings of the Fallopian tubes, along which they
migrate to the ovaries of the female. In a healthy condition of the
female generative organs, hundreds of spermatozoa arrive at the ovaries
about the same time, a few hours or days after copulation, but as the
ova ripen and are discharged only at regular intervals, the hundreds of
ciliated bodies that travel thither are doomed to disappointment, and
gradually lose their vitality, and perhaps are removed by absorption.
Of all these hundreds of germs it requires only a single one to combine
with an ovum, or a similar little cell of the female, to constitute
conception. When this combination has been accomplished, a new being
is inaugurated, another human soul is started out, by the magic wand
of nature, to go through the different spheres of evolution, of whose
ultimatum we can have no clear conception, but this is perfectly clear,
that after this coalescence of the two germs, the die is cast and the
female becomes then only the vehicle in which the creative forces are
effecting their elaboration.
Coition and conception are widely different processes, and require to
be separately analyzed to be understood.
Coition is always a physical act, a gratification of the senses,
and, like many other human passions, is often abused by excessive
indulgence, degenerating into lust.
Conception, on the other hand, is purely passive, an organic function,
without consciousness on the part of the female.
Thus far there is a similarity in the organic processes of conception
in all mammalia, so that their embryos cannot be classified and
assigned to their respective species in the early stages of their
development. Physiologists are unable to say whether the one belongs
to and will ultimately develop into a brute animal or a human being,
yet one has the attributes of mental force, the elements of a soul,
while the other is to follow a blind instinct, without the possibility
of spiritual perception. Conception, in the one case, is simply a
vegetative or organic function, while in the other there is, in
addition, a spiritual effort to individualize a human soul.
The creative energy of nature is separate and independent of the sexual
act, for it does not take place during copulation of the sexes, nor
immediately after it, but hours or days after the act is accomplished.
I am often called upon to say when and where the human soul becomes
associated with the human body?
There is a divine life, or spiritual energy, that animates the soul
from the spiritual realm. It is the correspondency of the physical
force that animates the physical body.
The term or phrase which I employ to designate this force is of less
importance than the definition which is given to it, and upon this,
of course, we must agree. I recognize in such an energy or power, the
primal cause or force, behind and beyond the phenomena of nature. This
force must be universal and omnipresent, hence _spiritual_; it must
be the central source of supply for all spiritual things, so that the
doctrine of Paul is scientifically in harmony with a rationalistic view
of the subject, when he says “in Him we live and move and have our
being.”
The science of the _conservation of forces_ teaches, that forces are
never lost, that they are indestructible and eternal. We derive our
spiritual existence from this central spiritual sun and inherit the
quality of eternity with it. Mind is spirit and the soul is mind; this
is the view of Spinoza, who, in the second part of his work “Ethics,”
employs the terms synonymously throughout the chapter “Of the Nature
and Origin of the Mind or Soul.” Mind differentiates man from the
inferior animal creations, and can make him what he will.
Professor Carpenter in his “Principles of Human Physiology,” tells us,
that when we first discern the primordial cell, which is to evolve
itself into the human organism, we can trace nothing that essentially
distinguishes it from that which might give origin to any other form of
organic structure. The earliest stages of its development consist in
simple multiplication of cells by “duplicative subdivision,” so that
a mass of cells comes to be produced, amidst the several components,
of which no difference can be traced; and this also finds its parallel
among the simpler organisms of both kingdoms. There is nothing at
this period to distinguish the germs of man from that of any other
vertebrated animal, yet in the course of nine short months a human
being is developed possessing all the faculties of its progenitor, and
how could all this come to pass, if not instituted at the moment of
conception?
It is at this time and moment, that an _atom_ of the universal spirit
becomes separated and individualized, and the germ of a human soul
is implanted, deep in the dark recesses of nature’s laboratory. The
ovum of the female and the germ of the male coalesce, imbued by the
incarnation of the immortal spirit, and no time can be more opportune
for that union than at the very inception of our being, because the
soul and the body must interact, one on the other.
In the reproduction of man, there is a higher purpose than simply to
multiply the species. The Creator can only manifest Himself, if he has
intelligent souls or spirits as his creatures, and the reproduction of
the human species is the natural means of bringing this about.
The mystic union is accomplished at the time and moment of conception,
when a _unit_ of the universal spirit becomes _individualized_ into a
human soul. In the dark recesses of the mother’s womb the ovum of the
female and the germ of the male, imbued by the immortal spirit, begin
their growth and development together, this constitutes the _triune_ of
nature, from which the evolutions of body and soul take their beginning.
Sexual instinct is not an unholy and depraved action of the human
mind, but the necessary means to an end, a finite instrumentality
of the Divine mind to procreate the body, as an abode for the human
soul. One of the attributes of the Creator is, in the very nature of
things, _to create_, and he has thus endowed us, His creatures, for
the manifestation of His creative power. He perpetually and eternally
creates, and this has no reference to time, place or space: just as
in the beginning, God created all things, so we recognize the supreme
hand, now, to-day, and forever, ever active in His natural element.
The operation of nature’s law may be contravened by the selfish,
sordid, criminal acts of the human heart, but it cannot be frustrated.
No one can console himself, that the invincible law of evolution is
at the capricious behest of finite man, and can be neutralized and
obstructed at will; that would place a limitation on the Creator;
it would contradict the omnipotence of the Divine mind; it would
place every life or soul at the mercy of the sordid conscienceless
abortionist, and it would reduce the Divine origin of man and the
soul’s immortality to an absurdity.
After the fetus is murdered, its soul continues to grow in the
spiritual realm, an undying witness of the criminal infamy which
deprived it of that earthly experience which nature intended for the
children of men. It is the greatest crime against nature to kill off a
human fetus, and prematurely hurl into eternity a human soul, which has
the same right to human experience as those already born, and, in the
eyes of God, it is no less a crime than the murder of an adult.
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
The meaning of the term abortion is etymologically not to be born or
not to be carried out, or, in other words, the premature expulsion
of the fetus from its mother’s womb, which is any time before it is
capable of independent existence. This is according to the construction
of the law of France, which means any time previous to the termination
of the sixth month of pregnancy. Abortion may be accidental, that is,
it may be due to a casualty which was entirely beyond the control of
the person suffering or going through an abortion, or it may be due to
disease affecting either the embryo or the mother.
The word “miscarriage” is generally preferred to that of “abortion”
under the misconception that only the latter implies criminal
culpability; this, of course, is an error, because each word means
exactly the same thing, with this difference, that one is of Latin
origin, while the other is a plain Anglo-Saxon term. An abortion that
is brought about, from other than natural causes, for the deliberate
and avowed purpose of escaping from the inconvenience, privation, and
cares of maternity, is always qualified by the adjective _criminal_.
In the early months of pregnancy, it very seldom, though it
occasionally does happen, that complications arise which place the life
of the mother in imminent danger; that the embryo shares this danger in
a corresponding degree is self-evident, because the fetus is unable to
live independently of the mother any time before the expiration of the
sixth month of gestation, so that the death of the mother means death
to the fetus also.
Through a fall, heavy lifting, or a sudden jar, a partial detachment
is liable to occur between the placenta of the fetus and the wall of
the mother’s womb, that being the place where the blood of the one
is exchanged into the blood of the other; from this, a hemorrhage
may result, which will not yield to rest nor to other means which
experience has taught to be useful. This loss of blood may be so great
that, if it continues, the life of both will be sacrificed.
In some women pregnancy may become complicated with convulsions; these
may be so violent, and recur so often, as to threaten life, and they
are obstinate to all medicinal resources.
Contingencies of the above nature evoked the scientific inquiry,
whether abortions are ever justifiable. The answer must invariably be,
that when it is clearly seen that the mother will surely die, and her
fetus with her, an induced abortion becomes a justifiable obstetric
resource, and under these circumstances it is not a crime nor even a
sacrifice of the embryo, which would have perished with the mother.
This rule of practice has been endorsed by the very highest authority
in obstetric science, and the competent conscientious physician will
readily draw the line between cases where so radical a measure becomes
necessary, and where milder conservative measures will save the life of
both mother and child.
This cannot be a license for crime, except that the sordidly depraved
time server may often try to stretch the threatening danger, but when
this is done it is no less a crime of murder in the eyes of God, than
if he had premeditatedly and willfully slain a fellow-being.
Such persons would not shrink from the perpetration of any crime, be it
ever so heinous and black. These wretches are too cowardly to thrust a
poniard into their victims on the highway, but ever ready to operate
in secrecy in the abortion chamber, which is hidden from the eyes of
man. I have known abortions being sought and abortions being committed,
upon the flimsy pretext of being too weak, or too sick at the stomach.
These are shallow subterfuges, that should not be countenanced by any
conscientious practitioner.
Many reasons are either imaginary or pretended, and I have often proved
the fallacy of pretensions of an inability to carry a child, after
women had gone through the abortion mills, by persuading them to become
reconciled, for the time being, and that I would see them through to
a happy end, and in no case were their fears justified by subsequent
developments. There is a great deal in controlling the minds of these
women, and directing them into wholesome channels of thought, and after
that they become much happier and contented than ever before in their
married lives.
If the proposition is generally accepted, that abortions are
justifiable as a therapeutical expedient, you open the door to the
criminally inclined. Wily women will impose upon inexperienced
practitioners by feigning physical suffering as a result of pregnancy,
for the purpose of getting rid of their fetuses. There is a certain
amount of hardship and discomfort associated with the average pregnancy
for a part of the period at least, but this should be suffered with a
mother’s fortitude.
The testimony of the early canons of the Catholic Church is very
decisive on the crime of abortion, namely, “that the destruction of the
fetus in the womb of its parent, at any period from the first moment of
conception, is a crime equal in turpitude to murder.”
In Protestant countries abortions are on the increase, and in America
it is one of the crying crimes of society, which has so thoroughly
tainted and defiled the moral sense of American communities, that it
has become next to impossible to get a jury of twelve men who will
agree on a verdict to punish this dastardly foul crime of murder, and
the abortionist is thus encouraged in his iniquitous vocation.
Professor J. Taber Johnson, of Maryland, stated in his annual oration
before the State Medical Society: “The difficulty of conviction for
producing abortion is shown in the statement of the Attorney-General of
Massachusetts, that of thirty-two arrests and trials of abortionists
in that State, in a period of eight years, not a single conviction
resulted; and this fact is equally true of other States.” This is
indeed a sad commentary on the jury system, which often degenerates
into a farce or travesty on justice.
The practice of abortion is on the increase. This is not due to a
single cause, but to a number, operating separately or co-operating
jointly to the same end. Boarding-house or hotel life exercises a
pernicious influence on the habits and morals of women. They sit all
day in their apartments with indifferent occupations, or walk the
streets between meal hours, without the inspiring thoughts which a
cozy home alone can inspire. The maternal instinct languishes or
dies completely out, and if women become pregnant while transiently
domiciled, they scruple not against committing this great crime,
because their surroundings and accommodations may not be suitable for
the changed relations which motherhood brings about. If these people
had their own little homes, were they ever so humble, their minds
would run in different grooves, their lives would be much happier and
offspring longingly desired, to fill the nooks in the little household.
Want of domestic training in childhood lays the foundation for this
crime. The American girl is trained with a view to display so-called
refined accomplishments. This is done by totally ignoring domestic
duties; these are to be shunned as menial and degrading; and when girls
grow into womanhood and are married, they naturally look upon the
ordinary household duties as drudgery, and quite unbecoming a woman
of their attainments. There is nothing in their bosoms to arouse a
pride in their homes; quite the reverse; that principle has never been
inculcated in their youth, so that it is quite natural, that they hie
to a boarding-house; here they patronize the abortionist, or acquire
proficiency in that art themselves, from lack of nobler occupation.
Changed relations of the sexes destroy the maternal instinct. A man
in a man’s place, and a woman in the sphere for which God and nature
intended her, is for the best interests of society. There is useful
and profitable work for everyone, but each should labor in his or her
respective field of natural adaptability, in which there is plenty to
do. There is, in the very nature of things, never anything gained by a
woman doing a man’s work, because there are always plenty of men around
to do that, but while a woman is doing a man’s work, she is necessarily
neglecting a woman’s, which it is physically impossible for any man to
do for her. There is, consequently, an irretrievable loss to society
from misapplied labor. When the great Napoleon was asked by Madam de
Stael whom he considered the greatest woman in France, his curt reply
was, “She who bore the largest number of children.” This is a tribute
to motherhood, which no one can ridicule, for whom should we honor
and respect more than the faithful, loving mother, who makes her life
subservient to that of her children? There is no comparison between
the self-denial of parental devotion and the devotee to amusements and
fashion, or the slothful wife, who imposes sterility upon herself for
the sake of pandering to depraved appetites and frivolous pleasures.
Depraved associates pave the way to feticide. Some married women
are so brazen and callous, that they have no delicacy in narrating
their exploits of child murder with a triumphant air, whenever their
acquaintances are patient and foolish enough to listen to them. These
gadding persons often contaminate the minds of newly-married women,
who had never for a moment entertained the thought of such an awful
crime, and who would have made happy and contented mothers, were it not
for the seeds of discontent and crime which were sown in their early
matrimonial career. I have known mothers who had lost the delicate
maternal instincts, without which a mother becomes a monster, advise
their daughters and encourage them in the perpetration of this crime.
Women of this type should be avoided like the dreaded mancanilla
tree, for they poison the body and soul of pure, virtuous women, with
whom they come in close contact; they should be shunned by the young
housewife like a pestilence, because their hands are scarlet with the
blood of their own children.
Unprincipled physicians are too often instrumental in abetting criminal
abortions, and this for two reasons, namely, for the immediate lucre
which is to them in hand paid, and also for ingratiating themselves
into the confidence of their patrons, so that they may become their
physician in other ailments. These are the pariahs of the profession,
but, viewed from a business standpoint, they are very successful. It
is through the looseness with which medical colleges are conducted
in this country, many of them not deserving the name of college, but
more properly denominated a rendezvous of self-constituted professors
and ingenious advertising sharps, that the ranks of the profession
are overcrowded, because there is no scrutiny of moral character or
professional attainments. These once labeled M. D.’s are determined
to make a professional living, and nothing deters them from becoming
_particeps criminis_, but owing to the corrupt and depraved jury
system such a thing as punishing a physician for feticide is hardly
ever heard of. I would advise my readers to shun each and every one of
these criminal monsters as they would a pestilence. In general, “female
specialist” is but another name for abortionist, for the great majority
of these self-constituted specialists do not know the rudiments of the
science of gynecology; and women should exercise great precaution in
whose hands they place themselves, or, rather, their lives. I know of
no calling that is capable of rendering more good to humanity than the
profession which I have made my own.
The honorable physician occupies a position where he can do a great
deal to improve the tone and morality of the community. He can do more
than the pulpit in preventing feticide, because he can depict the
physical dangers and the moral turpitude, for it is to him that the
deluded woman first goes for advice. It is with him to become an oracle
of heaven; in the great majority of instances he can be instrumental
in saving human life and prevent the mother from murdering her own
child.
Maternity is the function of Divinity in human nature. Who can look
upon a newly-born babe without seeing something truly Divine, a
manifestation of the Divine mind to create in his image, through the
instrumentality of man, an innocent human flower, planted upon this
earth to enjoy the fullness thereof, and what miscreant shall deny it
its inheritance?
That husbands are often the instigators of this crime is a fact well
known to every physician of experience. I have known of a number of
cases where wives came to my office with a woeful tale of discontent
on the part of their husbands, who did not want an “_increase_.” Such
men are not worthy the name of father or husband. They should have been
emasculated before they ever approached the marriage altar, for they
are below the brute creation and have no claim on human affections.
The luxuries of life should not be considered as weighing against
the birth of children, nor the expense of maintaining a large family
considered as an excuse for feticide; expenses had better be reduced
and economized in other directions, so as to meet the little extra
increase, which the little stranger may cause. It is a fact, that among
thrifty people, large families are no barrier to material success, for
the blessedness of heaven rests upon them.
I invariably solicit an interview with the recalcitrant spouse, and
take the opportunity to tell him of the responsibilities which married
life imposes upon married couples; that the simple gratification of
the carnal senses is lust, which can and should be controlled by every
person, and more in particular by married men. Matrimonial relations
based only on libidinous pleasure are transient and evanescent;
incompatabilities arise, which cause conflict and dissension,
ultimating in estrangement and divorces, but when soul is wedded to
soul, then they are in harmony with the music of the spheres, and
children constitute the cement of an eternal wedlock which no man can
rend asunder.
Abrupt termination of pregnancy constitutes in itself a diseased
process in the tissues of the womb. We have already learned of the
gradual growth of the body of the womb to accommodate the growth of the
child; when abortion takes place there is a sudden check to this growth
in the tissues of the womb, and a low grade of inflammation invades
the entire structure. This inflammatory process fixes or hardens the
womb so that this acquired enlargement often becomes permanent. The
result is, that women can often trace the beginning of a long series
of complaints and a shattered constitution to a so-called miscarriage.
For this reason, the after-treatment of an abortion is of much greater
importance, than after a regular normal delivery.
After the close of a natural gestation, the child is born, and nature
immediately sets to work to restore the womb to its healthy normal
size. No violence having been done to the organ, there is no extra
effort necessary on the part of nature to restore it. In a premature
expulsion of the fetus, it is altogether different, the cell growth
and the necessary physiological action to build up the womb, to house
the rapidly-developing fetus, was suddenly interfered with, and the
shock which the vital activity sustains, diverts their energies into
a diseased process. Inflammation is to be guarded against, for it
constitutes the root of all pathological conditions; chief among
them is its prevention of fatty degeneration and absorption of the
superfluous tissues of the organ, so that the womb remains heavy and
enlarged. This entails a series of consequences; its size and weight
may force it to occupy an unnatural and painful position, such as a
falling of the womb or _procidentia_, or it may turn or even bend on
itself into abnormal positions, called _versions and flexions_; these
become obstinate to treatment in proportion to the time which elapses
from the occurrence of the disease to the time when they fall under
proper treatment.
Inflammations are limited sometimes to only portions of the organ; this
may be to the lining mucous membrane of either the body or neck. It may
also invade the entire organ and even extend to the neighboring tissues
and ligaments. From the uterus along the Fallopian tubes to the ovaries
inflammation may spread itself, causing abscesses in its wake and other
complications which may require surgical skill of a special nature to
give permanent relief.
Sterility is often the result of disease caused by abortion, and this
should be another warning to thoughtless, giddy women, who desire no
children in their early married life, because it would interfere with
their regular pleasure rounds, and so resort to abortions, which will,
in all probability, make them entirely unfit to ever become pregnant
or bear children. I have made an attempt to impress on the reader
two things; one of these is the flagrant violation of ordinary and
simple rules of health, the other the enormity of the crime of induced
abortions, and to accomplish this I have avoided screening the subject
by employing ambiguous or finely-selected phrases, but have used plain
terms which will not shock the pure or noble in heart and mind, but may
the hypocritical, under the gauze of a false modesty.
[Illustration: PLATE I
The Bony Pelvis in its relation to the entire body.
From the author’s original drawing.]