INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
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.
MANAGEMENT
OF
FEMALE COMPLAINTS.