XXV.
1.—“Vicarious punishment ...”
Revolting was the shock to the writer, coming, some years ago, with unprejudiced and ingenuous mind, to the study of the so-called “Diseases of Women,” on finding that nearly the whole of these special “diseases,” including menstruation, were due, directly or collaterally, to one form or other of masculine excess or abuse. Here is a nearly coincident opinion, afterwards met with:—“The diseases peculiar to women are so many, of so frequent occurrence, and of such severity, that half the time of the medical profession is devoted to their care, and more than half its revenues depend upon them. We have libraries of books upon them, special professorships in our medical colleges, and hosts of doctors who give them their exclusive attention.... The books and professors are all at fault. They have no knowledge of the causes or nature of these diseases” (or at least they do not publish it, or act on it), “and no idea of their proper treatment. Women are everywhere outraged and abused. When the full chapter of woman’s wrongs and sufferings is written, the world will be horrified at the hideous spectacle....”—T. L. Nichols, M.D. (“Esoteric Anthropology,” p. 198).
So, again, in speaking of menorrhagia:—“The causes of this disease, whatever they are, must be removed. Thousands of women are consigned to premature graves; some by the morbid excesses of their own passions, but far more by the sensual and selfish indulgences of those who claim the legal right to murder them in this manner, whom no law of homicide can reach, and upon whose victims no coroner holds an inquest.”—(Op. cit., p. 301.)
2.—“... grievous toll ...”
And this in every grade of society, even to the pecuniary loss, as well as discomfort, of the labouring classes of women.
“Statistics of sickness in the Post Office show that women” (these are unmarried women) “are away from their work more days than men.”—(Sidney Webb, at British Association, 1891.)
5.—“... no honest claim.”
The Times of Aug. 3, 1892, reports a paper by Professor Lombroso, of Turin (at the International Congress of Psychology, London), in which occurs the following:—“It must be observed that woman was exposed to more pains than man, because man imposed submission and often even slavery upon her. As a girl, she had to undergo the tyranny of her brothers, and the cruel preferences accorded by parents to their male children. Woman was the slave of her husband, and still more of social prejudices.... Let them not forget the physical disadvantage under which she had to labour. She might justly call herself the pariah of the human family.”
The word is apt and corroborative, for it was no honest act—it was not Nature, but human cruelty and injustice that formed a pariah.
8.—“... opprobrious theme.”
Conf. ancient and mediæval superstitions and accusations on the subject. Raciborski notes these aspersions (Traité, p. 13):—“Pline prétendait que les femmes étant au moment des règles pouvaient dessécher les arbres par de simples attouchements, faire périr des fruits, &c., &c.” And a further writer says more fully:—“Pliny informs us that the presence of a menstrual woman turns wine sour, causes trees to shed their fruit, parches up their young fruit, and makes them for ever barren, dims the splendour of mirrors and the polish of ivory, turns the edge of sharpened iron, converts brass into rust, and is the cause of canine rabies. In Isaiah xxx. 22, the writer speaks of the defilement of graven images, which shall be cast away as a menstruous cloth; and in Ezekiel xviii. 6, and xxxvi. 17, allusions of the same import are made.” Unless we accept the antiquated notion of a “special curse” on women, how reconcile the idea of an “ordinance of Nature” being so repulsively and opprobriously alluded to? Well may it be said:—“Ingratitude is a hateful vice. Not only the defects, but even the illnesses which have their source in the excessive” (man-caused) “susceptibility of woman, are often made by men an endless subject of false accusations and pitiless reproaches.”—(M. le Docteur Cerise, in his Introduction to Roussel, p. 34.)