VACCINATION.
I am opposed to vaccination at all times. It is better, I believe, to live carefully and consistently in all respects, and trust nature for the result. There are many objections to vaccination, which I need not here mention. Pregnant women especially, who are necessarily, in the present state of things, more than others, subject to inflammatory diseases, and less liable, when attacked by acute disease, to recover therefrom, should not be vaccinated. Here are Professor Meigs’s earnest injunctions on the subject. Writing to his class, he observes:
“Pregnant women ought not to be vaccinated. This is a rule which I would advise you to depart from only on the most urgent occasions. If a woman have been ever vaccinated, and appeal to you to re-vaccinate her, because there is a prevalent variolous epidemic, I hope you will refuse to accede to her request. Small-pox is exceedingly and peculiarly pernicious to pregnant women. She who has it, and miscarries, or who is brought to bed at term, generally dies. It is, in my opinion, inexcusable to expose her to so great a risk—a risk far greater than that from accidental contagion, or that of the epidemy. But the vaccine is identical with the variolous animal poison, saving some lessened intensity of its malignant form, derived from its having been modified by the nature of another mammal. To inoculate a cow with small-pox virus, is to give her the vaccine disease, with the lymph of which you can vaccinate, but not reproduce unmodified small-pox. Keep your pregnant patients clear of small-pox, in all its forms, whether modified or unmodified. Do not vaccinate them. I have been the witness of dreadful distress from the operation. Eschew it, I entreat you.”
By way of digression, we may inquire, if pregnancy is an objection to vaccination, why should any person be vaccinated? If those who are in a condition which renders them most susceptible of disease should not be exposed to the variolous poison, why should others who are less susceptible? If any are to take the risk of small-pox without vaccination, I think the strong can afford to do it, rather than the weak. If vaccination is good for any thing, it should be, I think, the most worth for those who are the most liable to harm from the variolous disease.
LETTER XIX.
DISORDERS OF PREGNANCY.
Nervousness—Mental Despondency—Longing—The Imagination—Effects of Fright.
During that portion of the woman’s life in which she is capable of bringing forth children, a period usually of about thirty years, the uterus may be justly considered as the great center of her system. The truth of no observation in medicine has been more generally acknowledged than that of the extreme irritability of this organ, and of the propensity or aptitude which the whole body has to become affected or disturbed by its influence. In the progress of the development of the procreative function, great changes take place; and in pregnancy these effects are not the less remarkable.
The changes which are wrought in the system by pregnancy are not less remarkable in the nervous system than in the other parts of the body. The womb itself is highly endowed with nervous connections and sympathies, and in many respects the uterus, during the child-bearing period, may be considered the great nervous center of the female.
When it is remembered how extremely impressible the nervous system becomes during pregnancy, we are taught the importance of preventing women, under these circumstances, from witnessing things that are calculated powerfully to excite the mind. This caution is especially to be observed in regard to exposing her to scenes of suffering, distress, danger, or the agonies of a death-bed. It is a sad thing for a pregnant woman to lose a husband, child, or other near and dear friend.
Pregnant women should be very careful to avoid the sight of convulsive and nervous affections. They should not, on any account, be present when another is in labor; for it has been observed that some become greatly terrified under such circumstances, while of themselves they are able to pass through its agonies with all commendable courage.