I have finished what was purposed, and presented the married female with that information for direction and relief, in those little ailments and discomforts which frequently arise during pregnancy, for which she does not think it necessary to consult her medical adviser, and yet from which she will not unfrequently go on suffering for weeks, rather than speak of them.
PREVENTION TO CONCEPTION.
We have seen from the preceding pages, that in addition to what may be termed diseases ordinarily attendant upon a state of pregnancy, there are others in which to become pregnant is to hazard the health, and often the life of the woman, involving a peremptory necessity either for instrumental or Cæsarean operation, premature delivery or miscarriage. Apart from its agonizing torture, the danger of the Cæsarean operation is imminent to a frightful extent. Premature delivery is often attended with success, but the offspring being prematurely born, if they survive, rarely attain maturity, and even then mostly during their short existence very sickly. Miscarriage, although attended with but little danger when skilfully effected and properly conducted, can only be considered as an alternative; only a choice of evils. But thanks to the indefatigable researches of the learned and humane M.M. Desomeaux for his great discovery by which pregnancy can be prevented. By this discovery every woman can have in her own power the means of prevention.
The imperative, and self-evident necessity that, in some cases, pregnancy should not take place, cannot, for a moment, be doubted, in view that it is within the knowledge of every medical man, who makes his profession subserve the amelioration of the suffering to which the female is subject—knowledge, too, acquired within the sphere of his daily practice—that there are women who should not become pregnant, for with them pregnancy is peril to life. And even when life is spared, the birth of every child snatches many years from the life of the mother, hurrying her, with a constitution shattered, and health destroyed, to a premature grave.
Some women are so constituted that they cannot give birth, not to say to healthy, but not to living children. Others again cannot give birth at all, except through the instrumental mangling and cutting of the Cæsarean operation—of a piece-meal extraction of the infant from the mother’s womb—happy, indeed, if the woman’s life fall not a sacrifice to the butchery. Truly, such spectacles are too horrid to contemplate. And yet such women are permitted to become pregnant, in total ignorance that pregnancy ought and can be prevented, by safe, simple, invariably healthy, and infallibly certain means.
Some women, again, although not in immediate danger from becoming too frequently pregnant, yet during seven or eight of the nine months of pregnancy, experience the utmost agony of mind and body, making existence a continuous state of misery and suffering, destructive alike of their health, beauty, vigor, and spirits; who, after confinement and recovery, live in constant and perpetual fear and dread of again becoming pregnant, again to undergo the series of intense sufferings from which they have but just emerged. Life, under such circumstances, to the fond and affectionate wife, is but a constant suffering. Can it be otherwise to the kind husband? Can he behold the partner of his joys and sorrows—his bosom companion—the mother of his children—his solace in sickness or difficulty, thus dragging out her days of wretchedness and anguish, emaciated, disheartened, broken in body and spirits; and that, too, in the meridian of her life, in the hey-day of her existence, perceptibly sinking into an early grave, to leave her offspring motherless, or entrust them to the cold and sordid care of the world! Can a husband, possessing the feelings of a man, behold this with indifference; nay, will he not shudder at the possibility of such consequences arising from too frequent pregnancy! Will he not pause and reflect ere he becomes the cause from which such dreadful effects would flow? Surely, if he is a thinking, reflecting, rational, humane man, he must reflect—he must pause, and permit the adoption of the mode pointed out in these pages, by which pregnancy can be prevented, and that, too, without the least sacrifice of those pleasurable sensations experienced in the connubial embrace.
The happiness as well of husband, of wife, and children, will be enhanced by the preservation of her health, by lengthening the intervals between the periods of pregnancy, making the interval between the births three, four, or more years (as in France), depending upon the health of the wife. Thereby it will, under ordinary circumstances, be preserved to rear, guard, and educate her children,—to soothe and comfort the declining years of the father when age and decrepitude are upon him. When, perchance, his own sufferings can be assuaged by only her hand, who alone knows and anticipates his every wish—whose affectionate attention, having accompanied him through the rugged path of life, alone knows how to impart content and happiness.
Surely, then, circumstances do arise where it is folly, madness, wickedness, to permit pregnancy to take place.
Where, for example, the health of the wife evidently sinks under a too frequent state of pregnancy or a too rapid increase of family; or the births taking place in too close succession.
Where the female cannot be in a state of pregnancy without the most intense and excruciating suffering during such period, endangering her own future health, and perhaps that of her offspring.