Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage

by Catharine Esther Beecher

managed a Water Cure Establishment, and was largely employed in the town around, stated that after a year or two of instruction in the use of cold water, he lost all his outside patients, as the mothers and housekeepers had learned to treat by his methods, and no longer needed his attention except in rare cases.

I have stated that it was at the Swedish Movement Cure, under charge of Dr. Geo. H. Taylor, that the cause of my long invalidism and its remedy were ascertained. In addition to this personal benefit, I have learned the cause and the proper remedy of a class of female diseases which have baffled the most skillful practitioners and introduced methods in many ways so unfortunate, that my whole sex will eventually recognize as a great benefactor, the physician who has rendered them needless, and introduced others at once philosophical, modest, and efficacious.

Dr. Taylor's discoveries and methods are presented in his work on the Diseases of Women, published by George Maclean, 47 John Street, N. Y. This work has the approval of the leading physicians

of Philadelphia and New York, and other distinguished practitioners whose specialty has been in this department. If this work should find its way into every school and family, it probably would do more for the health of women and of the next generation than any other similar measure that can be urged.

The information I have gained in the modes narrated, has increased my conviction of the importance of giving to every woman a scientific training for her profession as healthkeeper of the family state. Not that the long course needed for general medical practice should be attempted, which in the chief European Universities would demand ten and twelve years of study and training. Instead of this, I would propose a moderate course in physiology and animal chemistry, accompanied with instruction in practical scientific methods of employing water, light, heat, cold, air, exercise, and diet—both to prevent and to remedy diseases—nor should the application of these remedies be left entirely to the judgment and skill of women, even after such training, but be under the guidance of a physician,

highly educated, so as to detect by careful investigation the causes of disease, and of such another as Dr. Taylor, who has practised in both the Water and Movement Cures.

I have stated that in one large town a Water Cure physician lost all his outside practice by instructing mothers and housekeepers how to use properly the methods of the Water Cure. If to these were added the practical methods of the Movement Cure, as conducted by Dr. G. H. Taylor, with the enforcement of all the laws of health in a given community, it is probable that all the physicians but those superintending these methods, would lose all their practice.

One of the most judicious and well educated physicians I know, expressed the opinion that if a number of families in a town would unite to provide a salary to a good physician (the same as to a clergyman) who should visit each family to watch over the habits and health, and see all methods employed to keep them well, that in the end, it would prove a great piece of economy in money as well as in health. The sagacious Chinese have

learned this, and pay their physicians so long as they are well, and stop paying when they are ill.

But with us it is for the pecuniary interest of physicians to have sickness general in a community, and there is need of a profession whose honor and emolument depend on the prevention of all diseases. For this profession every woman, and especially every school-teacher should be carefully trained.