[26] See W. B. Carpenter’s Principles of Human Physiology, 7th edition, p. 909.
[27] Ibid., p. 909.
[28] One of the most powerful causes of the growth of pessimism in Germany is the increasing licentiousness of a race created with a high ideal of virtue and cherishing a love of home.
[29] The frequent opinion that a limited amount of fornication is a very trivial matter, that the individual may become an excellent father of a family and good citizen in spite of such indulgence, is based on the grave error of regarding sexual relations as the act of one instead of two individuals, and limited in their effects to the moment of occurrence. The moral character of such indulgence is, however, determined by its effects upon the after-life of two human beings—viz., its effect on the citizen, whose judgment becomes injured in relation to this great subject of national welfare, through early experience, and on the partner in vice whose life is one of growing degradation. These two inevitable facts remain through life.
[30] See Debates of Working Men’s Congress, Paris, October, 1876. Also La Femme Pauvre, a work crowned by the French Academy some years ago. Also the writings of Le Clerc, Guizot, etc.
[31] See Reports of Rescue Society, London.
[32] This question is now anxiously asked by intelligent mothers, who, resolved to do what is right for their children, are yet bewildered by the contradiction of authorities and the customs of society. It is the necessity in my own medical practice of answering this question truthfully, which is one of the reasons that has compelled me to write these pages.
[33] G. M. Humphrey, M.D., F.R.S., in Holme’s System of Surgery, 3rd edition, vol. iii., p. 550.
[34] See Acton’s Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs, 6th edition, p. 12 et seq.
[35] Acton’s Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs, 6th Ed., pp. 37, 38.