Hints to Husbands: A Revelation of the Man-Midwife's Mysteries

by George Morant

“I have no doubt that I was one of a considerable number, who, at the last meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (a meeting which will long be memorable in its annals), wished to express their sentiments on the subject of the use of the speculum vaginæ, without having what they deemed a perfect opportunity. I regret that the discussion was not adjourned to another evening.

“I think the profession deeply indebted to Dr. Robert Lee for bringing this question forward for discussion. It is not one of mere medical or surgical treatment, but of medical and public ethics; and I confess myself astonished at the light manner in which a vaginal examination was spoken of by one of the gentlemen present at the Society. I think the challenge of Dr. Bennet should have been accepted at once, and that a committee should have been, and should now be, appointed to test the existence, or the non-existence, of the thousand and one ‘ulcers,’ or ‘abrasions,’ of which so much has been said of late.

“The gentleman to whom I have alluded above, huffed the idea of indecency in making a vaginal examination. There need be no exposure of the person of the patient. Surgeons make no scruple about an examination of the rectum (as if the two examinations could, morally speaking, be compared). But, if there be no exposure of the person, and if the examination of the rectum be frequently made, is there, at first, no wounding of the feelings? and is there afterwards no deterioration and blunting of those feelings by the repeated daily or weekly use of the speculum vaginæ in the virgin, and in the very young, even amongst the married? I loudly proclaim that there is such deterioration, and that the female who has been subjected to such treatment is not the same person, in delicacy and purity, that she was before.

“I have known cases of the most revolting attachment, on the part of such patients, to the practice and to the practitioner. I have known them to speak of the ‘womb’ and of the ‘uterine organs’ with a familiarity which was formerly unknown, and which, I trust, will, ere long, be obsolete. The current of the ideas becomes hypochondriacally directed to these organs. The very mind is poisoned. A new and lamentable form of hysteria—I had almost said of furor uterinus—is induced, with this aggravation, that the subject of distress is either concealed by the greatest effort, or explained at the expense of virgin or female modesty.

“There is a case of ‘poisoned mind’ in the male sex, induced by the quack doings of the day, relative to the existence of impotency, which all of us must have treated and deplored. A similar case of ‘mental poisoning’ is now being induced in the other sex, by the frequent, constant, and undue reference, on the part of the profession, to the condition of the ‘uterine organs.’”...

“One poor, miserable patient comes to me weekly, thus afflicted. She has been treated by the speculum and the caustic for months, as an out-patient at University College Hospital. I sent her to Dr. Robert Lee twice. Twice that gentleman examined, and declared that there was no uterine or vaginal disease. Meanwhile the miserable patient’s mind is absorbed by this ideal malady, and the peace of her husband’s home is destroyed.

“I sent another patient to Dr. Robert Lee a few days ago (whom I had never seen) under similar circumstances, but moving in a different rank of life. The same opinion was given, the miserable patient suffering dire disappointment!

“I recently attended a poor curate’s wife, who had come to London for medical aid, at, as I suppose, great inconvenience. During my short attendance, this patient was constantly urged by a friend, a titled lady (the aristocracy always take the lead in quackery), to send for her physician, who is a strong abettor of the speculum. The course which followed may be imagined, and need not be described. A case of more complicated misery for a husband cannot well be conceived. A sickly wife, afflicted with uterine hypochondriasis, set upon by a titled advocate of the uterine quackery, with straitened resources.

“The advocates of the speculum speak of cases which had resisted the efficacy of the usual general and local treatment, and which yielded to the use of the speculum and the caustic. I have seen cases in which, the speculum and caustic having been employed—and unduly employed, as I believe—the patient remained more miserably afflicted in mind and body than ever, and this the effect of that treatment. Whether the former supposition be as well founded as the latter, I will not presume to determine; but I believe the cases in which the young, and especially the unmarried, are afflicted, so as really to justify the use of the speculum, to be rare, and the cases in which the injection of a solution of nitrate of silver, by her own hands, may not take the place of the application of this valuable remedy in substance, by the hand of the practitioner, to be rare indeed.

“I will not advert even to the epithets which have been applied to the frequent use of the speculum by our French neighbours, who are so skilled in these matters; but I will ask, WHAT FATHER AMONGST US, AFTER THE DETAILS WHICH I HAVE GIVEN, WOULD ALLOW HIS VIRGIN DAUGHTER TO BE SUBJECTED TO THIS ‘POLLUTION’? Let us, then, maintain the spotless dignity of our profession, with its well-deserved character for purity of morals, and throw aside this injurious practice with indignant scorn, remembering that it is not mere exposure of the person, but the dulling of the edge of the virgin modesty, and the degradation of the pure minds of the daughters of England, which are to be avoided.” Dr Marshall Hall in the ‘Lancet.’