“Such devils would pull angels out of heaven,
Provided they could reach them; ’tis their pride;
And that’s the odds ’twixt soul and body-plague!
The veriest slave who drops in Cairo’s street,
Cries, ‘Stand off from me,’ to the passengers;
While these blotched souls are eager to infect,
And blow their bad breath in a sister’s face,
As if they got some ease by it.”

If the reader views with disgust and horror the above rules of ordinary practice in man-midwifery—and what man is base enough (save an accoucheur) not so to regard them?—these feelings will be intensified a thousand-fold by the contemplation of the latest invention[31] of “obstetric art.” We allude to the SPECULUM. The adoption of this instrument, as we are informed, is now becoming general; and its employment plunges its wretched victim, woman, down into the lowest deep of infamy and degradation. We will not pollute our pages by describing its method of action; suffice it to say, that, to the sense of touch, common to all midwifery practice, is added, in its application, that of sight; exposure the most complete of all which modesty, even in the most abject of races, invariably conceals.

G. Morant. Inc.t

THE SPECULUM

In confirmation of our own view of this most villanous invention, we will convict its advocates by the testimony of distinguished members of their own profession. The denunciations of the speculum, by these morally-courageous men, addressed, for the most part, solely to their fellow-practitioners, shall now go forth to be read and pondered on by every reflecting Englishman who may chance to open these pages.

“We have already exposed, with our utmost vigour, the improper practice which Drs. Ashwell and Lee so strongly condemned. All we said on that occasion we repeat now.... To employ it (the speculum), as it is rumoured certain persons in London have employed it, to attract notice, and place themselves prominently before the public—to use it merely as a means of personal advancement—in fact, to gain practice—is a crime against the laws of morality, and treason against professional honour.

“The erroneous and one-sided opinions, which the advocates for the indiscriminate use of the speculum hold, prove how little they have presented to themselves the true facts of the case. Dr. Locock, who made the startling assertion that delicacy ought not to be considered in matters of disease, and was both for and against the speculum, said, that he looked into the vagina as he would into the throat. True enough, so far as he simply is concerned. He would look into the vagina as an ordinary matter of business, and think only of what, in the course of business, it might be necessary to do there. But would the woman regard it in this philosophical light? Is it the same to her whether her tongue is pressed down with a spatula, or her vagina distended with a speculum? Is her moral state to be left out of account altogether, and are we to treat the most sensitive organ in her frame as if it was so much inert matter, whose great use was to be cauterized?

“We do not hesitate to say, that no man, who regards properly his science and himself, can ever use this instrument without feeling that he is driven to it; that other means have failed, and that it has become necessary to adopt additional modes of investigation and of cure. And if it appear from the inquiries which will, doubtless, now be made—that the necessities for its employment have been knowingly exaggerated by its advocates, no condemnation can be too severe for so great a breach of scientific honour.”—Medical Times, 8th June, 1850.

“Dr. Marshall Hall describes in the Lancet a new form of hysteria, connected with and caused by the abuse of the speculum. In his preliminary remarks, alluding to the manner in which the charge of indecency was received by one of the speakers at the late meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, on the ground of the non-necessity of the exposure of the person, he says, ‘But if there be no exposure of the person, is there, at first, no wounding of the feeling, 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?’ He declares 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, she was before. Dr. Marshall Hall’s declaration on this point is fully confirmed by the results of experience. The consequences of the abuse of this practice are, indeed, lamentable. Dr. Hall says he has known cases of the most revolting attachment on the part of the patients to the practice and the practitioner. The current of the ideas becomes hypochondriacally directed to the organs of generation. The very mind is poisoned. A new and lamentable form of hysteria is induced. The patients become reserved, and moody, and perverse, and speak unintelligibly in broken sentences; the peace and happiness of the family are broken up; subjects are discussed on the domestic hearth which ought never to be mentioned except in the sick room—words which wound are spoken, and thoughts which are derogatory are expressed by others, perhaps by the male, members of the family. Dr. Hall mentions cases in which the speculum has been repeatedly employed, and had induced this sad, wretched state, and yet no uterine disease existed. He believes 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 the patient herself, may not take the place of the application of this valuable remedy in substance by the hand of the practitioner, to be rare indeed. We heartily thank Dr. Marshall Hall for this additional blow at ‘the pollution.’ It is greatly to his credit.”—Medical Times, 15th June, 1850.