“In order to baptize the child, a syringe charged with natural water may be used. If this be not at hand, a person may use a sponge, or a linen or cotton rag, wetted with water, which is to be carried to the child by the fingers, a pair of forceps, or any other suitable contrivance, and then squeezed or pressed on the surface of the part presenting.” (Loc. cit., p. 45.)
“Any person, whether man, woman or child, may baptize an infant when in danger of death.” (Ibid., p. 76.)
If the facts now stated should be generally known and acted upon by the profession, hundreds of lives, infant and maternal, would annually be saved.
[104] MS. Letter, dated Nov. 14th, 1858.
[105] It is not of course intended to imply that Protestantism, as such, in any way encourages, or indeed permits, the practice of inducing abortion; its tenets are uncompromisingly hostile to all crime. So great, however, is the popular ignorance regarding this offence, that an abstract morality is here comparatively powerless; and there can be no doubt that the Romish ordinance, flanked on the one hand by the confessional, and by denouncement and excommunication on the other, has saved to the world thousands of infant lives.
[106] Passot, Des dangers de l’avortement provoqué dans un but criminel; Gazette Méd. de Lyon, 1853.
[107] Ann. d’Hygiène, 1856, p. 147.
[108] Dubois and Devergie, ibid., tome xix. p. 425; tome xxxix. p. 157.
[109] Ibid.
[110] Review of Montgomery’s Signs of Pregnancy; The North American Medico-Chirurgical Review, March, 1857, p. 249.