CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXVII
Importance of the problem of population — Malthus and hie doctrine — Its fallacies — Temporary validity — “Moral restraint” — Neo-malthusianism — The foundation of the Malthusian League — Great antiquity of malthusian practices — Disharmony of the family instinct — The mica operation of the Australian indigens — Artificial abortion among primitive races — Methods of preventing pregnancy in ancient times — In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Relative justification of the use of preventive measures — Views of recent physicians on this subject — Summary of the principal methods of preventing conception — Limitation of coitus to particular times — Advice of Soranos and Capellmann — Feskstitow’s “conception-curve” — Influence of particular seasons of the year — Prolongation of the period of lactation — Buttenstedt’s “Happiness in Marriage” and Funcke’s “New Revelation” — Criticism of these fantasies — Divergences from the normal method of coitus — Passive demeanour of the woman — Coitus interruptus — Exaggerated views of its injurious influence — Coitus interruptus and anxiety-neurosis — Trifling effect in healthy individuals — Repeated interruptions of coitus — Mechanical means of preventing conception — Compression — Muscular action — Mensinga’s “occlusive pessary” — Holweg’s “obturator” — The condom — Chemico-physical preventive measures — Douches — The “Lady’s Friend” — Antiseptic powders and security sponges — Combination of chemical and mechanical means — The “Venus apparatus” — The duplex occlusive pessary — Inflammatory affections after the use of chemical preventive measures — Herpes progenitalis — Artificial sterility — Operative methods of inducing it — Vaporization and castration — The “ovariées” — Wide diffusion of artificial abortion — Critical remarks regarding the punishment of abortion in Germany — The right of the unborn child — Rape and abortion — The methods of expelling the ovum — Internal means — Mechanical means — Danger and consequences of both — Social means for limiting abortion.
CHAPTER XXVII
Whereas in former times opinions on social questions were determined principally by economic considerations, to-day we are to a great extent influenced also by the aims and endeavours of individual and social hygiene; for this reason the so-called problem of population has come to occupy the consciousness of civilized mankind to a far greater extent than before it has passed from the stage of theory into that of practice. Serious critical political economists, such as, for example, B. G. Schmoller,[709] have recognized this. The increasing understanding of the conditions of social life, knowledge of the connexion between economic conditions and the number and quality of the population, must of itself lead to the discussion of the question whether the regulation of the number of children born is not one of the principal duties of modern civilization. The Englishman Robert Malthus was the first who, stimulated by an idea of Benjamin Franklin, in the year 1798, in his “Essay on the Principles of Population,” discussed this serious, and even alarming, question of the natural consequences of unrestricted sexual intercourse, and answered it in an extremely pessimistic sense. For, according to him, whereas human beings tend to increase in number according to a geometrical progression—that is, in the ratio 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on—the means of subsistence increase only in arithmetical progression—that is, in the ratio of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. Hence it follows that the numbers of the population can be kept within bounds, so as to remain proportional to the nutritive possibilities, only by means of decimating influences, such as vice, poverty, disease, the entire “struggle for existence,” by preventive measures, and by the so-called “moral restraint” in and before marriage. Although this celebrated theory, which filled with alarm, not only all those already living in Europe, but also all those who wished to produce new life, has to-day been generally recognized as false,[710] since it failed to take into account technical advances in the preparation of the soil[711] and other ways in which it will become possible to increase the means of subsistence; and he equally ignored the possibility of a better division of property. None the less does his theory remain apposite in respect of many of the social relationships of more recent times; the doctrine has, in fact, temporary validity for certain periods of civilization, such as our own. Malthus recommended, as the principal means of preventing over-population, abstinence from sexual intercourse (moral restraint) before marriage, and the postponement of marriage; thus he was an apostle of the “relative asceticism” recommended in the twenty-fifth chapter of the present work.
In England this early view found utterance among the political economists and sociologists, such as Chalmers, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Say, Thornton, etc. It was also actively discussed in wide circles of the population, so that as early as the year 1825 the “disciples of Malthus” were a typical phenomenon of English life.
A further development of malthusianism in the practical direction was represented by the so-called “neo-malthusianism”—that is, an actual diffusion of instruction in the means for the prevention of pregnancy and for the limitation of the number of children. Such a procedure was first publicly recommended by Francis Place, in the year 1822; but no widespread teaching of practical malthusianism occurred till a considerably later date, notably after the foundation of the Malthusian League, on July 17, 1877. The principal advocates of neo-malthusianism in England were John Stuart Mill, Charles Drysdale, Charles Bradlaugh, and Mrs. Besant.
Malthusian practice is, however, much older than the theory. Metchnikoff[712] declares the endeavour to diminish the number of children to be a very widely diffused “disharmony of the family instinct,” which in itself is much more recent, and is much less widely diffused in the animal kingdom than the sexual instinct. Animals, at any rate, know nothing of the prevention of conception; that is a “privilege” of the human species. By primitive races such preventive measures are very widely employed. Among these measures one of the best known is the “mica” operation of the Australian natives—the slitting up of the urethra of the male along the lower surface of the penis, so that the semen flows out just in front of the scrotum, and is ejaculated outside the vagina.[713] Regarding the wide diffusion of artificial abortion among savage races, Ploss-Bartels gives detailed reports. The pursuit of material enjoyments, characteristic of civilized peoples, is not here (as recent authors have erroneously assumed) the determining influence; we have, in fact, to do with a widely diffused disharmony of the family instinct,[714] for which in certain definite conditions some justification must be admitted. The period for the unconditional rejection of malthusianism by pietists and absolute moralists has passed away definitely. Not only physicians, but also professional political economists, recognize the relative justification and admissibility of the use of preventive measures in certain circumstances for the limitation of the procreation of children. It has rightly been pointed out[715] that in every marriage a time must eventually arrive when preventive measures in sexual intercourse are employed, and necessarily must be employed, because, in respect of the state of health of the wife, and also in view of economic conditions, their use is urgently demanded. These relationships have been discussed with great insight by A. Hegar,[716] and he has proved the justification of practical neo-malthusianism in every ordinary marriage, as well as for the population at large. By means of a “regulation of reproduction,” an immoderate increase of the population is prevented; by diminishing the quantity we improve the quality of the offspring. Late marriages, long pauses between the separate deliveries, and the greatest possible sexual abstinence, subserve this purpose.
Like Hegar, the Munich hygienist Max Gruber[717] also recognizes the necessity for setting bounds to the number of children to be brought into the world, since the capacity of the human species to increase is far greater than its power to increase the means of subsistence. He describes very vividly the physical and moral misery of the parents and the children when the latter are too numerous; he also shows that from the birth of the fourth child onwards the inborn force and health of the children diminish more and more. Naturally, also, diseases affecting the parents, and the pressing danger of the inheritance of these diseases, renders necessary the use of sexual preventive measures, or else of moral restraint. Gruber enunciates the thoroughly neo-malthusian proposition: