Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by Joel Shew, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
INTRODUCTION.
Concerning matters pertaining to midwifery, friends of Water-Cure sometimes ask questions like the following:
1. What methods of treatment shall we adopt to enable us the better to pass through the period of pregnancy?
2. What methods to aid in mitigating the pains and perils of childbirth?
3. Shall we employ a physician on such occasions?
4. If so, shall it be a male or female practitioner?
As regards the first and second of these queries collectively, I remark, that in 1843 I commenced the practice of midwifery according to the hydropathic plan, and have, from time to time since that period, published articles on the subject of pregnancy and childbirth, and have put forth, also, a small work which has had a wide circulation, and been the means of doing some good. There is, doubtless, no branch or department of the medical art in which a judicious regulation of water, air, exercise, and diet, are more strikingly beneficial than in that now under consideration. I would speak earnestly on this point, and as to the truthfulness of what I affirm, I may confidently refer to the experience of those who have a knowledge of the subject—to those who have themselves experienced the effects of hydropathy. We do not hear persons say, “We have resorted to the water-treatment in childbirth and have found it to be an injury to us;” but on the contrary, we do hear it said, “We had borne a number of children under the old methods, suffering at each time more than mortal tongue can describe; but now, since we have become informed on the subject of Water-Cure, we find childbirth—hard as it necessarily is—a much more easy thing to bear.” I repeat, the uniformity of the testimony in favor of water-treatment among those who have in their own persons tested it, is remarkable and without parallel in the healing art.
But I must here allude to the fact, that different practitioners in the new system must, some of them at least, entertain honest differences of opinion in regard to the hydropathic uses of water in pregnancy and childbirth. One tells us that too much bathing is usually practiced on such occasions; another that too little is done. One tells us that water patients are everywhere allowed to get up too soon after childbirth; another that they are kept in bed too long. One says that the vagina syringe is almost the all in all for woman kind, and would almost make us believe that women were made for syringes, and not syringes for women. Another says that the vagina syringe, so far as labor and the getting up are concerned, is at best comparatively only a poor affair; that it is not in accordance with the principles of sound physiology or pathology to throw cold water upon any bleeding surface—external or internal of the body; that the use of the vagina syringe is revolting to the feelings of nine tenths of all midwifery patients who have had it used; that so far as the limited experience of hydropathic practitioners extends in this department, it would appear that those who have not in their practice thus used cold water internally, have had, at least, as good success as those who have.
In regard to preventing the “pains and perils” of childbirth, there seems likewise to be some differences of opinion among the water doctors, so called. Some who are, as it were, just commencing the practice, and have more zeal than knowledge in the matter, would have us believe that water almost wholly prevents the pains of parturition and the perils thereof. But there are others who maintain, that do what we will, labor must, as a general fact, be attended with severe suffering; that as a mere palliative of pain at the time of labor, little can be claimed for water; that labors are not, probably, on the whole, shortened by the use of water either before or at the time; that very short labors are not probably, more frequent in the new than in the old way; that very quick labors are not desirable, since experience teaches that they are not so safe as those which are more protracted. It is maintained, too, that say what we may, childbirth is, and must necessarily be, in all civilized societies, a serious thing to enter upon. What woman who has ever passed through this ordeal does not regard it so? and what physician, no matter how old, or experienced, or skillful he may be, does not, every time he enters the lying-in chamber, feel this responsibility to be a great and trying one? Admitting all that can be done by the water-treatment in matters of midwifery, and much, very much, certainly may be—childbirth is yet an agony, and must ever continue so to be.