I am here led to remark, that too much labor and exercise, as well as idleness and habits of effeminacy generally, in this hard-working country of ours, not unfrequently cause this evil. Lazy people do habitually too little; industrious people often too much.
It appears that abortions are becoming more and more frequent in this country at the present day. It is notorious that the habits of Americans are not now as simple as they formerly were. More tea and coffee are drank, more rich and stimulating food is used, and there is a vast deal more idleness withal. Formerly labor was more dignified, more respected; but labor now is degrading. It is not fashionable to spin, weave, knit, sew, wash, and to make bread, as in the good days of our grandmothers. People are everywhere growing more indolent. “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; he shall, therefore, beg in harvest, and have nothing.” So, also, those who will not employ the limbs and muscles which God has given them for use, cannot have permanent and enduring health at any price.
But it is asked, Would you pay all attention to physical culture, and neglect the mental? I answer, no. I would have my daughters taught music, painting, drawing, as well as science generally, but on no account would I do this at the expense of bodily health. Nor is there any need of this; the highest possible cultivation of the mental manifestations can only be accomplished when the physical powers are suitably and proportionably developed to their fullest extent. “A sound mind in a sound body, is nature’s inevitable law.” There is yet one evil pertaining to the subject of abortion, an increasing one too, in some parts of our country at least, of which I should speak.
Abortion, it will thus be seen, is a serious evil. Its consequences may, in general terms, be condensed as follows:
1. A stronger tendency to a recurrence of the evil. Those who miscarry once are much more apt to do so again.
2. Menorrhagia, or an immoderate flow of the menses.
3. Irregularity of the monthly periods; these occurring either too often or too seldom, and attended with much prostration of the general health.
4. Dysmenorrhea, or painful, laborious menstruation, accompanied often with more pain and suffering than attend labor itself.
5. Hysteria, or hysterics, depression of spirits, disquietude, dissatisfaction with life, its pursuits, pleasures, and enjoyments, and an habitual melancholic state of mind.
6. Dyspepsia, with all its train of pains and penalties. This picture, terrible as it may appear, is no imaginary one. Every well-informed physician will at once recognize the truth of all that has been affirmed. It is a bad state of the system which allows of abortion. One abortion ordinarily is far more trying and worse upon the constitution, than two labors at full term.