Corpulency is also to be mentioned among the causes of barrenness. Women who are very fat are often sterile, from the fact that obesity is in reality a state of disease.
It is supposed by many that barrenness is almost always the fault of the female. But this is not necessarily so; the husband, as well as the wife, may be feeble in the procreative function; and men who have lived a debauched or dissipated life are very apt to be so. Hence it is that women are often blamed when they ought not to be.
Treatment.—In regard to the therapeutic management suitable to be adopted in such cases, it is to be remarked, that if organic disease is the cause of the difficulty, we cannot, as a general thing, expect by any means to effect a cure. But in a large majority of cases the difficulty is only a functional one; in many of these, therefore, a cure may be brought about.
The sum total of the therapeutic management proper to be adopted in such cases is, invigorating the general health. That which will best tend to fortify and strengthen the system generally is also best for the local weakness. Nor is a cure to be effected in a short period of time in most cases of sterility. It may require many months, and even years, to accomplish the object.
“Abstinence by consent for many months,” observes Dr. Good, “has proved a more frequent remedy than any other, and especially when the intercourse has been so incessantly repeated as to break down the staminal strength; and hence the separation produced by a voyage to India has often proved successful.”
Some years ago I wrote in my note-book the following paragraphs on this subject:
“A few months since, one of my patients, a gentleman of this city, informed me that a lady relative of his, with whom also I am acquainted, had been married about eight years, remaining, much to her sorrow, childless. She experienced frequent miscarriages, accompanied with much general debility. About two years since the subject of water-treatment came under her observation. She at once commenced a course of bathing, with due attention to regimen, etc. She became much improved, and, in due time, bore a healthy, well-formed child. She attributed this most desirable result to the effects of water in restoring her general health.
“Another lady remained without offspring for fifteen years after marriage. Her husband, in building a new house since the introduction of Croton water into this city, erected also convenient bathing fixtures. The lady practiced perseveringly a course of bathing, and became much improved in her bodily health. She, too, was at length blessed with an offspring, and, as she believed, in consequence of the course she had pursued in restoring her general health.
“I have known and heard of numbers of cases in which, by a prudent course of bathing, exercise, etc., the use of a plain and unstimulating diet, and the observing of proper temperance in the marital privileges, persons have borne children when most earnestly, and by a great variety of means, that object had been sought in vain. Yet be it ever remembered, that little is to be expected from either water or diet without strict temperance in all things.”
The vegetable diet, so called, is very favorable to reproduction in the human species. See how Ireland, a small island comparatively, sends its inhabitants all over Great Britain and the wide extent of the United States. Yet the mass of Irish people, as every one knows, subsist, while in their own country, mainly on potatoes and sour milk, or a diet equally simple. The celebrated Dr. Cheyne remarked, from much experience, that the total milk and seed diet (meaning by seed, farinaceous substances generally), persevered in for two years, was in almost all cases sufficient to enable the barren to become pregnant by the appropriate means.