After every confinement there is considerable sore or raw surface, with which the offensive discharge comes in contact, to become readily absorbed or taken up into the system, giving rise to fevers or inflammations of the womb and other pelvic organs. If one has a wound on any part of the body, the first thought would, or rather should, be to keep it clean; exactly the same treatment is required for wounds of the womb and vagina.
When the discharge becomes offensive, it also becomes dangerous and poisonous, and the only and proper thing to do is to thoroughly wash out the entire vaginal cavity until all offensive smell has disappeared. The only sure sign that anyone can have of the completeness and thoroughness of the vaginal washings, is that there is no longer any fetid or offensive smell perceptible.
It requires no particularly trained nurse or expert to administer a cleansing vaginal injection, yet it is more likely to be done in a bungling, inefficient manner than in a proper workmanlike manner; for this reason, it would be well to remember a few of the necessary details of carrying out the douching. In the first place, the room in which the vaginal douche is administered must be comfortably warm, so as to preclude the possibility of chilling the patient; the windows or any other opening liable to cause draft must be closed. The nozzle of the syringe, whether it be a fountain or a family syringe, must have been thoroughly brushed and cleansed with soap water, before and after each use; if the instrument is old, or has been used for questionable purposes, or, perchance, made the rounds of the neighborhood, it had better be thrown into the ash barrel, and an entirely new syringe, the “Alpha,” be employed, which, by its sure and continuous stream, I consider the most suitable female syringe. The bulb of a syringe must be compressed in the palm of the hand slowly and deliberately.
The position of the patient is of considerable importance; a vessel is placed under her, which is carefully adjusted, so as not to tip too far backwards, otherwise it will overflow and drench the bed or the patient’s clothing. Beneath the small of her back a few extra pillows are placed, and thus she comfortably reclines on her back, while the attendant manages the disinfecting wash and syringe, placed in a basin between her thighs. Half a gallon of the fluid is usually sufficient. The temperature of the wash is very important and may range between 103 and 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
The recumbent position is only intended for women who are confined to their beds; others, who are around and about on their feet, can sit comfortably over a chamber, on the edge of a low chair, having the vessel underneath them, and the wash of course in a separate basin. In the course of my experience I have been called to mothers, five to eight days after delivery, who were in a raging fever, presumably from the ptomaines which had developed in the vagina and poisoned the blood. After a few vaginal injections, sometimes after the first, the fever subsided entirely. These remarkable results we owe to the antiseptic treatment of disease, and when it once becomes generally known that this is only another word for cleanliness, infectious diseases will grow correspondingly less, and the cure for those that exist will be less experimental and more reliable.
CHAPTER VI.
MARITAL EXCESSES AND PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION.
In a previous chapter, the physiology of conception was explained, and it was shown to be an organic function, independent of and remote from the sexual act, and over which the parties to the act have no control. From this scientific statement of the actual fact, it becomes at once apparent that conception or pregnancy may result without natural sexual congress, by simply injecting the sperm of the male, by means of a uterine syringe, into the womb of the female, while she is in a state of unconsciousness. It is also quite probable that a criminal conspiracy of this nature could be carried out, without any violation to the delicate anatomy that is involved in the natural process; a detailed account of all the probabilities which the ingenuity of a scientifically-trained mind could devise, belongs more properly to the department of medical jurisprudence. It is, however, of sufficient general importance that the reader should have at least an idea of the door that has been unlocked through physiological researches.