Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

105. Statistics prove that wine-bibbing in England is greatly on the increase, and so is barrenness. You might say there is no connection between the two. I maintain that there is a connection, and that, the alcohol contained in the wine (if wine be taken to excess, which unfortunately it now frequently is) is most antagonistic to fruitfulness.

106. It is surprising, nowadays, the quantity of wine some few young single ladies, at parties, can imbibe without being intoxicated; but whether, if such ladies marry, they will make fruitful vines is quite another matter; but of this I am quite sure, that such girls will, as a rule, make delicate, hysterical, and unhealthy wives. The young are peculiarly sensitive to the evil effects of overstimulation. Excessive wine-drinking with them is a canker eating into their very lives. Time it is that these facts were proclaimed through the length and breadth of our land, before mischief be done past remedy.

107. Champagne is a fashionable and favorite beverage at parties, especially at dances. It is a marvel to note how girls will, in quantities, imbibe the dangerous liquid. How cheerful they are after it; how bright their colors; how sparkling their eyes; how voluble their tongues; how brilliant their ideas! But, alas! the effects are very evanescent—dark clouds soon o’ershadow the horizon, and all is changed! How pale, after it, they become; how sallow their complexions; how dim their eyes; how silent their tongues; how depressed their spirits—depression following in an inverse ratio to overstimulation; and if depression, as a matter of course, weakness and disease! Champagne is one of the most fascinating but most desperately dangerous and deceptive drinks a young girl can imbibe, and should be shunned as the plague! Young men who witness their proceedings admire them vastly as partners for the evening, but neither covet nor secure them as partners for life. Can they be blamed? Certainly not! They well know that girls who, at a dance, imbibe freely of the champagne-cup, and who at a dinner party drink, as some few are in the habit of drinking, four or five, or even six, glasses of wine,—that such wives as these, if ever they do become mothers (which is very doubtful), will be mothers of a degenerate race. It is folly blinking the question; it is absolutely necessary that it be looked boldly in the face, and that the evil be remedied before it be too late.

108. There is an immense deal of drinking in England, which, I am quite convinced, is one reason of so few children in families, and of so many women being altogether barren. It is high time that these subjects were looked into, and that the torrent be stemmed, ere it o’erflow its banks, and carry with it a still greater amount of barrenness, of misery, and of destruction.

109. It might be said that the light wines contain but little alcohol, and therefore can cause, even if taken to excess, but slight injurious effects on the constitution. I reply, that even light wines, taken in quantities, conduce to barrenness, and that, as a rule, if a lady once unfortunately takes to drinking too much wine, she is not satisfied with the light wines, but at length flies to stronger wines—to wines usually fortified with brandy, such as either to sherry or to port wine, or even, at last, to brandy itself! I know that I am treading on tender ground, but my duty as a medical man, and as a faithful chronicler of these matters, obliges me to speak out plainly, without fear or without favor, and to point out the deplorable consequences of such practices. I am quite aware that many ladies have great temptations and great inducements to resort to wine to cheer them in their hours of depression and of loneliness; but unless the danger be clearly pointed out and defined, it is utterly impossible to suggest a remedy, and to snatch such patients from certain destruction.

110. I am quite convinced of one thing, namely, that the drinking of much wine—be it light as claret, or be it heavy as port—sadly injures the complexion, and makes it muddy, speckled, broken-out, and toad-like.

111. It is high time that medical men should speak out on the subject, and that with no “uncertain sound,” before mischief be done past remedy, and before our island become as barren of children as France unfortunately now is.

112. If a lady be laboring under debility, she is generally dosed with quantities of wine—the greater the debility the more wine she is made to take, until at length the poor unfortunate creature almost lives upon wine. Her appetite for food is by such means utterly destroyed, and she is for a time kept alive by stimulants; her stomach will at length take nothing else, and she becomes a confirmed invalid, soon dropping into an untimely grave! This is a most grievous, and, unfortunately, in this country, not an uncommon occurrence. Much wine will never make a delicate lady strong—it will increase her weakness, not her strength. Wine in excess does not strengthen, but, on the contrary, produces extreme debility. Let this be borne in mind, and much misery might then be averted.

113. Remember I am not objecting to a lady taking wine in moderation—certainly not; a couple of glasses, for instance, in the day, of either sherry or claret, might do her great good; but I do strongly object to her drinking, as many ladies do, five or six glasses of wine during that time. I will maintain that such a quantity is most detrimental both to her health and to her fecundity.

114. The effect of the use of wine is beneficial; but the effect of the abuse of it is deplorable in the extreme. Wine is an edge-tool, and will, if not carefully handled, assuredly wound most unmercifully. I have not the slightest doubt that the quantity of wine consumed by many ladies is one cause, in this our day, of so much delicacy of constitution. It is a crying evil, and demands speedy redress; and as no more worthy medical champion has appeared in the field to fight the battle of moderate wine-drinking, I myself have boldly come forward to commence the affray, fervently trusting that some earnest men may join me in the conflict. I consider that the advocates for a plentiful supply of alcoholic stimulants are wrong, and that the upholders of total abstinence principles are equally wrong; and that the only path of health and of safety lies between them both—in moderation. A teetotaller and an advocate for a plentiful supply of alcoholic drinks are both very difficult to please; indeed, the one and the other are most intemperate. I am aware that what I have written will be caviled at, and will give great offense to both extreme parties; but I am quite prepared and willing to abide the consequences, and sincerely hope that what I have said will be the means of ventilating the subject, which is sadly needed. It is the violence and obstinacy of the contending parties, each of whom is partly right and partly wrong, that have long ago prevented a settlement of the question at issue, and have consequently been the means of causing much heart-burning, misery, and suffering. The Times once pithily remarked that it would be well if the two combatants were “to mix their liquors.”