Searchlights on Health-The Science of Eugenics Part 34

16. TOBACCO.--It is a hygienic and physiological fact that tobacco produces s.e.xual debility and those who suffer any weakness on that source should carefully avoid the weed in all its forms.

17. DRUGS WHICH STIMULATE DESIRE.--There are certain medicines which act locally on the membranes and organs of the male, and the papers are full of advertis.e.m.e.nts of "Lost Manhood Restored", etc., but in every case they are worthless or dangerous drugs and certain to lead to some painful malady or death. All these patent medicines should be carefully avoided. People who are troubled with any of these ailments should not attempt to doctor themselves by taking drugs, but a competent physician should be consulted. Eating rye, corn, or graham bread, oatmeal, cracked wheat, plenty of fruit, etc. is a splendid medicine. If that is not sufficient, then a physician should be consulted.

18. DRUGS WHICH MODERATE DESIRE.--Among one of the most common domestic remedies is camphor. This has stood the test for ages. Small doses or half a grain in most instances diminishes the sensibility of the organs of s.e.x. In some cases it produces irritation of the bladder. In that case it should be at once discontinued. On the whole a physician had better be consulted. The safest drug among domestic remedies is a strong tea made out of hops. Saltpeter, or nitrate of potash, taken in moderate quant.i.ties are very good remedies.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

19. STRICTLY SPEAKING there is a distinction made between; _impotence_ and _sterility._ _Impotence_ is a loss of power to engage in the s.e.xual act and is common to men. It may be imperfection in the male organ or a lack of sufficient s.e.xual vigor to produce and maintain erection. _Sterility_ is a total loss of capacity in the reproduction of the species, and is common to women.

There are, however, very few causes of barrenness that cannot be removed when the patient is perfectly developed. Sterility, in a female, most frequently depends upon a weakness or irritability either in the ovaries or the womb, and anything having a strengthening effect upon either organ will remove the disability. (See page 249.)

20. "OVER-INDULGENCE in intercourse," says Dr. Hoff, "is sometimes the cause of barrenness; this is usually puzzling to the interested parties, inasmuch as the practices which, in their opinion, should be the source of a numerous progeny, have the very opposite effect. By greatly moderating their ardor, this defect may be remedied."

21. "NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE.--A certain adaptation between the male and female has been regarded as necessary to conception, consisting of some mysterious influence which one s.e.x exerts over the other, neither one, however, being essentially impotent or sterile. The man may impregnate one woman and not another, and the woman will conceive by one man and not by another. In the marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine no children were born, but after he had separated from the Empress and wedded Maria Louisa of Austria, an heir soon came. Yet Josephine had children by Beauharnais, her previous husband. But as all is not known as to the physical condition of Josephine during her second marriage, it cannot be a.s.sumed that mere lack of adaptability was the cause of unfruitfulness between them. There may have been some cause that history has not recorded, or unknown to the state of medical science of those days. There are doubtless many cases of apparently causeless unfruitfulness in marriage that even physicians, with a knowledge of all apparent conditions in the parties cannot explain; but when, as elsewhere related in this volume, impregnation by artificial means is successfully practised, it is useless to attribute barrenness to purely psychological and adaptative influences."

PRODUCING BOYS OR GIRLS AT WILL.

1. CAN THE s.e.xES BE PRODUCED AT WILL?--This question has been asked in all ages of the world. Many theories have been advanced, but science has at last replied with some authority. The following are the best known authorities which this age of science has produced.

2. THE AGRICULTURAL THEORY.--The agricultural theory as it may be called, because adopted by farmers, is that impregnation occurring within four days of the close of the female monthlies produces a girl, because the ovum is yet immature; but that when it occurs after the fourth day from its close, gives a boy, because this egg is now mature; whereas after about the eighth day this egg dissolves and pa.s.ses off, so that impregnation is thereby rendered impossible, till just before the mother's next monthly.--_s.e.xual Science._

3. QUEEN BEES LAY FEMALE EGGS FIRST, and male after wards. So with hens; the first eggs laid after the tread give females, the last males. Mares shown the stallion late in their periods drop horse colts rather than fillies.--_Napheys._

4. IF YOU WISH FEMALES, give the male at the first sign of heat; if males, at its end.--_Prof. Thury._

5. ON TWENTY-TWO SUCCESSIVE OCCASIONS I desired to have heifers, and succeeded in every case. I have made in all twenty-nine experiments, after this method, and succeeded in every one, in producing the s.e.x I desired.--_A Swiss Breeder._

6. THIS THURY PLAN has been tried on the farms of the Emperor of the French with unvarying success.

7. CONCEPTION IN THE FIRST HALF of the time between the menstrual periods produces females, and males in the latter.--_London Lancet._

8. INTERCOURSE in from two to six days after cessation of the menses produces girls, in from nine to twelve, boys.--_Medical Reporter._

THE MOST MALE POWER and pa.s.sion creates boys; female girls. This law probably causes those agricultural facts just cited thus: Conception right after menstruation give girls, because the female is then the most impa.s.sioned; later, boys, because her wanting s.e.xual warmth leaves him the most vigorous. Mere s.e.xual excitement, a wild, fierce, furious rush of pa.s.sion, is not only not s.e.xual vigor, but in its inverse ratio; and a genuine insane fervor caused by weakness; just as a like nervous excitability indicates weak nerves instead of strong.

s.e.xual power is deliberate, not wild; cool, not impetuous; while all false excitement diminishes effectiveness.--_Fowler._

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEALTHY CHILDREN.]

ABORTION OR MISCARRIAGE.

1. ABORTION OR MISCARRIAGE is the expulsion of the child from the womb previous to six months; after that it is called premature birth.

2. CAUSES.--It may be due to a criminal act of taking medicine for the express purpose of producing miscarriage or it may be caused by certain medicines, severe sickness or nervousness, syphilis, imperfect s.e.m.e.n, lack of room in the pelvis and abdomen, lifting, straining, violent cold, sudden mental excitement, excessive s.e.xual intercourse, dancing, tight lacing, the use of strong purgative medicines, bodily fatigue, late suppers, and fas.h.i.+onable amus.e.m.e.nts.

3. SYMPTOMS.--A falling or weakness and uneasiness in the region of the loins, thighs and womb, pain in the small of the back, vomiting and sickness of the stomach, chilliness with a discharge of blood accompanied with pain in the lower portions of the abdomen. These may take place in a single hour, or it may continue for several days. If before the fourth month, there is not so much danger, but the flow of blood is generally greater. If miscarriage is the result of an accident, it generally takes place without much warning, and the service of a physician should at once be secured.

4. HOME TREATMENT.--A simple application of cold water externally applied will produce relief, or cold cloths of ice, if convenient, applied to the lower portions of the abdomen. Perfect quiet, however, is the most essential thing for the patient. She should lie on her back and take internally a teaspoonful of paregoric every two hours; drink freely of lemonade or other cooling drinks, and for nourishment subsist chiefly on chicken broth, toast, water gruel, fresh fruits, etc. The princ.i.p.al homeopathic remedies for this disease are ergot and cimicifuga, given in drop-doses of the tinctures.

5. INJURIOUS EFFECTS.--Miscarriage is a very serious difficulty, and the health and the const.i.tution may be permanently impaired. Any one p.r.o.ne to miscarriage should adopt every measure possible to strengthen and build up the system; avoid going up stairs or doing much heavy lifting or hard work.

6. PREVENTION.--Practice the laws of s.e.xual abstinence, take frequent sitz-baths, live on oatmeal, graham bread, and other nouris.h.i.+ng diet.

Avoid highly seasoned food, rich gravies, late suppers and the like.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INDIAN FAMILY. THE SAVAGE INDIAN TEACHES US LESSONS OF CIVILIZATION.]

THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.

1. MANY CAUSES.--Many causes have operated to produce a corruption of the public morals so deplorable; prominent among which may be mentioned the facility with which divorces may be obtained in some of the States, the constant promulgation of false ideas of marriage and its duties by means of books, lectures, etc., and the distribution through the mails of impure publications. But an influence not less powerful than any of these is the growing devotion of fas.h.i.+on and luxury of this age, and the idea which practically obtains to so great an extent that pleasure, instead of the health or morals, is the great object of life.

2. A MONSTROUS CRIME.--The abiding interest we feel in the preservation of the morals of our country, constrains us to raise our voice against the daily increasing practice of infanticide, especially before birth. The notoriety that monstrous crime has obtained of late, and the hecatombs of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch, to gratify an unlawful pa.s.sion, are a sufficient justification for our alluding to a painful and delicate subject, which should "not even be named," only to correct and admonish the wrong-doers.

3. LOCALITIES IN WHICH IT IS MOST PREVALENT.--We may observe that the crying sin of infanticide is most prevalent In those localities where the system of moral education has been longest neglected. This inhuman crime might be compared to the murder of the innocents, except that the criminals, in this case, exceed in enormity the cruelty of Herod.

4. SHEDDING INNOCENT BLOOD.--If it is a sin to take away the life even of an enemy; if the crime of shedding innocent blood cries to heaven for vengeance; in what language can we characterize the double guilt of those whose souls are stained with the innocent blood of their own unborn, unregenerated offspring?

5. THE GREATNESS OF THE CRIME.--The murder of an infant before its birth, is, in the sight of G.o.d and the law, as great a crime as the killing of a child after birth.

6. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY.--Every State of the Union has made this offense one of the most serious crimes. The law has no mercy for the offenders that violate the sacred law of human life. It is murder of the most cowardly character and woe to him who brings this curse upon his head, to haunt him all the days of his or her life, and to curse him at the day of his death.

7. THE PRODUCT OF l.u.s.t.--l.u.s.t pure and simple. The only difference between a marriage of this character and prost.i.tution is, that society, rotten to its heart, pulpits afraid to cry aloud against crime and vice, and the church conformed to the world, have made such a profanation of marriage respectable. To put it in other words, when two people determine to live together as husband and wife, and evade the consequences and responsibilities of marriage, they are simply engaged in prost.i.tution without the infamy which attaches to that vice and crime.

8. OUTRAGEOUS VIOLATION OF ALL LAW.--The violation of all law, both natural and revealed, is the cool and villainous contract by which people entering into the marital relation engage in defiance of the laws of G.o.d and the laws of the commonwealth, that they shall be unenc.u.mbered with a family of children. "Disguise the matter as you will," says Dr. Pomeroy, "yet the fact remains that the first and specific object of marriage is the rearing of a family." "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth," is G.o.d's first word to Adam after his creation.

9. THE NATIONAL SIN.--The prevention of offspring is preeminently the sin of America. It is fast becoming the national sin of America, and if it is not checked, it will sooner or later be an irremediable calamity. The sin has its roots in a low and perverted idea of marriage, and is fostered by false standards of modesty.

10. THE SIN OF HEROD.--Do these same white-walled sepulchres of h.e.l.l know that they are committing the d.a.m.ning sin of Herod in the slaughter of the innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the crime of murder? Do women in all circles of society, when practicing these terrible crimes realize the real danger? Do they understand that it is undermining their health, and their const.i.tution, and that their destiny, if persisted in, is a premature grave just as sure as the sun rises in the heavens? Let all beware and let the first and only purpose be, to live a life guiltless before G.o.d and man.

11. THE CRIME OF ABORTION.--From the moment of conception a new life commences; a new individual exists; another child is added to the family. The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments, commits as great a crime, and is just as guilty as if she strangled her new-born infant or as if she s.n.a.t.c.hed from her own breast her six months' darling and dashed out its brains against the wall. Its blood is upon her head, and as sure as there is a G.o.d and a judgment, that blood will be required of her. The crime she commits is murder, child murder--the slaughter of a speechless, helpless being, whom it is her duty, beyond all things else, to cherish and preserve.

12. DANGEROUS DISEASES.--We appeal to all such with earnest and with threatening words. If they have no feeling for the fruit of their womb, if maternal sentiment is so callous in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, let them know that such produced abortions are the constant cause of violent and, dangerous womb diseases, and frequently of early death; that they bring on mental weakness, and often insanity; that they are the most certain means to destroy domestic happiness which can be adopted.

Better, far better, to bear a child every year for twenty years than to resort to such a wicked and injurious step; better to die, if need be, of the pangs of child-birth, than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.