Safe Marriage: A Return to Sanity

SUMMARY.

Finally, the following briefly summarises the recommendations for women:—

2. After Intercourse.—Douche next morning (or earlier), remove rubber pessary, wash and dry it and put it away slightly powdered. Where there is any chance of venereal infection, the woman should urinate immediately after each connection, wash with soap and water, and then at once douche with weak and warm disinfecting lotion. If medically directed, she should also use a little calomel ointment for anointing parts that have been touched in any way.

3. Daily.—Cultivate in yourself and in the members of your household habits of sexual cleanliness. Wash and be clean. Apply this to all the openings of the body, but in particular to the vagina, urethra and anus, which should all be cleansed night and morning. This practice is not simply cleansing and refreshing, but it is preventive of many forms of disease, such as piles, etc., etc., and

Before Connection.

• 1. Douche with warm water or weak antiseptic lotion (warm).
• 2. Insert suitable suppository.
• 3. Place rubber pessary in position

After Connection.

• 4. Douche.
• 5. Remove rubber pessary. (Urinate to facilitate ejection of surplus fat.)
• 6. Douche and dry parts.

The use of rubber pessary does not do away with desirability of douching, but it does enable the woman to douche at her own convenience with safety.

ANTISEPTIC LOTIONS.

Dr. K.R.D. Shaw, of 144, Harley Street, London, W.1, who has had a very wide experience of "prevention" in different parts of the world during the last twenty-five years, has named the following as suitable disinfecting lotions:—

Half a teaspoonful of Lysol in 5 pints of warm water;
or One teaspoonful of Sanitas in 5 pints of warm water;
or One quarter teaspoonful of Bacterol in 5 pints of warm water;
or 2 grains of Sulphate of Copper in 5 pints of warm water.

If all or most of these hygienic measures are widely made known to women, it can rightly be claimed that women have been released from the twin terrors of unwanted pregnancy and venereal infection, which are at the present time ruining their marital health and happiness in so many cases. Even if some only of these measures are adopted, the nation as a whole cannot fail to benefit mentally, morally and physically. The success of the measures, of course, depends to some extent on their being taken in time, but in this, as in many other directions, the old proverb holds good: Better late than never.

B. FOR MEN:

One Scotch padre wrote me in 1918:—

"It is a magnificent adventure for a woman to go practically alone on the very edge of things, and I salute you, and congratulate you, and wish you God-speed."

An old family doctor, then with a colonial ambulance, wrote:—

"Many women ... will owe their health and happiness to you, and not a few will be indebted to you for their lives."

As with young men, so with young girls: a few glasses of wine taken at a supper or a dance—and the first downward step is taken, not because any wrong was intended, but the simple actualities of sex were unknown, and the stimulant took advantage of the ignorance that is miscalled innocence. This kind of thing will continue till the older generation realise that morality depends—not on the maintenance of ignorance and the fear of disease, but on the spread of knowledge and the promotion of virtue.

With the moral and social aspects of birth-control there is no need to deal further, except to say that they have recently been endorsed in England, with fine grace and high authority, by Lord Dawson of Penn (one of the King's Physicians), in an address given before the Church Congress at Birmingham, on October 12th, 1921, which has since been republished by Messrs. Nisbet at a shilling, under the title of "Love—Marriage—Birth-Control." The following short extract may be quoted here:—

"Generally speaking," says Lord Dawson, "birth-control before the first child is inadvisable. On the other hand, the justifiable use of birth-control would seem to be to limit the number of children when such is desirable, and to spread out their arrival in such a way as to serve their true interests and those of their home."

To the great-hearted public this is becoming intolerable. But they know so little, and they wait so long for what the wise ones fear to tell. Not all these fears are sordid; there is a kind and gracious reluctance to shatter ideals. It is hard at times to combine beauty and duty. The way of the truth-teller is not made easier by charges of iconoclasm. "To know all is to forgive all"; that is not paganism but Christianity. So also, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." "To err is human: to forgive divine." Humanity, wisdom, tolerance, are wrapped up in these sayings. Yet when we think, as think at times we must, of the romantic faith that once was ours, contrasted with the realities of present experience, sex seems to have lost something of its soul of loveliness. And yet—can it ever regain this till men and women are at least clean?

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell,
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster."

Tennyson.

The Author will reply personally to any serious question concerning the subject matter of this book, provided stamped and addressed envelope is sent to her, c/o the Publishers.

OTHER METHODS OF CONTRACEPTION.

1. Withdrawal.—Immediately before emission the male organ is quickly withdrawn, to avoid emission of seminal fluid in the vagina. Many men and women feel this to be unromantic and nerve-racking, and otherwise objectionable. The method is quite commonly practised, but it is unreliable in multiple connections, and where the man has not complete control over himself. It leaves the woman at the mercy of the man for protection against impregnation.

2. Sheath or Condom ("French Letter").—This prevents both conception and infection (excepting in parts not covered by the sheath), but sheaths are apt to break, and sometimes a man infects himself whilst removing the sheath. Sheaths impose an impermeable medium between husband and wife, destroy contact, and may thereby prevent the joy of sexual intercourse. In some cases both husband and wife become nervous wrecks, recovering their health when the sheaths are discarded; in other cases it is claimed that no harm has resulted.

4. Douche Can.—This is better than syringing in some ways, because the irrigation can be so arranged as to let the lotion flow into the vagina faster than it can flow out—hence distension of walls of vagina and thorough cleansing. But the arrangement of a runaway for outflowing lotion is inconvenient in most households.

5. Quinine Pessaries, etc.—By themselves these are unreliable, no matter what the makers claim on the label. There is usually not enough quinine in them; or if there is enough, it proves irritating.

6. Solid-Ring Check Pessary.—These are reliable only when carefully adjusted over the mouth of the womb, and many women find it very difficult to adjust this kind of pessary correctly; hence numbers of failures.

7. Vaseline and Soap-and-Water.—Using vaseline beforehand, and urinating and using soap-and-water immediately after each connection, is a fairly safe way of avoiding conception and infection. But the vaseline needs to be inserted fairly high up—if possible over the mouth of the womb, and the subsequent washing needs to be very thoroughly done (internally and externally). This method is commonly used by Continental women, but it is not entirely reliable by itself.

9. Safe Period.—It is often supposed that sexual intercourse midway between the menses is unlikely to result in pregnancy. There is no such "safe period."

MEDICAL SUPPLIES.

Rubber Pessaries.—Medical practitioners can obtain sets of occlusive rubber pessaries from Messrs. E. Lambert & Son, of 60, Queen's Road, Dalston, E.8. This firm has been manufacturing such articles in England since 1888, and now makes them in a wide range of sizes, and of special shape where required.

Bidets and Syringes.—Syringes are easily procurable, but bidets in England at present are sometimes difficult to obtain. Good strong enamel bidets can be obtained from Messrs. E. Lambert & Son, of 60, Queen's Road, E.8., and they also keep the contraceptive suppositories made by Mr. Harman Freese in accordance with medical directions mentioned in Foreword.

Soluble Suppositories (for women).—These are now being manufactured by Mr. Harman Freese, of Freese & Moon, 59, Bermondsey Street, S.E.1, from whom they can be obtained. These suppositories are disinfective as well as contraceptive, but they are at present sold for the ordinary purposes of birth-control.

This book is endorsed by the Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease and contains the evidence and arguments on which the Society bases its policy, and is addressed to all who would prevent venereal diseases in themselves or in the community.

Children may be taught any system of morals—sexual or other; Christian, Mahomedan, Hindoo, Papuan, or other. They are intensely imitative and acquire a bias towards local ideas of right and wrong through association with intimate companions. A bias once acquired tends to persist. For that reason parents choose good companions and schools. On the other hand, it is difficult or impossible to convert "hardened sinners," for example, adult non-Christians. Children, therefore, may be really taught; adults, as a rule, can only be preached at. Any man may test the truth of all this by examining his own consciousness. Would any amount of preaching cause him to change his present ideas of right and wrong? As little can he alter the bias of other men. As the twig is bent so the tree grows.

Judging from history, the world, and in particular England, is not more—or less—immoral to-day than at any time during the last 2000 years. During all that time children have taught and adults have preached. Doubtless there have been many campaigns of purity in the past—mere campaigns of preaching to adults. They were ineffectual and are forgotten. Epochs of licence have almost invariably followed epochs of austerity. Modern campaigns of purity never arise except as consequents on medical attempts to prevent venereal disease, and always cease when the attempt to procure sanitation has ceased. In effect, they have been merely campaigns to secure the poisoning of sinners and their victims.

During the war a disloyal faction in every Dominion endeavoured to prevent the sending of help to the Mother Country. A principal cry of this faction was, "Do not let us send our clean lads to that cesspool, England." England is more than the world-cesspool. Since Englishmen are the greatest travellers, she has been the principal source of infection for the world. At one time during the war the Australasian Governments threatened to withdraw their forces unless measures were taken to protect them.

When the German offensive was impending a sanitary method was published, so effective that the venereal rate was reduced from 92 to 15 per thousand per annum. The Government proposed to bring the method into general use in the Army, but was prevented by influences which preferred to see the country poisoned and the British Army defeated. While the opponents of sanitation sat snugly at home hundreds of thousands of British soldiers were killed or maimed, enormous material was lost with territory which other hundreds of thousands of brave men had died to win, the war was prolonged, thousands of millions were added to the National Debt, and half trained boys and elderly fathers of families were hurried into the firing line. At that time there were in hospitals or in depots, convalescent from venereal disease, enough fully-trained allied soldiers to furnish, not an army corps but a great army, complete almost from G.O.C. to trumpeter.

During the war Sir Archdall Reid, employing very simple means, reduced the incidence of disease among the large body of troops in his charge almost to the vanishing point. He could not make them more moral, he did not make them less moral, but at any rate he preserved their services for the country in its hour of need. And he preserved their future wives and children from unmerited death and suffering. Other doctors were equally successful. The town authorities of Portsmouth and many other boroughs are about to employ these methods for the prevention of disease among the civil population. This book describes them and tells the story of the fight against a wicked and cruel fanaticism. Its policy is endorsed by many of the leading men and women in the Kingdom—members of both Houses of Parliament, town authorities, doctors, authors, sociologists and others.

WOODS AND SONS, LTD., LONDON, N.1.