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 semen, lack of room in the pelvis and abdomen, lifting, straining, violent cold, sudden mental excitement, excessive sexual intercourse, dancing, tight lacing, the use of strong purgative medicines, bodily fatigue, late suppers, and fashionable amusements.
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 principal 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 constitution may be permanently impaired. Any one prone 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 sexual abstinence, take frequent sitz-baths, live on oatmeal, graham bread, and other nourishing diet. Avoid highly seasoned food, rich gravies, late suppers and the like.
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 fashion 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 this monstrous crime has obtained of late, and the hecatombs of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch, to gratify an unlawful passion, 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 God 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 Lust.—Lust pure and simple. The only difference between a marriage of this character and prostitution 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 prostitution 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 God and the laws of the commonwealth, that they shall be unincumbered 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 God'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 hell know that they are committing the damning 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 constitution, 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 God 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 snatched 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 God 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 breasts, 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, in the pangs of child-birth, than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.
1. Too Often the Husband thinks only of his personal gratification; he insists upon what he calls his rights (?); forces on his wife an unwelcome child, and thereby often alienates her affections, if he does not drive her to abortion.
Dr Stockham reports the following case: "A woman once consulted me who was the mother of five children, all born within ten years. These were puny, scrofulous, nervous and irritable. She herself was a fit subject for doctors and drugs. Every organ in her body seemed diseased, and every function perverted. She was dragging out a miserable existence. Like other physicians, I had prescribed in vain for her many maladies. One day she chanced to inquire how she could safely prevent conception. This led me to ask how great was the danger. She said: 'Unless my husband is absent from home, few nights have been exempt since we were married, except it may be three or four immediately after confinement.'
"'And yet your husband loves you?'
"'O, yes, he is kind and provides for his family. Perhaps I might love him but for this. While now—(will God forgive me?)—I detest, I loathe him, and if I knew how to support myself and children, I would leave him.'
"'Can you talk with him upon this subject?'
"'I think I can.'
"' Then there is hope, for many women cannot do that. Tell him I will give you treatment to improve your health, and if he will wait until you can respond, take time for the act, have it entirely mutual from first to last, the demand will not come so frequent.'
"'Do you think so?'
"'The experience of many proves the truth of this statement.'
"Hopefully she went home, and in six months I had the satisfaction of knowing my patient was restored to health, and a single coition in a month gave the husband more satisfaction than the many had done previously, that the creative power was under control, and that my lady could proudly say 'I love,' where previously she said 'I hate.'
"If husbands will listen, a few simple instructions will appeal to their common sense, and none can imagine the gain to themselves, to their wives and children, and their children's children. Then it may not be said of the babes that the 'Death borders on their birth, and their cradle stands in the grave.'"
2. Wives! Be Frank and True to your husbands on the subject of maternity, and the relation that leads to it. Interchange thoughts and feelings with them as to what nature allows or demands in regard to these. Can maternity be natural when it is undesigned by the father or undesired by the mother? Can a maternity be natural, healthful, ennobling to the mother, to the child, to the father, and to the home, when no loving, tender, anxious forethought presides over the relation in which it originated?—when the mother's nature loathed and repelled it, and the father's only thought was his own selfish gratification; the feelings and conditions of the mother, and the health, character and destiny of the child that may result being ignored by him. Wives! let there be a perfect and loving understanding between you and your husbands on these matters, and great will be your reward.
3. A Woman Writes:—"There are few, very few, wives and mothers who could not reveal a sad, dark picture in their own experience in their relations to their husbands and their children. Maternity, and the relation in which it originates, are thrust upon them by their husbands, often without regard to their spiritual or physical conditions, and often in contempt of their earnest and urgent entreaties. No joy comes to their heart at the conception and birth of their children, except that which arises from the consciousness that they have survived the sufferings wantonly and selfishly inflicted upon them."
4. Husband, When Maternity is imposed on your wife without her consent, and contrary to her appeal, how will her mind necessarily be affected towards her child? It was conceived in dread and in bitterness of spirit. Every stage of its fœtal development is watched with feeling of settled repugnance. In every step of its ante-natal progress the child meets only with grief and indignation in the mother. She would crush out its life, if she could. She loathed its conception; she loathed it in every stage of its ante-natal development. Instead of fixing her mind on devising ways and means for the healthful and happy organization and development of her child before it is born, and for its postnatal comfort and support, her soul may be intent on its destruction, and her thoughts devise plans to kill it. In this, how often is she aided by others! There are those, and they are called men and women, whose profession is to devise ways to kill children before they are born. Those who do this would not hesitate (but for the consequences) to kill them after they are born, for the state of mind that would justify and instigate ante-natal child-murder would justify and instigate post-natal child-murder. Yet, public sentiment consigns the murderer of post-natal children to the dungeon or the gallows, while the murderers of ante-natal children are often allowed to pass in society as honest and honorable men and women.
5. The Following is an Extract from a letter written by one who has proudly and nobly filled the station of a wife and mother, and whose children and grandchildren surround her and crown her life with tenderest love and respect:
"It has often been a matter of wonder to me that men should, so heedlessly, and so injuriously to themselves, their wives and children, and their homes, demand at once, as soon as they get legal possession of their wives, the gratification of a passion, which, when indulged merely for the sake of the gratification of the moment, must end in the destruction of all that is beautiful, noble and divine in man or woman. I have often felt that I would give the world for a friendship with man that should show no impurity in its bearing, and for a conjugal relation that would, at all times, heartily and practically recognize the right of the wife to decide for herself when she should enter into the relation that leads to maternity."
6. Timely Advice.—Here let me say that on no subject should a man and woman, as they are being attracted into conjugal relations, be more open and truthful with each other than on this. No woman, who would save herself and the man she loves from a desecrated and wretched home, should enter into the physical relations of marriage with a man until she understands what he expects of her as to the function of maternity, and the relation that leads to it. If a woman is made aware that the man who would win her as a wife regards her and the marriage relation only as the means of a legalized gratification of his passions, and she sees fit to live with him as a wife, with such a prospect before her, she must take the consequences of a course so degrading and so shameless. If she sees fit to make an offering of her body and soul on the altar of her husband's sensuality, she must do it; but she has a right to know to what base uses her womanhood is to be put, and it is due to her, as well as to himself, that he should tell beforehand precisely what he wants and expects of her.
Too frequently, man shrinks from all allusion, during courtship, to his expectations in regard to future passional relations. He fears to speak of them, lest he should shock and repel the woman he would win as a wife. Being conscious, it may be, of an intention to use power he may acquire over her person for his own gratification, he shuns all interchange of views with her, lest she should divine the hidden sensualism of his soul, and his intention to victimize her person to it the moment he shall get the license. A woman had better die at once than enter into or continue in marriage with a man whose highest conception of the relation is, that it is a means of licensed animal indulgence. In such a relation, body and soul are sacrificed.
7. One Distinctive Characteristic of a true and noble husband is a feeling of manly pride in the physical elements of his manhood. His physical manhood, as well as his soul, is dear to the heart of his wife, because through this he can give the fullest expression of his manly power. How can you, my friend, secure for your person the loving care and respect of your wife? There is but one way: so manifest yourself to her, in the hours of your most endearing intimacies, that all your manly power shall be associated only with all that is generous, just and noble in you, and with purity, freedom and happiness in her. Make her feel that all which constitutes you a man, and qualifies you to be her husband and the father of her children, belongs to her, and is sacredly consecrated to the perfection and happiness of her nature. Do this, and the happiness of your home is made complete. Your body will be lovingly and reverently cared for, because the wife of your bosom feels that it is the sacred symbol through which a noble, manly love is ever speaking to her, to cheer and sustain her.
8. Woman is Ever Proud, and justly so, of the manly passion of her husband, when she knows it is controlled by a love for her, whose manifestations have regard only to her elevation and happiness. The power which, when bent only on selfish indulgence, becomes a source of more shame, degradation, disease and wretchedness, to women and to children than all other things put together, does but ennoble her, add grace and glory to her being, and concentrate and vitalize the love that encircles her as a wife when it is controlled by wisdom and consecrated to her highest growth and happiness, and that of her children. It lends enchantment to her person, and gives a fascination to her smiles, her words and her caresses, which ever breathe of purity and of heaven, and make her all lovely as a wife and mother to her husband and the father of her child. Manly passion is to the conjugal love of the wife like the sun to the rose-bud, that opens its petals, and causes them to give out their sweetest fragrance and to display their most delicate tints; or like the frost, which chills and kills it ere it blossoms in its richness and beauty.
9. A Diadem of Beauty.—Maternity, when it exists at the call of the wife, and is gratefully received, but binds her heart more tenderly and devotedly to her husband. As the father of her child, he stands before her invested with new beauty and dignity. In receiving from him the germ of a new life, she receives that which she feels is to add new beauty and glory to her as a woman—a new grace and attraction to her as a wife. She loves and honors him, because he has crowned her with the glory of a mother. Maternity, to her, instead of being repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a crown of rejoicing; and deep, tender, and self-forgetting are her love and reverence for him who has placed it on her brow. How noble, how august, how beautiful is maternity when thus bestowed and received!
10. Conclusion.—Would you, then, secure the love and trust of your wife, and become an object of her ever-growing tenderness and reverence? Assure her, by all your manifestations, and your perfect respect for the functions of her nature, that your passion shall be in subjection of her wishes. It is not enough that you have secured in her heart respect for your spiritual and intellectual manhood. To maintain your self-respect in your relations with her, to perfect your growth and happiness as a husband, you must cause your physical nature to be tenderly cherished and reverenced by her in all the sacred intimacies of home. No matter how much she reverences your intellectual or your social power, if by reason of your uncalled-for passional manifestations you have made your physical manhood disagreeable, how can you, in her presence, preserve a sense of manly pride and dignity as a husband?
1. Bad Habits.—It is known that the girl who marries the man with bad habits, is, in a measure, responsible for the evil tendencies which these habits have created in the children; and young people are constantly warned of the danger in marrying when they know they come from families troubled with chronic diseases or insanity. To be sure the warnings have had little effect thus far in preventing such marriages, and it is doubtful whether they will, unless the prophecy of an extremist writing for one of our periodicals comes to pass—that the time is not far distant when such marriages will be a crime punishable by law.
2. Tendency in the Right Direction.—That there is a tendency in the right direction must be admitted, and is perhaps most clearly shown in some of the articles on prison reform. Many of them strongly urge the necessity of preventive work as the truest economy, and some go so far as to say that if the present human knowledge of the laws of heredity were acted upon for a generation, reformatory measures would be rendered unnecessary.
3. Serious Consequences.—The mother who has ruined her health by late hours, highly-spiced food, and general carelessness in regard to hygienic laws, and the father who is the slave of questionable habits, will be very sure to have children either mentally or morally inferior to what they might otherwise have had a right to expect. But the prenatal influences may be such that evils arising from such may be modified to a great degree.
4. Formation of Character.—I believe that pre-natal influences may do as much in the formation of character as all the education that can come after, and that the mother may, in a measure, "will" what that influence shall be, and that, as knowledge on the subject increases, it will be more and more under their control. In that, as in everything else, things that would be possible with one mother would not be with another, and measures that would be successful with one would produce opposite results from the other.
5. Inheriting Disease. Consumption—that dread foe of modern life—is the most frequently encountered of all affections as the result of inherited predispositions. Indeed, some of the most eminent physicians have believed it is never produced in any other way. Heart disease, disease of the throat, excessive obesity, affections of the skin, asthma, disorders of the brain and nervous system, gout, rheumatism and cancer, are all hereditary. A tendency to bleed frequently, profusely and uncontrollably, from trifling wounds, is often met with as a family affection.
6. Mental Derangements.—Almost all forms of mental derangements are hereditary—one of the parents or near relation being afflicted. Physical or bodily weakness is often hereditary, such as scrofula, gout, rheumatism, rickets, consumption, apoplexy, hernia, urinary calculi, hemorrhoids or piles, cataract, etc. In fact, all physical weakness, if ingrafted in either parent, is transmitted from parents to offspring, and is often more strongly marked in the latter than in the former.
7. Marks and Deformities.—Marks and deformities are all transmissible from parents to offspring, equally with diseases and peculiar proclivities. Among such blemishes may be mentioned moles, hair-lips, deficient or supernumerary fingers, toes, and other characteristics. It is also asserted that dogs and cats that have accidentally lost their tails, bring forth young similarly deformed. Blumenbach tells of a man who had lost his little finger, having children with the same deformity.
8. Caution.—Taking facts like these into consideration, how very important is it for persons, before selecting partners for life, to deliberately weigh every element and circumstances of this nature, if they would insure a felicitous union, and not entail upon their posterity disease, misery and despair. Alas! in too many instances matrimony is made a matter of money, while all earthly joys are sacrificed upon the accursed altars of lust and mammon.
1. Woman Before Marriage.—It is not too much to say that the life of women before marriage ought to be adjusted with more reference to their duties as mothers than to any other one earthly object. It is the continuance of the race which is the chief purpose of marriage. The passion of amativeness is probably, on the whole, the most powerful of all human impulses. Its purpose, however, is rather to subserve the object of continuing the species, than merely its own gratification.
2. Exercise.—Girls should be brought up to live much in the open air, always with abundant clothing against wet and cold. They should be encouraged to take much active exercise; as much, if they want to, as boys. It is as good for little girls to run and jump, to ramble in the woods, to go boating, to ride and drive, to play and "have fun" generally, as for little boys.
3. Preserve the Sight.—Children should be carefully prevented from using their eyes to read or write, or in any equivalent exertion, either before breakfast, by dim daylight, or by artificial light. Even school studies should be such that they can be dealt with by daylight. Lessons that cannot be learned without lamp-light study are almost certainly excessive. This precaution should ordinarily be maintained until the age of puberty is reached.
4. Bathing.—Bathing should be enforced according to constitutions, not by an invariable rule, except the invariable rule of keeping clean. Not necessarily every day, nor necessarily in cold water; though those conditions are doubtless often right in case of abundant physical health and strength.
5. Wrong Habits.—The habit of daily natural evacuations should be solicitously formed and maintained. Words or figures could never express the discomforts and wretchedness which wrong habits in this particular have locked down upon innumerable women for years and even for life.
6. Dress.—Dress should be warm, loose, comely, and modest rather than showy; but it should be good enough to satisfy a child's desires after a good appearance, if they are reasonable. Children, indeed, should have all their reasonable desires granted as far as possible; for nothing makes them reasonable so rapidly and so surely as to treat them reasonably.
7. Tight Lacing.—Great harm is often done to maidens for want of knowledge in them, or wisdom and care in their parents. The extremes of fashions are very prone to violate not only taste, but physiology. Such cases are tight lacing, low necked dresses, thin shoes, heavy skirts. And yet, if the ladies only knew, the most attractive costumes are not the extremes of fashion, but those which conform to fashion enough to avoid oddity, which preserve decorum and healthfulness, whether or no; and here is the great secret of successful dress—vary fashion so as to suit the style of the individual.
8. Courtship and Marriage.—Last of all, parental care in the use of whatever influence can be exerted in the matter of courtship and marriage. Maidens, as well as youths, must, after all, choose for themselves. It is their own lives which they take in their hands as they enter the marriage state, and not their parents'; and as the consequences affect them primarily it is the plainest justice that with the responsibility should be joined the right of choice. The parental influence, then, must be indirect and advisory. Indirect, through the whole bringing up of their daughter; for if they have trained her aright, she will be incapable of enduring a fool, still more a knave.
9. A Young Woman and a Young Man Had Better Not Be Alone Together Very Much until They Are Married.—This will be found to prevent a good many troubles. It is not meant to imply that either sex, or any member of it, is worse than another, or bad at all, or anything but human. It is simply the prescription of a safe general rule. It is no more an imputation than the rule that people had better not be left without oversight in presence of large sums of other folks' money. The close personal proximity of the sexes is greatly undesirable before marriage. Kisses and caresses are most properly the monopoly of wives. Such indulgences have a direct and powerful physiological effect. Nay, they often lead to the most fatal results.
10. Ignorance before Marriage.—At some time before marriage those who are to enter into it ought to be made acquainted with some of the plainest common-sense limitations which should govern their new relations to each other. Ignorance in such matters has caused an infinite amount of disgust, pain, and unhappiness. It is not necessary to specify particulars here: see other portions of this work.
1. Conception or Impregnation.—Conception or impregnation takes place by the union of the male sperm and female sperm. Whether this is accomplished in the ovaries, the oviducts or the uterus, is still a question of discussion and investigation by physiologists.
2. Passing Off The Ovum.—"With many woman," says Dr. Stockham in her Tokology, "the ovum passes off within twenty-four or forty-eight hours after menstruation begins. Some, by careful observation, are able to know with certainty when this takes place. It is often accompanied with malaise, nervousness, headache or actual uterine pain. A minute substance like the white of an egg; with a fleck of blood in it, can frequently be seen upon the clothing. Ladies who have noticed this phenomenon testify to its recurring very regularly upon the same day after menstruation. Some delicate women have observed it as late as the fourteenth day."
3. Calculations.—Conception is more liable to take place either immediately before or immediately after the period, and, on that account it is usual when calculating the date at which to expect labor, to count from the day of disappearance of the last period. The easiest way to make a calculation is to count back three months from the date of the last period and add seven days; thus we might say that the date was the 18th of July; counting back brings us to the 18th of April, and adding the seven days will bring us to the 25th day of April, the expected time.
4. Evidence of Conception.—Very many medical authorities, distinguished in this line, have stated their belief that women never pass more than two or three days at the most beyond the forty weeks conceded to pregnancy—that is two hundred and eighty days or ten lunar months, or nine calendar months and a week. About two hundred and eighty days will represent the average duration of pregnancy, counting from the last day of the last period. Now it must be borne in mind, that there are many disturbing elements which might cause the young married woman to miss a time. During the first month of pregnancy there is no sign by which the condition may be positively known. The missing of a period, especially in a person who has been regular for some time, may lead one to suspect it; but there are many attendant causes in married life, the little annoyances of household duties, embarrassments, and the enforced gayety which naturally surrounds the bride, and these should all be taken into consideration in the discussion as to whether or not she is pregnant. But then, again, there are some rare cases who have menstruated throughout their pregnancy; and also cases where menstruation was never established and pregnancy occurred. Nevertheless, the non-appearance of the period, with other signs, may be taken as presumptive evidence.
5. "Artificial Impregnation.—It may not be generally known that union is not essential to impregnation; it is possible for conception to occur without congress. All that is necessary is that seminal animalcules enter the womb and unite there with the egg or ovum. It is not essential that the semen be introduced through the medium of the male organ, as it has been demonstrated repeatedly that by means of a syringe and freshly obtained and healthy semen, impregnation can be made to follow by its careful introduction. There are physicians in France who make a specialty of "Artificial Impregnation," as it is called, and produce children to otherwise childless couples, being successful in many instances in supplying them as they are desired."
1. The First Sign.—The first sign that leads a lady to suspect that she is pregnant is her ceasing-to-be-unwell. This, provided she has just before been in good health, is a strong symptom of pregnancy; but still there must be others to corroborate it.
2. Abnormal Condition.—Occasionally, women menstruate during the entire time of gestation. This, without doubt, is an abnormal condition, and should be remedied, as disastrous consequences may result. Also, women have been known to bear children who have never menstruated. The cases are rare of pregnancy taking place where menstruation has never occurred, yet it frequently happens that women never menstruate from one pregnancy to another. In these cases this symptom is ruled out for diagnotic purposes.
3. May Proceed from Other Causes.—But a ceasing-to-be-unwell may proceed from other causes than that of pregnancy, such as disease or disorder of the womb or of other organs of the body—especially of the lungs—it is not by itself alone entirely to be depended upon; although, as a single sign, it is, especially if the patient be healthy, one of the most reliable of all the other signs of pregnancy.
4. Morning Sickness.—If this does not arise from a disordered stomach, it is a trustworthy sign of pregnancy. A lady who has once had morning-sickness can always for the future distinguish it from each and from every other sickness; it is a peculiar sickness, which no other sickness can simulate. Moreover, it is emphatically a morning-sickness—the patient being, as a rule, for the rest of the day entirely free from sickness or from the feeling of sickness.
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5. A Third Symptom.—A third symptom is shooting, throbbing and lancinating pains in, and enlargement of the breasts, with soreness of the nipples, occurring about the second month. In some instances, after the first few months, a small quantity of watery fluid or a little milk, may be squeezed out of them. This latter symptom, in a first pregnancy, is valuable, and can generally be relied on as fairly conclusive of pregnancy. Milk in the breast, however small it may be in quantity, especially in a first pregnancy, is a reliable sign, indeed, we might say, a certain sign, of pregnancy.
6. A Dark Brown Areola or Mark around the nipple is one of the distinguishing signs of pregnancy—more especially of a first pregnancy. Women who have had large families, seldom, even when they are not pregnant, lose this mark entirely; but when they are pregnant it is more intensely dark—the darkest brown—especially if they be brunettes.
7. Quickening.—Quickening is one of the most important signs of pregnancy, and one of the most valuable, as at the moment it occurs, as a rule, the motion of the child is first felt, whilst, at the same time, there is a sudden increase in the size of the abdomen. Quickening is a proof that nearly half the time of pregnancy has passed. If there be a liability to miscarry, quickening makes matters more safe, as there is less likelihood of a miscarriage after than before it. A lady at this time frequently feels faint or actually faints away; she is often giddy, or sick, or nervous, and in some instances even hysterically; although, in rare cases, some women do not even know the precise time when they quicken.
8. Increased Size and Hardness of the Abdomen.—This is very characteristic of pregnancy. When a lady is not pregnant the abdomen is soft and flaccid; when she is pregnant, and after she has quickened, the abdomen; over the region of the womb, is hard and resisting.
9. Excitability of Mind.—Excitability of mind is very common in pregnancy, more especially if the patient be delicate; indeed, excitability is a sign of debility, and requires plenty of good nourishment, but few stimulants.
10. Eruptions on the Skin.—Principally on the face, neck, or throat, are tell-tales of pregnancy, and to an experienced matron, publish the fact that an acquaintance thus marked is pregnant.
11. The Fœtal Heart.—In the fifth month there is a sign which, if detected, furnishes indubitable evidence of conception, and that is the sound of the child's heart. If the ear be placed on the abdomen, over the womb, the beating of the fœtal heart can sometimes be heard quite plainly, and by the use of an instrument called the stethoscope, the sounds can be still more plainly heard. This is a very valuable sign, inasmuch as the presence of the child is not only ascertained, but also its position, and whether there are twins or more.
1. Costive State of the Bowels.—A costive state of the bowels is common in pregnancy; a mild laxative is therefore occasionally necessary. The mildest must be selected, as a strong purgative is highly improper, and even dangerous. Calomel and all other preparations of mercury are to be especially avoided, as a mercurial medicine is apt to weaken the system, and sometimes even to produce a miscarriage. Let me again urge the importance of a lady, during the whole period of pregnancy, being particular as to the state of her bowels, as costiveness is a fruitful cause of painful, tedious and hard labors.
2. Laxatives.—The best laxatives are castor oil, salad oil, compound rhubarb pills, honey, stewed prunes, stewed rhubarb, Muscatel raisins, figs, grapes, roasted apples, baked pears, stewed Normandy pippins, coffee, brown-bread and treacle. Scotch oatmeal made with new milk or water, or with equal parts of milk and water.
3. Pills.—When the motions are hard, and when the bowels are easily acted upon, two, or three, or four pills made of Castile soap will frequently answer the purpose; and if they will, are far better than any other ordinary laxative. The following is a good form. Take of:
Castile Soap, five scruples;
Oil of Caraway, six drops;
To make twenty-four pills. Two, or three, or four to be taken at bedtime, occasionally.
4. Honey.—A teaspoonful of honey, either eaten at breakfast or dissolved in a cup of tea, will frequently, comfortably and effectually, open the bowels, and will supersede the necessity of taking laxative medicine.
5. Nature's Medicines.—Now, Nature's medicines—exercise in the open air, occupation, and household duties—on the contrary, not only at the time open the bowels, but keep up a proper action for the future; hence their inestimable superiority.
6. Warm Water Injections.—An excellent remedy for costiveness of pregnancy is an enema, either of warm water, or of Castile soap and water, which the patient, by means of a self-injecting enema-apparatus, may administer to herself. The quantity of warm water to be used, is from half a pint to a pint; the proper heat is the temperature of new milk; the time for administering it is early in the morning, twice or three times a week.
7. Muscular Pains of the Abdomen.—The best remedy is an abdominal belt constructed for pregnancy, and adjusted with proper straps and buckles to accomodate the gradually increasing size of the womb. This plan often affords great comfort and relief; indeed, such a belt is indispensably necessary.
8. Diarrhœa.—Although the bowels in pregnancy are generally costive, they are sometimes in an opposite state, and are relaxed. Now, this relaxation is frequently owing to there having been prolonged constipation, and Nature is trying to relieve herself by purging. Do not check it, but allow it to have its course, and take a little rhubarb or magnesia. The diet should be simple, plain, and nourishing, and should consist of beef tea, chicken broth, arrowroot, and of well-made and well-boiled oatmeal gruel. Butcher's meat, for a few days, should not be eaten; and stimulants of all kinds must be avoided.
9. Fidgets.—A pregnant lady sometimes suffers severely from "fidgets"; it generally affects her feet and legs, especially at night, so as to entirely destroy her sleep; she cannot lie still; she every few minutes moves, tosses and tumbles about—first on one side, then on the other. The causes of "fidgets" are a heated state of the blood; an irritable condition of the nervous system, prevailing at that particular time; and want of occupation. The treatment of "fidgets" consists of: sleeping in a well-ventilated apartment, with either window or door open; a thorough ablution of the whole body every morning, and a good washing with tepid water of the face, neck, chest, arms and hands every night; shunning hot and close rooms; taking plenty of out-door exercise; living on a bland, nourishing, but not rich diet; avoiding meat at night, and substituting in lieu thereof, either a cupful of arrow-root made with milk, or of well-boiled oatmeal gruel.
10. Exercise.—If a lady, during the night, have the "fidgets," she should get out of bed; take a short walk up and down the room, being well protected by a dressing-gown; empty her bladder; turn her pillow, so as to have the cold side next the head; and then lie down again; and the chances are that she will now fall asleep. If during the day she have the "fidgets," a ride in an open carriage; or a stroll in the garden, or in the fields; or a little housewifery, will do her good, and there is nothing like fresh air, exercise, and occupation to drive away "the fidgets."
11. Heartburn.—Heartburn is a common and often a distressing symptom of pregnancy. The acid producing the heartburn is frequently much increased by an overloaded stomach. An abstemious diet ought to be strictly observed. Great attention should be paid to the quality of the food. Greens, pastry, hot buttered toast, melted butter, and everything that is rich and gross, ought to be carefully avoided. Either a teaspoonful of heavy calcined magnesia, or half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda—the former to be preferred if there be constipation—should occasionally be taken in a wine-glassful of warm water. If these do not relieve—the above directions as to diet having been strictly attended to—the following mixture ought to be tried. Take of: