When our dear girls have strength of character sufficient to say in response to such a query, while lifting frank honest eyes: “Shall I answer your question honestly? then I must say, it is very offensive to me; for I know it does you harm, and I know as well that I cannot breathe the fumes of it even for an hour without physical harm to myself.”
There is not one young man in a hundred, who would not rejoice in the courage of such a girl, and ten chances to one, he would be telling his companions of the brave stand she had made, and exulting in it.
Young men of high attainment and noble purposes, there is still something for you to do, to transmit the best to your progeny. Make the noblest in you still nobler, root out the weeds, attain greater heights every year, seek nobler companionship among books and men, choose for your mate the woman whose desires and ambitions are like your own, and your children will be a blessing to you and the world, and may well “rise up to call you blessed.”
To the other class of young men, we have only to say, there should be before them many years of rooting and weeding and killing out, and hard preparation, before they should dare ask any good women to be their wives. Aye, more, before they should even dare to ask a woman like themselves, for think of the double inheritance of such unfortunate children as might be theirs; and think again how the world is cursed with such disinherited humanity now.
The motto
should be the sentiment of every young man, in view of his preparation for fatherhood. It is a lamentable fact that children have as often reason to lament their parentage, as parents their wayward children. But it is probably a merciful thing that most children of this class never realize it—merciful at least for them and their parents, but not for the coming generations.
Remember you are to reproduce yourself, and in large measure what you are yourself that will your children be. Measure yourself carefully, take account of stock and see what there is that you would have different, what you would make better, what you would eradicate, what new qualities you would engraft. The little children, to be, in your home who are to call you father, are not only to copy you when they are large enough and wise enough in their love to wish to be like you; but they come into existence with inborn tendencies, that perforce make them like you, whether they will or not. Happy the parents whose children never regret their inheritances.
The Alarming Prevalence of This Hideous Sin.—How Daughters are Initiated.—How Expectant Mothers Appeal to Reputable Physicians.—Young Women Should be Taught to Associate the Idea of Marriage with Motherhood.—Destruction of own Health and Life go Hand in Hand with Prenatal Murder.—Effect of Such Attempts Upon the Physical Life and Character.—Life from the Moment of Conception.—The Injustice and Cruel Wrongs Inflicted upon Wives by Uncontrolled Passions of Husbands.—Obligation of Motherhood Should be Recognized.—Its Blessings.—The Duty of the Physician as Educator of Public Sentiment.
“The destruction of the end or purpose of an institution is virtually the destruction of the institution itself. I firmly believe that the greatest sin against God and the greatest crime against society in the nineteenth century, is the covert attack, which in one form or another, excused by one consideration or another, is being waged against God’s institution of marriage.”—Rev. Brevard D. Sinclair.
Do our young women consider and really understand the giant evil which walks our streets sometimes covertly, sometimes so openly, that with eyes of discernment it can be easily detected? This terrible evil that has been so excused, so palliated that it stands out in the minds of many, dressed, not in its hideous garb of sin and shame, but tricked in taking dress and attractive coloring—so attractive that many of our matrons have pointed it out and introduced it to our fresh, beautiful daughters, and introduced them into its mysteries, and all the horrible sin this evil is heir to.
I speak of the shamefully prevalent evil of antenatal infanticide.
I quote again from Mr. Sinclair. “A sin of such delicacy that people affect to be shocked when it is alluded to, and yet a sin which is practiced, applauded and commended so widely in private, that even the children are not ignorant of its prevalence among their elders. Indeed a sin, in which in many cases, daughters are deliberately nurtured and trained, so that when opportunity is presented for its practice the conscience is so stultified and suborned by long training and familiarity with its hellish and poisonous consequences, that it is committed without compunction.”
O mothers! with us rests in large measure the righting of this terrible wrong. Are we aware ourselves of its loathsomeness, and are we prepared to pronounce against it everywhere where our voices can be heard? Shall we teach our daughters that the institution of marriage is for home and children, and that unless they are prepared to make the home and desire children, they are committing a grievous sin to enter its sacred portals?
Every reputable physician grows sick at heart many times, when he is approached by these untaught and unscrupulous young and older women, to ask him to be a party with them in the crime of murder, and possible suicide. “The sin is none the less heinous, and the crime none the less wicked when it is performed by those who affect ‘the best society,’ or who with unworthy hands take the bread and wine at the communion table of a dying Lord, who pronounced His blessing on the pure in heart.”
When an untaught young wife comes to us with a desire that she may be “helped out of her difficulty,” and then proceeds to tell us that she does not want children so early in her married life; that she wants to enjoy herself first for a while, or she wants to make a visit, or take a trip to Europe and cannot be in that condition; and that she has tried all the simple means that she knows of, but has accomplished nothing; we sit down patiently and tell her from the beginning the sin and danger of it all; danger, not only to life, but also to all the higher instincts of our nature; for when one deliberately takes a life, the conscience is seared to all sin, and the pathway down to the lower depths is an easy one. I can assure you, this is no easy task, for we have the teaching of friends and relatives, yes, and I grieve to say, sometimes of mothers to undo! Oh the sorrow of it!
Young women, with you rests the hope of the world in the betterment of this sad state of things. Know that when you enter marriage with any other thought than that you will be the joyful mother of children, you commit a grievous sin. Know that any plan you may have made to obviate this, indefinitely, while allowing the close marriage relation to exist, is sinful and makes you partaker with abortionists, and those who would destroy the holy institution of home and fireside.
When women who have grown older in years and experience enter my office with their specious reasoning, women who have no excuse for not knowing the evil thing which they are advocating, I feel like denouncing them before the world as the enemies of God and womankind. Oh the shame that woman who should be the helper and inspiration in all good things should so lend her hand and heart to evil!
But the sin does not always stop with the murder. Many times her own life is a sacrifice to her sin, or if not this, she is doomed to invalidism the remainder of her days. Truly, as Mr. Sinclair says, “Many a woman is buried with Christian burial, over whose grave ought to be placed a tombstone with this inscription: “Here lies a suicide, assisted to her grave by her murderers—her husband, her female counsellors, and the conscienceless physician.””
There is no excuse whatever for the crime of abortion. The arguments are many that are made to ease the conscience, or palliate the sin, but not one of them will hold, before a tribunal of honest clean thinking people, with God on the bench.
It is wicked, say they, to bring so many children into the world that cannot be well taken care of; “I really have not the strength to take care of any more;” and they go on in their sinful practice until health is destroyed or life sacrificed. “I do not think that women should give their lives to bearing children, and have no time for mental improvement,” they say again, while they spend a great part of their time in devising means to prevent conception, or in worry, lest they may not succeed, while the little fragment of time and strength is given to the pursuit of “culture,” and at the age, when, had they borne their children and been joyful in training them, they would have been vigorous and strong for years of mental work and wide culture. At this very time because of what they have done they are pale broken-down women, with no strength or ambition left for nobler pursuits than groaning over their ill-health or seeking alleviation for their sufferings.
But their sin does not stop with themselves, but is written legibly upon the lives of the children, who, in spite of their earnest endeavor to the contrary, have stemmed the tide of evil, and come to maturity of term, if not of vigor.
A late writer in a Christian journal has said, “There are thousands of miserable objects in our insane asylums, hospitals, yea, in our jails, who may honestly complain, ‘from our mothers cometh our misery.’ The attempt to commit prenatal murder is frightfully common—as all women and physicians know—and where it does not kill, malformations, idiocy, and distorted moral powers are too often the results. For no one ever breaks into ‘the house of life,’ and is innocent or unpunished. Prenatal murder and self-murder walk hand in hand, crying to heaven as loudly as did the blood of Abel. And should these women personally seem to escape, yet there will come a day when God will ask them one terrible question, ‘Where are the children that I gave you?’”
Again they say, “There is no harm until there is life.” The moment conception takes place, that moment there is life; and whether the crime be committed in six hours, six weeks or six months, the sin is in all cases of equal enormity. Murder is in the intent, not in the act alone. When you intend to rid yourself of the little life if possible, you have committed murder as surely as if the murdered child lay dead in your arms, or it may chance live to denounce you with its disinherited life, if not with its words.
But I would not denounce woman alone, for the wrong does not lie wholly with her. Dr. Holbrook in an article on sanitary parentage, says: “That which polite language veils under the designation ‘social evil,’ and which desolates so many happy homes, and brings its quick harvest of misery, remorse, disease and death, chiefly lives because man does not know aright, does not truly reverence and honor woman, and keep in subjection that which may become one of the monster passions in his heart, and is thus continued from generation to generation.”
Often, we believe, are women driven to abortion, by maternity being thrust upon them, when they are already weakened by too frequent child-bearing.
A case of this kind came into my office a few days since. A bright, pretty little woman, scarcely more than a girl, sat down before me with the exclamation, “Doctor, I have missed my monthly period, and have come in to have you give me something to set me right.” “Are you married?” I questioned. “Yes,” she answered. “Do you not think that you may be pregnant?” I enquired. “Yes: I fear that I am,” she cried, with tears in her voice; “but I have one little one, not yet two years old, and a baby of eight months, and it does not seem that I can have another one now.” She was but twenty-two years old, and I could not help mentally calculating, what the number would be were she obliged to go on at this rate, until the child-bearing age was passed. My heart ached for the child mother; but I could say to her only this: “My dear, do you think it would be better for you to endanger your health, and perhaps take your life, and leave your two babies without a mother, than to go on patiently and have this baby, and live to care for them all?”
I said to her, “Never allow yourself to think for a moment, of taking the life of a little unborn child; it is murder, dear, and nothing else. I know you have not thought of it in this light. Go home, talk it over with your husband candidly, tell him that you will never be guilty of the sin of abortion, no matter how many children you have. Insist upon the better way, namely, such continence in the marriage relation as shall not impose the burden of maternity upon you oftener than once in two or three years. Help him to see that the selfish gratification of his desires are hardly worth while when secured at such a cost to your health and comfort. Make him to see that the children that come from such self-indulgence cannot be the strong, vigorous and noble children they would be if generated under self-control. Occupy separate beds, and help him by every means in your power to attain self-control, and become master of his passions, not their slave.” I do not know the outcome, but I feel certain that the little woman went home with something to think about, and I trust with profit.
Above all, my dear young wives, do not underestimate the mighty, unequalled power of the mother of several children. And know this, that no work is so productive of true culture, in your own life, as the proper bearing and rearing of children. Nothing so cultivates all the virtues that alone serve as the foundation of true education and wisdom. As your children grow you will be inspired to keep pace with them, and when they have gone out from the home nest, you will find ample time to read and study, and you will have the consciousness of a life well spent to urge you on.
I believe firmly, that for the best results, offspring should be limited, but limited in a legitimate way. When temperate lives are lived, not more than five or six children come into a home, and this is but a good family. Mothers of such families if they live within their means and “look well to the ways of their households,” are not fretted, broken down women, but hale and hearty, and as children mature are ready for years of strenuous living, and community service.
No thwarting of nature has any ground for excuse, and the so-called physician who peddles any theory or device for so doing has no right to the name, and has no recognition among the ranks of the reputable of the honored profession of medicine. His work is done in the dark and under the pledge of secrecy, and so he marks himself of the abode of Satan.
No honorable physician can say, “I have never lent myself as a party to this crime, hence my conscience is clear, my duty done.” No: your duty is not done. Physicians stand or should stand as the guardsmen of the unborn generations, and as educators of public opinion along these lines; and their pen, their voice and their practice should form a trinity of power against the inroads of this alarmingly threatening evil—threatening to the best instincts of the moral nature of our time; threatening to the future of our land, when we consider the very few children born into our better homes, while in the byways, among the lower classes, the little ones swarm in hot-beds of sin.
At least four children should be born and grow to maturity in every American home in our land, to keep good the present number of our people. The average is far below this, and the result is that the American race is fast dying out.
We stand at the head of all the nations in the extent and enormity of this crime. Shall we not stand at the head in a true reformation?
The Duty of the Present to Future Generations.—Darwin on Heredity.—Nature Inexorable.—The Mother’s Investment of Moulding Power.—The Father’s Important Part in the Transmission of Heredity.—The Parents Workers Together with God.—Parents must Reap What They Sow.—The Law and the Gospel of Heredity Contrasted.—The Children of Inebriates and Others.—Lessons from Reformatory Institutions.—The Outcast Margaret.—The Mother of Samson.—How a Child Became an Embodiment of “The Lady of the Lake.”—The Woman Who Desired to be the Mother of Governors.—Importance of this Study.
“Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.”
Francis Galton says: “I conclude that each generation has enormous powers over the natural gifts of those that follow, and maintain that it is a duty that we owe to humanity to investigate the range of that power, and to exercise it in a way that, without being unwise toward ourselves, shall be most advantageous to the future inhabitants of the earth.”
Mr. Darwin maintains in his theory of pangenesis, that the gemmules of innumerable qualities, derived from ancestral sources, circulate in the blood and propagate themselves generation after generation still in the state of gemmules, but fail in developing themselves into cells, because other antagonistic gemmules are prepotent and overmaster them, in the struggle for points of attachment. Hence there is a vastly larger number of capabilities in every human being than ever find expression, and for every patent element there are countless latent ones. The character of a man is wholly formed through these gemmules that have succeeded in attaching themselves, the remainder that have been overpowered by their antagonists count for nothing.
Again he says, “The average proportion of gemmules modified by individual variation under various conditions preceding birth clearly admits of being determined by observation, for the children will in the average, inherit the gemmules in the same proportion that they existed in their parents. It follows that the human race has a large control over its future forms of activity, far more than an individual has over his own; since the freedom of individuals is narrowly restricted by the cost in energy of exercising their wills.”
We might go on indefinitely making quotations from undisputed authorities on this great science of heredity, for to-day it has become almost an exact science. In view of this the exclamation of a writer in the Science of Health is very pertinent. “Who shall deliver us from our ancestors? And if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, who on earth shall prevent the children’s teeth being set on edge? Not nature. She is inexorable. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, is her law. But between the unbroken law and its entailed consequences stands the mother, invested with a power which makes her either a Nemesis or a redeemer. This is the unwritten law in every mother’s heart, and I believe that in all the ages there have been women who have hearkened unto its voice. The son that Hannah prayed so earnestly for, and gave unto the Lord before his birth, inherited a soul that had been to school before it drew its first breath. Slaves suckle slaves; pure and enthusiastic women bring forth saints and heroes. All history attests the fact that great men had great mothers.”
That both in the law and the gospel of heredity, of the two parents, the mother has a far greater influence we believe firmly; yet this does not relieve the father from responsibility. The germ from him, which is “bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh,” contributed to the formation of the child in its beginning, must be of high nature and cultivation, seed from a noble sire, or the little life is dwarfed from the outset, and the mother must expend much precious time and strength in making good the terrible deficiencies which such a beginning entails, and then mourn that so much can never be overcome.
What our children become depends upon two conditions; what they are at birth, and what environment makes them. That the parents may make of their children almost what they will, that they are in a peculiar sense, workers together with God in the creative and formative periods, that they may by self-culture and painstaking reproduce a generation superior to themselves, are all truths big with responsibility and meaning.
That we reap what we sow, is an inevitable law in the mental and moral as in the physical sphere. While there is this great and awful law, I am so thankful that we can emphasize the far greater and wider reaching gospel of heredity. Into this we can put all the sweet promises whose fulfillment is sure—if we are ever reaching up to the higher and nobler aspirations of our nature, and not degenerating to the lower tastes and inclinations.
For the law, we have, “visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” For the gospel, “And showing mercy unto thousands of (generations) of them that love Me and keep My commandments.”
For the law, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” For law and gospel both, “As is the mother so is her daughter.”
For gospel, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.” For law, the sad history of the children of inebriates, of tobacco users and of the insane; also the history of many children born in polygamous Utah, of jealous mothers outraged at the loss or division of the love of their husbands. Ugly, misshapen children, mentally and morally. “Disinherited childhood,” is written upon every line of their distorted lives. Go with our missionary teachers and learn from the aching hearts of these mothers, the stories of anguish that in the passing stamped indelibly the characters of the little ones unborn; listen while they tell you that they know only too well, when their children were stamped with the vindictive revengeful spirits which so many of them manifest; or were bowed down with a burden of sorrow too heavy to be borne. Hear the story of one such little one that literally wept its short life away, without a cry, getting from its mother an inheritance of tears, shed in silence under a pride that forbade a moan.
Visit our almshouses and reformatories, our orphanages, our idiot asylums, and get a few of the histories of the little inmates; trace them back for three, four or five generations, and see how unmistakably woe has generated woe, crime begotten crime, and disease brought forth disease.
Let us study this, the dark side of the picture of heredity, and seriously ask ourselves if it isn’t time a new reform was instituted and the heart of philanthropy set to beating in sympathy, not only with this great army of robbed, disinherited children, but as well with the yet unborn generations. The great work for them must be done now, not after they are ushered into a depraved, diseased existence.
“There is a story of one neglected little girl, poor Margaret, who never had a home, and who grew up a wretched outcast, living a life of sin and shame. After seventy-five years it was reckoned that her descendants numbered twelve hundred; two hundred and eighty of whom were paupers, and one hundred and forty habitual criminals, while most of the whole degraded family cursed the country with vice, crime, pauperism, and insanity.”
Finally for gospel, we have the indisputable fact that we may by prayerful thought and systematic study make our children what we will. Read the story of the angel’s appearance to the mother of Samson, when the child was promised, and remember his direction. “And Manoah said, How shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him? And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. She may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine nor strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe.” (Judges 13: 13, 14.)
A sweet story is told that illustrates the gospel side of heredity in a marvelous way. A traveller in the west came to the house of a settler in a remote frontier district, and asked for shelter for the night. The parents had come from the east in an early day, and were people of ordinary intelligence only. Among the children born to them in this western home were several sons, coarse, boorish, and altogether what their birth and environment would indicate. The traveller was struck with the remarkable beauty and refinement of one child, a daughter. So different was she from her brothers that he made bold to ask the mother, if she could explain why the daughter was so different from her brothers, and how in her surroundings she had developed such grace and beauty.
The mother looked up quickly with an intelligent smile, pleased that her child should receive such appreciation. “Yes, I can tell you, I think, why she differs so, and to me it is a strange thing and I have often wondered if I have thought aright. Several months before my child was born, one day there came to our cabin a colporteur with a variety of books for sale. I was not much of a reader, but my life was a lonely one, shut out from all society as I was, with nothing of comfort or beauty about me. Only one of the books attracted my attention, a little blue-and-gold copy of Scott’s Lady of The Lake. It was illustrated, and as I turned it over in my hands, and caught now and then a word that explained an illustration, I was possessed with a desire to have the book. We were poor and I knew that my husband would not understand the wish I had to own it. I handed it back to the man and he went on his way. I could not get the thought of the book out of my mind, and did not sleep an hour that night. As soon as the first peep of day began to show itself, I rose and with the price of the book in my hand started for the nearest neighbor, the next cabin where I thought the book agent must have stopped for the night. I found him and got the book and came home. Through all the months before the little one came that book was my constant companion. I read it and reread it, until I knew much of it by heart. Every scene of the book was as vivid as a reality to me. When the daughter came she was the Lady of The Lake over again, and was always just what you see her now.”
Dr. Holbrook says, “Every child born into the world is essentially an experiment; we cannot tell what its chief characteristics will be; these depend upon the potentialities stored up in the germ-plasm.” Then how much depends upon the parents, that the germ-plasm be of fine quality, and so insure fine products in their children. In his book on Stirpiculture, Dr. Holbrook says, “The common people often get at truths in a rude way long before the scientists do. Many parents tell us their children are strongly influenced by some particular occupation of the mother during pregnancy. So strong is this belief that many mothers are in our time trying to influence the characters of their unborn children by special modes of life, by cultivating music, or art, or science, in order to give the child a love for these pursuits.”
Apropos to this statement, we can attest many instances that have come under our immediate observation. Study and research along certain lines, and in special directions have brought the results desired, and the children have become what they were trained to be in intra-uterine life.
“What do you expect to do when you get to America?” asked a fellow-passenger of a woman who was crossing the Atlantic about a century ago. “Do? why raise governors for them.” And she was as good as her word, for she became the mother of General John Sullivan, the chief magistrate of New Hampshire, and of James Sullivan, governor of Massachusetts. “She who thinks skim milk will transmit skim milk; she who thinks cream will transmit cream.” This woman thought cream and lived it and transmitted the best to her children.
Young women do not stop in your research with the few thoughts that can be given in a chapter like this, but go on in the study until you know what it has to teach you and what you may give to your unborn children, by painstaking study and culture of yourself. Begin by weeding out the habits and tendencies that you would not wish to transmit, and by cultivating the qualities and accomplishments, which you would delight to see repeated in your children.
Depend upon it the study and care will reward you bountifully, and you will do your part in furthering the knowledge of this great science, which means so much to the generations to come.
Pregnancy not an Unnatural but a Normal State.—Tendency to Neglect Hygienic Rules.—Morning Sickness.—How to Correct it.—Important Questions of Diet.—Displaced Uterus as Cause of Nausea.—Mental States.—Companionship.—Various Gastric Troubles.—Insomnia.—Hysteria.—Constipation and How to Correct it.—Longings.—Self-control.—With Proper Care, as a Rule All Goes Well.
There are several distressing ailments which afflict the pregnant woman, and which are too often by the uninformed considered a necessity, hence nothing is done for them. Leavitt has said wisely, “The general health is already frequently disturbed, and the system in an enfeebled state, when pregnancy is established. The woman at once enters on the trying experiences of early gestation—attributing nearly all her symptoms to the physiological changes being wrought in her organism. Viewing them also as, in great measure essential features of her condition, she is prone to neglect proper attention to hygienic rules.”
Another mistake is too frequently made by the women, and indulged by the physician, namely, considering the pregnant state a pathological, diseased, or unnatural condition, in every instance, while it should be in the majority of cases purely a physiological, natural and healthy condition. True, woman is not exempt during pregnancy from the various ills that assail her sex, and the human family as a whole; but that every ailment with which she is assailed should be attributed to her condition is a mistake, and a greater mistake is to neglect proper treatment for these ills.
The morning sickness is one of the most common and troublesome ailments of the parturient, and one which is most often neglected. But it is likewise one which can be controlled in the majority of instances. Do not neglect it, but see to it at once. Plenty of exercise in the open air, well-aired sleeping rooms, pleasant surroundings and suitable food go far to mitigate this ill, but the doctor will need to be consulted at times. The diet of women suffering from morning sickness, should be regulated, and nothing deleterious to her allowed. Often the aggravated ailment can be traced to vagaries of appetite, which have been foolishly indulged, which corrected, and a reasonable diet substituted, will do much to aid the cure. Often a few mouthfuls of food or a cup of coffee taken in the morning before rising will prove of decided benefit, and should be tried before medicines are resorted to.
The false notion that the pregnant woman “must eat for two,” and so proceed to indulge her appetite to the utmost, should be corrected. The appetite should be kept under in pregnancy as carefully as at any other time, and rather than otherwise, more care be taken in the selection of food, and regularity of meals.
Leavitt recommends as articles specially suited to the earlier months of pregnancy, the following:—“Mutton-broth, chicken-broth, oysters, clams and fish. When they have heretofore agreed, the following may also be eaten: beef, mutton, chicken, game, eggs, stale bread, oat meal, rice, baked potatoes, spinach, macaroni, greens, celery, green peas, lettuce, asparagus, oranges, grapes, and stewed fruit. Desserts should in most instances be avoided.”
These do not of course include all the harmless articles, and a simple and comprehensive rule is this: any article of food that is hygienic and does not disagree may be partaken of with impunity.
Sometimes the nausea may be due to other causes than those exciting simple nausea. If it is persistent and aggravated a displaced uterus may be the cause. This when corrected will effect a cure like magic.
In the later months of pregnancy the nausea, if any, is due to another cause than that which excites it in the earlier months. Compression and a changed character of the secretions, are the exciting causes at this time, yet even here attention to diet will do much toward correcting the distress. “At this period all articles of food which will increase the fermentative action, so easily set up, ought to be avoided. Such are mainly those containing starch, sugar and fat.”
The mental state of the woman needs careful attention as well as the physical. Among the early Greeks a pregnant woman was held so much in reverence that she was guarded almost sacredly, and shielded from all possible annoyances. No troublesome or unsightly thing was allowed in her presence, and she was surrounded with pleasing and delightful companions, pictures and occupations. This might with profit be emulated by the people of to-day. An unpleasant companion in the home, a dull, monotonous, treadmill existence will often drive a pregnant woman to the verge of distraction; while on the other hand the thought that she is the subject of tender solicitude and care, that she is petted and indulged in her harmless desires, will make the period of pregnancy a long holiday.
Above all, keep all croaking companions away. You will find in every neighborhood, women who delight to give in detail all the terrible cases they have ever heard or imagined, and these are the women that you should shun, and in plain words, forbid the introduction of such topics if necessary.
Sometimes another distressing gastric disturbance, which may give much annoyance, is a want of appetite, or disgust for food. A change of scene or surroundings for a time, with an entire change of table, will often be all that is necessary to correct this. A visit to the mother or a dear friend, will relieve the monotony, and often give the change desired. This very often is the result of mental disturbance rather than physical, and so yields when the proper remedy, change, is prescribed and taken.
Acidity of the stomach and heartburn can be relieved with the appropriate remedy. “Temporary relief will often be afforded by a swallow of pure glycerine, or a half teaspoonful dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia.”
Neuralgia of the stomach calls for the doctor. Ptyalism, or an excessive flow of saliva; pruritus, or a distressing itching of the genitals or of the abdominal wall; face-ache or neuralgia of the fifth nerve, are all relieved only by the proper prescription from the physician.
Insomnia, which often proves very troublesome, can often be cured by more outdoor air, and diversion during the day, and a brisk walk in the good fresh evening air, followed by the sitz bath or bath taken in sitting posture, with only the parts about the hips submerged in hot water just before retiring; or a quick sponge bath, rather cool than warm, just before going to rest for the night will often act well as a sedative.
The urine in quality and quantity should be carefully looked after, and should be examined by the physician several times during the later months of pregnancy, that its condition may be known.
Hysteria may appear in some of its various forms, but when the cause, which is more often than otherwise due to indigestion, excessive fatigue, loss of sleep, unpleasant surroundings or companions, “operating on a nervous system, very sensitive, and already a little out of tune”—when the cause is removed the hysteria will vanish.
Constipation, which in this state as in all others is more often than otherwise, simply a bad habit, proves at many times a great annoyance. Care from the very outset should be taken to keep the bowels open. Often all that is necessary, is proper attention to diet, exercise and good air. Diminished intestinal action is doubtless an exciting cause, and this can be met by greater activity on the part of the woman, and a selection of food that is easily digested and laxative in character. If constipation is neglected there may result an accumulation of feces or waste matter in the rectum and large intestine sometimes of great size, which may prove a great obstruction to labor, or even interrupt pregnancy prematurely. Fruits, graham bread, figs, stewed prunes, and liberal quantities of hot water sipped slowly, thirty or forty minutes before each meal, will often prove all the medicine needed.
The longings of pregnancy are a matter of notion and imagination run wild more often than otherwise. A strong self-controlled woman is not troubled with any longings for things beyond her reach. Hence should she desire a thing that it will be difficult for her to get, let her exercise reason, and good judgment in the denial, and the longing will not trouble her.
Finally the woman during pregnancy should cultivate self-control, and be governed by common sense in every event. Let wisdom guide her in the habits of exercise, eating, occupation, society and recreation, and as a rule all will go well, and there will be no cause for worry throughout the entire term.
Minuteness of the Germ of Human Life.—The Embryo Cell and Its Store of Food.—Its Journey to the Uterus.—Meeting the Spermatozoön, Conception Occurs.—The Changes Which take Place in the Uterus.—Life is Present the Moment Conception takes Place.—The Mysterious Development of the Embryo.—The Sin of Tampering with the Work of the Infinite.—The Various Changes in the Development of the Embryo and Fœtus set Forth.—The Changes that Occur each Month.—Parenthood the Benediction of Husband and Wife.
How does the tiny speck, so tiny that it cannot be seen with the naked eye, only one hundred and twentieth of an inch in diameter, how does this tiny atom of matter, begin in its growth, continue and develop into the full grown child? This little germ or ovum, the part furnished by the mother, in the creation of a human being, contains the germinal vesicle, or embryo cell, and the stored up food for the early days of life after conception takes place. After the ovum leaves the ovary, somewhere in its journey to the uterus or womb, it is met by the spermatozoön, or male element of conception, and by their mysterious union the new life is begun.
Coincident with the impregnation of the ovum, active changes are inaugurated in the uterus. The organ becomes more vascular, increases in size, its lining is thickened and softened, thus in all ways preparing a soft bed, or cradle, for the nesting time and growth of the little one entrusted to its care. During pregnancy the uterus enlarges from an area of sixteen square inches to three hundred and thirty-nine square inches in the fully developed state. After delivery it does not resume its former shape and size, but retains vestiges of the condition through which it has passed, its retained weight having increased fully an ounce and a half.
In some inconceivable way a notion has become prevalent, that there is no life in the embryo until motion is felt by the mother. How life enters then has been left by them an unexplained mystery. That this professed belief is but a device of Satan, to excuse the shameless taking of life in-utero, is the only method of accounting for its prevalence. Life, organized life, begins the very moment conception takes place, and is as surely life as that which exists when the little active creature is placed in its mother’s arms.
After conception takes place, while yet the embryo is on the way to its nesting place, many and rapid changes take place. By a process of segmentation or division, the contents of the ovum are broken into innumerable granular cells, from which mass the whole organization of the embryo is gradually evolved.
How some of these cells are transformed into muscle, others into bone or cartilage or nerves, or brain, or connective tissue, when no difference can be distinguished in the various cells, is among the mysteries of life which science has not yet fathomed. That it does this we all know; how it does it belongs wholly within the knowledge of creative wisdom.
In tracing the steps of progress in the life of the embryo, which I shall soon give, let every young person who reads these pages learn once and forever, that when she is tempted to rid herself of the product of conception, even the next moment after conception has taken place, she is tempted to murder, as surely as though the child were in her arms, a living visible bit of humanity, and she were plotting to take its life. It is a terrible thing to tamper with the work of the Infinite, and with nature’s inexorable laws, and punishment is sure to follow.
When the embryo has finished its journey, and has settled itself for a long stay of nine months, not of rest, but of ceaseless activity, of growth and development so marvelous and sure, it begins to draw its life from the uterus, for the stored up food in the ovum is already exhausted. At first it draws by absorption through the membrane enclosing it, then through the placenta or “afterbirth,” which is created as the medium of communication for the life-giving force, between mother and child.
Up to the close of the third month we call this little new life an embryo; after this time it is called a fœtus. For a full description of the embryo and fœtus, in the various stages of development, we copy from Leavitt’s Science and Art of Obstetrics.
“The First Month.—The embryo in the first week of gestation, is a minute, gelatinous and semi-transparent mass, of a greyish color, presenting to the unaided eye no definite traces of either head or extremities. The entire ovum measures but one-fourth of an inch, and the embryo but one-twelfth; but during the next week they double in dimensions. The coverings of the child are developed, and it is attached to the uterus, but does not yet draw its life from it. At the close of the month the ovum is about the size of a pigeon’s egg, and weighs about forty grains. The embryo is about three-fourths of an inch in extreme length, and about one-third of an inch in direct measurement as it is coiled up. The structures have so little bulk, that when ruptured they easily escape attention, in abortions, generally passing with a clot.
“Second Month.—At eight weeks the ovum is about the size of a hen’s egg, and it weighs from one hundred and eighty to three hundred grains, and is about two-thirds of an inch in length from head to caudal curve. Its independent circulatory system is forming: indications of the external generative organs are visible: and ossification has begun in several parts of the body.
“Third Month.—The embryo weighs from three hundred to four hundred grains, and measures from two and a half to three and a half inches in length. The forearm is well formed and the fingers are discernible. The umbilical or navel cord is about two and a half inches in length. The head is relatively large, the neck separates it from the trunk, and the eyes are prominent. The chorion has lost most of its villi, and the placenta is formed. Points of ossification are present in most of the bones. Thin membranous nails appear on the fingers and toes. Sex may be determined by presence or absence of the uterus.
“Fourth Month.—The fœtus weighs five or six ounces, and is about five inches long. Its sex is more distinct; movements are visible. The convolutions of the brain are beginning to form: ossification is extending: the placenta is increasing in size, and the cord is about twelve inches long. The head is one-fourth the length of the whole body. The sutures and fontanelles are widely separated. Hair begins to appear on the scalp. If born, the fœtus may live three or four hours.
“Fifth Month.—Fœtal weight has increased to ten ounces, and length to about nine inches. The head is still relatively large. Fine hair, (lanugo) appears over the whole body. Fœtal movements can be felt by the mother. If born the fœtus can live but a few hours.
“Sixth Month.—Weight about twenty-four ounces, length eleven inches. Fat is found in the subcutaneous cellular tissue. Hair is darker and more abundant. The membrana pupillaris exists but the eyelids separate. If born at this time the fœtus breathes freely, but life is retained only a few hours, with rare exceptions.
“Seventh Month.—Weight from three to four pounds, length fourteen to fifteen inches. The skin is wrinkled, of red color and covered with vernix caseosa. The pupillary membrane disappears. If younger than twenty-eight weeks it is not likely to live.
“Eighth Month.—Weight from four to five pounds, length from sixteen to eighteen inches. Development is now rather in thickness than length. The nails are nearly perfect, and the lanugo is disappearing from the face. The navel is gradually approaching the centre of the body, until now it has nearly reached the median point. The cranial bones are easily molded under pressure, a point to be remembered as bearing on the question of induced labor in pelvic deformity.
“Ninth Month—or at term.—At the end of pregnancy the fœtus weighs an average of six and a half or seven pounds, and measures about twenty inches in length. The average weight of mature males is greater than that of females. At birth the fœtus is covered with vernix caseosa, a whitish tenacious substance, composed of a mixture of surface epithelium, down and the products of sebaceous glands. During intra-uterine life it serves as a protection for the skin against the amniotic fluid. It can be removed thoroughly only by preceding the use of water by a free use of oil.”
So the baby grows until it reaches intra-uterine maturity, and comes into our arms for cherishing. Pity, pity the little one that comes with no love to receive it, and pity more the mother of such a child. No woman has a right to marry, unless she desires offspring and is willing to fit herself for maternity. No man has a right to take upon himself the sacred vows that make him husband, unless he comprehends all that it means, and is measurably ready to meet its duties and responsibilities. With such preparation, and such understanding upon entering matrimony, we should see a nobler, stronger race of men and women in the coming generations.