JS IT 11/ A BOOK vov srs&y hkv, A COMPANION TO WHY NOT? A Book for Every Woman. BY Prof. HORATIO ROBINSON STORER, M.D., OF U08T0N, Vice-President of the American Medical Association. noma sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. Terence. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD. 1868. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by LEE AND SHEPARD, In tile Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, If Spring Lane. TO DR. THOMAS ADDIS EMMET, OF NEW YORK, Surgeon to the State Woman's Hospital; ONE OF THE ONLY TWO PURELY UTERINE SPECIALISTS AS YET PRACTISING IN AMERICA ; * flje ^upil anir Successor of PErion ^ms, AND HIMSELF, AS AN OPERATOR, HIS GREAT MASTER'S MORE THAN EQUAL. * As contradistlnguiehed from especialists, of whom there are many. My dear Dr. Emmet : The little "Why Not?" of the American Medical Association is having so large a sale that my publishers have besought me to write a book for men, to cover ground that I had left untouched, relating to the cau- sation and prevention of various forms of uterine dis- ease. Many physicians and many lady patients have desired me to do the same thing, and I have yielded to their advice. Our friend Dr. Brown-Sequard permitted me to dedicate the second edition of the former book to himself, kindly saying that he deemed it something more than a compliment. At the outset I was uncer- tain of success, and so the first edition went without sponsor. In allowing me, in the case of the book now in press, thus to manifest my personal esteem for yourself, and my appreciation of your many contributions to the ad- vancement of our science, you will become my coadjutor in this attempt to preserve women from bodily and mental anguish, from disease and from crime. Yours, ever sincerely, Horatio R. Storer. Boston, June 3, 1867. CONTENTS. Faor Prefatory Remarks 7 I. It is not Good to be Alone 17 II. Marriage as a Sanitary Measure 35 III. How Early in Life is Marriage to be Ad- vised? ^S IV. The Rights of the Husband 87 V. Are these Rights Absolute, or Reciprocal, with Duties 99 VI. Should mere Instinct, or Reason, be the Rule.? I" VII. Arguments and Counter Arguments as to Divorce 118 VIII. A Plea for Woman 127 Appendix. — A Woman's View of "Why Not?" . 1 19 PUBLISHERS' NOTE. Since the first edition of " Whv Not?" was pub- lished, we have received many letters of approval, and of inquiry relative to its author. In issuing this new treatise, which we believe destined like the first to be- come a standard book, and to have even a greater circu- lation than that, we have thought that a few lines of information on our part would not be considered inap- propriate. Professor Storer's writings are no inapt index to his own character. He is thoroughly alive to his duties ; sagacious to discern the truth, fearless in asserting it. Progressive, without being too radical, he is still suffi- ciently conservative to respect the opinions of others, even though at variance with his own. Perhaps no Amer- ican physician of his own age, holds at the present time a more prominent position in his profession. He has already been quoted as authority by European writers ; and in this country he seems everywhere to have received the most flattering acknowledgment of his scientific labors, save here in his own city, where for many years he has met with uninterrupted opposition, and even personal abuse, from a professional clique — the result, doubtless, of jealousy upon their part, envy, and that spirit of antagonism which has long rendered the disagreements of physicians a by-word. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has happily described the (vii) Vm PUBLISHERS NOTE. present instance in the last chapter jet published of his "Guardian Angel," where he sajs, "There is no possible success without some opposition as a fulcrum ; force is always aggressive, and crowds something or other, if it does not hit or trample on it." There is one other reason which has undoubtedly gone far to render Prof. Storer no exception to the rule that a leader is seldom appreciated by those in his own immediate vicinity, until — as is rapidly occurring in the present ii stance — he has conquered renown. Resident for a long time at Edinburgh, in very inti- mate relations with the celebrated Sir James Y. Simp- son, the discoverer of chloroform as an ancesthetic, Prof. Storer is peculiarly a representative of the Scotch school of obstetrics, and has zealously and successfully upheld its peculiar tenets, in opposition to the many disciples of the French and Viennese schools among his contemporaries. It has been asserted of Dr. Storer that, when engaged in professional controversy, he is pitiless and unsparing. These statements seem traceable to opponents who have been worsted, and speak from bitter experience. There may, however, be some reason to believe, that, like his teacher, Dr. Simpson, he has profited by the advice of Polonius : — " r.cware Of entrance to a qnarrel ; but, being in, Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee." The character of the weapons that have been used Against our author maj' be judged by an extract from a personal attack contained — without a word of pallia- tion or excuse from the editors — in one of the latesl numbers of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. PUBLISHERS XOTE. IX In attempting to save a poor invalid — sure otherwise soon to perish — Dr. Storer had performed one of the most tedious and difficult operations in surgery, hith- erto successful in a most notable instance at his hands, namely, the removal of the womb by incision through the abdomen : an operation with which his name will be forever identified. In commenting upon it, the would-be critic used the following language : "Allow me publicly to protest, most solemnly, against such practice, and earnestly to beg of my professional brethren, every- where, to use their utmost influence to prevent their patients and friends from employing or consulting such practitioners." Abuse like this is sure, of course, to react upon those who employ it, and to gain for its object the sym- pathy and active interest of all lovers of fair play and justice. By a happy coincidence, the article referred to chanced to be followed, on the same page, by another, which we also quote : — " At a meeting of the Physicians and Surgeons in attendance upon Prof. H. R. Storer's course of Lectures on the Surgical Diseases of Women, just delivered at Hotel Pelham, in Boston, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted : — " Whereas, We, the attendants upon Prof. Storer's first private course of Lectures on the Surgical Diseases of Women, being regular practising physicians and sur- geons, have long experienced the disadvantages arising from the very imperfect manner in which these subjects have been treated in our text books, and by the pro- Tcssors in our colleges ; many of the most important diseases and operations being entirely ignored by men who think deeply and reason candidly in all other mat- ters pertaining to medicine and surgery; and, whereas, we cannot but feel that this class of diseases is the most X PUBLISHERS NOTE. important, believing it to be the cause of n-.ore suffering than any other, therefore — " Resolved, That we tender to Dr. Storer our sincere gratitude for taking the advance step which he has, thereby giving us, as we hope he will hereafter give others, the opportunity of hearing these subjects dis- cussed' thoroughly and impartially. " Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be pre- sented to Prof. Storer, and sent to The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and The New York Medical Record, for publication. (Signed) Chas. M. Carleton, Norwich, Conn. Daniel Manx, Pelham, N. H. G. E. BuLLARD, Blackstone, Mass. J. A. McDoNouGH, Boston, " M. C. Talbott, Warren, Pa. H. Gerould, Erie, Pa. E. F. Upham, W. Randolph, Vt. W. A. I. Case, Hamilton, C. W. W. L. Wells, Howell, JNIich." These resolutions derive their significance from the fact that the signers are neither students nor recent graduates, but practitioners, chiefly of many years standing, who have become alive to the importance of the special diseases of women. It will be perceived, by our title page, that Dr. Storer, although as yet hardly forty years of age, has already attained the highest medical honor, save one, that can be conferred in this country — the exception being the Presidency of the National Medical Association, a posi- tion lately occupied by his distinguished father. The success of the son will not be wondered at, when the extent and variety of the contributions that he has made to medical science are taken into consideration. In reply to several requests that have been made of PUBLISHERS NOTE. xi US, we append a list of the various professional works and monographs of Dr. Storer, so far as we have been able to collect them. This list is probably not entirely complete, in consequence of the author's dis- inclination to give us all the aid we could have wished in its compilation, partly Ave suppose from a lack of leisure, and partly from a desire, as we have reason to believe, to avoid any imputation of courting publicity. We are ourselves satisfied that the book that we now present to the community will in nowise lessen his well- earned reputation. I. The Obstetric Memoirs and Contributions of Sir James Y. Simpson, Professor of Midwifery in the University of Edinburgh. Edited by his assistants, Drs. W. O. Priestley (now Professor in King's College, Lon- don), and H. R. Storer (now Professor in Berkshire Medical College). Two large volumes. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. 1855. Also, The Above. American edition. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1856. II. A Word in Defence of an American Surgeon. (Dr. J. Mason Warren, of Boston.) Controversy with Dr. Gillespie, of Edinburgh. Letter I. London Medical Times and Gazette, May, 1855- Letter II. American Journal of the Medical Sciences. Philadelphia : October, 1S55. XII PUBLISHERS NOTE. III. Boston Lying-In Hospital Reports. Boston Med- ical and Surgical Journal, 1855, 1856, &c. IV. Elm Tents for the Dilatation of the Cervix Uteri. Read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edin- burgh, May 1855. Article I. Asrociation Medical Journal of London, May, 1855. Article II. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, November, 1855. V. Cases Illustrative of Obstetric Disease. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1856 to 1865. VI. New Form of Intra-Uterine Pessary. Read before the Suftblk District Medical Society. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, November, 1856. VII. Review of Clay's " Complete Handbook of Ob- stetric Surgery." Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, November, 1S56. VIII. Caustic Potash as an Application to the Inte- rior OF THE Uterus. Its first suggestion. Article I. Read before the Suffolk District Medical PUBLISHERS NOTE. XIU Society. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Octo- ber, 1856. Article II. Ibid., October, 1858. Article III. Ibid., July, 1859. IX. Cases of Nymphomania. Read before the Boston Society for Medical Observa- tion, July, 1856. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, October, 1856. X. Report of the Committee appointed by the Suffolk District Medical Society, " to consider whether any future legislation is necessary on the sub- ject of Criminal Abortion ; and to report to the Society such other means as may seem necessary for the sup- pression of this abominable, unnatural, yet common crime." Drs. H. R. Storer, Chairmait. H. I. Bowditch. Calvin Ellis. Read before the Society, May, 1857. XI. Cupping the Interior of the Uterus. Read before the Boston Society for Medical Observa- tion, February, 1857. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, January, 1859. XII. The Use and Abuse of Uterine Tents. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, January, 1859. XIV PUBLISHERS NOTE. XIII. Cases Illustrative of Criminal Abortion. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, April, 1S59. XIV. The Uterine Dilator ; a New Method of reach- ing THE Uterine Cavity, and of inducing Prema- ture Labor. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, July, 1859. XV. Report of the Committee of the American Medical Association, " to investigate the subject of Criminal Abortion, with a view to its general sup- pression." Drs. H. R. Storer, of Mass., Chairman. T. W. Blatchford, of New York. Hugh L. Hodge, of Pennsylvania. E. H. B.'VRTON, of South Carolina. A. Lopez, of Alabama. W. H. Brisbane, of Wisconsin. A. J. Semmes, of District Columbia. Rendered at Louisville, May, 1859. Transactions of the Association, i860. XVI. Is Abortion ever a Crime? North American Medico-Chirurgical Review, January, 1859. XVII. Its Frequency, and the Causes thereof. North Arr.erican Medico-Chirurgical Review, March, 1859- PUBLISHERS NOTE. XV XVIII. Its Victims. Ibid., May, 1859. XIX. Its Proofs. Ibid. XX. Its Perpetrators. Ibid. XXI. Its Innocent Abettors. Ibid., Julj, 1859. XXII. Its Obstacles to Conviction. Ibid., September, 1859. XXIII. Can it be at all controlled by Law? Ibid., November, 1859. Also the above, from XVI. to XXIII., in a collective form, under the title of Criminal Abortion in Amer- ica. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1S60. XXIV. A Medico-Legal Study of Rape. New York Medical Journal, November, 1865. XXV. The Abetment of Criminal Abortion by Med- ical Men. Read before the Massachusetts Medical Society, May iP, 1S66. New York Medical Journal, September, 1866. XVI PUBLISHERS NOTE. XXVI. Subcutaneous Injection as a Cure for the Tooth- ache OF Pregnancy. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, October, 1S59. XXVII. Studies of Abortion. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, February, 1863. XXVIII. Artificial Dilatation of the Os and Cervix Uteri by Fluid Pressure from above; a reply to Drs. Keiller, of Edinburgh, and Arnott and Barnes, of London. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, July, 1863. XXIX. On Chloroform Inhalation during Labor. A reply to Dr. Robert Johns, of Dublin. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, August, 1863. XXX. Report op the State Commission on Insanity. Hon. Jos I ah Quincy, Jr. Drs. Alfred Hitchcock, and H. R. Storer. Mass. Legislative Document, (Senate 72.) Feb., 1864. XXXI. The Employment of Anesthetics in Childbirth Read before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at Pittsfield,June, 1863. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, October, 1863. PUBLISHERS NOTK. XVii The above was republished, under the name of Euto- KIA ; A Word to Physicia.x's and to Women. Boston : A. Williams & Co. 1863. XXXII. The Medical Management of Insane Women. Article I. Read before the Suffolk District Medical Society, December, 1863 ; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, February, 1S64. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, April, 1864. Article II. Ibid., October, 1864. Article III. Ibid., November, 1S64. XXXIII. The Relations of Female Patients to Hospi- tals for the Insane. Transactions of the American Medical Association. 1864. XXXIV. The Surgical Treatment of Amenorrhcea. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, January, 1864. XXXV. Report to the American Medical Association OF its Delegate to the Association of Superin- tendents OF Asylums for the Insane. Transactions of the American Medical Association. 1866. XXXVI. A new Operation for Umbilical Hernia, with Remarks upon Exploratory Incisions of the Abdomen. Article I. New York Medical Record, April, 1S66. Article II. Ibid., July, 1S66. 2 Xviii PUBLISHERS NOTE. XXXVII. Successful Removal of the Uterus and both Ovaries by Abdominal Section. Read before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, November 14, 1S65. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, January, 1S66. XXXVIII. The Clamp Shield ; an Instrument designed to LESSEN certain SuRGICAL DANGERS, MORE PARTICU- LARLY THOSE OF EXTIRPATION OF THE UtERUS BY Abdominal Section. Article I. Transactions of the American Medical As- sociation. Vol. XVII. 1866. Article II. Read before the Berkshire District Medical Society, July 25, 1866. New York Medical Record, October, 1S66. XXXIX. Vesico-Vaginal Fistula, and the Operations therefor, a Review. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, October, 1857- XL. The Causation, Course, and Rational Treat- ment OF Insanity in Women. Transactions of the American Medical Association. 1S65. XLI. The Unfitness of Women for Medical Practi- tioners. Letter of Resignation as Surgeon to the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, September, 1866. PUBLISHERS NOTE, XIX XLII. iNEBRiiiTY IN WoMEN ; an Appendix to the Treatise on Methomania, or Alcoholic Poisoning, bj Dr. Albert Day, now Superintendent of the New York State As vlum for Inebriates, at Binghamton. Boston : James Camp- bell. 1S67. XLIII. On the Decrease of the Rate of Increase of Population now obtaining in Europe and America. Read before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, December 14, 1S58. American Journal of Science and Art, New Haven, March, 1S67. We are happy to be able to add that Prof. Storer has half promised to prepare for us a book upon the Causa- tion and Rational Treatment of Insanity in Women, his report to the American Medical Association having never been reprinted from the Transactions of that body, although permission has been given him to do BO. For this work it is already well known that Dr. Storer is preeminently fitted. His opportunities both for private and official observation have been unusual, and his. views are scientific, reasonable, and in great measure at variance with the antiquated ones hitherto generally entertained. The subject is cne of intense interest to every member of the community, and we are sure that the appearance of the book will be eagerly looked forward to by thousands, alike of men and of women, and that it will do a great deal of good. LEE & SHEPARD. Boston, August i, 1867. PREFATORY REMARKS. By its action in 1864, in offering a prize for the best " short and comprehensive tract for cir- culation among females, for the purpose of en- lightening them upon the criminality and physical evils of forced abortions," and again in 1S65, in authorizing the general circulation of the suc- cessful essay, the American Medical Association initiated a system, or rather method, of general professional influence hitherto entirely unknown. The experiment was a hazardous one. There were many who viewed it with extreme anxiety, lest it should result in the destruction of " the barrier which, for the mutual protection, both of science and the community, had always been allowed to stand," there were those who, from having given no observation whatever to the sub- ject, were inclined to think that its importnnce had been ovr vrated ; and others still, who, ad- (7) 8 PREFATORY REMARKS. mitting the facts, thought their discussion ii> deHcate, unwise, or positively dangerous. The event, however, has shown the propriety of the course pursued by tlie Association. The demand for the little essay has been so great as to aston- ibli even booksellers themselves. Every medical journal throughout the country, I am told, with- out exception, has given it a kindly notice. The secidar press has everywhere praised the profes- sion for its united eflbrt thus to enlighten the so general ignorance upon a professional topic ; and even the pulpit has, in many places, joined itself hand in hand with our own body in the good work,* so that the times of old, when the clergy- man was to the physician an aid and a support, rather than as is now so frequently the case, an adversary and a stumbling-block, have seemed almost to be restored. Upon carefully considering the whole subject, I am satisfied that though much has thus been accomplished by the Association towards enhan- cing the general weal, there is still further work to be done ere all that is necessary can be effected. * I refer more particularly to articles in the North Western Christian Advocate, by Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Chi- cago, and in the Congregationalist, by Rev. Dr. Todd, of Pittsfield, the latter having been republished hy Messrs. Lee & Shepard of Boston, under the title of " Serpents in the Doves' Nest." PREFATORY REMARKS. 9 III the prize essay referred to, I portrayed, and endeavored to do it with fideHty, the criniinaHtv of wiH'ully tampering with the Hfe of the unborn child, and the physical injury sure, sooner or later, to result therefrom to the mother, ordina- rily causing her, far sooner than would pregnan- cies naturally completed, to lose the bloom of her youth, and with it one of the securities of her husband's love, predisposing her to a wide range of disease otherwise escaped, and in fact rapidly breaking her down in health and in hope, alike of things earthly and of things spiritual ; for to most foeticidal women, after the climacteric, oi* so-called " turn of life," has passed, there comes a realizing sense of the home they have lost through their own folly, their own sin. To stem the tide of fashion, — for it was fast becoming the way of the world to bear no children, — and to show matters in their true light by holding the mirror up to nature, was thus attempted by the Association. The nail upon which society is to hang its faith has been driven ; to clinch it, and so tD render its hold secure, another blow is needed. The necessity I proceed to show, and the stroke to give, only regretting that my feeble arm is not that of some one of the Association's stronger men, and my pen tipped with the flame which should cause these words to burn their IQ PREFATORY REMARKS. way to the ver) hearts of those to whom they are addressed. It may, perhaps, be alleged that the topics of which this book must treat are such as cannot 'lossibly be discussed without offending good taste or transcending propriety. This opinion, like many that are merely preconceived, may be found an erroneous one. It may also, perhaps, be said that the field of inquiry is one that has been given over, by tacit consent, to a class of writers who are theorists only, without previous opportunities of extended observation, or self- constituted moralists, who argue from abstract speculations rather than from the facts that na- ture daily furnishes to the physician in active practice. This has undoubtedly been the case. I have been astonished at the mass of material of the description referred to, that my publishers have sent me from their shelves for inspection since the manuscript of this book was placed in their hands. Essays of the most incoherent char- acter, some of them utterly unintelligible even, have vied for circulation with others, which, under the guise of a rational physiology, or phi- losophy, or religion, inculcate doctrines the most pernicious alike to body, mind, and soul. It is my aim to avoid being confounded in any way whatever with this class of writers. The views PREFATORY REMARKS. II that I present are those accepted as true by the physicians of our time most competent to judge, and ii will be seen that they are consistent with sound common sense. The result of many years of study, under very unusual opportunities for observing disease, I have not the slightest doubt as to the verdict that will be passed upon them by the grand jury to whom they are now sub- mitted. I have said that the Prize Essay upon Abor- tions has elicited extended and very favorable comments. Among those that have been brought to my notice there have been two of a very strik- ing and very peculiar character, both of them apparently made in the most perfectly good faith, and from the most diametrically opposite quar- ters. As to the personal identity of their authors, I know nothing. One of these criticisms is offered by a woman, " the wife," she is styled, '' of a Christian physician ;" her plea is evidently the result of extended observation, in no way, I trust, from personal experience, though it must have been the unlocking of a warm, and brave, and sympathetic heart. Its arguments are so weighty, and they are so well put, that I copy the letter entire in an Appendix to this essay, and trust, with the editors of the journal in which it appeared, ^' that it ma} find its way, in some i2 PKKFATORY REMARKS. more popular form than their pages afforded, to the eyes of every husband in the land." * The other article to which I refer is of a later date,t and this is written by one of our own sex, who comments upon the preceding, or " A Wo- man's View," stating that he is upon the eve of marriage, " and though not a whit more sensual ;han most men, cannot be too grateful for having thus forcibly brought to his mind a view which he for one had doubtless scarce otherwise con- sidered." '' I would to God," he continues, " that it might meet and claim the serious considera- tion of every man born of woman's agony." The first of these articles, to again quote from the editorial remarks concerning it, '"certainly ex- presses, with exceeding delicacy and truthfulness, the universal feeling of her sex upon a subject which deserves more attention from our profes- sion than it has hitherto received." The gen- tlemen making this assertion, Drs. Abbot and White, of the Medical School of Harvard Uni- versity, are generally considered men of a con- servative cast of mind, very conservative indeed for Massachusetts, and not in the least prone towards recognition of any " woman's rights " that are at all of a doubtful character. What, * Boston Med. and Surg. Journal, Nov. 1866, p. 274. t Ibid., Jan. 1S67, p. 490. PREFATORY REMARKS. I3 however, they do refer to will probably make itself evident in the following pages. It is, in- deed, the fact, that besides our appeal to women upon these matters, so pertinent to her physical and moral health, and to the well being of so- ciety, we must pillory the tnan^ who, under the guise of affection, steals from the maid her pearl of great price ; who, under the plea of a husband's prerogative, enforced, perchance, by scriptural texts, makes of his wife, disappointed, suffering, perhaps despairing, but the constant object of his savage lust, and makes of himself what is worse than the savage, a brute ; — or who, charged with the sacred duty, alike a grateful privilege, of guarding the public health, and of fathoming the mysteries both of sanitary and of social science, yet under the dread of being thought a visionary, or what so many consider as identical with this, a reformer or a philanthropist, folds his hands demurely, and closes his eyes upon what he else must see. Must these evils still endure, or ought we not all of us, whether in or out of the professional ranks, when the nian is thus placed foce to face with his victim, to inquire of our- selves, soberly and in all sincerity, " Is it I ? " In one of the papers referred to, that by the lady, it is stated that " if Dr. Storer will per- form as noble service for our brothers and hus- lA PREFATORY REMARKS. bands as for ourselves, ?.nd send the two books out hand in hand, they will bring him back a rich harvest of gratitude and amendment in mor- als." To attempt to do this is, I am well aware, a dangerous task. There are undoubtedly those who will deny its necessity, find fault with its execution, and perhajDS impugn the motives of the writer. Such, however, was the case, in each of these respects, with my former essay, and as that met with so hearty and so general ap- proval on the part of the profession, I am em- boldened again to enter the arena, trusting again to disarm mistaken or unfriendly criticism. Be this as it may, I, for my own part, have become deeply impressed with the need of addressing a word to men ; and believing in this as a duty, I wait not for others to decide the question for me. Accepting the labor in this light, I do not hesitate to repeat the language of my previous essay, and state that " the writer presents the accompanying paper neither for fame nor for reward. It has been prepared solely for the good of the communit3\ If it be considered worthy its end, their approbation and that of the profession at large would be more grateful to the writer than any tangible and therefore trivial recompense." E:xouraged by the action of the Association. PREFATORY REMARKS. 15 both at the sessions of 1864 and iS6^, by which it showed most unmistakably its behef that re- searches hke the present are for the advance- ment of science, and their pubHcation for the welfare of the race, I intrust this book to the wheel of fate. Its manuscript has already passed through one trying ordeal with a certain meas- ure of success. vSubmitted to the touchstone of the Prize Committee of the Association for the present year, it was distanced by the essays of Drs. Black of Ohio, upon the Cause of Inter- mittent and Remittent Fevers, and Fallen of Missouri, upon the Treatment of certain Abnor- mities 'of the Uterus, treating as these did of subjects of more dii'ect and especial interest to the medical profession ; but it elicited the fol- lowing letter from the distinguished professor in the University of Maryland, who represented the committee as its chairman, and was, of course, unaware of the identity of the author, which had been carefully disguised till I wrote to reclaim the manuscript. " Baltimore, 21st May, 1867. " Dear Doctor : " I have read your essay with very great interest, and hope that you will publish it. It certainly will do good. The subject, although one of great delicacy, is handled with marked ability. The whole profession ought to fee. grateful to you for your efforts to check the fearful 1 6 PREFATORY REMARKS. amount of crime in relation to abortions. Your essay will, I have no doubt, meet with the general approval of the Association. "Very respectfully, " F. Donaldson. "Dr. H. R. Storer, Boston." Such is the character and such the source of the above indorsement, which was wholly un- solicited, that I consider my object in submitting the essay to the Committee as fully gained. IS IT U A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN, I. — It is not Good to be Alone. As stated in the prefatory remarks, the pres- ent essay is written, and is intended for, the perusal of men. It is not impossible, however, that copies of it may fall into the hands of, or be shown to, individuals of the other sex. The subject upon which I shall speak, itself a very delicate one, is thus rendered still more dif- ficult to treat. Inasmuch, however, as in my work upon the physical evils of forced abor- tions,* published for the edification of women, under the authority and with the sanction of * Why Not? A Book for Every Woman. Lee & Shepard, Boston. (in i8 IS IT I r the American Medical Association, I seem to have so far succeeded in the duty intrusted to me as to win the encomiums of many of the sterner sex, I make bold to strike out for my- self a similar path, let me hope, to the con- viction and betterment of all my readers. If in doing this, I am found roughly to hew down certam old branches of custom, and to root up summarily certain privileges and alleged rights, usurped rather than legitimately granted, it is that I may let in light where it has long been needed, that I may remove causes of offence from the road of life's pilgrims, and widen that way, now too generally trodden in single file, even where wedlock exists, to its intended dimen- sions, sufficient for two to pass, side by side and hand in hand ; and this work, for humanity's sake, I shall endeavor to do without fear or favor. To all men I speak — the young, middle aged, and the old ; to the rich and to the poor ; to the gentle and the unrefined ; to the single, the mar- ried, and the widower ; to the happy and to the miserable ; to the ardent and to the cold ; to the A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. I9 religious and to the blasphemer. The subject is one that concerns all, for it lies at the foundation of society, — sexual health and disease, the need or advantage of marriage, the need or advantage of divorce, the chance of home being such or an empty name, an earthly heaven, or a worse than purgatory, — these are topics that affect each man, however careless or unconcerned he may think himself, or may appear to be. Therefore is it that I am sure of the attention of the continent, that he may gain still greater reason for self-con- trol ; of the prurient, for the very title of my essay will serve to arrest his attention ; and of the brutish man, impelled by curiosity to learn upon what grounds I shall condemn him. Is it asked, if the disclosures that I shall make are not by their very publication subversive of good morals, and the calling attention to the true relation of the sexes suggestive to bad men of, and conducive towards, their false relations? I answer, — First, that to ignore the existence of sin, error, misery, is in reality to encourage and to increase them. It is like walking upon thinly- ?> 20 IS IT If crusted lava, or upon breaking ice, certain to prevent our saving others, ready indeed to in- gulf even ourselves. We varnish over or seek to conceal vice, and it loses half its grossness — it becomes attractive perhaps, or fashionable ; but if we strip it of its veil, any soul, not wholly smirched, will recoil with horror. Again, all of us learn the lessons of life by experience — sad experience, indeed, it too often is. Many a man would give even his own soul could his past life be restored to him, and its follies, its sins be effaced. Too often his soul is no longer his own to give : inextricably entangled in passion's web, wound about and about \vith its myriad threads, there remains but the dead and worthless semblance of himself, that can be restored by nought save the boundless grace of God. Who would not gladly escape such risk, and welcome every premonition of danger? Still again, many, claiming to be immaculate themselves, will ask, " Am I my brotiier's keep- er?" And yet, living together in communities, as we do, it must be confessed that we are re- sponsible, every one of us, and to a very great A BOOK FOR EVERY MAX. 21 extent, for the shortcomings and evil deeds or all the rest, and it must also be confessed that there does not exist, that there probably never existed, a perfectly immaculate man, who never once has erred in the very matter we are now consider- ing, either in deed, or in word, or in thought. Consoling indeed for those of us who humbly confess our infirmities is this very fact. Take the very basest of us, and he at times is con- scious of vain regrets of his own misdeeds, and a fond desire that those whom he loves, for ever}"- man has such, may be better than he. Take the very best of us, and he sees a height beyond any he has yet attained, that he prays he may yet reach and pass. And further : not merely are researches, such as this essay is founded upon, publications for the general weal, such as it claims to be, per- fectly legitimate and advisable in themselves ; they have been sanctioned by precedents that have already been established. I do not refer to the attempts of unprincipled empirics to terrify the masses by overdrawn pictures of disease, nor of holy and well-meaning men to turn them to 22 IS IT ir better ways by fervent descriptions of the wrath to come. We shall take neither the fear of things present nor future as our standard in this discussion, but appeal solely to each man's rea- son — and such appeals have been made before. They have been made in France by Ricord, by Lallemand, and others of the great medical philos- ophers of the day ; by Pai-ent-Duchatelet and by Diday. In England, tliere are men like Acton, who dare to sound the trumpet of alarm, bring- ing forward their facts from private practice, from the hospital, and from the dead-house, and drawing from these indisputable conclusions. In our own country there are men like those brave souls, now one of them at least translated to a bet- ter country, Blatchford,* and Hodge, and Pope, and Barton, and Lopez, and Brisbane, physicians of the very highest rank in their profession, who were not ashamed, in the question of the fre- quency and the ill results of criminal abortion, to * Dr. Thomas W. Blatchford, of Troy, N. Y., died on the 7th of January, 1866. One of the oldest and most influential members of the American Medical Associa- tion, he was beloved h\ all who knew him. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 23 take stand beside me upon the platform of our personal knowledge, and knowing they dared maintain. I will cite but one instance more. It is that of a good man now gone to his rest, and a very rock he was to the swelling tide of moral as well as physical evil — the late Professor John Ware, of Massachusetts. His little work on a portion only of the topic we are now consider- ing,* has stayed many a headlong step and saved many a soul alive. The book to which I refer has, however, probably obtained but a limited cir- culation compared with that at which I now aim, and its author, so good himself, used only the gentle, persuasive eloquence of a tongue attuned by Nature to peaceful themes. For myself, accustomed as I have been in the practice of my profession in the especial department most bear- ing upon this subject, to probe humanity to its lowest depths, I shall not hesitate to speak plainly the truth as it is, to pile argument upon argument, to resort to invective if need be, ay, and to apply the lash, till every man who reads * Hints to Young Men on the True Relation of the Sexes. Boston, 1850. 24 IS IT I? nie stammers, conscience-stricken or indignant, " Is it I ? " For, one of themselves, both by birth and by nature, I know my ground, and my answer shall be, " Thou hast said." I shall try, I have stated, while speaking cogently, to keep my language within the bounds of the strictest decorum. Treating of similar topics with Michelet and Jean Jacques Rous- seau, I would fain, while discussing the sphere, the charms, and the complaints of woman, the force and the claims of the passion of love, whether pure or illicit, and the unalloyed, un- redeemable evils of purely selfish gratification, escape all semblance alike of approving sensu- ality and of condemning a rational yielding to natural laws — which last, as I shall be found to define it, must be considered a far difl;erent thing from the lustful appetite of a satyr or the nightly phantom of the ascetic, who is such from cowardice alone. Composed as we are, in this fleshly "tabernacle, of many a member, and many an adaptation of these to use, combined as one, there is the old, old combat described by St. Paul, — our instincts warring with our bettei A BOOK FOR liVKKY MAN. 25 selves, our will and our reason, for mastery. To govern a slave, and govern him well, one need not crucify him. To govern one's self, it may be necessary severely to discipline, but not always to kill, the body in which we have been placed for so many useful ends. To use, as not abusing ourselves or others, is but collateral to the rule called " golden " — together they form for us the safest of Creeds. All men, old or young, seek companionship. This is necessary for their very self-possession, both in body and in mind ; and the companion- ship which they instinctively seek, as truly and as unvaryingly as the loadstar seeks its pole, is that of the opposite sex. Where this special yearning is absent or has never existed, there is to be found, always, the effect of disappointment or of disease. The disease, if such is present, may, it is true, have been self-occasioned, but the vessel itself was either improperly built for the ' voyage of life or was stopped in its course by some hidden shoal : it has foundered or been wrecked, and we shall find that in by far the majority of cases this was from neglect in 26 IS IT 1? obtaining the necessary sailing chails or from non-adjustment of the compass. And here let me answer in advance one question that would undoubtedly be put to me by every one of my readers, Do I believe in fair- weather sailing alone ? in hugging the shore, and never daring to put to sea? Do I expect that each craft should be so stanch as to defy every wave and every blast of danger? I do neither. It is not the zephyr that calls into being the sturdiness of the oak, nor the mere heat of the sun that separates from the dross its fine gold. It is the burning that causes a child to dread the fire, and the philosophy that learns these things tentatively, and not from chance, is not of necessity sheer wickedness. I am no apolo- gist for vice. A habit of evil doing is one thing, and a slip, or even a momentary plunge into the mire, is a very different thing. The last, by its very taste of earth, may engender a longing, else unknown, for heaven. For myself I have little faith in passive goodness ; that is, in us men. Those who have never been exposed to tempta- tion, from staying quietly at home or through A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 27 accident alone, are the soonest to yield if the tempter comes. Having never tested their strength, they find it but w^eakness. As with eagles reared in a cage, there is no power of wing. It is the fall to the ground from the eyry, and the often disappointment when too fully self-relying, that gives the force of pinion to soar to the highest ether, face to face with nought but the sun. That I may be rightly understopd upon this very threshold of our in- quiry, let me quote a few lines from one of the most thoughtful, most chaste, and most accepted writers of the present day, the late Rev. Mr. Robertson, of England. " The first use," he says, " a man makes of every power and talent given to him is a bad use. The first time a man ever uses a flail, it is to the injury of his own head and of those who stand around him. The fi.rst time a child has a sharp-edged tool in his hand, he cuts his fingers. But this is no reason why he should not be ever taught to use a knife. The first use a man makes of his affections is to sensualize his spirit. Yet he cannot be ennobled except through those very affections. The first 28 IS IT ir* time a kingdom is put in possession of liberty, the result is anarchy. The first time a man is put in possession of intellectual knowledge, he is conscious of the approaches of sceptical feel- ing. But that is no proof that liberty is bad, or that instruction should not be given. It is a law of our humanity that man must know both good and evil ; he must know good through evil. There never was a principle but what triumphed through much evil ; no man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mis- takes." * These remarks apply more particularly to the young man, just becoming conscious of his newly-awakened emotions and physical powers. Should he be viewed and treated as a child, or allowed to go out from home to the dangers of the world ? In acquiescing, as a general rule, in the latter course, I know that I shall shock the sensibilities and prejudices of many super- ficial observers. Yet Sydney Smith did not hesitate to avow a similar opinion. " Very few young men," acknowledges the reverend gentle- * Discourses, &c., pp. 87, 88. I A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 29 man, " have the power of negation in any great degree at first. Every young man must be ex- posed to temptation ; he cannot learn the w^ays of men without being witness to their vices. If you attempt to preserve him from dangei by keeping him out of the way of it, you render him quite unfit for any style of life in which he may be placed. The great point is, not to turn him out too soon, and to give him a pilot." He must be taught purity. There is no doubt that in very many children an improper tone of thought is established even before the period of puberty, unnatural as this must be allowed to be, and that oftentimes this sexual precocity is induced very directly by causes within our control. For a boy in our cities, or even our villages, to reach his teens without learning from his associates or by obser- vation something of these matters, is simply impossible. It is for us to see to it that he does not receive the idea that they constitute the whole or the best part of life. '' Remem- ber," says Herbert Spencer, " that the aim of your discipline should be to produce a self- 30 IS IT I, governing l^eing, not to produce a being to be governed by others. As your children are by and bye to be free men, with no one to control their daily conduct, you cannot too much accus- tom them to self-control while they are still under your eye. Aim, therefore, to diminish the parental government as fast as you can sub- stitute for it in your child's mind that self- government arising from a foresight of results. All ti-ansitions are dangerous, and the most dan- gerous is the transition from the restraint of the family circle to the non-restraint of the world. Hence the policy of cultivating a boy's faculty of self-restraint by continually increasing the degree in which he is left to his self-restraint, and so bringing him, step by step, to a state of unaided self-restraint, obliterates the ordinary sud- den and hazardous change from externally gov- erned youth to internally governed maturity." * With reference to this point, who of us does not agree with the strictures of Acton upon the carelessness or prejudice which subjects a boy to unnecessary and too early temptations, sanc- * Moral Education, p. 140. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 31 tioning perhaps by parental advice his exposure to the wiliest and most dangerous of foes, his own unbridled imagination? Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random are no longer to be found upon the family book-shelf. GrifTith Gaunt, and the exciting issues of the modern French press, have taken their place. Lempriere, Ovid, and the other such meat for strong men, are put into the boy's hands with an expurgated text. What lad, however, who has not been tempted to ran- sack his father's library, and eveiy other col- lection of books within his reach, in the hope of finding an original edition, just precisely as at a certain time of his youth, longer or shorter as this may have been, he has found himself turning to the coai^sely translated and sometimes flagrant pages of the Old Testament, rather than to the chaste and ennobling language of the Gospels? " It has often surprised me," writes Acton, * " that the filthy stories of the loves of the heathen mythology should have been so generally placed i-i the hands of lads. In such works the youth * Functions and Disorders of ihe Reproductive Or- gans, p. 3S. 32 IS IT I r gloats over the pleasures which the heathen deities are supposed to have indulged in, while his imagination runs riot amid the most las- civious passages. The doctrine laid down in these volumes seems to be, that lust went on unchecked, that it was attended with no evil results, either physically or morally, to the indi- vidual, or to the society in which such scenes are supposed to have existed. To enable him to live as these gods of old are supposed to have done, with what companions must he not asso- ciate? He reads in them of the pleasures, nothing of the penalties, of sexual indulgence ■ and it is at a later period that the poor school- boy is first to learn that sexual pleasure is not to be indulged in with impunity. He is not intuitively aware that, if the sexual desires are excited, it will require greater power of will to master them than falls to the lot of most l.ids ; that if indulged in, the man will and must pay t le penalty for the errors of the boy ; that for one that escapes ten will suffer ; that an awful r!sk attends abnormal substitutes for sexual inter- course ; and that self-indulgence, long pursue*!, A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. •.53 tends ultimately to early death or self-destruc- tion." Thus educated, and thus vainly imagining, a large proportion of our boys pass from child- hood into youth, with the preconceived idea they soon find apparently confirmed by their own sensations, that it is not good to be alone. Let Kingsley tell us what is but too often the very reasonable result. Lancelot had discovered "• a new natural object, including in itself all — more than all yet found beauties and wonders — Woman, What was to be expected ? Pleasant things were pleasant, there was no doubt of that, whatever else might be doubtful. He had read Byron by stealth ; he had been flogged into reading Ovid and Tibullus, and commanded by his private tutor to read Martial and Juvenal for the improvement of his style. All conversation on the subject of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents and teacher. The parts of the Bible which spoke of it had been kept out of his sight. Love had been to him, practically, ground tabooed and carnal. What was to be expected? Just what happened. 34 IS IT I? If woman's beauty had notiiing holy in it, why should his fondness for it? Just what happens every day — that he had to sow his wild oats for himself, and eat the fruit thereof, and the dirt thereof also." * " Here, then," says Acton, " is our problem : A natural instinct, a great longing, has arisen in a boy's heart, together with the appearance of the powers requisite to gratify it. Everything, the habits of the world, the keen appetite of youth for all that is new, the example of com- panions, the pride of health and strength, oppor- tunity, all combine to urge him to give the rein to what seems a natural propensity. The boy does not know that to his immature frame every sexual indulgence is unmitigated evil. He does not think that to his inexperienced mind and heart every illicit pleasure is a degradation, to be bitterly regretted hereafter; a link in a chain that does not need many to be too strong to break." f The only answer to this problem is for the boy to learn to possess his soul in patience, and through example and advice, and earnest, prayer * Yeist, p. 3. f Loc. cit., p. 46. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 35 fill efibrt, to compel his own self-control, till he attains that full and complete development of all his powers that distinguishes the man. How small the proportion of all my readers who can lay their hands upon their hearts and say, with perfect truthfulness, that up to the time of reach- ing their majority they had never, for the sake of selfish or illicit gratification, been guilty of any offence against purity ! With these reflections, which are not of a character to make us particularly self-confident or vainglorious, I approach the second chapter of my task. II. — Marriage as a Sanitary Measure. Having now shown that while it is natural for young men to be impelled towards women by an instinctive yearning, this is not unfrequently pre- maturely excited, I proceed briefly to call atten- tion to its evil effects, in many instances, both upon the individual and upon society. I cannot do better, in commencing my remarks upon this subject, than to quote a few words from Dr 36 IS IT I.'' Ware. '' Unhappily fur the young, a just and elevated view of the relation of man to woman is forestalled by impressions of a totally diiFerent sort, early made and deeply rooted. Among the first lessons which boys learn of their fellows are impurities of language, and these are soon fol- lowed by impurities of thought. Foul words are hi use among them before they can actually com- prehend their origin, or attach to them any definite meaning. "Most men who, when young, have been in the habit of unreserved communication with oth- ers of their own sex, will recognize the truth of this statement. Happy is he who can look back upon no such recollections ; happy is he, the surface of whose mind does not bear upon it, through life, stains which were impressed thereon by the corrupt associations and the corrupt habits of youth ; happy indeed is he if the evil have not eaten into the soul itself, and left behind it such marks of its corrosion as neither time nor even repentance can ever obliterate. When this is the training of boyhood, it is not strange that the predominating ideas among young men, in A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 37 relation to the other sex, are too often tliose of impurity and sensuality. Nor is this evil con- fined to large cities, though it there manifests itself more distinctly in open and undisguised licentiousness, and in the illicit commerce of the sexes. It equally exists in the most secluded vil- lages in the corruption of die thoughts and lan- guage, and in modes of indulgence, which, if less obvious and remai-ked, are not, therefore, the less dangerous to moral purity. "We cannot be surprised, then, that the his- toiy of most young men is, that they yield to temptation in a greater or less degree and in different ways. With many, no doubt, the indul- gence is transient, accidental, and does not be- come habitual. It does not get to be regarded as venial. It is never yielded to without remorse. The wish and the purpose is to resist, but the animal nature bears down the moral ; still trans- gression is always followed by grief and repent- ance. With too many, however, it is to be feared, it is not so. The mind has become de- bauched by the dwelling of the imagination on liccp.tious i nagcs, and by indulgence in licen- 38 IS IT I tious conversation. There is no wish to resist. They are not overtaken by temptation, for they seek it. With them the transgression becomes habitml, and the stain on the character is deep and lasting. The prevailing sentiment of the mind, the prevailing tendency of the will, is to sensual vices ; and there are no vices which so deeply contaminate the soul of man, so degi'ade, so brutalize it, as these. The degree of debase- ment has in some men, even in some communi- ties, I'eached so low as to suggest modes of in- dulging this appetite from which the common sensualist shrinks with horror, and which cannot be even named without loathing." * These statements must be acknowledged by every honest man to be true, and it is therefore needless to adduce probatory evidence. Viewing the matter, as I do, from a professional stand- point, it becomes necessary for me to discuss methods of preventing habits as shameful as they are injurious to physical and mental and moral health, and sorrows that are but too often irre- mediable. Foremost among these methods, — I * Hints to Young Men, Sic, p. 36. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 39 shall speak of it more particularly as a sanitary measui-e, — will be found Marriage. In thus summarily, perhaps even roughly, re- ferring to the most important of all human rela- tions, I shall, I doubt not, again shock certain sensitive minds. In these delicate matters, how- ever, it is best to be frank and plain. At one time of his life or another, every man, selfish or generous-hearted as he may be, delicate or brutal his nature, looks forward to marriage : not as a spiritual blending of two souls in one merely, not as a self-sacrificing means of making some woman supremely happy, nor in fulfilment of a supposed duty to leave children behind him, the latter being very generally considered too old- fashioned doctrine for these days, but as the means of gratifying certain instinctive, and there- fore natural, although so often condemned as carnal, bodily desires, and thei-eby, as many will not hesitate to acknowledge, was their own purpose in marrying, of keeping himself in the better physical health. I would not be thought to believe that such selfish motives, low ones they may very properly be called, actuate the 40 IS IT ir majority of mankind. Many are governed by sor- did considerations, others by platonic, and still others by very romance. Through almost every marriage, however, there runs this thread of in- stinct, more or less strongly marked, more or less distinctly recognized, at times indeed delib- erately woven in, and according as one or the other of these conditions obtains, so is it gener- ally that the after and relative life of the parties is decided. Let us grant, to save time, what I have already assumed, that it is natural for man to long for woman, and thus yearning, to seek her ; and that, constituted as they both are, the one recipro- cally for the other, not for the world's purposes of population alone, but for imparting to and receiving from each other the most exquisite of physical sensations, it was intended by the Crea- tor that, like every other function, those pertain- ing to this most intimate acquaintance should also occasionally be allowed gratification. The question now confronts us. How is this possible ? How can mei lead manly lives, fulfilling all the purposes foi which they were constructed and A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 4I for which they were born, and _yet avoid infrin- ging upon the rights or the happiness of others ? To this question a variety of answers have been given. Of late years, many have advocated the so-called doctrine of Free-love, in accordance with which, by some alleged process of elective affinity, every positive would seek its negative, every male its female, and this whether or no each of the parties were already legally the propert}'^ of some other person. Subversive as such views, if allowed, would prove of all domestic unions, and therefore of the peace of society, their in- terested advocates have found many proselytes. Many more still carry into constant practice what thev would be ashamed, or would not dare open- ly to acknowledge. The views now referred to are as repulsive to the best sense of mankind as are those by which Mormonism is supported. In the one instance, a man professes to satisfy himself with one mis- tress, though he may possibly be conducting amours, at the same time, secretly, with a dozen ; in the other, he openly surrounds himself with concubines, much as in the Eastern seraglio, save 42 IS IT I that with the Latter Day Saints, the compara- tively better education and intelHgence of the women, however deficient these may practically be, render it advisable to invest the sealing witli a sen blance of religious authority, at once to prevent rapine by other men and quarrels among the women, however impossible this last may be to accomplish. In both cases, the Mormon and the amative socialist take to themselves a lion's share ; like some of the carnivora, who seem to kill for the mere pleasure of destruction, or who slake their thirst by a mere draught of their vic- tim's blood and then discard the disfigured car- cass, so useless to them, these men play with their toys for a while and then throw them aside, heart-broken, dishonored. So nearly are the sexes balanced in number, nominally, that were it not for disturbances of the equipoise by emi- gration, the prevention of pregnancy, its crimi- nal subversion and the like, by the time men and women have reached a suitable age they would stand very nearly one woman to one man. At birth, in almost every country, the males very slightly predomi ate, being usually some five or A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 43 six in excess to each hundred children born liv- ing. There ai^e greater dangers to the infant in male than in female births, the boy averaging a little the larger, and therefore its body, and more particularly its brain, being subjected to a gi eater and more prolonged pressure. Thus it is that more boys than girls are born dead, and that more boys than girls die during infanc}' and early childhood, their nervous sj'Stem not having entirely recovered from the comparatively greater shock to which it had been exposed. If then but one woman actually belongs to each man in a properly balanced community, what right has he to a second or more ? To this argument wilt be opposed the state- ments, that like other male mammalia, every man is physically competent to conjugally care for an almost indefinite number of women, and that the normal proportion of the sexes is already dis- turbed by the large number of both who volun- tarily remain single, and of both who, released from an earlier bond by divorce or death, marry for a second, a third, or even a fourth time, and by the comparatively earlier death or decrepi- 44 IS IT ir tilde, ou the large scale, of females. Upon the other hand, a man's possible uxorious ability is, and should be, no gauge of what it is advisaole for him to undertake or to perform. Even in wedlock it is too often the case that men liken themselves in practice to the most bestial of the lower animals, and to their wives are the most exacting and cruel of tyrants. The plea of merely yielding to the impulses of a pure affec- tion is used but too often to sanction the vilest debauchery, for a man, if he choose, may make a brothel of his own nuptial bed. As to plural marriages, confining that term to instances where the unions are successive and legalh- solemnized, there Is a doubt whether as many, if not more, women are not married a second time than men ; and as to the comparative mortality of the sexes, it is gradually becoming the way of physicians to study invalid women more closely and more accurately than was formerly the custom, and as a very natui'al consequence, much oftener to cui'C them, so that the comparative death rates are gradually assuming a relation more favorable to women than to nen, especially if we allow for A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 45 the greater liabilit}' of the hitter to accident and other exposure. It will be noticed that the death rate, comparative or positive, of a country is a very different thing from its birth rate, and this again from the fecundity of its population, — that is to say, the rate of its annual increase, — sub- jects all of them of great interest, both to pi-ofes- sional and to non-professional men ; the latter of them particularly so to us in our present inquiry, as will hereafter be seen. I may mention, in this connection, that results of two elaborate series of observations in our own country, made from dif- ferent points of view, but very coincident in their conclusions, have been published by two of the members of the American Medical Asso- ciation, namely. Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell,* and myself.f Not satisfied with bringing the sub- ject before my own profession, I have endeav- ored to fix the attention of the scientific world •upon the statistics that have been presented, more especially by an article upon the subject in the * Report of the Massachusetts Board of State Chari- ties, 1867, p. 19. t Criminal Abortion in America. Philadelphia, i860, p. 14; Nqrth Am. Med. Chir. Review, Mar. 1859, P- 260. 46 IS IT I? March number of the leading scientific journal of this country.* To return. Other answers than those yet indicated have been made to the main question that I have propounded. Prostitution, even to the extent of a public and legal license, just as obtains in many of the large cities of Europe, has even in our own country its avowed and honest advocates, and by this I mean far other advocates than lewd and licentious men. An engineer may study and direct systems of sew- erage, and yet neither desire, nor allow him- self to attend to the details of their management. I do not mean, however, to open the very inter- esting and important problem here involved, al- though it is one to which I have given much personal attention, both abroad and at home. Suffice it merely to say, that as a safety valve to the latent brutality and vice always heaving and raging beneath the surface in great crowds of men, and to prevent, by frequent and author- itative inspection of the unfortunates, led by cir- * American Journal of Science and Art. New Ha- ven, March, 1867, P- i4i- A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 47 cumstances far oftener than by inclination to pander to the unbridled instincts of man's lower nature, the so frequent importation of the lech- er's contagion into his household, setting its ■nark upon his innocent partner, if not also upon her ofispring, there is much to be said in favor of the restricted license referred to.* Upon the other hand, what more horrid thought to man's pui'e companion, or to him with ref- erence to all others than himself! I do not here say that any restricted license like that al- luded to has my own approval, although I am not sure but that of two evils it may prove the least. My question was. How can natural instincts reasonably be gratified without infrin- ging upon the rights and happiness of others? By prostitution, even taking so plausible an exception as that of the French grisette, the woman's happiness, certainly her highest happi- ness, is endangered, if not assuredly wrecked ; and I here take into account, that in France, * For remarks pertinent to the above, see editorials in the New York Medical Record, February, 1S67, p. 550, and in the Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter, for the same mouth, p. 137. 48 IS IT I? SO peculiar are certain phases of society there, the pubHc woman, after years of shameless s:".'.e of herself, often retires upon a competency, to marry and to lead a blameless life, and that in England, the common drabs from the gutter, transported to distant colonies, and sent into the bush, find themselves at a premium, marry, and have fanned into a flame the spark of virtue that may still have lurked in their bosoms. The same is true, to a more limited extent, of some of our own outlying territories and states. That I have referred to such a topic as the above, was requisite in order that I might ap- proach properly certain matters we have still to discuss together. When sanctioned, as it has been by the study and outspoken convictions of no less a person than Florence Niglitingale, who, stainless herself, is yet said to acknowledge certain necessities in the conduct of armies and the care of camps, no further apology upon my part is required. And such I take it is the case also with the last of the answers to which I shall at present refer, the still more terrible and destructive cus- A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 49 torn of self-indulgence, that solitary sin that has hurried so many men to the madhouse and to the grave. To this I need but allude, for hardly the person exists who does not know, from expe- rience or from observation, its blighting effects. With the prudery which prevents the parent from cautioning h s son, or the physician his patient, from this violation of every natural in- stinct and every physiological law, I have not the slightest patience. Enfeebling to the body, enfeebling to the mind, the incarnation of selfish- ness, it effaces from its victim his fondness for the other sex, unfits him for true love, and likens him in very fact to that embodied concen- tration of all man's frailties, devoid of all the apparent virtues of animals still lower in the scale, the ape. And yet, it must be acknowl- edged, that this baleful habit, like the kindred self-indulgence, inebriety,* is in many instances * To the million, drunkards themselves, or with drunkards in their family, the concise and philosophical treatise upon Methomania, just published by Dr. Albert Day, :hen of Boston, and now Superintendent of the New York State Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, will be fo;md to conve , with conviction, much comfort and hope. 50 IS IT I." the result not of vice, but of disease. The con- gestion of hcemorrhoids, the presence of ascarides in the rectum, the existence of constipation, are all of them agencies, which, by their reflex irri- tation, determining an abnormal excess of blood to the parts, and inducing a state of hyperes- thesia, or undue nervous excitability, may give rise to procedures which, in the same individual, at other and more healthful seasons, would cause for him but the most revolting disgust. Such being the case, and I may consider it as frankly acknowledged by my readers to be true, we are prepared to look more calmly at Mar- riage as a sanitary measure, and to see whether or no it is for this reason to be resorted to or advised. Every man knows that when the sexual passion has once been aroused and gratified, it can never afterwards be put entirely at rest, even by the hermit in his cell. It is asserted by certain writers, rather, however, upon theoret- ical than practical grounds, that such passion inay always, with compai'ative ease, be con- quereJ, by sheer force of will. To insure a A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 5 1 peaceful life, it should undoubtedly be van- quished ; but few feel at first this necessity, and fewer still have the required mental or moral strength. The confessions that are made to every physician prove this. " The incontinent man," says Acton, " is indulging a servant, who, if he becomes a master, will be what Cicero called him, a furious taskmaster. The slave of his passions has no easy life. Nay, life itself may be in danger. Often the patient falls a victim to sexual misery. The sexual feeling has caused many a suicide ; it has made many a misanthrope ; many are the cells now peopled uy single men, who, unable to control their feel- ings, have sought the monastery as an alleviation of their sufferings, and there found it in fasting, penance, and prayer." * And again. " If a man wished to undergo the acutest sexual suffering, he could adopt no more certain method than to be incontinent with the intention of becoming continent again ' when he had sown his wild oats.' The agony of breaking * l.oc. cit., p. 57. 52 IS IT If off a habit which so rapidly entwines itself with eveiy fibre of the human frame, is such that it would not be too much to say to any >oung man commencing a career of vice, ' You ai-e going a road on which you will never turn back. You had better stop now.' " * The Catholic Church has always recognized the tortures :o often accompanying a single life, when, exposed to temptation, as every man oc- casionally is, he endeavors to presei"\'e himself therefrom. " Our strength is like the strength of tow thrown into the fire ; it is instantly burned and consumed. Would it not be a miracle if tow cast into the fire did not burn? It would also be a miracle if we exposed ourselves to the occasion and did not fall." According to St. Bernardine of Sienna, " It is a greater miracle not to fall in the occasion of sin than to raise a dead man to life." And thus quaintly and forcibly concludes the learned translator of Bishop Liguori, " Do not allow your daughters to be taught letters by a man, though he be * Loc. cit., p. 56. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAX. 53 a St. Paul or St. Francis of Assissium. The saints are in heaven." * Moreover, it is a rule of that church that applicants for the priesthood should be fully formed and virile ; for although priests are requii"ed to observe a moral eunuch- ism, still they must have the merit of resistance to the thorn in the flesh to obtain the palm of recompense.! I do not, of course, imply, nor do I believe, that the great majority of unmarried men are habitually addicted to immoral practices, but that a very great proportion of them, in curbing their desires and keeping themselves under due sub- jection, undergo a frequent and severe, however unsuspected, martyrdom, is a fact that cannot be gainsaid. In speaking, as I have done, of certain alter- natives that are extensively adopted instead of marriage, namely, the resorting to houses of iJl- hune and self-abuse, I have merely mentioned the fact. I have not dwelt upon the risks, and frightful risks they are, accompanying both these * Instructions on the Commandments and S?cra- ments, pp. 154, 173. t Acton, p. 192. :;4 IS IT 1? measures. The lurid halo surroundi. g the strange woman, attracting men, as it were, by its very dangers, like moths fluttering about the candle that is to prove their destruction, has been commented upon through the centuries by writers sacred and profane. It has remained, however, for modern science to prove, what had long been suspected, that the venereal lues re- sulting from unclean intercourse, is, in one of its forms at least, a disease at times wholly ineradi- cable from the system, and transmissible in all its virulence to children's children.* Were phy- sicians to reveal to the unsuspecting victims of man's treachery or early backslidings, whom they are called upon to treat in the upper walks of life, the actual character and history of many of their diseases, there would indeed be weep- ings and wailings and gnashing of teeth. In the absence of supervision, medical inspection, and the license of public women, the chances are greatly in favor of the existence in those poor fallen ones of contagious disease, which, remain- ing latent in man's system, or directly trans- * Bumstead. Pathology and Treatment of Venereal Diseases. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN.- 55 planted to his home, may wreck all his hopes of future happiness. " Nothing tends more cer- tainly to wither the energies of youth and blast the hopes of manhood. It is not merely that the mind is polluted ; the body is enervated. A thousand forms of disease may hang round the victim, embitter his existence, or destroy his hopes in life, which he never imagines to have had such an origin. But even farther than this : Providence seems to have stamped this vice with more than its ordinary token of displeasure, by rendering its votaries liable to that terrible dis- ease from which so few of them ultimately escape. The effects of this disease, as is well known, are not always to be eradicated. They are not confined to present suffering. They may set a mark upon a man as indelible as that of Cain. They may cling to him through life, may destroy his health, undermine his constitu- tion, hasten his death, — may even terminate in disfigurement and mutilation. Nay, they may even so taint his blood as to descend to his very offspring, and inflict upon another generation the fearful consequences of his transgression." * * Ware. Loc. cit., p. 43. 56 IS IT I? The dangers environing those accustomed to consort with harlots exist to ahnost the same degree where a single private mistress is em- ployed. To say nothing of the expense of sup- porting such, usually much greater than that of honestly building a family, there must always exist the fact that the woman who permits one man to unla vfully use her will be very likely to grant similar favors to his friend or any one else who may please her fancy or offer her her price ; and then comes the chance of her receiving and imparting disease. Many men think that all such risk is avoided in the case of deliberate seduction. Such, how- ever, is by no means always the case. The pop- ular spread of physiological knowledge has been productive of many unforeseen results. Many- women, as well as many men, imagine that by the observance of certain precautions they can do as they please with a friend without possible chance of discovery ; the result of all which is, that, in many instances of intercourse with supposed virgins, the biter is sorely bitten, and repents him at his leisure. Where true seduc- A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 57 t.ion is effected, not only is the offender oppressed by a life-long sense of the wrong he has done, but he must also feel that the prize thus unfairly gained is liable at any moment to slip from his grasp, or to prove to him the veriest apple of Sodom. Thus disappointed, or thus fearing, many, even of adult age, resort to what is physiologically a worse crime against nature — self-excitation. This yielded to in boyhood sometimes makes of the young man a woman pursuer, but probably more often a woman hater ; while, on the other hand, it is often the last and final resort of the old and broken-down debauchee. In either event the effect upon the constitution is detrimental in the extreme. It is customary, but still a grava error, to preserve silence upon this subject. " But," to apply to it the brave words of my friend Dr. Shrady, of New York, when discuss- ing prostitution, " notwithstanding our preju- dices of education, agitation will here, as in the kindred question of pre-natal infanticide, finally culminate in reform." * If the subject is decided, * New York Medical Record, February, 1867, p. 550. 58 IS IT iV as I believe will be the case, to be of the impor- tance that is claimed by every philosophical physician who has looked into the matter, a voice will go out into every corner of the land, caught up and re-echoed by all the medical men thereof, that will cause those who care either for their souls or their bodies, to pause and tremble. I would not exaggerate this matter — -I would not indorse that empiricism in medicine which seeks to obtain gain through awakening un- grounded fears, or imply that I believe that those who have occasionally gone astray are necessarily incurably diseased, or their souls irretrievably lost. On the contrary, it is my opinion, already stated, that just as there is more joy in heaven over the repentant sinner than over those who wandered not, so those who have learned by bitter experience often make, here below, the better men. I have more than once in this essay drawn from the language of Dr. Ware, an old man, of widely-extended experi- ence, close habits of observation, a thoughtful mind, and of abounding charity for those who had erred. There is no one amonsr the wide circle of A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 59 medical men who were on terms of personal acquaintance with this distinguished member of our profession who will not acknowledge that the following sketch is far from being over- drawn : — " There is another form of sensuality, far more common among the young, it is to be feared, than that of which we have been speaking, and equally demanding notice — solitary indulgence. This is resorted to from different motives. With many there is no opportunity for the natural gratification of their appetites ; some are deterred from such gratification by the fear of discovery, regard for character, or a dread of disease ; oth- ers there are whose consciences revolt at the idea of licentious intercourse, who yet addict them- selves to this practice with the idea that there is in it less of criminalit}-. It is to be apprehended, however, that its commencement can usually be traced to a period of life when no such causes can have been in operation. It is begun from Imitation, and taught by example, long before the thoughts are likely to have been exercised, with regard either to its dangers or its crimi- nalitv. 6o IS IT I? " The prevalence of this vice among boys, there is great reason to believe, has very much to do with the great amount of illicit indulgence which exists among young men. The one bears the same relation to the other, in a certain sense, that moderate drinking does to intemperance. It prepares the way, it excites the apjDetite, it de- bauches the imagination. There is little doubt that it is often, if not commonly, begun at a period of life when the natural appetite does not, and should not, exist. It is solicited, pre- maturely developed ; it is almost created. On every account, then, this practice in the young demands especial notice. It is the great cor- rupter of the morals of our youth, as well as a frequent destroyer of their health and constitu- tion. Could it be arrested, the task of preventing the more open form of licentiousness would be comparatively easy ; for it ci'eates and establishes, at a very early age, a strong physical propensity, an animal want, of the most imperious nature, which, like the longing of the intemperate man, it is almost beyond human power to overcome The brute impulse becomes a habit of nearly A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 6l irresistible force before the reason is instructed as to its injurious influence on tlie liealth, or the conscience awakened as to its true character as a sin. " The deleterious, the sometimes appalling consequences of this vice upon the health, the constitution, the mind itself, are some of the common matters of medical observation. The victims of it should know what these conse- quences are ; for to be acquainted with the tremendous evils it entails may assist them in the work of resistance. These consequences are various in degree and in permanency according to the extent to which the indulgence is carried, and also according to the constitution of different individuals. But there is probably no extent which is not in some degree injurious. " Among the effects of this habit, in ordinary cases, we notice an impaired nutrition of the body ; a diminution of the rotundity which belongs to childhood and youth ; a general las- situde and languor, with weakness of the limbs and back ; indisposition and incapacity for study or labor ; dulness of apprehension ; a deficient 62 IS IT I? power of attention ; dizziness ; headaches ; pains in the sides, back, and limbs ; affections of the eyes. In cases of extreme indulgence, these symptoms become more strongly marked, and are followed by others. The emaciation becomes excessive ; the bodily powers become more com- pletely prostrated ; the memory and the whole mind partake hi the ruin ; and idiocy or insanity, in their most intractable forms, close the train of evils. It not unfrequenlh' happens that, from the cotisequences of this vice, when carried to an extreme, not even repentance and reformation liberate the unhappy victim. " Let no one say that we overstate the extent of this evil, or exaggerate its importance to the health and morals of the young. It is in vain that we attempt to stay the licentiousness of youth, when we leave, unchecked in their growth, those seeds of the vice which are sown in the bosom of the child. If there is impurity in the fountain, there will be impurity in the stream which flows from it. To what purpose is it that we make and execute laws against open licentiousness ; that we arm ourselves with A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 63 policemen and spies ; that we prosecute the keepers of brothels ; that we hunt the wretched prostitute from the dram shop to the cellar, from the cellar to the jail, from the jail to her grave? This does not purify society : it stops merely one external development of a corruption which still lurks, and cankers, and festers within. The licentiousness of the brothel is clear and open in its character ; nobody defends it ; every one is aware of its seductions and its dangers ; the young man who enters the house of shame knows that he does it at the peril of reputation, and under the dread of disease. But the other form of licentiousness is secret from its very nature. It may be practised without suspicion ; there is little fear of discovery or of shame. It lurks in the school, the academy, the college, the workshop, ay, even in the nursery. No age and no profes- sion are without examples of the dreadful ruin it can accomplish. Begun in childhood, and some- times even in infancy, it is indulged without a thought of its nature or its effects. Gradually it winds around its unhappy victim a chain which he finds it impossible to break. Continued for 64 IS IT I : years, he may wake at last to a sense of his deg- radation, but perhaps too late ; for it has often happened that neither the pressure of disease, the stings of conscience, a strong sense of re- ligious obligation, nor even the fear of death, have been sufficient to enable the unhappy suf- ferer to break from the habit which inthralls him. " None but those who go behind the scenes of life, and are permitted to enter the prison-house of the human heart, can know how many are the terrible secrets which lie hid beneath the fair and even face of society, as we see it in the common intercourse of the world. With how many are their early days a struggle for life and death between principle and jDassion, the spirit and the flesh ! With how many are those days spent in yielding and repenting, in reluctant indulgences, followed by agonies of remorse and shame ! With how many does the conscience become callous, and vice a second nature ! How often has it happened that natures, really fair and pure, have gradually become tarnished and dim, and the highest hopes of youth been defeated ! A BOOK FOR EVERY MAX. 65 How often has it happened that young men of rare promise, of whose success great expectations have been entertained, have suddenly failed b}^ the way ; have seemed prematurely worn down by study, and been forced to relinquish the career on which they were entering with the bright- est prospects ! Little is it suspected by anxious friends, or a sympathizing public, in such cases, that it is not too exclusive devotion to study ; that it is not midnight toil ; that it is not errors of diet, or want of air or exercise, that have withered their energies and unnerved their frame. There may be a nearer and a more inevitable destroyer than these. " This is a subject most painful to dwell upon ; one upon which it is hard to think, to speak, or to write, without seeming to partake in some measure of its pollution. Still, attention to it is vital to any successful effort to arrest the vices of impurity. The evils which are directly in- flicted upon the health, the physical develop- ment, the constitution, by these secret practices, are enough in themselves to command our inter- est. It sometimes happens that the habit is 66 IS IT I? acquired by accident, or persons of a peculiar temperament are led to it by a spontaneous im pulse. More frequently, however, it is taught by one generation to that which follows ; and so o-eneral is this education of evil, that it is rare to find those who have been fortunate enough to escape wholly from its contamination. Un- happily the physical pollution is not all ; for, as a matter almost of course, there are associated with it loose conversations, licentious imagin- ings, and low ideas of the relations of the sexes. It leads to the reading of obscene, or at least voluptuous books, gazing upon pictures of the same description, and to general licentiousness of thought and of language. It is not strange, when the mind is thus filled with such images, and taught to dwell upon and brood over them in the immature period of youth, that this part of our nature should be prematurely and unnat- urally developed, and that the opportunities of more advanced years should lead to that state of morals among young men which is so noto- rious, and so much to be deplored. " Is it not obvious then, where the remedy is A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 67 to be applied, if indeed a remedy be possible? Is it not obvious that our success must be small indeed if we confine ourselves to means intended to check the overt indulgences of maturity in licentiousness in one generation, whilst those who are to constitute the next are left to the same fearful development of their animal passions, which must lead them on, by steps as certain as the grave, in the same career of indulgence?"* Such being the case, and seeking what is for the good of men alone, without regard as 5^et for the interests of women, we are com^^elled to indorse marriage as a most important sanitary measure, alike for enabling a reasonable gratifi- cation of the sexual instinct, for the avoidance of disease, and for restraining men from alterna- tives alike disastrous to themselves, their descend- ants, and to society. 1 proceed now to discuss the time in a young man's life at which marriage becomes advisable. * Loc. cit., p. 45. 68 IS IT I? III. — How EARLY IN LiFE IS MARRIAGE TO BE ADVISED? The answer to the above question varies with the circumstances under which it is asked. Viewing the subject, as I am doing, solely from a medical point of observation, it is unnecessary for me to give much attention to the other argu- ments, for and against, that would else have to be considered. Political economists, almost without exception, have inveighed against an early entrance into wedlock. I could give much evidence upon this point, were it necessary. They base their rea- sonings upon several assumptions, which are almost purely such. In some ancient states, as Sparta, it was by law forbidden to men tiB^iarry under the age of thirty. '' And in this," says Acton, " as in many other matters, Lycurgus, the old lawgiver, shov/cd his wisdom." * In some modern states, also, a time has been fixed, as twenty-five years, until which men must re- main celibate. * Loc. cit., p. 76. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 69 These restrictions have frequently been estab- lished for the purpose of keeping alive a mar- tial spirit. When a people are permitted to fol- low the dictates of their own hearts, they are apt to anchor themselves at home, tied down by tne innumerable cords of affection and pecuniary necessity or advantage. If this is prevented, the youth remains for a certain number of years at the service of the state, is taught that first of all lessons of life, obedience, without a knowledge of which no man can himself come to rule ; he is supposed less likely to form a hasty or injudi- cious conjugal alliance, and from having been sent hither or thither across the world at the command of his superior, to be finally more anxious to settle permanently down as a private citizen. Again, in most countries, whether young or old, there is a tendency, exaggerated, no doubt, ill many instances, to become overstocked by the human race ; and theorists and lawgivers vie with each other in their efforts to keep down the population. Not only is it thought that by preventing the young from marriage, a direct ^o IS IT ir check is thus given, but that when that condi- tion is entered at a more advanced time of life, the man has become sobered by age, and what ib technically called " more prudent." Many suppose that the children of persons in the prime of life are more likely to be sound in body and in mind than the offspring of earlier years, — a result that does not necessarily occur, — while others, among whom Mr. Acton, more or less distinctly denying the benefit of marriage as a sanitary measure, add to the above argu- ments a still more untenable one, that perfect continence is the only wise and true measure of life. " Marriage," he says, "■ is not the panacea of all earthly woes, or the sole correction of all early vices. It often interferes with work and success in life, and its only result is that tlic poor man (poor in a pecuniary point of view) never reaches the bodily health or social happi- ness he might otherwise have reasonably ex- pected. Under the age of twenty-five I have no scruple in enjoining perfect continence. The sighing, lackadaisical boy should be bidden to work and win his wife before he can hope to A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 7 1 taste any of the happiness or benefits of married life." * There is much that may be said in favor, and much in disproval, of these several views. The great uprising of our own people, both North and South, during the late civil conflict, the long and patient endurance they exhibited, and the innumerable feats of great personal valor that they performed, sufficiently prove that early mar- riages, which are common in this country, and a national devotion for many years to the arts of peace, do not necessarily deprive a race of its most vigorous manhood. In our own instance, the conflict over, and the best blood of the coun- try spilled, we were yet ready, if need had been, to defend our rights against the world. As for becoming overstocked, there is for us no danger of this for many long years to come. Our fertile pi'airies, and the long reaches of arable land lying between the mountain ranges of the far West, are destined to cradle untold millions ; and if to these we add the parched but still irrigable plains of the extreme Southwest, we * Loc. cit., p. 76. 72 IS IT II see that our country is still in its infanc3^ If older nations had but followed the example of the Irish, the English, and the modern Jews, all over-crowding would be moi'e than met by emi- gration, the peaceful transfer of colonists mect- insf the exigencies of the case far better than the former eruptions of northern hordes, thinned by disease, famine, and the sword. ■ Is it said, that contrary to the doctrines of ^Dhvsiologists and to the precepts of Scripture, a jjurely ascetic life is the only normal one ? Acton has adverted to the fact, as he calls it, " that the intellectual qualities are usually in an inverse ratio to the sexual appetites. It would almost seem," he continues, " as if the two were incompatible ; the exercise of the one annihilat- ing the other." * With Thales, he would reply to those who ask when men should love, " A young man, not yet — an old man, not at all ; " and he styles Lord Bacon the still wiser Eng- lishman, quoting from him the following pas- sages: "You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons whereof the memory * Loc. cit., p. 73. A BOOK FOR KVEIIV MAN. 73 remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not one who hath been transported to the mad de- gree of love ; which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. By how much more ought men to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself. He that hath preferred Helena hath quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas, for whoso- ever esteemeth too much of amorous affection quitteth both riches and wisdom. They do best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life ; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can be no ways true to their own ends." As a fair offset to these remarks, I shall give a brief extract from a letter to Mr. Acton from a Cambi'idge graduate, whose experience will be found not so very different from that of intel- lectual and sedentary men this side the water, " Looking from the academic side of the ques- tion, the celibac}' of Fellows would seem very desirable (for thus only can they retain their 74 IS IT I? fellowships and the annual stipend pertaining), but no one can deny that such a principle in- volves the sacrifice of individual comfort. Is this fair to the celibate? I think not. It has always seemed to me that a single man is in an unnatural position ; a being created by the Almighty to increase and multiply a race made from the beginning male and female, will, of course, have his natural instincts in accordance with this design ; and mortify or control them as he may, they are still there, and cannot become extinct. The sufferings of an abstinent life I believe to be cruel to every man between five and twenty and five and forty ; and though athletic exercises, regular diet, and so forth, supply some slight relief, still it is never per- manent ; and in any event of reaction, the suf- ferer will find himself the worse for his previous regularity. Of course a scdentai'y life aggravates the symptoms, and I cannot believe that any man of ordinary vigor, so living and so abstaining, will be free from nocturnal annoyance. Still, this would be among the least of his distresses ; nay, in nine cases out of ten, I presume the A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 75 safety valve of nature is a most happy and beneficial relief; and though I cannot fly in the face of medical authority, and deny that there is a pernicious class of the disorder, still I firmly believe all those cases immensely exaggerated by the sufferers, and capable of an easy cure, to wit, matrimony, unless the patient, by degrading practices, has reduced himself to a state of im- potence. Meanwhile a man should go into training for a conflict with his appetites just as keenly as he does for the University Eight, the only difference being that the training will be more beneficial and more protracted. Be- sides diet and exercise, let him be constantly employed ; in fact, let him have so many meta- phorical irons in the fire that he will find it difficult to snatch ten minutes for private medi- tation ; let his sleep be very limited, and the temperature he moves in as nearly cold as he can bear ; let neither his eye nor his ear be vol- untarily open to anything that could possibly excite the passions ; if he see or hear acciden- tally what miglit have this tendency, let him at once resort to his dumb-bells, or any other mus- h6 is it 1? cular precaution, till he is quite fixtigued ; when- ever any sensual image occurs involuntarily to his mind, let him fly to the same resource, or else to the intellectual company of friends, till he feels secure of no return on the enemy's part. Lastly, I would fain add, let the sufterer from sexual causes make his affliction the subject of most earnest prayer, at any and all times, to that Ear where no supplication is made in vain. Thus armed, he may keep his assailant at bay, though I fear conquest is impossible, and the struggle a most severe one. Sound old Jeremy Taylor, after discoursing on chastity in some- thing like the above strain, says, if I remember right, ' These remedies are for extraordinary cases, but the ordinary remedy is good and holy marriage.' ' As I have said, the time at which marriage may be entered upon must vary in accordance with the circumstances of each case. Love is proverbially blind, and I shall be told that regard oDght to be had to the actual and relative ages of the parties, their health, their pecuniary cir- cumstances and prospects, the advice and wishes A BOOK FOR EVKRY MAN. 77 of friends. All this is very true, to a certain extent, but far more depends upon the mental and spiritual strength of the husband ; if he is determined to conquer adverse circumstances, he can generally do so, just in proportion as he curbs and keeps under control himself. Let him look forward and determine to use and not abuse his marital privileges, to respect his wife, and not make of her a mere plaything that will early wear out, and a man will find the lions that seemed to stand in his path the veriest illu- sion. The points, however, that I have referred to are worthy a moment's consideration. As to age, there can be no doubt that, for some reasons, it would be better for no man to marry before he has reached the age of twen- ty-five, and for no woman until she is twenty ; for till this time neither party can be consid- ered, physically, as really mature. To apply this rule, however, rigidly to practice, would, in this country, be very difficult. With us, such is the precocity of mental development, that the young child is often in many things the old man. Taken from the nursery almost before the 78 IS IT I? (irst dentition has occurred, placed in business or upon the chissics ahiiost at the time of as- suming the boy's distinctive garmen.s, many of our merchants and manufacturers have achieved a fortune, and many of our professional men a reputation, by the time they have hardly passed their majority. Precocity of youth, spent under the stimulus of the American atmosphere, cli- matic, intellectual, and moral, can but result in a certain kind of precocity of manhood. The same is also true of our women. Sub- jected as they are to excessively early excitement of the mind, in school and in society, they rap- idly press their mothers from the stage, and though physically not giving earlier signs of be- ing nubile than the girls of other nations, the}^ are far earlier in the market, as it were, for the sale, as it too often is in fact, of their charms and of their lives. No doubt this so early " coming out" from the chrysalid of youth is detrimental to botli man and woman. An early bloom is too apt to presage an early decay ; and though our moi-- tuary statistics, thanks to the advance of medical and sanitary science, do undoubtedly shew that A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 79 the average duration of life is becoming more and more extended, and that the Golden Age, in this I'espect, is before us rather than in the past ; vet, talcing a given number of persons exposed and not exposed to all the excitements of modern American civilization,- there can be no doubt that the unfashionable live longer than the fash- ionable, the steady than the unsteady, the slowly matured than the Pallas-like monstrosities of our own day and generation. Whether or no the slow and sedate life is the happier of the twain, and whether or no the life of threescore years and ten can be compressed within the limits of two twenties, are questions beyond the scope of the present inquiry. VVe all know that, at the best, life is but a quickly passing dream. Provided, then, there exist sufficient self-control to wait a while, very early marriages are not so desirable as those where the ages I have men- tioned have been attained ; that is to say, pro- vided the man has led a life of continence and purity, or has the strength to do so. If he has not, it may become advisable for him, in case circumstaaces otlierwise favor, early to enter the 8o IS IT I? married state ; awake, as he should be, to the le- sponsibilities this brings with it, to many of which I shall hereafter refer. And here let it be understood that extremes are alwaj's, almost without exception, to be condemned. The mar- riages of young children are very properly foi'- bidden by the law ; those of older children too often become necessary through their own indis- cretion, and result in future as in present unhap- piness. The marriage of very old people, per- missible on platonic or economical grounds, is sanitarily to be disapproved, and in many instances is but the folly of the second childhood. Great disparities i.i age are almost always matches of interest rather than aflection : the selfish greed- iness, the shameless yet impotent lechery, of old age joins itself well with that ambition or thirst for wealth which sells the young girl to her worse than slavery — this mating of youth to a virtual corpse. I do not like to advise marriage to parties in ill health ; and yet, as a medical measure, this is often advisable. We have seen that a single life is for men, and on sanitary grounds, not the licst. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 51 There are many cases where it is as unadvisable for women. x\s a class the}' need marriage, for a different reason than oui'selves. Constructed as evidently for companionship, their yearnings are more mental than physical. They are less conscious of any bodily needs, that is, in their normal condition, but more craving of a spirit- ual sympathy ; more angeiic than om^selves, we may truly call them. The point to which I would now refer, however, is the fact that, in many instances, women are deterred from con- senting to marriage upon the ground of their own ill health ; and I merely shall say that, in very many instances, far more than is usually supposed, marriage would prove for such ill health the most certain cure. I do not make this remark too sweepingly, for there are some affections under which women suffer that would only be aggravated by the change ; there are certain bars, as that of cousinship, which, on some accounts, ought never to be passed, and there are certain physical evils of which marriage is only but too productive. Plainly I would avow my conviction that just as marriage shoulc^ 83 IS IT If be avoided among blood relations, for the reason that any family taint, as scrofula, deformity, or insanity, is thus rendered nearly certain to their children, so should the same similarity of con- stitution be avoided, so far as possible, by Coe- lebs in search of a wife. If, selfishly, he would avoid defects in her, is it not his duty also to see to it that he brings to her a constitution of his own unmarred, so far as he himself has been concerned? And when, as is too often the case, men who carry with them a system infected by that terrible disease of the licentious, marry pure and unsuspecting women, a great outrage is com- mitted upon society, which no penance and no individual suffering can ever efface or atone for. One of the worst features of this whole matter, as I shall hereafter point out, is as yet generally unknown — that the most ineradicable form of the disease has its period of incubation ; the pri- mary sign of it may escape notice, the virus mav lie latent, and when it does exhibit itself, the party really to blame may throw the whole enormity of the trouble upon an innocent person, and thus, on the wreck he has made of his home, immolate its guardian. A BOOK FOR EVKKV MAN. 83 But I have not time to pursue these collateral lines of thought, manifold as they are, and as important as they are interesting. One of the great rules of life being to try to have and to preserve a sound mind in a sound body, and it being essential for this that the conscience should be sound also, we are forced to admit that, all things being equal, a comparatively early mar- riage is better for the man than a late one ; this on its medical grounds, and uninfluenced by busi- ness, or other considerations. Were I to discuss these and push them to their legitimate conclu- sions. I am afraid I might bring grief to some of my readers — if, for instance, I should assert that it were better for the wives of many sea- faring men, especially those going very long voy- ages, if their husbands had never married them at all, or at least had waited till their days of absence, and peril, and exposure, in foreign ports, to worse dangers than those of the sea, were permaiiently over. By this remark I am re- minded of the question of long engagements — a very pertinent one to our present inquiry. In presenting Mr. Acton's opinion as to the / 84 IS IT ir advisability of early marriage. I might have said that this very writer contradicts himself, as must every one who undertakes to ignore the great underlying and controlling passions of men. I have quoted some of his remarks concerning continence. In another connection, however, he says, " If an adult is in a position to many, by all means let him do so. If his sexual desires are strong, and his intellectual powers not great, early marriage will keep him out of much mis- chief and temptation." He then goes on to say, what I myself hold, that " for any one, espe- cialjy a young man, to enter into a long engage- ment without any immediate hope of fulfilling it, is physically an almost unmitigated evil. It is bad for any one to have sexual ideas and desires constantly before his mind, liable to be excited by every interview with the lady. Tlie frequent correspondence, further, keeps u^^ a morbid dwelling upon thoughts which it would be well to banish altogether from the mind ; and I have reason to know that this condition of con- stant excitement has often caused snost dangei- ous and painful alTections. These results, to an A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 85 alarming extent, often follow the progress of an ordinary courtship. The danger and distress may be much more serious when the marriage is postponed for years." * The same evil results of hope deferred may also be observed in the female. Physicians devoted to the study of her diseases attribute the causation of some of them, or their increase, to the same identical influences. Mental emotions, even in the purest and chastest minded, are often reflected upon the reproductive system, acting as excitants, even where the mind is unconscious of anything like a bodily sensa- tion ; and, on the other hand, physical excitement, which may exist unconsciously as it were, con- stantly reflects itself back again upon the mind, increasing the force and intensity of its emotions. " It is no whim," remarks that close student of minds, healthy and diseased. Dr. Isaac Ray, of Providence, " but a suggestion of sound physi- ology, that the nervous erethism, excited even by courtship, has a controlling influence over the female will." f * Loc. cit., p. 77. t American Journal of Insanity, October, 1866, p. 267. S6 IS IT I? I should do wrong, moreover, did I not here aUude to the dangers, so often proved to exist by their results, of undue waiting, to the moral as well as the physical health. When parties have plighted to each other their faith, they often consider themselves as already one, and demean themselves together too much as such, — forget- tino- for the time that thus they are almost sure to lose their mutual and self-respect, — they arc more likely, for this very reason, to take oiVence at some unintended trifle, or to become wearied of each other and so to break their engagement, and that they run great risk, by a forced and hasty marriage, of giving its tongue to scandal, and confessing each other's shame. The length of a betrothal, just as the time of its inception, is too often dependent upon circum- stances of a trivial character. Where these en- danger the happiness of the man alone, he him- self shoidd judge as to the propriety of allowing them undue weight. He has no right, however, as so often occurs, to drag or to coax a young girl to the altar, who is as yet but half matured, or to condemn her to remain for years half-mated, A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 8"/ through his selfish fears that unless thus pledged she would elude his grasp. As I have said, too early bloom is apt to presage too early decay ; and even vi^ith the best of care our American dames at fifty are prone to pass into the condi- tion called old, even while their husbands, more advanced in years, are still in the very prime of life. A word to the wise should surely be suffi- cient. Let us hope that Lord Bacon erred in declaring love wholly inconsistent with wisdom, and now consider, — IV. — The Rights of the Husband. Most men would claim these to be absolute. In view of such claim, which is constantly in practice enforced, married women are expected to quietly yield themselves, often most unwilling victims. Have I any ground for this last asser- tion? I have. Is it gained from observation or from confession? It is gained from both. Is it i conclusion hastily founded? On the contrary, it is the result of the daily study and direct ques- ionings of fifteen long years. b5 IS IT li But it is evident that there are two very dis- tinct sides to this important inquiry ; and it is requisite that they should both be fairly pre- sented before the balance can be struck between them. Are these rights absolute, or are they the rather reciprocal with duties? Should mere in- stinct, or reason, be the rule ? The rights of the husband regarding his wife, I have said, are usually considered total and in- disputable. Till now they have seldom been challenged ; certainly seldom of men by a man. In listening, as I have done, to the plaints of wo- men, I have neither eavesdropped nor suggested. In presenting them now after these years of com- parison and cross-examination, it is with no quixotic feeling of championship, but solely with the desire of an earnest physician to assuage physical and mental pains, very real though often uncomplained of and unappreciated, to carry comfort to hearts disappointed and well nigh bro- ken, to check abuses whose authors may not have recognized them as such, and to evoke a higher manliness than is our usual wont, as men, to exhibit. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 89 What, then, do we usually claim? All that the law. and still more tyrannical custom, grants to us, in our wives ; all that they have, and all that they are, in person and in very life. And here let me say, that I intend taking no ultra ground ; that I am neither a fanatic nor professed philan- thrope ; and that in loosing, as I hope to do, some of woman's present chains, it is solely for pro- fessional purposes, to increase her health, prolong her life, extend the benefits she confers upon society — in a word, selfishly to eniiance her value to ourselves ; and yet there is somewhat in this effort, as I believe there is also in the hearts of all those who will peruse it, of gratitude to her for the love with which she has solaced us, as mother, and sister, and wife, and daughter, — all of which I have myself possessed ; unhappy iie who has not. Give to her, then, the serious con- sideration due from every man " born of woman's agony," the depth and measure of which but lew of us ever really know. I am no advocate for unwomanly women ; I would not transplant them, from their proper and God-given sphere, to the pulpit, the forum, or the cares of state, 90 IS IT I nor -would I repeat the experiment, so patiently tried by myself, and at last so emphatically con- demned * — of females attempting the practice of the medical profession. I would undoubtedly open to single women every legitimate avenue to an honorable self-support, and thus keep them from many of the pitfalls which so closely environ them, and by causing for the married woman more or greater occasion to respect her husband, I would redouble for him her affection. These are some of my claims to be heard, and they are weighty ones in truth. In the early history of nations, woman has always been the slave. She is still such, con- fessed, in all barbarous or but partially civilized tribes. Condemned, by custom or her lord's caprice, to menial offices, she has pandered to his transient emotion, suffered its hardest conse- quences, and still drudged on. Save in name, in what does this description differ from that of thousands of our own women? They do not, * Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, September, 1866, p. 191. New York Monthly Medical Journal, No- vember, 1866, p. 156. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 9I • in their best estate, it is true, bear the nominal burdens of life, the hoe and the venison meat, the tent pole and the paddle ; but a queen's finery, to the higher natures of our time, may be fi\r heavier than these. In former days, or in distant lands, husbands have held for their wives the tenure of life or death ; were they disobedient, or their fidelity even questioned, the bowstring or sack of the Bosphorus, or being built aside by masonry while still alive, in countries perhaps nominally Chris- tian, are but a portion of the penalties that were meted them. In what, save in being easier to bear, do these difter from enforced seclusion, as in pri- vate huiatic asylums not so very many years ago, or the still more dreadful divorce, where not desired and not deserved, with all its attendant publicity ? In by-gone times, and among heathen, as at present in a remote valley of our own great land, so jealous of the honor of its people, and so lenient towards their crimes, women have been openly held as concubines, to possess an abundance of whom were as worthy as to num- 92 IS IT ir ber one's children. What variance in this from the secret amours and liaisons of our own time, so easy to indulge in, so difficult to detect, in consequence of the almost universal knowledge of the means of preventing or escaping the nat- ural consequences of illicit sexual indulgence? In days long past, and in tribes far down in ignorance and ^luperstition, it has been the cus- tom to slaughter new-born infants, to avoid the trouble of their support, or to appease the gods. In Sparta, it was alleged that such destruction of the puny or deformed was justified for the sake of preserving the race in all its pristine beauty and vigor. Is such a deed, at the hands of even a heathen Greek, to be compared for wickedness with the pre-natal murders of the present day, daily in occurrence, fiishionable even, and be- praised by professing Christians, repeated over and over again by the same married woman and mother? You will exclaim with horror that it is not ! And yet, in a very large proportion of instances, this shocking and atrocious act is ad- vised and abetted, if not compelled, by the hus- band — by us men. Who enjoys asking now, "Is it I?" A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 93 For the woman, enfeebled perhaps b}^ too ex- cessive child-bearing, for which her husband is generally wholly responsible, for few of our wives do not become, sooner or later, virtually apathetic ; for the woman, timid, easily alarmed, prone to mental depression or other disturbance, and dreading the yet safe and preferable labor that awaits her, and withal under that strange and mastering thraldom of fashion, there is a certain measure of excuse. For her husband, none. This is a matter concerning which the public mind is now undergoing a radical change. Slow to set in motion, but every day gaining more rapidly in force, the world's revival proceeds. In "Why Not?" or "Why should women not commit this crime?" I have sounded almost a trump to awake the dead. Would, indeed, that it might arouse a better life in every man who reads these words : " Of the mother, by consent or by her own hand, imbrued with her infant's blood ; of the more guilty father, who counsels or allows the crime ; of the wretches who, by their wholesale murders, far out-Herod Burke and Hare ; of the public sentiment which pal- 94 IS IT II liates, pardons, and would even praise thi::), so common, violation of all law, human and divine, of all instinct, all reason, all pity, all mercy, all love, we leave those to speak who can." * What, then, I repeat, do husbands usually claim ? The right to their wives' persons, to use or abuse at their pleasure ; the right to their wives' happiness, and to endanger or destroy it, as they may choose ; the right to their wives' lives and those of their offspring, and to destro}^ these also, the latter directly, the former thus indirectly, and at times also, by their physical violence or their persistent though petty cruel- ties, very directly too. Formerly men had control, exclusive and en- tire, of any Dossessions their wives might bring them. Now, and with us at least, the law has very materially curtailed the husband's power in this respect, save it be granted him by the wife's consent. Will the time come, think ye, when husbands can no longer, as thev now frequently * Prize Essay of the American Medical Association, p. 79. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 95 do, commit the crime of rape upon their unwill- ing wives, and persuade them or compel them to allow a still more dreadful violence to be wreaked upon the children nestling within them — children fully alive from the very moment of conception, that have already been fully de- tached from all organic connection with their parent, and only re-attached to her for the pur- poses of nutriment and growth, and to destroy whom " is a crime of the same nature, both against our Maker and society, as to destroy an infant, a child, or a man " ? * I cannot be too emphatic upon these points. It is of no use to say that I am straining them to conclusions that are forced and unwarranted. That these are in accordance with fact must be al- lowed by everv medical man at all familiar with the practice of his profession, and indeed by every layman who will for a moment think of the mat- ter. It is one of the simplest common sense, as ■veil as in unison with the teachings of the purest science, and its results are already show- * Percival. Medical Ethics, p. 79. 96 IS IT I? ing themselves in tlie ill health of our women and in the gi-ackial dying out of our native popu- lation, just as some of the means for preventing pregnancy are evincing themselves to the prac- tised eye in the dyspepsias, the unsteady step, gray hairs, and premature deci'epitude of many of our men. In pointing out the physical diseases resulting to woman from intentional abortion, I instanced insanity, of which at that time several cases, thus occasioned, had come under my observa- tion. To this, as to some other of my views concerning the causation of insanity in women, many psychologists have been inclined to take exception. One of the most influential asylum superintendents in the country (I refer to Dr. John P. Gray, of the New York State Asylum at Utica), has lately given most emphatic approval of my views. In his Report for the present year, just published. Dr. Gray devotes several pages to this special question, taking oc- casion to speak very kindly of " Why Not? " and using the following impressive language : " All A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 97 must admit the corrupting tendency of vice in any of its shades, and especially when in intent or fact it seeks to thwart, by actual violence, the beneficent laws of our being, and turn the pur- poses of God, in ordering the ' holy estate of mat- rimony,' into the basest species of prostitution. The existence of this horrid, unnatural, secret crime, carried out, often, by the mutual consent and connivance of husbands and wives, is not new. Its terrible prevalence has steadily in- creased. I have for many years received and treated patients whose insanity was directly trace- able to this crime, through its moral and physical effects." And again : " I need not here discuss at length the disorders consequent on this crime, in any and all of its shades, but I deem it no less than my duty to declare, as already stated, that it is, directly and indirectly, one of the causes of insanity." * This being the case, well might I preface one of my earlier works by the follovv- * Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Managers of the New York State Lunatic Asylum, pp. ;^^ to 37. Legis- lative Document. Albany, 1867. 98 IS IT I ing quotation from Granville's Treatise on Sud- den Death : " Let the legislator and moralist look to it, for as sure as there is in any nation a hid- den tampering with infant life, whether frequent or occasional, systematic or accidental, so sure will the chastisement of the Almighty fall on such a nation." * I pass now to discuss these rights of the hus- band still further, and to see whether they are unaccompanied, or not, by obligations which should control them. * Criminal Abortion in America. Philadelphia, i860. Title-page. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 99 V. Are these Rights Absolute, or Recip- rocal, WITH Duties? In the first place, let us see under what circum- stances the rights I have now described were assumed, and whether it was by the power of the strong over the weak, or from a belief that woman was in reality inferior to man. as well as physically not as fully developed, or whether it was from a belief that such assumption was in- tended by the Creator, and inculcated both by natural and i-evealed religion, and m the latter in- stance by both the old and the newer Scripture. Probably all these arguments have weighed, but stronger than these even has been possession, that nine points of the law. Custom, handed down from father to son, from time immemorial, has sanctioned what so often results in tyranny. Appeals are made to Genesis, to the Proverbs, and to the Acts of the Apostles, and it is asserted that the inferiority of woman is thus proved to a demonstration, just as the Bible has been made to evidence the divinity of the institution of slavery, and to disprove — for some still assert 8 lOO IS IT li this — the truths of geology, astronomy, and all other natural science. If no man should put asunder those whom God has joined, we must confess, in all conjugal matters at least, their full equality ; and in relinquishing the title of lord and master, we must also waive the point of un- reasoning and blind obedience, and so shall we gain the more complete obedience where such is really to be desired. It is very probable — for such are the teachings of the most philosophical anatomists of our time — that, so far as the mere structure of her body is concerned, woman has not attained so advanced a stage of development as man. It is even alleged, by thoughtful embryologists, that every man during the earliest period of his existence was once a woman ; that is to say, that in the foetal condition his was at one time identical with the female type, and that this was subsequently outgrown. There is no doubt that many facts support this opinion, as the persistence, for in- stance, in every man, of a minute and undevel- oped womb,* useless, save as furnishing one of * Simpson. Obstetric Works, vol. ii. p. 294. A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. lOI those homologies so abounding in the plan of cre- ation. Suppose, however, that we grant all this, and that in purely intellectual matters woman varies normally from man, as she does in physical strength ; we must yet allow that in moral vigor, in religious aspiration, and faith, and in all purely emotional attributes, she far excels him. It is not from accident that the chaste and good of all ages have selected the female rather than the male as their ideal of angels and saints in heaven ; but it is in tacit yet universal recognition of her superiority in cer- tain matters over us. We men are of the earth, earthy, but they the gift of God ; and such, in the tradition, did Adam see in the beautiful mother of mankind. Well for us all that she gave to him of the tree of knowledge, else, if that tradition be true, we ourselves had never been. It is in accordance with those differences in feeling, dependent upon differences of conforma- tion, growing with their growth and increasing with the years, and not in consequence of custom alone, that, just as obtains with the lower mam- mals, tlie advances towards the union of the sexes 103 IS IT I.-* are made almost entirely by the man. He is impelled by that strong and almost irresistible instinct by which the future peopling of the earth is determined, while in the woman it is, to a great extent, the subsequently awakened emotion of maternal love, which, far stronger in her than that for simple congress, leads her in very truth to lay down iT^r life for her children ; for this in every household, where husband and wife live in accordance with the laws of their being, is the practical result. The mother may live to a good old age, but still the best energies of her life are expended on her offspring, in rearing and caring for them till able to shift for themselves ; and in this lies, or should lie, her highest hap- piness. I shall be told that many marriages are un- fruitful. Granted. That many must necessarily be such. Also granted, but with a limitation. Every man of the present day knows that, of these unfruitful marriages, by far the majority are such from intention. We seldom now sec himilies of any size ; and yet w^omcn conceive as e;i';i!y and men are as potent as in the olden A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. IO3 time. Every physician who has considered the subject will aver that my statement is true, and will acknowledge, moreover, that of the unfruit- ful marriages where children are yet desired, the barrenness of the woman is often owing to a brace of causes that are ffequently easily re- moved by treatment ; in the one instance there being some form of organic displacement or physical obstruction on the wife's part, in the other temporary or persistent impotence on that of the husband, generally owing to previous careless or unphysiological ways of life. It is folly to think, as so many do, that early years of intentional childlessness can be atoned for by subsequent yeai's of intentional plenty. Those who begin by thwarting the laws of nature very constantly find that in later life, when mere sen- sations pall, and physical weariness supplants the freshness and ardor of youth, these laws, dis- obeyed, will in turn disappoint them. This sub- ject is of such importance, and is so little under- stood, that I must here quote again from one of my own previous writings upon the subject ; indeed so few physicians have dared to write or I04 IS IT If apparently to, think of these matters, that there are hardly others to whom I can refer. In a paper read before the Massachusetts Medical Society in May of last year, and pub- lished in one of the New York professional periodicals,* I have laid down the followiig series of propositions, which are startling, but undoubt- edly true. " I, That while, owing to the advance of our knowledge in the treatment of childbed, more children are born living than formerlv, and more mothers saved, and owing to our wiser treatment of the diseases of children, and their exposure to better sanitary conditions, a much larger percent- age of them reach maturity, yet among the better class of inhabitants fewer infants are born ; that is to say, that the average number of births to each Protestant fumily is less than it was half a century ago. " 2. That of the pregnancies in reality occiu- ring in this class, fewer reach completion. " 3. That of the instances of conjugal inter- course taking place, fewer result in impregnation. * New York Medical Journal, Sept., 1866, p. 423. A BOOK FOR iVEKY MAN. I05 " 4. That of these incompleted pregnancies and apparent instances of sterility, a large prD- portion are intentional. " 5. That such wilful interference with the laws of nature is productive, as might have been expected, of a vast amount of disease — disease whose causation has been unexplained, and whose character is made evident alike by the confessions of the patient, and by the results of a more natural course of life. " 6. That intentional abortions are a greater tax upon a woman's health, and more surely fol- lowed bv uterine disease than pregnancies com- pleted, and this even though the patient may seem to rally from them with impunity — the result showing itself, if not immediately, then after a lapse of years, or at the turn of life. " 7. That the systematic prevention of preg- nancy, by whatever means, is also followed by prejudicial effects, affecting the nervous and the uterine systems, not unfrequently producing ste- rility from an organic cause, and laying the foundation of serious or incurable disease. " 8. That when such pn-vention is occasioned I06 IS IT 1? by incompleted intercourse, by whatever means effected, the effect is equally bad for the hus- band's health as for that of the wife — there resulting dyspepsia, functional or organic ner- vous disease, and at times impotence, temporary or persistent." It will be seen by the above, not merely that in many instil nces of unfruitful marriage the barrenness is intentional, but that thus to trifle with the full gratification of our natural instincts, whenever the rein is given to them, is fraught with the most detrimental consequences to both parties concerned, — to us men, as well as to our associates, — and this in either event : for if we permit or counsel them to destroy their unborn oflspring, their health is verv likely to be thereby undermined, and our conjugal intercourse with them very materially interfered with, or perma- nently ended ; and if, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to use them merely as mistresses, we not only are liable to seriously injure their health, but are almost sure to ruin our own. So that in both instances we are the losers. It will tl IS be seen that certain of the conjugal A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. I07 rights that are assumed by men, are, whether absokite or not, of a very questionable character ; harmful to our moral natures, destructive to our physical constitutions, and much more wisely honored in the breach than in the observance. How is it with others? Some may allege that while they would neither approve the wilful interference with or prevention of impregnation, no harm can surely attach to very frequent indul- gence in what tltey call living a perfectly natui'al life, that is to say, giving themselves up, fully and constantly, to unbridled sexual license. To this I reply that some men are brutes. Even among husbands, pledged truly to love and cherish those who generally give far more real affection than they receive, there exist the veriest satyrs, eroto-maniacs, madmen. Knowing that they are endangering their wife's life, that they are causing her health seriously to suffer, or to be ruined, they still persist in their demands for what at the best is but a momentary gratification, and when begrudged, becomes the most selfish and the basest of all pleasures ; and this they do in the face of remonstrance, entreaties, tears. 108 IS IT ^'^ Many a married man has, as I have said, vir- tually committed a rape upon his wife : though the crime may be unrecognized as such by the law, it is none the less this in fact, the element of consent having been wholly wanting. There are others of our number, who, kind at heart and not so selfish, equally err through ignorance of the real nature of the case, or from inconsiderateness. It is only of late that even physicians are awakening to the importance of the manifold special diseases of women, and to the very existence of many of them. It is often asked if these diseases are not a new thing, if they have not indeed wholly sprung up during the present century. This may be true to a cer- tain extent, in consequence of certain variations from the normal standard of living ; but there is no doubt, on the other hand, that hosts of women used to die of disease, then undetected or wholly misuiaderstood, that is now readily cured. Among these diseases, all of which are enshrouded by the veil of a woman's natural delicacy, but which, involving as they do the very existence of social life, come directly within the physician's A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. IO9 province, and that also of simple jommon sense, — among them there is a very large class, closely related to the subject of our present inquiry, those occasioned or aggravated by excessive sex- ual indulgence. I shall, of course, refrain from speaking more explicitly than I have now done, but will merely say that we may all of us be thankful that our development was carried to the positive extreme, and that we are not women. They are subject to an immense variety of dis- ease, of which, from personal experience, we know nothing, and it is often attended by the most exquisite suffering. This they are prone to conceal ; far from generally exaggerating it, they endeavor to undervalue it, and suffer, with a fortitude that we could but feebly emulate, in silence. There are exceptions to this statement, it is true, but they are still but exceptions, and so p'Dve the rule. Even where such do exist, there is usually present great nervous excitement or exaltation, which is often much more difficult to endure than direct physical pain. Far from ridiculing or chiding these sufterers, they deserve and should vecei\ e our hearty sympathy, which no IS IT ir' is by no means sure, as it is so commonly sup- posed to do, of evoking a fresh accession of the malady. Many a heart is b;ol