fci:.^. '1 ''Mi .■:i!ii|!' y;; " v 3 ■">'- V K^' *f # ^ i'■:;.». «■ ^..:'»:i %, Surgeon General's Office | fo>^ U P cr> co 11-1 ')-£-* i \ MATERJVITY: OR THE BEARING AND NURSING OF CHILDREN. INCLUDING L.^1 FEMALE EDUCATION AND BEAUTY. BY O. S. FOWLER, EDITOR OT THE AMERICAN PHRENOLOGlCA^'JOr/RJSfAl,, ^J She is queen on earth who brings forth and brings up the best children A perfect mother is a perfect beauty. Oh! I had rather bear one fine child, than enjoy all other eurthly good SECOND THOUSAND. N E W Y O R K: FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, No. 308 BEOADWAT. London : 142 Strand. \ 1856. \Kl Boston : N'o. 142 Washington St. PHILADELPHIA : 231 Arch Street Firh mi C.J Enlevp.d, according to act of Congress, in the year 1P48, by 0. S. FOWLER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Soutbam District of New York. PREFACE. That the vaiious states of the mother's mind and Dody, before the birth of offspring, go far toward determining their health or debility, amiableness or ill nature, intelligence or stupidity, and all their other mental characteristics, is a mo- mentous truth which all prospective mothers should fully understand, and which renders child-bearing inconceivably momentous in its influence on human destiny. To the eluci- dation and enforcement of this eventful law of nature, this work is devoted. It teaches mothers what regimen and con- ditions, in them, will secure the best constituted children; shows how to provide beforehand for a safe and easy delivery j teaches husbands what duties they owe their wives during pregnancy and nursing ; gives directions respecting infantile regimen, and the early habits and management of children; and, last but not least, it shows how to prepare girls to bear a far higher order of children, as well as how to rear them after they are borne; that is, it shows how to fit them for the great function of the female, namely, child-bearing and rearing. It moreover, in doing this, analyzes female beauty. In short, it reflects upon this whole subject the sunlight of Phrenology, Physiology, and Magnetism ; and as such, supplies a connect- ing link between the author's other works on man's social re- lations. Thus, his "Matrimony" treats selection, court- ship, and married life phrenologically ; his " Hereditary De- scent" applies the laws of transmission to the perfection of the original constitution of offspring, by showing what unions will produce the most highly endowed germs of humanity; while his " Love and Parentage" teaches husbands and wives into what states of mind and body they should throw them- selves in order to stamp the highest order of mental and phys- ical organization upon prospective offspring, or how tc pa- iv preface. rent offspring. This work crowns the chmax, by teaching mothers how to carry children, that is, how to manage them- selves while fulfilling the highest and only specific relations of the female as such, namely, the maternal. His "Physiol- ogy," "Self-Culture," "'Memory,'5 "Religion,'' etc., then complete this range of subjects, by showing how to conduct the physical, intellectual, and moral education and govern- ment of the young in accordance with the physical, mental, and moral laws of our being.* When mankind understand and obey the laws of love, matrimony, generation, maternity, and education, will the millennium open upon our benighted world in very deed, and our race be regenerated and infinite- ly exalted, but not till then. Right education can do much, yet infinitely more when its subjects are endowed by nature with strong physical, high moral, and powerful intellectual capabilities, than when they are weakly, vicious, and addle- brained by constitution. These reproductive and education- al laws, understood and applied, will almost banish sin and suffering from our earth, restore to all mankind the garden of Eden in ten-fold luxuriance, and render our world a literal paradise of holiness and happiness. Man, so far from being a base-born son of perdition, "is created in the image and likeness of God" himself, and all required to restore to him his primitive god-like capabilities and perfections, is right generation, bearing, and education. Prospective mothers, be conjured, by all the ecstacy of maternal joy with which splendid children will swell your exulting souls, and by all that untold shame and anguish with which their inferiority and depravity will rend your souls perpetually, to learn and fulfill these infinitely-momentous relations. 402. propriety of our subject. Some condemn this subject as improper and injurious; bui if it be so incompatible with female purity to study these * All these works will be intimately related to each ocher, arranged in volumes, bound in uniform stvle. and entitled, " Phrenological Li brary." preface. V maternal relations, how much more so to fulfill them! Away with such prudery ! It is a relict of American squeam ishness, as unnatural as it is injurious, and fast passing away. Whether the author's mode of presenting this subject is or is not judicious, is another matter. Of this, mothers are his judges, because they have lost their fastidiousness, yet retain all their true delicacy; but neither girls or old maids are proper umpires. Thousands of mothers, after having heard his lecture on this subject, have.exclaimed, " Oh, I would have given the world to have known this at my marriage !" Love of offspring is one of woman's predominant and most charm- ing characteristics. Hence her hungering and thirsting after this species of knowledge. Nor should the maiden blush to learn how to fulfill those maternal relations which are as much a necessary consequence of marriage, as heat of fire. For what but to bear children was woman—was the female as such—created ? For what else was the conjugal instinct ordained ? Nor should any female ever be led to the hyme- nial altar till she knows how to manage herself at this period. My daughters must understand this whole subject thoroughly. None are marriageable till they do. Nor can young women learn any thing of equal value to themselves or their prospec- tive offspring, or neglect to learn any thing equally at their peril. To show woman how to bring forth and bring up a high order of human beings, instead of those scrawny, imbe- cile, and depraved offcasts which throng our earth; to save mothers from those pains and premature deaths now so inci- dent to maternify, are these pages sent forth. May they make better mothers and better husbands of all who read them._______________ 403. EXPLANATION OF THE SMALL RAISED FIGURES OF REFERENCE. To secure all the advantages of copious repetition without any of its evils, or even disfiguring the page, andto present the various bearings of the various points treated in this work upon each other, as well as to form into one connected series all the author's works, each general principle proved If vi PREF>. FE. and point presented in them all has its appropriate heading numbered, and reference is made to them by small elevated figures called superiors. And the various works referred to are designated thus: P17 refers to that passage of Physiology numbered 17; s to "Self-Culture," u to "Memory," m to " Maternity," My to " Matrimony," w to " Woman," R to " Re- ligion," etc. The utility of this original device of thus con- necting and fortifying subjects in hand by those previously presented, will doubtless be appreciated by thorough readers who would comprehend the bearings of the principles present- ed on each other, and grasp and digest each work, or all his writings, as a whole ; yet each book can be as fully under- stood separately as if such reference had not been made. SECTION I. PHYSICAL RELATION OF OFFSPRING TO THE MOTHE1. 404. Every thing must have its Mother—408. Intimacy of the Rela- dons of Child to Mother—406. Appeal to Prospective Mothers. H-18 SECTION II. THE NOURISHMENT OF THE EMBRYO. 407. The Embryo's requisition for Nutrition—408. Amount of Nutri tion required—409. The Female Secretion—410. The Bearing Procesi increases Appetite—411. All very young Animals require extra Care— 412. Weakness invites Disease—413. Mrs. G---'s Miscarriage and Death ; Cause—414. Castigation of wife-neglecting Husbands—Appeal to Husbands—415. What Husbands should do at this Period—416. Di- rections to pregnant Mothers—Sleep much—Let nothing disturb your night's rest—Your food be nutritious, yet easy of digestion—Breathe copiously of fresh air—Regular evacuations are particularly important— 417. Signs of Maternal Qualificllions—Rationale of Female Fashions— 418. The constituent Elements of the Feminine—419. Female Beauty; in what does it consist 1—420. Philosophy of Bustles, Corsets, Extra Skirts, etc.—Philosophy of the Bustle—Cotton and plaited Breastworks —421. Let Woman be what she would seem—422. Effects of these False Appearances on the young Bridegroom—423 True Mode of increasing the Beauty of Girls—424. Blighted Love weakens the Fe- Vlll CONTENTS. male Organs and Charms—425. Appeal to Man—426. Early Marriages and young Mothers—427. Tight Lacing ; its ruinous Effects on Offspring —428. Requisition for Heat, Muscle, Bone, Nitrogen, etc.—Muscle- Nitrogen—Fruit—42.9. Offsetting the Mother's Excesses and Defects— 430. Marks and Deformities—A Strawberry mark—A Lobster mark- Mouse marks—Plum marks—Cherry marks—Amputated Thumb—A Wine mark—Turning black and blue—Fire mark—A mark of intoxi- cation—A Menageiy mark—A Monkey mark—An idiotic mark—Mark by fright—A broken back—Mrs. Butler and her strong, but frantic Idiot—A club-footed mark—A Cat mark—The mashed Head—Dumb- ness—Hankering after Gin—Explanation of these Marks. . . 18-105 SECTION III. INFLUENCE OF THE VARIOUS STATES OF MATERNAL MEN- TALITY, OR THE PRIMITIVE CHARACTER OF OFFSPRING. 431. The Child's Mentality derived directly from its Mother's— Hagar and Ishmael—Samuel and his Mother—Mary and Christ—Bo- naparte's foetal History—James I.—A timid Friend of the Author— Mrs. D. and her Children—A half-starved, despairing Mother—The Son who could never face his Father—A foolish, but fiendish Son—A provoked Mother and provoking Child—Mrs. M'C. and her Bonaparte- admiring Son—Sweetness of temper in the Mother—Duty of Husbands to their Wives at this period—Bad-tempered Children to be pitied— The bad-dispositioned Daughter—How to secure Affection in Children— Fear and Anxiety in Mothers—432. How to endow Children with superior natural Intellects before Birth—The arithmetical Girl—Zera Colburn's foetal History—433. Securing Balance in Offspring—The Regimen required at different stages of Advancement—434. Appeal to Mothers.»..................106-156 % SECTION IV. DELIVERY---ITS PAINS LESSENED 435. Severe Labor-Pains unnatural and avoidable—Are they neces- sary ?—Natural Delivery easy—Causes of severe and dangerous Labor— CONTENTS. IX Sedentary Habits—Mode of obviating Labor-Pains—A vigorous muscu- lar System—437. Developing the Muscles of Girls—438. The Midwife's Office—Water-Cure in Child-Bearing—Case of Mrs. Shew—Bleeding, Chloroform, etc.—Male and female Midwives—Fitting Women for Mid- wives—Female Practitioners for female Complaints—439. Abortion— 440. Recovery from Confinement—Relapses—The Diet of recently- confined Mothers—441. The Nursing and Management of Infants—Timo of cutting the Navel Cord—Washing—Dressing—" A Dose of Sweet Oil"—Natural Food of Infants—Large Breasts—Times of Nursing— The crying of Children—Management of sick Children—Nursing Chil- dren when the Mother is angry—How long shall Children nurse ?— 442. The Education of Infants—Retain their Normality—443. Female Beauty ; its elements and perfection—A handsome set of Teeth— Plumpness of Form—Bright, clear, expressive Eyes—A fine, soft Skin, and fine Hair—Auburn-colored Hair—Fine, glossy, black Hair—Grace and ease of Motion—Perfection of Form—Strong social Faculties—A high moral Tone—Superior intellectual Endowments—Female Home liness and Deformity—444. What is wanted in a Husbard or Wife ? 156-221 * MATERNITY. SECTION I PHYSICAL RELATIONS OF OFFSPRING TO THE MOTHER. 404. EVERY THING MUST HAVE ITS MOTHER. Maternity is the door through which all that lives en- ters upon its terrestrial existence. As earth is the com- mon mother of all those endless forms of life within and upon her, so every vegetable, every animal, every human being, has each its own specific mother. Thus the fruit tree is the mother of those seed-bearing fruits which re- produce their kind, while the pulp, or edible portion, is to the seed, what its mother's milk is to the infant ani- mal—a deposite of nutrition, to feed and moisten it till it can take root, so as to sustain independent life. And thus of all berries, nuts, and the seeds of every tree and shrub that grows; while the straw of grains, grasses, weeds, and herbs, are their veritable mothers, and the edible portion of grains and seeds is to the chit, or germ, what the maternal breast is to animal and man. Potatoes, onions, bulbous roots, etc., all have their mothers, and, in turn, become mothers ; and thus of all that grows upon the face of the whole earth. This maternal law likewise governs every species, every individual of the animal kingdom. The female 12 RELATIONS OF OFFSPRING TO THE MOTHER. fowl is the mother of the egg, and the fish of the spawn, by which all feathered, all finned, ajl the reptile tribes, reproduce their kinds; and these eggs and spawn, be- sides containing the life-germ, likewise embody, in com- mon with fruits, grains, roots, and seeds, a nutritious deposite, in the form of the yolk, to feed the embryo during the process of hatching. All lower forms of life are equally governed by this maternal law. So are all higher. Every individual of all the mammalia tribes —horses, cattle, dogs, lions, tigers, swine, sheep—all four-footed beasts and creeping things, are offsprings of their specific mothers, and, where nature has her per- fect work, receive nourishment from her life-giving milk. All human beings, savage and civilized, past, present, and to come, likewise owe their existence to this mater- nal instrumentality. Who of us all but owes an eter- nal debt of gratitude to our mother, for, at least, bring- ing us into the world, if not for nursing and caring for us till able to take care of ourselves? Heathenish wretches they, who neglect their own mother, even though she may abuse them; and let us all cling to and cherish our mothers, with filial piety, nor fail to admin- ister to their every comfort, to our utmost capacity. 405. INTIMACY OF THE RELATIONS OF CHILD TO MOTHER. Nor is it unimportant to the recipient of life, who or what is its mother. On the contrary, " like mother like offspring." That law, " each after its kind," so fully explained in Hereditary Descent304, applies to mater- nity quite as forcibly as to parentage. Be the mother vegetable, or tree, or creeping thing, or fowl, or brute, or human, what she bears will partake of her structure, THEIR RECIPROCITY. 13 form, and nature, mental and physical, both general and specific. This is a necessary institute of nature. How could it be otherwise ? How incongruous for a tree tG bear a brute, or a human mother a lion! How wise how promotive of happiness, this law that " like bears like !" Nor does this maternal law of similarity govern the various orders,, genera, and species, of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, in their general peculiarities merely. It likewise extends even to all the minutiae of their respective characteristics and relations. Not only is the offspring of the human being also human—endow- ed with all the physical organs and mental elements of humanity in general—but it likewise takes on all those minor shadings and phases which characterize the mother. That same blood 'which 'sustains and re-sup- plies the organs of the mother, forms and nourishes those of her embryo. The blood is the grand instru- mentality of all nutrition, of all formation, of univer- sal life. All those materials out of which all parts of the infantile body are formed, are conveyed to their respective places of destination biv means of the blood. And since it is the grand messenger and instrument- ality of life, as is this blood so is that life which it pro- duces. Now, since the child is formed out of its moth- er's blood, and since the mother must be like her own blood, and the child like this same blood, of course, mother and child must be alike, because both are like the mother's blood. True, the nature of the father is faith- fully repiesented in the seminal germ, as fully shown in " Love and Parentage," yet the child's partaking of this nature does not prevent its taking on that of the mother likewise. The reception of the paterna nature in no 2 14 LATIONS OP Off SPRING TO THE MOTHER. wise expels, or even smothers, that of the maternal. The former may be stronger, in some cases, than the latter, but what there is of the latter will be there, and all there. Indeed, this apparent exception proves our rule; for, when the maternal nature is weak, and, there- fore, but faintly impressed upon her progeny, does not this debility of these maternal qualities, in both mother and child, establish the perfect reciprocity of the inter- relation existing between them ? This is one of the very proofs of our law, and shows mothers how, by strengthening this or that quality, as occasion may require, in themselves, to transmit it, thus enhanced, to their progeny. Indeed, this is the great thought, the prevailing moral, of our work. The fact that the various conditions ol the mother— vegetable, animal, and human—while bearing, affects the progeny, is so palpably apparent, as to have im- pressed itself, though only indistinctly, upon the pub- lic mind. Why do we plant the largest and fairest ears of corn, and raise o*ur seed-grain—seed every thing— on our richest fields ? Because the better the maternal stock is fed, the fairer the progeny, and the better adapt- ed to re-produce still fairer and better grain. Why are we so very careful to feed well, and not to overwork, and especially overdraw, our breeding mares, during the entire period they are with foal ? Because, setting a great deal by colts, experience has taught us, that the various states of the mother during carriage, materi- ally affect their size, beauty, and usefulness. Mothers, especially, evince extra care for them, at this period, and see that they are doubly cared for; yet, those who appreciate this point most, far underrate its influence on the unborn progeny. THEIR INTIMACY. 15 Is, then, the human mother an exception to this univer- sal law of the maternal states as influencing progeny ? Is she not, even, its highest example ? Is it not a fea- ture of this law, that, the higher the grade of vegetable or animal, the more intimate this relation between moth- er and progeny, and the more her states of body and mind affect its physiology and mentality? Why do vegetable and brute mothers cast their seed and young the sooner, the lower they are in the scale of being,'and carry them longer and longer, as a general thing, the stronger and more perfect the animal or vegetable? So that the progeny may imbibe more of its mother's strength, and become the more perfected at the very starting point of life. But, to argue the fact of such relations is superfluous ; and that the reciprocity is per- fect between the states of mother and embryo, will be seen as we proceed. Suffice it to sum up this point by applying to it that law of universality, demonstrated and often referred to in the author's works, that where cause and effect govern a part of a given class of functions,' they govern the whole of that class p'17. Nature never works by piecemeal. What she does at all, she does by wholesale. If any one state of the mother, however extreme, during carriage, produces the least effect on her offspring—and who does notKNow that it does ?—then every conceivable state of the maternity affects the embryo. Either the whole, down to the mi- nutest item of health, intellect, and feeling, or else no- thing. If any one state of the mother's mind or body causes, or induces, a corresponding state of the child's mind or body, then must every possible state of the maternity similarly modify the original nature of the offspring. 16 relations of offspring to the mother. 406. appeal to prospective moihers. Bear it then in mind, ye mothers of our race, that as you are while bearing every child, so will be that child. Every pulsation of health in you, will throb through their young veins. Every pang of grief you feel, will leave its painful scar on the forming disk of their souls. Every flash of sweet and pleasurable emotion you ex- perience, will sweeten and beautify, not their conduct merely, but stamp the original impress of amiableness and goodness upon their inmost souls. Every intellect- ual effort you put forth, will it not render them the more thoughtful by nature, the more fond of study, the more clear-headed, contemplative, intelligent, and talented ? And every exercise of anger, every feeling of temper, every item of crossness and fretfulness in you, at this period, will it not brand this hating and hateful spirit into their inmost souls, to haunt them as long as they exist, here or hereafter? Will you, then, render them demoniacal, when you can make them angelic ? Will you even give this eventful subject the go-by? What other compares with it, in its momentous bear- ing on your and their present and eternal health, virtue, and happiness ? Why have mothers thus neg- lected it ? And will you still continue to render your own dear children devils incarnate—and that by vo'jr own sinfulness—instead of imbuing them with the spirit of love and goodness, by cultivating the heavenlv virtues in your own souls? Hear, O ye mothers of our race ! Learn the mighty import of those eventful relations you are compelled to fulfill. Turn a deaf ear, ye who will, and, worse than the neglectful ostrich, tor- ture your children, and, through them, your own selves, APPEAL TO MC THERS. 17 with satanic predispositions ; and, when grown, flay them alive, in vain attempts to beat out of them, by the cruel lash, what your own selves burnt into their inner na- tures in embryo; but ye who are true to your mater- nal relations, will pause—will pray for light, and eager- ly clasp to your maternal bosom, whatever will enable vou to stamp a higher and ho.ier impress upon your prospective little ones. Oh, I do admire the motherly in woman—the love she bears to her darling infant! Ev- ery thing which appertains to this subject, sweeps the most powerful chord of woman's soul s- ™ with, to her, the most thrilling of all notes. Woman, married and single, I know I shall have your eyes, ears, and in- most souls. Nothing else do you ecually destre to learn. Nothing else compares with this in intrin- sic INTEREST, OR IN ITS BEARING ON HUMAN DESTINY. Woman, a new era is dawning on our race. The American and European revolutions are no trifles. They are the harbingers of the millennium. As Christ came out of the expected channel, so will the future day glory. Republicanism is its usher—its mother. As republican- ism here, in a single generation, hurled those old thrones to the ground, and is sweeping the entire feudal order of things, with the besom of destruction, in one genera- tion, it will, in the next, completely renovate and regen- erate society, purge it of all existing evils, political, civil, and religious, and prepare our race for a great advance—for a mighty ascent toward heaven. And what we now want is, a correspondingly higher order OF HUMAN BEINGS, TO ENTER UPON THIS PROSPECTIVE glory. And you must produce them. Oh, what chil- dren you could bear, if you knew just how to carry them ! Inconceivaliy more powerful and perfect than 18 THE NOURISHMENT OF THE EMBRYO. any numan beings now on earth! And some of ycu will learn. This subject is too palpable—too momen- tous—to be longer neglected. And those who heed not —practice not—must be content with inferior, ill-na tured, depraved children. But to those who would learn, that they may practice, the maternal laws, so as to bear magnificent offspring, are these pages addressed. SECTION II. THE NOURISHMENT OF THE EMBRYO. 407. THE EMBRYO'S REQUISITION FOR NUTRITION. The maternal function, vegetable and animal, is com- posed of two departments—the reception of the germ of life, and its nutrition. How infinitely much de- pends upon the former—upon the mental states of both father and mother when they unite to stamp the impress of life upon issue—the author has shown in " Love and Parentage ;" as well as how much depends on the for- mer, and how much upon the latter—a subject which prospective mothers are most solemnly bound to investi- gate. Nourishing the life-germ, till it has acquired suffi- cient strength to sustain independent life, is the second great maternal function. Nor is a mother less necessa- ry here, than in generation itself. As no living thing can be generated without maternal agency, co-operating with paternal, so no vegetable or animal can be reproduced without a mother to nourish it during the first stages of its existence. What would become of embryo seed, grain, root, fruit, or animal, if AMOUNT REQUIRED. 18 separated from its mother- the moment generation had taken place ? The entire time between the blowing and seed ripening of all forms of vegetable life is one continual drainage of maternal nutrition for the embryo. Pluck a flower or head o-f grain as soon as impregnation has been effected, and what becomes of the seed? Tear the brute or human ovum from the mother the moment parental intercourse has taken place, and how soon it die's. Fowl, fish, reptile, may at first seem to be excep- tions, but, observe, all eggs and spawn are furnished by the mother with a nutritious deposite, in the form of the yolk, the sole object of which is to feed the embryo till able to eat for itself. Why does the maternal stalk of grain, straw, grass, weed, beet, bulb, etc., fade and die as soon as it has ripened its seed? Because its entire stock of nutrition—and it puts forth its every energy to augment that stock at this period—is drawn from it by its ripening seed, and in order to such ripening. The sole object of the life of the animal and vegetable mother after impregnation, is to thus nourish the embryo seed. Every leaf, every root, every branch, evey item of growth is for this purpose, and this only. 408. amount of nutrition required. So, too, the draft of the animal embryo on its mother for vitality, is even greater. The latter does not, indeed, like the former, die the moment she completes her first reproduction, because her life is required for subsequent ones, but her embryo's draft on her life-power is as much above that of vegetable seed on its mother, as animal surpasses vegetable.* And it is indeed a general law, • The fact that many other females, as the horse, cow, elephant, lion- ess, etc., carry their young quite as long as the human mother, may seem 20 rrTTAL NUTRITION. that the higher the order of vegetable or animal, the more exhausting the reproductive process. Thus a single vegetable often reproduces millions—and the more the lower the grade—and the inferior animals, fish, toads, frogs, etc., multiply hundreds and thousands of times fast- er than horses, cattle, elephants, tigers, lions, monkeys, or man, because the higher graded the offspring, the more life it requires from the first for the formation of organs, and imparting to them the required impetus in the start. Is »it not reasonable that the greater the number of the embryo's organs, and the more numerous and powerful its functions, the more sustenance it requires to draw from its mother, both to form these organs, and to support the requisite power of function till independent life is estab- lished ? But why dwell thus? Why amplify a principle which needs only to be stated to be admitted ? Because I wish to impress, not merely the law itself, but also its breadth and power. Only think of it! Over two hundred and fifty bones, and five hundred and twenty-seven muscles, besides heart, blood-vessels, lungs, liver, digestive appa- ratus, glands, eyes, ears, etc., etc., throughout the entire system of organs which make up the body ! And this only the beginning! Behold that complicated net-work of nerves, and, above all, that brain ! And every one of these organs the embodyment and utmost condensation of nutrition! Mark, also, that all organs, to become strong, must be exercised. Hence that great amount of muscular motion put forth by the child before birth. And to be an exception, yet mark, the latter are again prepared for the recep- tion of another life-germ in a few days after delivery, while nature requires the human mother to wait, till after she has weaned her last, which, in case nature had her perfect work, would probably be years443, so thnt the multiplication of man is slower thar that of any other animal. its amount. 21 it takes far more vitality to sustain this exercise than. merely to form the organs. In short, this bearing func- tion is one of the most exhausting in nature. And the higher the grade of animal, the more it draws on the mother's vitality, because the more power is required with which to begin life. Hence the higher the animal, the more slowly it propagates. Accordingly the human mother is ordained by nature to bear slowly, to wait for the reception of the germ of life till she has attained the age of from fifteen to twenty years, and to wait for a second till she has weaned the first, which, at the short- est, cannot be much less than two years ; and evidently the order of nature is to nurse children some two or three years442, which would separate births some three or four years, because this process is so exhausting as to require all this time to recruit so as to prepare for another. 409. THE FEMALE SECRETION Furnishes an additional illustration of the amount of nutrition required by the embryo ; for what is the secre- tion but the life's blood of the mother—the very essence of nutrition—secreted by the very organ which nour- ishes the embryo, and imbibed by the carrying and nursing process, yet discharged, because a surplus, when not wanted for these the specific purposes of its creation ? And in general, the greater its abundance and health, except when in diseased excess, the more perfectly the embryo is nourished during gestation and nursing. This secretion is only an excess of nutrition over and above what the mother requires for her own self, so that the embryo may have that abundance of vitality which it must have, or starve to death before it comes into life. .Still another proof of this law is the heartiness of 22 FCETAL NUTRITION. mothers at this period, provided their general nealth is good. Though weakly mothers are often qualmish, sick at the stomach, languid, and troubled with all sorts of ailments, yet, mark, this is not the order of nature. On the contrary, truly healthy women, whose female organs are healthy, and functions vigorous, have better health at this period than at any other; and all would have if they should bring a fair degree of constitution and health to the fulfillment of these relations. 410. THE bearing process increases appetite. This statement is rested on the experience of all healthy mothers. Let the lower classes of Irish, Ger- man, Welch, Arabian, Indian, and other hale, hearty fe- males settle this point experimentally. Let even any really healthy woman say whether she has not more ap- petite and better digestion, does not sleep better, and breathe more freely at these times. And let woman, who at these periods is so weakly, full of aches, and deadly sick at the stomach, remember that these pains are not nature's curse stamped upon child-bearing, but the pen- alties of her previous violations of the laws of health, aggravated at this period because of the greater draft on her vitality, which her previous debility prevents her from supplying. And why should not all the vital functions naturally be more vigorous at this period ? The mother has to eat, digest, breathe, exercise, sleep, etc., for herself as much as ever, and for her child in addition. Behold, then, the beauty of nature's provision for an increase of the vital functions in mothers at this period ! What else could be expected ? A beautiful adaptation of increased supply according to increased demand. amount required. 23 Nor let mothers neglect the great practical truth taught by this principle, but by all the intellect, all the maternal yearnings of their nature, avail themselves of its advan- tages. Let them, by every means in their power, enhance the flow of vitality in themselves, that their dear prospective child, instead of literally starving for want of life-power, may have supplied to it all it can receive. Any surplus nature will evacuate by that secretion insti- tuted for this very purpose. Too much can do no man- ner of damage. Too little weakens and stints the tender bud in its first start, from which it can never fully re- cover. To look at this point in the lighfof a general law. 411. ALL VERY YOUNG ANIMALS REQUIRE EXTRA CARE. If you want good cabbages, or onions, or beets, or corn, or any thing, keep it well weeded while young. All prac- tical gardeners are my witnesses that this is the secret of good gardening. The reason is this : If the young plant is choked and robbed of nourishment in the start, no after attention can ever make it any more than barely tolerable ; whereas, if well weeded at first, it acquires that headway which carries it through finely, however much it may be subsequently neglected. Good practical farmers bestow extra care and food upon their calves and colts. Young stock, if neglected the first winter, never recover from the consequent stint, but if well fed and sheltered the first winter, subsequent neglect is not minded. A practical farmer related to me the following anecdote: " I had a mean calf in the fall, sired by an inferior male, and apparently worthless. I took extra care of it during the winter, and in the spring it eclipsed all my neighbors' calves so that I sad it for more than double 24 FCBTAL NUTRITION. the going price.'' And he certainly has now the fines; yearling colt I ever saw, just by observing this rule. He also took sxtra care of it during the first summer. This law holds true of lambs, chickens, and every young thing, and the younger the more true. And this princi- ple requires not merely that they be well cared for the first winter, but the previous summer. Indeed, the younger they are the better they require to be fed and sheltered, because the weaker they are, the less able to withstand cold, hunger, storm, etc. Of children this is quite as true as of animals. Whj this shocking mortality among children under two years ? This principle answers : Their systems have not yet acquired sufficient vital power to resist infan- tile ails, yet, if they can'be got through the third year, their systems become so established as to ward off* disease. And the younger they are, the less they can withstand causes of disease. Oh, mothers, if I could only impress this one truth upon you, I should save many a darling child from a yawning grave, and many a bereaved mother from a broken heart ! But, mark, this law applies with redoubled force to children before birth. Better half starve the calf and colt the last part of its first year than the first part, and better stint it the first half year than neglect its mothei before its birth. The earlier .this starvation, the worse, and far more detrimental before birth than after. As adults withstand cold, fatigue, deprivation of food, and all other hardships, vastly better than children, and half- grown children better than young ones, so even infants are injured far less by too little clothing, food, and air, than while in the foetal state. Is this not too obviouslv reasonable to require additional proof? Nor do any AMOUNT REQUIRED. 25 of us at all realize how important is a full supply of vitality to the young vegetable, animal, child, every thing. Prospective mothers, do be entreated to ponder well this law, and apply it to your own selves while carrying your dear ones. You are compelled, by an institution of nature, to breathe for them, eat for them, exercise for them, every thing for them as well as yourself. All the vitality they can possibly have, they must obtain from you. Every other source is cut off. Suppose, then, you have not enough for them and yourself? You in- flict upon them all the horrors of semi-sTARVATioN and suffocation, and of protracted deprivation of food and breath. Does such deprivation after birth debilitate and disease them, and not far more so before ? The YOUNGER THEY ARE THE MORE FATAL THE CONSEQUENCES ! Has nature taken so much pains to provide the female with this extra supply of nutrition, a part of which is eva- cuated in her monthly discharges, and a part by increas- ing digestion, sleep, etc., when such extra supply is of no special consequence ? Does nature take such extra pains to do what, when done, is of little account ? This se- cretion, when not required for child-bearing and nursing, is* exceedingly inconvenient, as every woman practically knows. Would, then, nature burden her thus for no- thing ? Does not this fact show how imperious nature's requisition for this extra supply at this period ? And by as much as this demand is imperious, by so much is its deficient supply fatal to offspring and mother; be- cause it leaves the former weakly, small, languid in all its functions, and only half made—a slack-baked spe- cimen of a tried-to-be-but-could-not specimen of hu- manity, exposed to be blown into the grave by the S 26 necessity of nutrition. least adverse breeze, having a name to live whih it is almost dead, and at the same time leaves its mol'.cr so far exhausted as to expose her likewise to disease and death. Mark, as bearing with momentous import on this point, the physiological law that 412. weakness invites disease. As long as the system is supplied with a full head o. vitality, that vitality keeps disease at bay, restores pros- trate organs, and secures—is—health. But let this font of health run low, and it leaves weak organs doubly exposed. Diseases, which a full supply of vitality would eject from the system, or at least bury up, a sparse sup- ply allows to gain complete ascendency, and master what little life-power remains. Vitality is the city senti- nel and soldiery. When abundant, it stations its pro- tecting corps all around and upon the wall of life, and fills the citadel completely with guards the most faithful and powerful, so that the least approach of disease oi every kind is hailed and expelled. Be it that the gates are all open—be the exposure to disease what it may— this fullness of vitality is both watch-all and cure-all. But, when vitality is low, the weaker organs are left pe- culiarly exposed, the citadel of life is feebly guarded, while its gates are wide open, so that disease finds ready access, sacks, and destroys it. This point is im- mensely important. How is it that some men retain their health half a century of habitual drunkenness? Does this being soaked in alcoholic poison do no injury ? Aye, but their full supply of life-power casts out disease as fast as alcohol introduces it. So of exposure to mias- mas, confinement to unhealthy occupations, etc. And this ?^ows why what does a given person nc percepti- 5VIL3 OF ITS DEFICIENCY. 27 ble harm at one time, at another prostrates him with sickness, or hurries him into his grave. Before, this life-power fortified him. Now its absence invites dis- ease to enter, ravage, and destroy Prospective mothers, in view of this palpably apparent law of health, I lay the solemn unction to your own souls. Say, have you not, by having so little vitality at this period, brought forth children so feeble that slight exposures blew out the flickering rush-light of life ? Oh, if mothers only knew how many infanticides they had thus committed, instead of sending missionaries to In- dia and China to preach the wickedness of child-murder, they would preach to themselves and their neighbors the great practical truth before us! More infanticides are committed in our enlightened, (?) christian (?) America, than in all heathendom ! Many readers have actually perpetrated this horrid crime--igno- rantly, of course—yet, did this save your child? And is ignorance of such momentous truth, when attended with such direful consequences, no crime ? The slow starvation and suffocation of your own darling child, till it becomes too weak to live !—what is more horrible ? O ignorantly cruel, wicked mother ! You richly deserve that your lacerated soul bleed thus at every pore. You SHOULD NOT HAVE KILLED YOUR CHILD. See TO iT THAT YOU MURDER NO MORE. 413. MRS. G----'s MISCARRIAGE AND DEATH. CAUSE. In 1844, while practicing Phrenology in G., Mass., two married women called upon me for phrenological examinations. As I always remark also upon the physi- ology,, when occasion requires, I said to one of them whose vital apparatus was too weak to support even her- 28 NECESSITY OF NUTRITION. self; " Allow me, madam, to give you one item of advice, to you all important—namely, never to become a moth- er ; because you have barely sufficient vitality to keep even your own self alive—much less, enough to give birth to a living child; and this extra drain would al- most certainly jeopardize your own life." The next day her friend called to state, that she was then some three months advanced, and that my remark made her feel most awfully, because her only child, born four- teen years before, died at birth, and the father was in- expressibly anxious for issue, and now had hope. I replied, that if I had been aware of her existing situa- tion, I should certainly never have made the remark, true though it was, because it was calculated to alarm and discourage her, which was especially prejudicial; yet, that I should be glad to talk with her, because I thought I could yet give her that advice which, rigidly followed, would save herself and child. They accord- ingly celled. I explained to her fully the physiological law involved, yet added, that if she would do all she could to enhance her vitality, and husband it all, she might bear a living child; and was confirmed in this decision by the fact that her appetite and general health had improved since she had been in this way. I told her that this single fact held out the star of promise, yet warned her, that she must pay the utmost attention to her health; must lie down every day ; must not do a stroke more work than barely to get what exercise she required; that she must be much in the open air___it was then June—and eat easily digested food ; masticate thoroughly, etc.; that she must have no care of the family, as such, but be simply an uninterested boarder, etc. She replied, that her h isband earned their living MRa. a 29 by day's works, and was just getting something ahead for a home; that she had been much expense to him by sickness, and hated to saddle him with servant's hire, while she was able to be about the house ; that she could illy afford time, even to lie down, during the day, etc. I answered, emphatically, "Madam, this is a case of life and death, to your child, at least, and probably to you, too. You must do as I say, or you will surely miscarry, and probably die yourself. Take your choice. Would not your husband rather hire help, and have a living child, than have no heir to enjoy his home and property ?" She replied, " Yes,- but—" and stopped. I followed, " Yes, but it is the one or the other. Which, is for you to say in action." Being in an adjoining town the next November, and feeling a deep interest in her case, I called upon her, and found her in a small kitchen, full of the smoke of burnt fat, frying dough-nuts. " Good woman, what did I tell you ?" I exclaimed. Her unborn child was still alive, and I besought her, at this eleventh hour, to fol- low my advice. My next news from her was, that she had been delivered of a still-born child, which died three days before its birth; and thzd she was extremely feeble. She is now dead ; and her working thus at this time, was just as much suicide as if she had died of poison. She committed child-murder, and on her only child. She blighted her husband's last ecstatic hopes. and turned his holy joys into an agony of sorrow. She broke his heart, by killing his dearest wife, as well as only child. And all because too parsimonious to hire help, and too short-sighted to see that even true econ- omy, to say nothing of the life of mother or child required that she be relieved of family cares and 3* 30 AN ALLEGORY wearisome drudgery, just for the balance of her time only. Mothers, know you no like cases? Have you not even perpetrated them ? Or if your dear child did not die before birth, did it not soon after ? or, at farthest, barely drag out a precarious existence for a few months, only to fall a victim to some form of infantile disease, because you did not endow it with sufficient life-power to resist even trifling disease ? Oh, prospective moth- ers, do be entreated to pause here, and ponder well this momentous truth—the absolute necessity that you fur- nish an abundant supply of the life-principle to your precious charge, during the entire period of its car- riage—and then ask yourself whether you have enough both for yourself and it. If any doubt remains—if your own vitality runs low—take timely warning from the following allegory: A traveler started alone on a nine months' journey, and took with him barely meal enough for food, though used with the utmost economy, to carry him through; nor could he obtain any re-supply on the road. But, improvidently, he did not husband his sparce supply of meal, but wasted much without baking it, carelessly let fall on the road many pieces of bread, and, to crown all, took along a companion, whom he might just as well have left behind, and fed him all along their jour- ney. But for this last imprudent act, he might, after all, have had food enough to carry him through ; but this told the fatal story. Their food failed them. He starv- ed himself—he starved another to death; first by wan- ton waste, and then by dividing his sparce supply. Reader, hast thou seen no kindred instance of folly and wickedness? Know you no mother, herself pos- exhaustion. 31 sessed of barely sufficient vitality to live along, between hawk and buzzard, load herself down with an embryc child, completely exhaust her vital powers, fall into a rapid decline, and fill a self-dug grave, whereas, but for such child she might have lived—or have still lived if she had economically husbanded what little health and vitality she had ? And her child, rendered weakly and sickly before it was born, by its mother's debility, if it barely lived a few brief days or months, kept mother, father—all concerned—in perpetual fear for its death, and, finally, yielded up its feeble hold on life ? Another phase of this doleful picture. See you that sickly mother, fast sinking into a premature grave, per- haps of consumption, or nervousness, or female com- plaints, or some other forms of disease, who was well when she married, and till she had her first child, which was smart and healthy? But this shook her constitution to its centre. She became pale, emaciated, debilitated, and afflicted with female complaint, and various other ails. Yet they only crippled, but did not disable her. She still worked, though in pain; but hardly aware that she was not able still to endure as formerly, thinking that, perhaps, after all, it was only laziness, and being very desirous of saving all outgoes for extra help, and helping her husband lay up something for the future, worked on, as hard as ever, and far beyond her strength. And, worst of all, she did more sewing, and more wash- ing, and more scrubbing, than was at all necessary, merely to have her house, and all about it, look just so very nice, and clean, and orderly, and array her dear babe in fashionable, highly worked frocks; whereas, plain ones would have answered every purpose, except maternal vanity, even better. 32 requisition for nourishment. Again she finds herself in the bearing state, and is much more sick at the stomach, more nervous, and full of all sorts of pregnant ails, than before, and wonders why in the world she suffers so dreadfully—is so dif- ferent from what she was before. Her husband is, per- haps, building, or carrying on some enterprise which requires her to do for hired men, though barely able to drag one foot after another. In perpetual torture she carries that child. Having barely sufficient vitality to keep the wheels of her own life from stopping short, she divides this little with her embryo babe, and thus starves both ! Her system, too weak to resist the in- gress of new diseases, and even to keep out what pre- vious weakness had introduced, is besieged on all sides, and gives away—now here, then there, and anon yon- der—till her time arrives ; and a most dreadful time it is. But the life-power, though sunk to the lowest point, here rallies, summons every energy, and taxes every function to its utmost, and, after suffering all but death, carries her through. Yet she is completely exhausted; though gradually recovers, after a long lingering on the confines of death. But her child is small, shriveled, squailid, and ex- tremely feeble. Though it has almost robbed its mother, yet it could rake and scrape barely enough of the mate- rials of life to form only an imperfect organization, and just keep the fire of life from going out. Added to all this, its mother's aggravated and com- plicated diseases find their way into its daily food. It drinks in poison from its mother's breast. It lives on death I Griping pains and infantile disorders cramp its stomach, interrupt its sleep, and render its young life, otherwise so quiet and happy a torture. And, to cap DUTY OF HUSBANDS. 33 the climax, officious nurse, or meddlesome aunt, or fussy granny, determined not to let nature have even the small chance of restoring it left, keeps dosing it, nighl and day, with this tea, and that drug—castor oil, of course, included—till its feeble powers barely suffice to keep soul and body together. Yet, wonderful the powei of nature, it still lives ! It would still weather the cape of death, if its frail bark were not forced upon the quick- sands by over-nursing. Its mother, also, lives—a marvel that she does—be- cause the life-power clings with desperation to her yet young organization. Compelled to take some rest, be- cause utterly unable to work, her constitution slowly recovers—the drugging doctor to the contrary notwith- standing—and a hundred dollar fee must be paid to him for interfering with nature, and another hundred for in- cidentals ; whereas, a moiety of it paid out for help, so as to have allowed the mother time to rest, and kept her up while carrying her child, would have brought her safely through, saved her constitution from the ut- most verge of ruin, and given her darling babe a fair hold of life in the start, so that it would have grown finely, been intelligent, and withstood the current of in- fantile complaints. But no, they could not afford to be thus penny wise. 414. CASTIGATION OF WIFE-NEGLECTING HUSBANDS. Let us turn to the husband's barn-yard. There is his old mare, worth, perhaps, twenty dollars, turned out to do absolutely nothing, yet is well fed every day, at a greater cost than would suffice to hire a girl to do house work. She was treated very carefully all suin- •iic, wd, or on clogging THEIR DIET AND RESPIRATION. 45 digestion by overloading your stomach, or any viola- tion of the dietetic laws. And you will be an infinite gainer if you study these laws, merely to guide you in this eventful matter. Yet the great difficulty is, not to eat enough, but to digest what you eat; to convert it into good chyle for nourishing yourself and unborn infant. But this is not the place to develop the laws of digestion, or give full directions concerning it, but to point out its importance. The author has written another work, entitled " Physi- ology, Animal and Mental," the express object of which is, to give those practical directions as to food, bathing, recreation, sleep, and the other conditions of health re- quired by all, and especially by pregnant mothers. That book will tell you in detail what you require to do. BREATHE COPIOUSLY OF FRESH AIR. Imperfect ventilation is bad for all, and doubly bad for prospective mothers. They must breathe for two. Our fronticepiece shows the red current, freighted with life, flowing from mother to child, and returning to the mother, darkened, its vitality all spent, to be re-charged from the mother's vivifying lungs. If she remains most- ly within doors, and in heated rooms, where the vitality of the air is mainly burnt out, and what there is is highly rarefied, so as doubly to reduce its life-imparting oxy- gen, how can she inhale oxygen enough, even for her own self, much less for her child too ? Hot, stived-up rooms, are bad for all, but ruinous for bearing mothers. Be much out of doors. Air your bed-room, and open its door at night. Off with all corsets, so as to give your lungs full play, and wear perfectly loose dresses. Than compression here, nothing can be worse. 46 DIRECTIONS TO BEARING MOTHERS. But many women are so ashamed of themselves, thai they girt in their protruding abdomen, and house them selves as though they had committed some disgracefix' crime, and must hide it under stays and within doors Shame on your prudery. For what were you created a woman as such ? Simply to bear children, and for vothing else. Then why be ashamed to be seen while fulfilling your destiny—your only destiny as a woman? Do you not know, that all pure-minded men and women regard you with redoubled interest at this period, and sympathize with you ? These maternal relations mate- rially enhance your feminine attractions : nor do any but those who are adulterers at heart, look upon you with any other feelings than that of increased respect and pure regard. They instinctively admire in you this fulfillment of your natural destiny. Hence you should take pride in appearances, rather than strive to repress them. Or, more properly, you should neither pad nor lace, but just let nature have her perfect work. \nd since your being in this situation enhances your attractiveness, and also the happiness of others on beholding you, why not appear abroad all the more ? Why not glory in your prospects, instead of sneakingly trying to hide them under a bushel? The current idea, that women must not appear in society at this period, is all stuff. Such prospects are her pride, not her shame: so that she should appear in street and drawing-room, church and lecture-room, just as much ther as ever, if not more. Say, common-sense readers of both sexes are not these views every way correct ? Then it becomes your duty to draw prospective mothers into society, instead of frown and shame them back within the lonelv, sfified precincts of their own chamber. ADVUE TO 3EARING MOTHERS: 47 Another reason for their appearing in society, founded on the child's mentality, will be given as we proceed. REGULAR EVACUATIONS ARE PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT. Torpor of bowels, produced by foetal pressure on the rectum, is one of the prospective mother's great annoy- ances, and still greater evils. The evils of constipa- tion, and directions for securing regularity in this impor- tant function, are given in P169. The special attention of mothers is invited to this point. Nor should they fail to secure peristaltic regularity beforehand, so that, when they are in this state, this function may be kept regular with the more ease. Other like directions, touching scarcely less important functions—such as bathing, keeping up the tone and action of the skin, etc.—are scarcely less important; yet the object of the book is to call attention to the importance of these subjects, and incite mothers both to study physiology and to take extra care of their own health at these periods, rather than to go into detail of the modes and means of securing this vitality. Pro- spective mothers, do be entreated to give this whole subject, of the abundant supply of vitality to your un- born child, the attention it deserves. You can give vour child only what you have, and if your fund of life-power is weak, how can its be any thing else ? 417. SIGNS OF MATERNAL QUALIFICATIONS. Yet this law has one exception. As some trees grow poorly because all their energy runs to bearing, while others bear little but grow rapidly—as some cows, sheep, etc., are always poor while pregnant, yet bear fat and fine young—so some women naturally rob 4S SIGNS OF A GOOD MOTHER. themsolves cf vitality, and thereby, though weakly, fur- nish a good supply to their embryo ; that is, they are good bearers. And this is an excellent quality, if not carried to extremes, so as completely to exhaust the mother, and thus ruin her constitution. This shows why some women will be very feeble and down sick during their entire time, so that you would think their offspring must be too weakly to live ; yet it proves to be a fine, healthy child. It also ac- counts for the converse fact, that some prospective mothers, though remarkably healthy, bear very puny, small, delicate children. In the former, the placenta is so vigorous as to rob the mother of life to bestow it upon the child ; while in the latter, its feebleness leaves the mother well supplied, yet gives but little to off- spring. As the food and vitality of some cows go mainly to milk, so as to keep them always poor, while those of others go to beef and fat; so of the human female, as to both carriage and nursing. Nor is it probably difficult to tell even before marriage, and from visible signs, whether a given woman will, in this sense, be a good or poor bearer—whether she will involunta- rily rob herself to feed her child, or starve the latter while she revels in health and looks fresh and rosv. There are undoubted signs by which this matter can be predicated beforehandf with perfect ease and certaintv. Why not, since we can generally determine this identi- cal point in cows, or that which involves it; namely, whether they will be good for milk ; and thus of all females ? And why will not those same signs which enable us to determine the.one, also apply equally to the other? They will, only that we have not yet learned to apply them. But men will learn. Whether FEMALE FASHIONS. 4& a given young woman will make a good or a poor child-bearer and nurser, is too practically important not to be scanned by this utilitarian age. And let females remember, that their maternal qualifications, as such, or to use a plain term, because it exactly expresses the sense intended—their breeding qualifications, as such— are more easily and more generally observable than they suppose. And though cotton breastworks and circumvironing bustles may mislead green ones, by there appearing to be something where there is noth- ing, yet the real state of your maternal department is perfectly apparent to the first scrutinizing glance of the well-informed physiologist. rationale of female fashions. I see I shock and offend many, but do not scorn my book till you have read a little further. I have an object—and that object is your own and your chil- dren's highest good—in making this personal allusion. And first, I beg to ask, if cotton padding and pelvic distenders are so very vulgar, why, in the name of all that is modest, do you wear them ? If it be so decidedly vulgar to name them, how much more so to wtear them ! Yet it is not surprising, that women pad and bustle themselves off thus ; nor that young, modest girls do this, " because it is their nature." Because the en- tire attractiveness of the female as a female—all that is beautiful and lovely in woman as such—consists in these indices of her being a good child-bearer. You spurn this idea, but wait and examine it. Indulge me in a little plain talk; not by any means for the talk itself, but on account of the philosophy, and the moment- ous child-bearing truths taught by that philosophy. 5 50 what constitutes femaie excellence. 413. the constituent elements of the feminine. In what, then, does female beauty consist ? In female perfection, of course. But what constitutes this perfec- tion ? A fitness to fulfill her destiny; for in this con- sists all beauty, all perfection. Then what is that des- tiny ? What is the primary, paramount function she was created to subserve ? Not what subordinate offi- ces she can attain, and good effect, but what is the great, the specific, the one cardinal end she was or- dained to fill ? Every thing in nature has one para- mount function, and but one. The heart subserves one primary end, the lungs another, the eyes, ears, and other organs, each another. And thus of every genera, every species, every individual—every part of every thing in nature. Then what is woman's one great destiny—her primi- tive end—her paramount office—her controlling func- tion ? What the rationale of her being ? In short, why was she created a woman, instead of any thing else? I ask not now why she was created a human being, but why she was created a human female ? She was cre- ated a female simply to bear offspring, and rendered a human female solely to bear human beings. Mater- nity is the one destiny and function of woman__that alone for which she was created. All the other ends she is fitted and required to subserve, are secondary to this. All the female beauties and perfections centre here, and consist in perfection as a child-bearer. And she is the most beautiful and perfect woman, who is fitted by nature to bear the best children; while those who are the least fitted for this end, are, therefore, the most homely. MATERNAL SUPERIORITY. 51 Of course, woman will raise one general hue and cry against this doctrine. She will affirm that this detracts from her high ends and exalted capacities. But con- sider a little. Let not-mere prejudice determine so im- portant a question. Let your natural adaptation de- cide it. This umpire is final, and its decision too palpa ble to be mistaken. What answer do woman's anatomical conformation and physiological constitution give to this question ? I speak not of her anatomy as a human being, but as a woman per se. She has bones, muscles, limbs, eyes, and other organs, like those of men; but these are common to both sexes, whereas our ordeal has exclusive reference to her sexual anatomy and physiology. That this points to child-bearing as its paramount and only func- tion and destiny, is too apparent to be argued. Who- ever disputes it has no philosophical ideas of adaptation whatever. This granted, does it point to any thing else ? I pause for a reply. What one organ and function of the female, as a female, has primary reference to any other end? The female pelvis is constitutionally larger, relatively, than that of man. This is the great and final test, of whether a given skeleton is that of a male or female This point is illustrated by the following engraving, illus- trative of the masculine and feminine foim. Man is broadest at the shoulders, from which central point he tapers both ways; while woman is widest at the hips. because her maternal function requires the concentration of her power at this point. Why this greater pelvic development ? Because it contains these very child-bearing organs ; and the larger it is, the larger these organs; and the larger and more MALE AND FEMALE FORM. MASCULINE FORM. FEMALE FORM. ADAPTATION OF WOMAN. 53 \ igorous they are, other things being equal, the better children will she bear, and, consequently, the more per- fect the woman, as a woman. The female anatomy then, settles the question, absolutely, in favor of our view; because the only distinctive point of difference between the female skeleton and that of the male, is that which adapts it to, and fits it for, this sole end. What can be more conclusive than this argument, drawn from her anatomical adaptation ? Turning from the anatomy of her bones to that of her fleshy organs, we find this view confirmed. For what other end were these organs created, but to receive, and mature, and bring forth, the germ of humanity—to bear children? Absolutely nothing. And the very name, woman—womb-man—man being the generic term for the race, and womb the adjective, or descriptive part of her name, refer to this same child-bearing appara- tus, and to nothing else. What can more completely establish any point, than the argument drawn from woman's anatomical organization, establishes our doc- trine—obnoxious though it may be to many—adapts her exclusively to child-bearing—that, in short, the maternal function is the only specific female function and destiny ? If it be urged that the female breasts constitute an exception, the answer is that they confirm our argument. For what were they created ? What destiny do they subserve, other than the nourishment of the infant? And is that not an integral part of the child-bearing function ? We use this term child-bearing in the gene- ral sense of bringing up, as well as bringing forth, child- ren, and consequently mean, that the sole destiny of the female, as such, is to bear, nurse, and educate, till they 5* 54 ADAPTATION OF LOVE. are capable of caring for themselves—concentric ends, of course, included. " But," i. :s here objected, " woman is certainly adapt- ed by nature to become a wife, quite as much as a mother." Aye, but a wife solely that she may become a mother. The whole philosophy of love and matri- mony centres in, and appertains to, propagation. All these delicate attentions, and pure and exquisite feelings of oneness and love, are instituted for the express pur- pose of fitting and inclining them to become parents. Nature brings them together in wedlock, solely that they may unite in propagation. Nature's only end in instituting love is propagation, just as much as the ulti- mate end of eating is nourishment. Neither love nor marriage have any other natural adaptation. They are not primary institutes of nature, but secondary to that one end of both the masculine and the feminine crea- tion—namely, the continuance of the race. Fair reader, pout and poh at this institute of nature as you will, it is nevertheless true, and you know and feel it. It accords with your inner consciousness, as well as your perception of adaptation. And you may as well admit this point first as last—may as well know what your natural destiny is, that you may know how, and be fitting yourself, to fulfill it. I have not rashly put forth this principle. On the contrary, it has bur- dened my mind for years, and is one of only two points which I hardly dared to bring forward. The other will be forthcoming in due time—my moral courage being ready for the sacrifice, as soon as time and strength will permit me to present it effectually. Nor have I brought forth this view of woman's desti- ny to lower her in the scale, but to elevate her ; for, IMPORTANCE OF MATERNITY. 55 though limiting her to mere babe-bearing and nursing might, at first, seem to confine her to a very insignifi- cant destiny, compared with that of man, yet he does nothing more important, if equally so. The magnitude of this destiny it is not possible for the human mind to conceive. What causes, wielded by man, equally affect human happiness' and destiny, here and here- after? What condition equally determines the fate of individuals, and the race ? How far the mother, in her distinctive capacity as mother, controls human health and power of body and brain, has just been seen. ( How far she likewise determines, by the same means, human virtue and vice, talents and imbecility, moral propensi- ties and animal propensities, will be seen hereafter. What one function, throughout universal nature, is as important as the maternal—the seed-bearing, animal- bearing, and child-bearing? What other does nature take such extra pains to secure ? To what other does the natural destiny of every vegetable, tree, animal, and human being, point with equal force, as the paramount function of herb, brute, and man ? What if there were no mothers ! What other calamity could equal this ? Our race cut short, and all the capacities of every one of its prospective myriads, throughout all coming time and eternity, of enjoying and accomplishing, covered with the mantle of oblivion ! I said no calamity could equal this. I except one ; the destruction of all the males ; of the horrors of which, the women of Benjamin, when their men were nearly all slain in battle, give a faint idea. I would not put the feminine function above the masculine, or wo- man and her destiny above man and his, yet I would put her and her natural destiny at least on a par with his. 56 WHO IS THE MOST PERFECT WOMAN ! Is this degrading her? I tell you, women, you infinitely underrate the maternal function—its power over human weal—its importance in the scale of being—and there- fore when I circumscribe you to this destiny, you wrong* fully accuse me of lowering you. If this function were a trifle, and your only destiny, then indeed might you properly complain; but not all the encomiums ever lavished upon woman at all compare with the exalted character implied in this her maternal destiny. In the language of our motto, " She is queen on earth who produces the highest order of children." Voting, legis- lating, public speaking, swaying the destinies of nations, wearing crowns and diadems—all are trifles compared with bringing forth and bringing up superior children. Was not Washington's mother quite equal to Washing- ton himself? Could we have had him without her? Do the world owe him a greater debt of praise and thanks- giving than her ? and him, because of her ? Then why accuse me of detracting from your* importance, relative or absolute, by limiting you to the maternal destiny ? Nor do I put forth this definition of woman to expose her to ridicule. No ; I worship the true woman in general, and the maternal function in particular, too devoutly to make light of either. I set too high a price on woman's delicate susceptibilities, to wound them, except to benefit her. I also love her too well not to tell her the truth, and the whole truth, as a means of perfecting her. Man is the one to tell woman her faults, and how to perfect herself, and woman to tell man his. The order of nature is for man to mould woman into the image he loves, and for woman to mould man. Lcve to the feminine dictates every SHE WHO PRODUCES THE BEST CHILDREN. 57 word of this book. And the paramount labor of my life—my one " heart's desire and prayer to God"— centres in woman's improvement. This is the grand focus of all my lectures—all my writings—all my life. But to obviate her faults, and improve her virtues, I must teach her her nature, and this is precisely what I am now attempting. I would disclose the true phi- losophical necessity of the feminine, the rationale of woman, the female adaptation, and therefore sphere. I would show her in the light of her philosophical adaptation, that her one specific function is to bear children ; that by perfecting this one constituent ele- ment of her nature, she may thereby and therein per- fect the quintessence of her inmost self. Till she fully understands her natural use, how can she fit herself for that use ? Nor can she possibly improve her maternal capabilities without therein proportionably enhancing every female charm, and heightening every female virtue; for in this one point centre all her at- tractions—all her perfections. This is the mainspring of her nature, which keeps all her subordinate powers in harmonious action. It impaired, she fades ; it de- stroyed, she dies ; it improved, she shines forth in new splendors. Maternity—this is her holy of holies— this her decalogue. Then what good can I do her at all to compare with enforcing this very point under discussion, that child-bearing, nursing, feeding, training —education, and accompanying ends included—is her * specific and only natural use ? that maternal excel- lence is the one embodiment of female charms and perfections ? And what truth can she learn of equal practical moment to herself—to the world? Be not then offended: nor will any but squeamish prudes. 58 'ASHIONABLE FEMALES. whose only glory is their shame, and whose sole excel- lencies are faults. No true woman but will see the intellectual force of this philosophy, and feel the in- ternal consciousness of its truth. "Am I then your enemy, because I tell you the truth ?" Sensible wo- men will prize me the higher, and help me the more. As to those sounding brasses and tinkling symbols— who are only what the silk-worm, milliner, and dress- maker has made them, polished off by boarding-school glitter—why, it matters as little what they like and say as what the fluttering insect likes and does. They are perfect inanities. They have the outward form of women, but are too deficient in feminine soul or char- acter to weigh a feather in the scale. They are mere motes on the sun-dial of time, and tolerated by nature only because their room is not now wanted. Better them than nothing, though not much ; but as fast as true women require their places, will they vanish like the morning cloud and the early dew. Let them pout and turn up their ninny noses, or laugh, or praise, will any thing they can say or do affect me, or interrupt truth ? Flutter on, ye apologies for your sex ! Fash- ionable things—what are you to the mountain torrent, the ocean wave, the fierce winds ? Yet is any thing I have said calculated to offend any one of correct and enlarged views ? But whomsoever nature's stern truth, delivered in her oracles of adaptation, offends, let them q be offended. 419. FEMALE BEAUTY--IN WHAT DOES IT CONSIST ? On this point, many men have many minds. Some fancy small, others large women ; some tall, others short; some plump, other? spare ; some one color of CONSTITUENTS OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 59 eyes and hair others other colors ; and so on to the whole end of tastes, for most of which there is indeed no accounting. "How could he ever have fancied hei, for I could not ?" says one ; and the latter thinks the same of the tastes of the former. Yet is there no fixed standard of female beauty? Thei3 is, and our principle develops it. She is most beautiful who is capaci- tated to bear the best children. All in woman as such, which ever does or ever can excite the normal admiration or love of man, is indices of maternity. But, you ask, what have ruby lips, a sweet mouth, fine teeth, a sweet breath, flowing tresses, expressive eyes, alabaster skin, finely-moulded limbs, an enchanting form, and this whole round of feminine charms to do with their making fine mothers ? Much every way. No woman can bear an exqui- sitely-organized child, without being exquisitely organ- ized herself, in accordance with that great hereditary law, that like begets like ; and all these are but so many signs of such exquisiteness. Such women are fine-grained and susceptible, and will bear highly-or- ganized children. Does not beauty in a child enhance its excellence, and does not beauty in the mother pro- mote beauty in her offspring ? Tell me not, then, that these—that any other elements of female beauty—bear no necessary reference to the female function. That men, in general, admire a full development of the pelvis in woman, is too apparent to require ju moment's argumentation. Why ? Solely because it indicates a large female apparatus, which, other things being equal, of course contributes materially to child- bearing. It surely contributes to the nourishment of the embryo, the importance ef which has just been 60 THE PHILOSOPHY shown to be paramount 413. A large pelvis indicates capacity to carry a large child ; and good size in chil- dren and of course adults, is certainly a great deside- ratum. It also indicates a large placenta, which, othei conditions being the same, will of course secrete pro- portionably more blood from the mother, and impart more vitality, and more of all the conditions and mate- rials of foetal formation and power. And this has just been shown to be a paramount requisite of superiority, mental and physical, in the prospective child. And this is the reason, and the only reason, why a large pelvis is an element of female beauty. It also of course facilitates parturition, another of the miternal functions. 420. philosophy of bustles, corsets, extra skirts, etc This law that man constitutionally admires fullness of pelvis, because it promotes this great function of the female, gives the only true philosophy—the real ration ale—of bustles, corsets, extra skirts, etc. " These things have their philosophy ?" it is inquired. "A rationale for all these fashionable accoutrements?" Yes, verily. In all her extravaganzas, fashion is per- fectly philosophical, and that philosophy is based in this very rationale of female beauty we are developing. And I call up philosophers, and fashionables of both sexes, as witnesses of the ' fixed fact," that the female fashions, in all their variations and mutations, puff out and adorn the pelvic region. The philosophy of the hoops of Queen Anne's time, was to keep the bottoms of the dresses flaring, because pregnancy does the same. Thi? fashion was attractive, because it pro- moted whaf malenrty promotes; that is, it filled out OF FASHIONABLE FEMALE ATTIRE. 61 the skirts. This attractiveness was what rendered it fashionable. And what is the philosophy of tight lacing ? for this most accursed of all fashions, which has slain more women in a score of years than the sword has men in a century—stifled more children than the Ganges—has its rationale, and thai is this : by rendering the waist small, it increases the apparent size of the pelvic devel- opment by contrast. Mark the fact, that this lacing has always extended down just to the very point which the early stage of child-bearing distends. The bodice waist, too, in all its infinitesimal forms, has its philosophy in this same law of female beauty ; namely, it adorns, and at the same time fills out the pelvic region. In other words, it enhances a woman's apparent beauty, because it makes that part seem large and fair, which when large and full indicates an ex- cellent child-bearer. Of course our fashion-following females, ever so make-believe modest, never think of this, and will frown daggers on me for this unpardon- able insinuation against their delicacy. Being thus broadly accused of thus swelling out and setting off their pelvic region, so as to make believe they are all prepared for receiving and developing the germ of life, will torture their sorest corn beyond endurance. But it is true. Let it. Yet very few except the Pa- risian fashion-makers know this. In that city, no way noted for female modesty, do all these fashions originate; the following of which makes, and the neglect of which breaks, our women. Why, in the name of all that is sensible, must shameless Paris—must the Court of the Tuilleries, the most openly wanton in the civilized world__alone give birth to the fashions of the civic 6 62 PHILOSOPHY OF THE BUSTLE. l.. » world ? Because it is thus unblushing. The entir* study there, is to present woman in her most volup- tuous, because this is her most attractive light; and all the ton—all the pride of civic female life—is to dress here as female voluptuaries in Paris dress ! Monstrous, yet true ! Blush, oh, American mother and daughter yet own the corn, till you pluck it out I PHILOSOPHY OF THE BUSTLE. Completely does this law explain the philosophy of the bustle. Maternity enlarges the pelvis, fills out around the hips, and throws the lower part of the spine out backward, while it causes its middle portion to bend inward—the very shape produced by child- bearing. Now the entire paraphernalia of bustling, extra skirts, sacking, and all that, is to imitate, as nearly as may be, the form of a woman while carrying a child ; and the entire philosophy of this hip-dressing, is to render the wearer interesting, by making her ap- pear as if actually in an " interesting situation." This is what gives to this apparent abdominal enlargement all its beauty. Woman knows by instinct that man loves to view a fullness of this region—and he does so, because he instinctively admires whatever resembles or promotes child-bearing—and, therefore, puffs out these parts by cotton, bran, hemp skirts, and surplus petticoats by the half-dozen, simply to excite this male passion. "Shame on that vulgar fellow who writes thus," says many a blushing, squeamish miss. Then double shame on women who dress thus. Is it, indeed, so very vulgar to allude to this matter ? Then is it not a perfect out- rage on every principle of female modesty thus to make believe in a certain way so as to be admirec bv men f DEMANDED BY 1. BERTINE3. 63 I know this will cut to the very quick. I mean it shall. Not that I love to torture woman's fine sensibili- ties, but that I would probe this gangrene of female folly to its core, and lay it open to public inspection: nor that I would lower woman in man's estimation by exposing her weaknesses ; but tha by pointing out these faults I may obviate them, and thereby infinitely enhance her in his regard. Since she will make her- self such a laughing-stock, let me turn it to her practical advantage. I know this philosophy of the bustle, and its substi- tutes, will be denied by nearly all females, and indig- nantly spurned by many even of those who are deserv- edly esteemed for their fine sense and taste ; but their pouting does not alter the facts. Besides, the burden of proof is thrown on them by this self-evident rationale of the bustle; and there it must rest till they remove it, by giving some other more satisfactory explanation of it. That men love large pelvic realities, and if they are wanting, appearances of fullness of the female ab- domen, is not to be questioned, nor that he loves them because they indicate child-bearing capabilities. Now, till she can show some other more plausible motive for dressing thus, we are compelled to adopt this ; and we are confirmed in it by the fact, that she is so intent on adapting herself to his tastes—to dress as he likes to see her dress. But mark : it is not the most virtuous of men—the most pure-minded and elevated—who thus extol these artificial forms, but those fashionable bucks who are known to be no better than they ought to be. For her to so far forget true modesty and propriety, and do thus unblushingly what sho ild crimson her face with 04 ITS INJURY OF THE FEMALE ORGANS. the deepest shame, to please rakes—ah, that is the rid die—woman, can you solve it ? " But why, by probing so exceedingly tender a point so aggravate woman's keen sensibilities as to make hei disiike you, and break your influence over her ?" Because it involves this mighty moral, that by dressing thus, woman is blasting herself, by weakening her female organs, in the most effectual manner possible. Nothing could possibly make such perfect havoc of this specific female function—child-bearing—as the way she dresses her abdominal region. She hangs all this extra-clothing upon her hips and bowels, and this of necessity presses down her female organs, gradually displaces and dis- orders them, and thus weakens and diseases that speci- fic function, the perfection of which constitutes female perfection, and the impairment of which blights the very essence of the female nature, and with it every female charm and function. But for this mighty moral—if dressing thus were only a piece of foolery—if it did not stab her beauty, her utility, her inner self, in the most vital part possible—I should have held my peace. But for years has this momentous truth been struggling for deliverance. Thank heaven, I have now done my duty. I shall thereby stop a few women from loading the pelvis with such a huge pile of clothing, weakening them by excessive warmth and perspiration, and displa- cing them, which is the most effectual way of deranging her maternal organs and functions, and thus deteriora- ting herself as a woman, and her offspring as human beings. To hang this pile of extra skirts on her shoul- ders by straps would be most detrimental ; but to girt her pelvic region by tying them tight enough to stay on, of necessity displaces both bowels and all the adja- THE BUSTLE INJURES POSTERITY. 65 cent organs, and is one of the greatest causes of in- ducing those female complaints which are so almost universal, and so very fatal to female charms, and to human offspring. Be entreated, foolish, wicked woman, if you will still continue to pile on these enormous loads of extra clothing, to at least hang them by straps upon your shoulders, instead of, as now, by strings upon your hips, to the perpetual girting of your abdomen. Call this trifling if you will, but it is one of the great- est curses of civic life. Licentiousness, in all its forms and degrees, is nothing in comparison with the evils it is inflicting upon mankind, because that no more effect- ually ruins its victims, or their issue, and is less univer- sal. If it did not damage woman in her child-bearing relations—in the very heart of her nature—if it did not so effectually weaken her female apparatus as to rob her offspring of vitality, and thus produce all the evils ascribed to imperfect foetal nutrition—I would have let her dress on as now. But though I could have borne to have seen her inflict trifling damage on the outskirts of her nature, yet how could I endure to see her igno- rantly stabbing herself under the fifth rib, yet hold my peace : nor merely stabbing herself, but inflicting upon her prospective issue the very worst evil it is in her power to inflict ? Can I endure to stand coolly by, and see her strangle infants by the million, so that they die a lingering death, and so that the remainder has barely vitality enough to survive, and are poor, puny speci- mens of humanity, in mind and body ? No, I can- not longer hold my peace, and see women dress thus, and thereby commit suicide and infanticide on this scale, commensurate with civic life. I am compelled thus to " cry aloud and spare not, whether ye will hear C* 60 PHILOSOPHY OP LYTToN breastworks. or whether ye will forbear." I have done my duty, and done it faithfully, yet tenderlj. Woman, do yours, by looking this truth fairly in the face. I know i shall put you in an awful predicament, be- cause so few women have any pelvic developments left, and would appear so ridiculously if the form of their dress corresponded with that of their persons; and also, because they will now be ashamed to make believe in a delicate situation, just to appear interesting, for this will now press upon the corns of their modesty. The dilemma is indeed inexpressibly trying ; but it will turn the current of female attention toward actually enlarg- ing her abdominal organs, instead of making them seem large by dressing thus; and no good will ever bless our race at all to compare with this, as no evil approximates toward this injury to the female consequent on dressing thus. cotton and plaited breastworks. The great law involved in our subject, that woman pads and bustles off those very parts which child-bear- ing enlarges, shows why she pads and finnifies her breasts. Their full development facilitates one part of the maternal relations—the nourishment of the infant. Man admires fullness here because it promotes mater- nity, and woman, instinctively as well as experimentally conscious of such admiration, pads, and plaits, and fixes off these parts with her utmost ingenuity. Woman, shame on you, to make believe so much where you are so little ! And the fact that American women generally are so flat-breasted, shows how miserable their maternal qualifications. Fullness here, besides indicating good nursing qualifications, as such, also betokens a vigorous female apparatus in genera Other things being the an important sign. 67 same, the fuller the breasts the better the mothers. Not that the largest-bosomed women will bear the best children, or the smaller the breasts the more inferior the offspring, but that, taking a given woman, she will be better as a mother if full breasted than that same woman would be if small breasted. Yet a small-bo- somed woman may bear better children than another whose mammae are large, because she may exceed the other in other qualifications, which more than compen- sate for this deficiency; yet this flat-breasted woman. if full here, would be a better mother, and of course a more perfect woman, than she now is. This point has been introduced mainly in order to enforce on woman this great practical truth, that the shrinking of her bosom, from month to month and year to year, is a sure sign that her female apparatus, as a whole, is waning, and she becoming less and less capa- citated for this great function of her nature, child-bear- ing—that is, she is becoming a less and still less per- fect woman, as well as less and less attractive—that the various states of the breasts and womb are recipro- cal—that the flaccidity of the former indicates decline in the latter—is evinced by the fact that the former swell during maternal carriage, and are firm during virginity, but fall and lose their tension and elasticity by commerce, even when maternity does not follow; so that here is an infallible test as to whether a given woman has or has not ever " known man." 421. let woman be what she would seem. She bustles off her pelvis and cottons off her breast- works so as to make believe have large pelvis and bo- soms, and be fitted to bear fine children. And these 68 HOW TO ENHANCE FEMALE BEAUTY parts should be fully developed. Indeed, this is indis- pensable to female perfection—not a sign merely, but a constituent element of such perfection. Then how much better to fill out these parts by internal develop- ment, instead of hoisting false colors! If it is so desi- rable—if it enhances her charms to thus appear to be fully developed in these only two female parts which it is the entire object and labor of fashion to fill out and set off, how infinitely better to actually fill out these parts by internal development instead of external show. But you ask, how can this be done ? By promoting YOUR HEALTH--BY INCREASING YOUR VITALITY. These were created for the express purpose of imparting vitality to offspring. Hence a greater amount of vitality is concentrated in them than in any otner portion of your system, and the more you augment that vitality, that is, the better your health, the more will that flow to and enlarge these parts, relatively. To return from this seeming but not actual digres- sion. We have shown that one of the first offices of the woman is to supply vitality to the embryo 407-m, and that a full pelvic development—a large abdomen, placenta, womb, bowels, etc., are essential to such manufacture and secretion of such vitality. By in-, creasing the health and vitality, therefore, you enlarge these female developments, and thereby enhance all the charms of your sex. If, therefore, I have mortified your Approbativeness by either tearing off your bustles and cotton pads, or making you ashamed while wearing them, I have more than made the loss good by showing you how to supply the loss of the outward resemblance by the inward reality, and this will gratify your Appro- 3Y IMPROVING HEALTH. 69 bativeness in the most effectual manner possible. As an approbative coach-maker is proud of a perfect coach because it is a perfect riding vehicle, nor is he ashamed of it because it is a poor water conveyance; and as the ship-builder is proud of his ship because it is perfect of its kind and fulfills its object, not because it cannot traverse land ; so woman's great pride should be, not to be a perfect orator, or artisan, or farmer, etc., but to be a perfect woman, and as this implies a full devel- opment of her female organs as such—nam sly, pelvic and mammal—therefore, by showing her how to enlarge these organs, the ample development of which indicates and constitutes female perfection, what can more effec- tually gratify her pride ? To illustrate. You are a young woman. Of course it is your great pride, and should be your paramount desire and aim, to become a perfect female as such. How can you do this ? First by rendering yourself healthy-—by increasing your vitality, and thus develop- ing your breasts and pelvis. Not that this is all; yet it is all that appertains to the female figure—to the physical woman. Refinement, exquisiteness, good- ness, etc., are elements of perfection in the mental female—of which in its place—yet reference is here had to the female form as such. And I repeat, that by developing these female organs, you develop the con- stituent element of female bodily perfection. And this can be done by improving the health. On the contrary, whatever impairs your health, first flattens your breasts and abdomen, and narrows your hips, and thus attacks the very citadel of your beauty and all your charms, as well as proportionally unfits you to bear children, because you have not sufficient 70 EVILS OF SEWING. vitality and nourishment for them and yourself. Be persuaded, O woman, to heed and practice the great practical truth involved in this law, nor practice or allow any thing to impair your health, both because it fades all your charms, and unfits you for your only mis- sion and destiny as a woman. Does sewing injure your health ? Then you are very foolish for sewing, because every hour diminishes your attractions—not their outskirts, but their constituent elements. Rather go poorly clad, poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly every thing else, than be a poor woman,. as such. Besides, if you wear less bustles, skirts, and cotton, and put fewer stitches into your breastworks and waist-works, you could support yourself by far less sewing than it now requires—especially, if you should lay aside other fashionable yet useless accoutrements. No, you must work thus hard, and break down your health, not to live, but to be fashionable, and this to be attractive. But infinitely more attractive would you be,' if more healthy though less fashionable. I protest that all this extra dressing actually detracts from fe- male beauty, instead of enhancing it. A good-looking woman, when adorned least, is most adorned. All these extra fixings detract from her beauty by hiding it. Her attractiveness consists, not in exhibiting the art of the milliner, but the qualities of the woman, as such. If she be plain, fashionable attire makes her look still plainer by contrast. This attempt to corceal her deformities only reveals them in the more be Id relief. Simplicity of dress will set off your natural charms to far better advantage than all these fashionable flummeries. You could sew abundantly to supply all your real wants, and clothe yourself in the most truly attractive habilia- NEW moons. 71 ments, witt half the money and stitches you now take, and thus save your health, and, of course, your charms. I am not over fastidious ; my science has taught me to overlook human faults and follies ; yet I must here mention one thing which perfectly disgusts me. It is the combination of the bowing back produced by exces- sive bustling, along with the flat breast and inward warp. To put on a strapping great bustle, and a shawl or mantle over the whole, so as to make the woman bowing from the head around the back to the feet, and to add to this a sinking of lungs and vital organs, and consequent warping inward of the chest, is, accord- ing to all my ideas of female beauty, a perfect mon- strosity. I can conceive of no greater distortion of the natural form of woman, and, therefore, nothing more disgusting, than this pretend-to-be-pretty deformity. When the shawl or mantle is off, so that we see the in- ward curve at the small of the back, the sight of the bustle may be tolerated ; but this bowing shape is that assumed by age, is clumsy, is awkward, is perfectly ridiculous, and completely disgusting. It makes one sick, really, and the lack of both taste and sense it indi- cates, nauseates me of those that dress thus. 422. EFFECTS OF THESE FALSE APPEARANCES ON THE YOUNG BRIDEGROOM. Yet this bustling and padding, however they may aid a girl who has small pelvic and mammal developments in exciting the love of a husband, they do not. aid her-in retaining it. If they enable her to cheat him into the belief that she is something where she is nothing—and _hat, in these specific embodyments of female beauty418 — what effect will the naked truth have upon him ? If 72 EFFECTS OF THESE FALSE DEVELOPMENTS he is green enough to be caught in her snares, his first introduction to her as his wife will show him, that what he thought was food for love was only cotton above and hemp below. Such disappointment, and in an essential respect, will reverse his love. Seeing no charms on which love can feast, piqued at having been thus outwitted, and angered at thus having been gulled, he hates where he would have loved if he had found what he had a right to expect. She has thus poisoned her matrimonial cup in the outset; and a life of dissatis- faction on his part, because of her barrenness of female charms, and of soul-breaking disappointment on hers, because she has lost the one thing she desires on earth —his love—is the legitimate finale of her appearing to be what she was not. More than half our unhappy marriages have this for their chief cause. Husbands do not disclose their barbed arrow ; wives cannot ima- gine what they can have done, to thus change their love from that tenderness and enthusiasm evinced be- fore marriage, to present indifference or disgust. Let me tell you. You have undressed—you have small BREASTS AND ABDOMEN--YOU ARE INFERIOR WOMEN PHYSI- CALLY. It is not possible for them to love you, because your female developments—your only female.charms, as such—are insignificant; whereas, if you had full breasts and ample abdomens, you would retain the love you have excited. " But," nearly every female reader will object, " 1 don't want this carnal love. If a man cannot love my mind, instead of my person—my mental beauties, in- stead of my sexual—I don't want his love." Aye—but remember, that these outward female developments are infallible tests of inner feminine loveliness ; that the ON THE BRIDEGROOM. 73 physical woman is but a symbol and type of the mental woman ; that you cannot have a perfect female mind and character, without having as perfect a female fig- ure, which, as. already proved, involves a large and vigorous sexual apparatus 418. Have I not already demonstrated this law of reciprocity, as existing be- tween the mental and physical sexuality of women 419? "But," it is objected, "ill health shrinks both the pelvis and breasts, and thus detracts from female beauty." It equally detracts from the mental loveliness of woman. The mind flags with the body. Physical disease fades the emotions, substitutes irritability for sweetness, and, though calculated to awaken sympathy, makes us feel that its subject's mental loveliness, however great by nature, wanes as health declines, but revives as health restores the sparkling eye, lively tongue, gushing emotion, intensity of feeling, etc. Yet, for proof of the great law here involved, of reciprocity between the outward and inner man, and beauty of form as indicat- ing and accompanying corresponding beauty and per- fection of mind, the reader is referred to my other writings p 15,16, " M'406,407,4oe' s'209' 21°- I* ls not possible to disorder or debilitate the female sexual organs, with- out therein and thereby diseasing or paralyzing the mental woman, nor to be a perfect mental woman, without being proportionably perfect physically. Full breasts and pelvis, therefore, imply corresponding strength and power in the mental feminine department of your nature, and smallness and flabbiness of the former, that your mental attractiveness as a female, are weak. 7 74 fEMALE BEAl'IY. 428. TRUE MODE OF INCREASING THE BEAUTY OF GIRLS. The paramount desire of mothers touching their daughters is to see them well married, and in order to this they strain every point to enhance their attractive- ness. But they pursue diametrically the wrong course. They dress them to death on the one hand, and press them forward in studies on the other, at the same time violating every cardinal law of health as to diet, exer- cise, respiration, etc., and thus blight their charms by enfeebling their bodies. The present fashionable mode of bringing up girls interdicts, in the most effectual manner possible, nearly every thing calculated to de- velop the female as such, and substitutes artificial fool- ery for the natural charms of female excellence. It not only does not fit them for their sole natural destiny 418, but nothing could possibly be contrived which would so effectually unfit them for becoming mothers, or, by consequence, efface the primitive rudiments of beauty "9. Mothers, if you would render your girls perfectly enchanting, give them perfect health. This is the first, second, and third condition of female beauty. We have already seen that maternal health is a paramount con- dition in child-bearing, and therefore in beauty; then make this health as paramount a feature of their educa- tion. Especially, let them run. The more they romp, the more perfect worren they will become, because this very wildness is a primitive condition of health. Have no fears that their becoming tomboys will militate in the least against perfect female propriety and delicacy when they become women. Love will bring out this female accomplishment, and the more perfect the romp, the more material wiJl there be for it to polish. B at ME/ VS OF INCREASING IT. 75 Keep them cooped up in the house all their lives, and penned up in a fashionable strait-jacket at that—how is it possible for them to get any physical basis on which to rear the superstructure of attractiveness ? Let girls be girls—be wild and free as colts—till at least eighteen to twenty. Let them take no thought about their appear- ance, or even try to be pretty; for this only spoils that natural simplicity which infinitely excels the attractive- ness of art. 424. BLIGHTED LOVE WEAKENS THE FEMALE ORGANS AND CHARMS. But the worst evil of keeping girls within doors and pressing them on in their studies, is that, besides rob- bing their bodies in general and pelvic organs in partic- ular, it preternaturally excites their nerves and brain, and thus causes them to get in love prematurely. Of course these young loves must be broken off, and this blights the organs of their sex, and of course the constituent condition of beauty 418. For example. Take a woman of fair health and attractiveness for our subject. Engage her affections, and you thereby quicken the action of all the organs, all the functions of her sex proper; and thereby en- hance her every female charm and virtue. For the full exposition of this law and its reason, see " Love and Parentage." Then break that love, and you cripple ALL THE FEMALE FUNCTIONS AND ORGANS, and of COUTSe break down the very elements of female attractiveness 418, because of the perfect reciprocity which exists be- tween the mental and the physical sexuality. This reciprocity compels you, when you blight her love, thereby and 1 herein to impair the physical organs of her sex. 76 blighted love Abundant proof of this law, founded in universal experience, is the fact that when mothers lose their husbands or children, they almost invariably experience concomitant female difficulties—falling of the womb, unhealthy uterine discharges, etc., for the first time, if perfectly healthy in these parts before, and a great aggravation of them if previously diseased here. No exceptions to this rule occur except where the female apparatus was peculiarly strong before, so that the grief was not adequate palpably to disorder it. Inquire, and you will find the concomitance of domestic grief and female complaints uniform. Since, therefore, the leversed action of the social faculties in one case causes uterine complaints, similar reverses of affection, and of course of love among the first, must produce female weaknesses or disorders, and thus blast woman's charms. So will disagreement between husband and wife, provided true love previously existed 425. APPEAL TO MAN. In view of this law, behold, O faithless man, what wkolesale havoc of all that is loving and enchanting in woman's mind and person you are effecting by trifling as you do with her affections! If you but realized how effectually you thereby blight the very soul and essenee of the woman as such, and thus diminished your plea- sures in woman in general as well as your wife in par- ticular—for while you have prostrated and diseased the female organs of A's wife, by calling out only tc blight her love while young, B has been doing the same damage to the girl you have married or may marry— It does seem that you could net thus' wantorily trifle AS INJURING BEAUTY. i i with woman's love. It is not permitted to man or devil to do a greater evil. Even if it were confined to the suffering females and their wronged husbands* no other evil could equal it; yet it is not. Blighting her love weakens her female organs, and this impairs her off- spring, and diseasing this department of her nature diseases unborn generations 418. This trifling with wo- man's love is not, then, after all, so very trifling a mat- ter. It may be sport to your fiendish soul—for none but fiends incarnate will thus call out only to blight the confiding love of woman—but it is death to her and her prospective issue, or at least an essential damage to both, and if not literal death no thanks to ypu. You drilled and charged the rock, and if the explosion only tore off a piece instead of blowing it all to shivers, it is not because you did not take the very means to do all this damage to lovely woman and her darling children. Whatever else you do or omit, be entreated never to pluck this central gem from a single woman's crownlet __never to girdle this vine of female loveliness at its root—never to tear out this heart's core of woman's inner soul. And woman—mother and daughter, married and sin- gle—be entreated to keep your affections from being blighted, by every means in your power. Nor is this difficult. Take an independent stand. Instead of al- lowing your gushing affections to go forth just for the fun of it, put yourself on high ground. Let men see that however intelligent you may be in conversation— however moral, or religious, or literary, or domestic— however freely you may give forth all your other feel- ings and excellencies, yet that not one expression or emotion of love can be extorted from you till your 7* 78 APPEAL TO MAN. choice is made and preliminaries are settled. Let men see that you hold your love as the choicest trea- sure of your being, not to be conferred, even in the smallest degree, except upon an affianced husband, and this very dignity—this high-toned stand—more than every thing else, will bring men upon the bended knees of confession and solicitation. This is the very thing they most prize. This will exalt you in their estimation incomparably above all other charms or excellencies, for it strikes the very highest chord of his being. Any man who is worth having—and you want no others— will " go and sell all that he hath" to obtain such a wo- man. But, as long as you hold yourself " dog-cheap," by showing anxiety to love and be loved, by yielding to his advances and reciprocating love feelings with him before he has declared any matrimonial intentions —especially as long as you allow love to be put upon a partially animal basis, so long will he be content to let things remain in this forward state. As long as you seize the bait as far as he proffers it, and even run with it to show that you have swallowed it, he will feel—" A fish thus easily caught is not worth hauiing up, yet I like to have her sport with the hook; and when I have done playing with her, I'll cut the line. May be it will trouble her to digest all she has swallowed." Yet, if she had paid no regard to his love-tale till he proposed matrimony—which he wou]d have done if his intentions were sincere—and if they are not, you want nothing to do with him—your high stand would soon have brought him to his bearing. Nothing disgusts a man quicker than undue forwardness in a woman. Nothing so exalts her in his eyes as reserve during the settlement of the matrimonial preliminaries. Women lose many offers EABLY MARRIAGES. 79 by evincing too great a readiness to love and marry. And this extra readiness on your part spoils him after you get him. It puts you in his power, because he has obliged you by marrying you. Woman, over-anxiety to marry is the great maelstroom of your affection and matrimonial felicity. 426. EARLY MARRIAGES AND YOUNG MOTHERS. This imperious requisition for abundance of maternal nutrition, rebukes severely the prevailing custom of early marriages, or rather, of premature maternity. It does not say at what age a girl should marry, but it does say that no female should become a mother till _ fully matured^ Till her own organs are formed, and growth completed—till she has spread, filled up, and become consolidated—and her life-power overflows, and becomes almost painfully abundant—none of it can' safely be diverted.} Especially is it dangerous to make so powerful a diversion as that required for foetal nutri- tion, because it induces that robbery of mother and child already shown to be so fatal to both «°.*12-413. That this bearing process is most exhausting, has already been shown408. That none but full grown and healthy females can furnish the required amount of nutrition, is apparent from the entire tenor of the work thus far 407' 40S. ; What consummate folly, then, for young girls to rushlnto the hymenial embrace, and thus endanger pre- mature maternity and consequent exhaustion, disease, and an early grave.7 A wrinkled, worn-out, superannu- nted woman, having every appearance of being forty- five, applied to me for physiological advice, under a complication of female com plain is, anxious to know whether there.was any hope left a her rising above 80 EARLY MARRIAGES. them. I was surprised to learn, that she was only twenty-six—that she had ceased bearing. And on inquiring to what she attributed the premature failure of her functions, she replied, " I married at fifteen, became a mother at sixteen, and am an old woman at twenty-six, when I might otherwise have been just coming into my prime." Few married women but have suffered from this same cause. The number of mothers and of children it has hurried into premature graves, is beyond all human computation. How many of you, mothers, owe your wrinkles, your prostration of the life-power, your pains, and your aggravated diseases to this cause ! Then sound the alarm. Put girls upon their guard. Warn them of the imminent danger they incur. Above all, keep your daughters from incurring this evil. Old age will overtake them quite soon enough, without thus hurrying it-with railroad speed. In view of this law of nature, what shall we say of those foolish girls who, not content to wait for the natu- ral appearance of that function which transforms them from the girl to he wOman, use every means to hasten its advent, that they may become early marriageable ! Mothers hasten this period often by artificial means in their daughters, so that they may be earlier in market. ("To sucn' "early ripe, early rotten," applies with redoubled forcei> It is like plucking green fruit, so as to hasten its maturity ; but what is it good for when ripe ? Several years too soon is this period hurried on, by all those hot-bed influences of boys' and girls' parties, puppy loves, in-door corfinement, boarding-school fool- eries, late hours, hot drinks, bad diet, impaired health, and thousands of other like things.*) Wait and grow, before you attempt to ri^en. j Let nature choose her TIGHT LACING. 81 own time ; yet better late than early, because the later before this function appears, the later before it takes its final departure, and leaves you a superannuated, wrin- kled old woman, exchanging the rich foliage cf young beauty for the sear and yellow leaf of withering age. / —~J -v:--i-„ 427. TIGHT LACING--ITS RI :NOUS EFFECTS ON OFFSPRING. That this practice inflicts the very worst form of ruin on woman, as a mother, and on prospective off- spring, is rendered evident by every page of our work. \ . No evil to mother or child can equal that of curtailing the supply of vitality to both ; and nothing can do this as effectually as tight lacing. If it were merely a mark of female folly and ignorance, or if its ravages were confined to its perpetrators, it might be allowed to pass unrebuked; but it strikes a deadly blow at the very life of the race. It girts in the lungs, stomach, heart, diaphragm, etc.—it cripples every one of the life-manu- facturing faculties, impairs circulation, prevents muscu- lar action, and lays siege to the very citadel of this child-bearing function. By as much as abundance of vitality, air, exercise, and good digestion, are required in the mother, by so much is this practice murderous to both child and mother, because it stifles them all. It allows so scanty a supply of vitality to the embryo, as often to prevent its entering the world alive, and if it does, to hasten its death ; by most effectually cramping, inflaming, and weakening the vital apparatus, it stops the flow of life at its fountain-head." It slowly, but surely, takes the lives of its tens of thousands before they marry, and so effectually weakens and diseases, as ultimately to cause the death of millions more. J No tongue can tel no finite mind conceive, the weakness v- 82 TIGHT 1ACNG and misery it has occasioned, or the number of deaths; directly and indirectly, of young women, bearing mo- thers, and weakly infants it has occasioned, besides those millions on millions it has caused to drag out a short, but wretched existence. If this murderous prac- tice continues to rage for another generation as it has done for the last, it will bury all the middle and upper classes of women and their children, and leave our race to be perpetuated by the uncivilized, and the coarse- grained, but healthy lower classes. Most alarmingly has it already deteriorated our race, as a race, in physical strength, in power of constitution, in energy, in talents. Reader, how many of your weaknesses, pains, headaches, nervous affections, interna] difficulties, and wretched feelings, were caused by your mother's corset-strings ? Such mothers deserve the universal execration of their children—of all. Those who prefer to bury their children to the troub- le or expense of raising them, may love or marry tight- lacers ; but those who would rear a healthy, talented, happy family, to bless mature life, and nurse declining years, as well as to perpetuate their name and race upon the earth/are earnestly enjoined to marry full- chested and large-waisted women, for such will be likely to live long, and bear a vigorous race ; but those who would not have their souls rent asunder by the premature death of wife and children, are solemnly warned not to marry small waists : for, in the very nature of things, slim, small-waisted women must die young, and bear few and feeble offspring. > Whence that mortality of children which consigns more than one half of all that are born in our cities to an early grave ? Is it a part of the necessary INJURIOUS TO OFFSPRING. 83 operations of nature ?C>No ; it is violated nature : and I fearlessly avow, and appeal to the decision of any man of science acquainted with the subject, to say whether this is not the most effectual cause of infantile death, or, what amounts to the same thing, the means of that most revolting of all crimes—infanticide ?;■ Re- member, ye young ladies who, in dressing yourselves off for the ball, or fashionable party, or promenade—I ( beseech you, remember—that you are not only sowing , the seeds of disease and premature death, which will nip all your own pleasures in the bud, but which must also yield you a harvest of sorrows too many to number and too aggravated to endure ; that you are bringing down not only your own soul with sorrow to an un- timely grave, but in case you become mothers, your children also, with you or before you, into their graves. If you wish to exclaim, under a burden of nervousness and mental distress which you cannot support, "Oh, wretched life that I live !"—if you wish to break the heart of your husbands and friends by your premature death, and have your own souls pierced through with in- describable anguish by the death of your children—if you wish to die while you live, and to die finally before your time—if you wish to disgust every sensible man who sees you—if you would exchange the rosy cheek of health, for the portion of laced and sickly beauty ; and the plump, round, full chest and form of unlaced health for the poor, scrawny, haggard, sunken, and almost ghastly look of all who lace—then buy corset after corset, lace tighter and tighter, and still tighter, and keep laced night and day till the wheels cf life, com- pressed within limits too narrow longer to continue action, cease to move, and tit that fountair of life, and 64 TIGHT L ICING vitality, and happiness, flowing from these compressed organs, is dried up at its very source, and ceases longer to flow. Yet this suicidal, this infanticidal, this infeunal practice, is still perpetrated. It is indeed stoutly denied, yet almost universally practiced, even in this age of light—is practiced even by Christian mothers—by pretended daughters of Zion. Yea, more ; these infanticides, with their corsets actually on, are admitted into the professed " sanctuary of the, Most High," and to the communion-table of "the saints!" As though Jesus Christ loved them the better the tighter they laced ! Than a corseting Christian, no self-contra- diction can be greater. There may possibly be such anomalies as a Christian drunkard, or praying ralcal, or pious cheat or liar ; but how can infanticides and suicides ever enter the kingdom of heaven ? If at all, it must indeed be " so as by fire." How can corseted murderers of BABES worship God ? What profanation of God and things sacred can exceed wearing stays to church ? Yet where else are a tithe as many worn ? Still, our dumb-dog ministers either do not know that corseting involves the worst of crimes, or, know- ing, dare not open their mealy mouths ; and even ad- minister the SACRAMENTS to those " IN THE VERY ACT'" of perpetrating the worst of crimes, in two of its' most aggravated forms. Yet Christian missionaries must be sent to the benighted heathen, to proclaim the horrid sinfulness of their committing these same crimes, ihough by a process as much less horrible than that by which these very female missionaries, as well as those who sem them, actually perpetrate these identical crimes, as to be suddenly killed outright, is less tragical than gradual CAUSES INFANTICIDE. 85 starvation and strangulation : for wherein consists the difference between causing death directly or indirectly, so that the death is caused ? It is even as much worse, to preface death with disease of body and mind, as to torture before murdering. Moralists, Christians, reformers, philosophers, and philanthropists, of all sects and grades ; come, let us unite our moral force, and present a frowning front to this race-ruining practice. Let us all point the fin- ger of derision at all tight-lacers. Let us insist upon " natural waists, or no wives." What is as desira- ble, yet what is so destructive, of this gem of paradise as lacing ? Men, in particular, should root out this prac- tice, because they introduced it. Woman laces thus to please the men, not herself. As soon as we cease to enforce on her this practice, she will abandon it. And be assured, that you look incomparably more maternal, more womanly, more interesting, and every way more acceptable, to all of correct taste, when dressed in your loose gown—allowed to hang upon your shoulders— without any thing, or at feast any thing but a loose belt, at the waist. " But I do not dress tight," says one : " Nor I," says another: "Nor I either," says a third ; " this practice is now obsolete." This is not so, as the following test will prove : Any woman dresses tight, whose dress parts far enough to show its hooks and eyes ; and how few dresses but do this ! It is not mere corset strings that do this deadly mischief, but all compression of the vital organs- whatever interrupts perfect freedom of breathing or motion. Bearing women, be entreated to allow not the least 8 86 BEARING MOTI1EK3 tightness of your clothes, from the shoulders downward. Do not even tie or girt your clothes tight enough tg stay on, but let them depend in flowing looseness from your shoulders. I call your attention to the great dis- comfort you experience from even a trifling pressure, and how great your relief when you unloose them at night. Now all this is full of meaning, and of warning. It is nature's admonition, not to prevent the free motion and enlargement of your whole frontal region. Com- pression would not inflict this uneasiness, if it were not exceedingly injurious to you—to your precious charge. , 428. REQUISITION FOR HEAT, MUSCLE, BONE, NITROGEN, ETC. Though vitality in mothers is the paramount condi- tion of health in offspring, yet it is by no means the only thing required. Animal heat is scarcely less im- portant. I say animal heat in contradistinction from artificial. It is not enough that the mother warms her- self by fire, she must keep a full supply of internal heat. Specific directions for doing this will be found in " Physiology, Animal and Mental90-M "'•115." Let pro- spective mothers who are troubled with cold hands, feet, skin, etc., or feel chilly, inquire out the cause— whether a want of carbon, consequent on impaired digestion, or a deficiency of oxygen, consequent on im- perfect respiration, breathing a vitiated atmosphere, etc., or feebleness, or oppression of the heart, and con-' sequent impairment of the circulation—and obviate the effect by removing the cause MUSCLE. A full development of the muscular system of the child is most desrable. Few things are more impor- REQUIRE MUSCLE. 87 tant, than a strong and active muscular system. The materials for its formation, must of course be furnished by the mother. This requires her to do two things—to exercise her muscles habitually ; not merely in light work, such as sewing, walking about house, etc.; but in something which requires her to put forth much strength, and that often. In this respect, how deficient are most American women ! How far inferior to the women of any other nation ! English women—those of rank in- cluded—often take walks of eight and twelve miles, just for exercise, and ride much, practice gymnastics, etc. But the muscular feebleness of most American women, is as disgraceful to them as injurious to their children. At the down-hill rate we are now going on, the next generation will be too weakly to do any kind of hard work, and fit only for sedentary occupations. Nor can this muscular debility be prevented, except by our girls romping more, and our women taking more vigorous exercise. Scarcely any thing would do more, for either mothers or children, than the general practice of gymnastic exercises by females. But as we shall hereafter point out another imperious demand for muscular power in mothers, when treating of delivery, we take leave of this point here, by recom- mending one other promotive of muscularity in both mother and child, namely, a diet composed mostly of wheat, either boiled, cracked, or coarse ground, without bolting, because it contains a large amount of this ma- terial for the formation of muscle. Yet prospective mothers should, if possible, avoid fine flour bread. Lean meat also contains muscle, yet I am not partial to a meat diet, especially at this time. The vegetable, and especially the fruit kingdom, will furnish both mus- 88 DIRECTION TO BEARING WOMEN. cle and su; h other materials as the child requires, quite as well as the animal: yet better to obtain these mate- rials from meat than not to have them. And if meat is omitted, its place must be supplied by food rich in fibrin. nitrogen. This chemical substance enters largely into the com- position of all forming organs, and therefore the mo- ther's food should be rich in this substance. Milk contains it in considerable quantities, and easily soluble. So do fruits. My impression is, that cocoa, and choco- late also, contain it, and are especially good for pro- spective mothers FRUIT. But probably no one article of diet is as well adapted to women in this situation as fruit—particularly berries of all kinds, peaches, and good pears. They should al- most live on them ; and sweet fruit is doubtless prefer- able to sour. Fruit is cooling, aperient, nutritious, full of the materials required by the forming child, and withal, delicious. Prospective mothers will do well to live on wheat and fruit almost wholly. 429. offsetting the mother's excesses and defects. To one other most important application of the great law already presented, namely, that the embryo takes on most of those ingredients which abound most in the mother, special attention is invited. To again illustrate the law, that its mighty import may be fully perceived and felt: Suppose a naturally strong-muscled mother to exercise her muscles but little at this period, her child will have but feeble muscles; whereas, a mother whose OFFSETTING THEIR OWN DEFEC1*. 89 muscles are naturally feeble, if she puts forth much healthful muscular exertion at this period, will render the muscular element more abundant in herself than is natural to her, and this will endow her child with more of it by nature than she originally possessed : and thus of digestive power, the respiratory function, nervous susceptibility, etc. Now what your children require, and all they re- quire, in order to become perfect and powerful physi- cally, is vigor and balance of all the bodily functions. Behold how this law enables mothers to secure so great a desideratum ! Suppose, then, your skin is naturally weak ; by taking special pains to excite it by friction, right bathing, etc., you can so quicken this function for the time being in yourself, as to send to your forming child abundance of the skin-forming material, together with cutaneous activity, and thus remedy in your child this defect in yourself. Or suppose your lungs are weak, but muscles good. Your child will be almost certain to inherit a good mus- cular system, even without your taking much extra pains to cultivate it in yourself; and if you employ every means to invigorate your lungs, its lungs will be stron- ger than yours, and its muscles as strong, so that this want of balance in yourself will be obviated in your offspring. Having thus clearly stated the law involved, and mode of applying it, we urge upon prospective mothers to learn wherein they are defective, and to offset such defects in their children by the cultivation in themselves, at this period, of their weaker functions. This law puts it in the power of mothers to render their children far better, every way, than themselves. Be entreated, * 8* 90 MAKE* AND DEFORMITIES. prospective mothers, to learn your maternal defects, and then to supply them at this period, so that your prospective children may be marred with none of those defects, or pained with none of those diseases which afflict you, but shall be perfect men and women in all their bodily organs and functions. In short, study and apply this whole subject of foetal nutrition, offsetting, and development, and you car. bear children far better by nature than yourselves. 430. MARKS AND DEFORMITIES. If proof were wanting that all the various states of the mother's mind and body stamped their impress upon the forming character of her child, the fact that mothers frequently mark their children before birth furnish such proof. But this point is universally conceded. It only remains, therefore, to inquire how far these maternal states affect the child. Nature's answer is, " all or none." And our object in entering this new field of inquiry is to re-rivet the great thought of the book—the perfect reciprocity existing between mother and child— by showing that certain emotions and states of the mother's mind actually change and distort even the child's bodily shape, so as to occasion deformities and monstrosities. Medical men have long and ably dis- cussed this question, and finally decided both against it and the facts in the case, because they could not see how such maternal states of mind can affect the foetal form. To deny what we see because we cannot explain it, is not exactly philosophical. We ought rather to admit nature's facts, even though our limited reasonings cannot comprehend their mode of production. Let us STRAWBERRY AND LOBSTER MARK3. 91 vook first at a few of these facts, and sum up with an ttempted solution or rationale of them. A STRAWBERRY MARK. A physician of considerable science and talent, who resides near Philadelphia, after expressing his disbelief in the doctrine, and opposing it strenuously, related the following fact, in proof and illustration of it : A woman, some months before the birth of her child, wanted some strawberries very much, which she could not obtain; and fearing that this ungratified desire would mark her child, and having heard that the mark would be on the child just where she touched her own body, put her hand on her hip. Before the child was born she pre- dicted that it would have a mark, told what the mark would resemble, namely, a strawberry, and where it would be found, namely, on the child's hip, and when the child was born it had a mark resembling a straw- berry, and on its hip. He also mentioned several other similar cases, but still maintained that there was nothing in this doctrine. An aunt-inTaw to the author, while riding out with her sister, saw some strawberries spilled by the side of the road, which she wanted very much. But her sister, who was driving, only laughed at her, and drove on, turning a deaf ear to her entreaties to stop, and to her apprehensions that the child would be marked. The child was marked, on the back of its neck, with a cluster of red spots, in shape resembling spilled strawberries. A LOBSTER MARK. At Frye village, Mass., in 1844, the author saw a Miss El'*a dickering, who had an extra thumb, resembling, 92 MARKS AND DEFORMITIES. with the true thumb, a lobster's claw. Its joint and muscles cause it to work inward, so as, with the thumb proper, to be a close imitation of a lobster's caw ; and, during her youthful days, it and the thumb were of a bright red, like a boiled lobster. The history of it, as given by her mother, is this: She bought a large, fine lobster, while enciente, and left it for a moment, when it was stolen. She was disappointed in the extreme by the loss, and could not replace it; and this lobster's claw on her daughter's hand was the consequence Of late it has lost its redness. MOUSE MARKS. Wm. H. Brown tells the story of his having a mark on one of his legs resembling a mouse, and that his mother, while carrying him, was in a room in which a mouse was confined, which they were trying to kill, and which, jumping up under her clothes, frightened her terribly. In Philadelphia, a lawyer has on his forehead, and running up into his hair, a dark, dingytfeolored mark, elevated, and covered with short hair, which he said his mother supposed was caused by her being much frightened, while carrying him, by a mouse. DLUM MARKS. My father relates the Allowing as having occurred in my native town. A woman rode by a tree full of ripe wild plums, common in that region, which she craved very much, but which she could not obtain. Her child, born some months after, had a fleshy append- CHERRY MARKS--AMPUTATED THUMB. 93 age hanging from the thumb, resembling a wild plum, and hanging by a stem of flesh. A pregnant mother in Hanover, Mich., longed for butter, which could not be obtained, it being in the win- ter, and there being more emigrants than eatables. Her child was born with a running sore on its neck, which yielded to none of the remedies applied to it, till the mother remembered her disappointed longing after but- ter, and anointed it with butter, by which it was soon cured. CHERRY MARKS. The author knows a little girl marked on the forehead with a bright-red excrescence resembling a cherry, # caused, as its mother says, by her longing one evening for a cherry, the last of the season, which she tried in vain to reach. An old neighbor of the author was wont to show us boys the cherries on his arm, which almost covered it, caused, as his mother supposed, by her disappointed longing after that fruit. AMPUTATED THUMB. The author's wife has often seen the thumb of an in- fant, a younger playmate of hers, preserved in spirit, and found among the mesentery, it having been sepa- rated from its stump before birth. Some months before the birth of this child, the mother saw her husband's thumb cut off by an axe, which excited her feelings to the highest pitoh. 94 MARKS AND 'DEFORMITIES. A WINE MARK. Joshua Coffin relates the following of one of his play mates, whose face, neck, and body, were spotted, as if some liquid, like wine, had been spattered on him. His mother accompanied her husband, a deacon, to town, to procure wine for communion, a taste of which she want- ed very much, but for which she durst not ask. While going home, the cork got out, and the wine was spilt all over her new white dress. The mortification caused by soiling her dress, and the disappointed longings after the wine, marked her child with the spots alluded to. TURNING BLACK AND BLUE. A Mrs. Lee, of London, Canada West, witnessed, from her window, the execution of Burly, from the jail window, who, in swinging off, broke the rope, and was precipitated to the ground, with his face all black and blue, from being choked. This horrid sight caused her to feel awfully; and her son, born three months after- ward, whenever any thing occurs to excite his fears becomes black and blue, or livid-like, in the face, an instance of which the author witnessed. FIRE MARK. Dr. Curtis, the young but gifted lecturer on Physi- ology, relates the case of a woman who witnessed, from a distance, the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, and whose son, born some three months afterward, has a spot which resembles a flame of fire streaking up in different places; and several highly interesting facts of this kind will be found stated in the work entitled, "Mental and Moral Qualities Transmissible " PROMISCUOUS CASES. 95 A MARK OF INTOXICATION. In Waterbury, Vt., there lived a young man who ap- peared as if intoxicated, supposed to have beer caused by his mother's seeing a drunkard while carrying him. His intellect was good. A MENAGERY MARK. In Woodstock, Vt., several years ago, a pregnant mother visited a menagery, and became deeply inter- ested in the animals she saw. Some five months after- ward she gave birth to a monster, some parts of which resembled one wild animal, and other parts other ani- mals. It died soon after. A MONKEY MARK. There is a child now living in Boston, whose coun- tenance bears such a strict resemblance to a monkey, as to be observed at once. The mother visited a men- agery while pregnant, and while there, a monkey jump- ed upon her. AN IDIOTIC MARK. James Copeland, foi«ty-four years old, is below par in intellect, and under guardianship, and quite inferior to both parents in intelligence. He is good-natured, quite mechanical, and very fond of whittling ; understands how to do most kinds of work, but is quite slow, and very particular to have every thing in proportion and order ; can count money but poorly, and does not put the cash value to any kind of property, though he dis- tinguishes between good and poor cattle, and looks 96 MARKS AND DEFORMITIES. behind him while eating, probably fifty times each meal. His parentage, on both sides, is good ; and his idiocy, and looking behind him when eating, were caused by his mother's fear lest she should be surprized by an idiot who lived near her, who often tried to frighten her. At table, she usually sat with her back toward the door, and often turned around, while eating, to see if he was not making his appearance. She apprehended the fate of her son, before he was born. MARK BY FRIGHT. I saw a man in West Randolph, Vt., who was some- what deficient in mind and body, occasioned, as is sup- posed, by his mother's being frightened and thrown from a wagon some months before his birth A BROKEN BACK. Mrs. Dyke, a feeble, nervous woman, who hart borne no children, though she had been married twelve years, while pregnant, on a gun being fired under her window, sprung up, exclaiming, " That broke my back !" Some months afterward a child was born, with its backbone actually broken—dead, of course. The father went to my informant, a lawyer, to get a writ to take up the one who fired the gun, whom he had cautioned not to fire it, lest it should produce abortion. MRS BUTLER AND HER STRONG, BUT FRANTIC IDIOT. Mrs. ButJer, of Williamstown, Vt., was the town bully for twenty-three years, and whipped every man in it who opposed or offended her. She was a strap- ping great woman, tremendous in point of strength, and was fired some five hundred dollars for assaults and A WEAKLY SON. 97 battery on men. All who knew her, feared her. Her only child is a fool, and very fierce and ferocious, and now confined in a cage mostly under ground, chained, and fed as if a pig. His strength is tremendous—so great that he will hold a crowbar out straight, with one hand, by grasping it at one end. A husband and wife, moved to Sharon, near Lake George, while it remained an unbroken forest. Having no neighbors, they got out of provisions the first year ; and before they could raise any, they could barely ob- tain sufficient sustenance to support life, and that by eating roots, boiling bark, etc. Their child, born under these circumstances, and now living, is the very picture of despair—poor, dyspeptic, hypochondriac, and feeble, both in mind and body. But they put in a large crop of wheat, which the influx of emigration enabled them to sell at great prices, so that they had abundance, and cleared some three thousand dollars the second year— every thing going prosperously. Their next child, born under these auspicious circumstances, is a fine, manly, strong, noble-looking, energetic, and highly talented man, and a real steam-engine for driving through what- ever he undertakes. His mother told him the cause oi his brother's debility, and charged him to let him want for nothing. A CLUB-FOOTED MARK. Mr<____? 0f W., Vt., is club-footed, produced by his mother's being thrown from a wagon before his birth. His second son was born some three months after he had injured his foot, which his wife dressed and rubbed daily The other children were not thus marked, though their mother feared they would be, and suffered every thing in consequence. Her other children she 9 98 MARKS AND DEFORMITIES. feared would be marked, but the one that was mal- formed, she did not fear would be. So it seems that the mere fears of mothers that their children will be marked, do not affect the matter, or rather, mothers seldom mark those they fear they shall. a cat mark. The following comes so fully authenticated, as to leave no doubt of its truth. Magnetism will explain it: see the theory and facts adduced in this section. A Mrs.----, living in H., Vt., loved a cat very much, and the cat reciprocated this attachment. That is, one had magnetized the other. She lived in a house with an old woman who disliked the cat, and would frequently cuff it off the table, and out of the way. Many a family quarrel was occasioned by one liking and the other hating this cat. At length she moved away, but the poor cat was not taken. Her husband went back for the balance of their things, and she charged him over and over again, and with great earnestness, to bring the favorite cat. The old woman told the husband that the cat was sick and pining, and refused to eat, and advised him to kill it. Finally, he took it out behind the barn, and beat out its brains. On going home, his wife, the first thing, accused him of having killed the cat. He denied it repeatedly and positively, and she as positively asserted that he had killed it, and thrown it out back of the barn ; for, said she, " I felt the blows, and saw the mangled cat thrown out behind the barn," and took on terribly after her fa- vorite cat, so as to be almost beside herself. Her child, which she carried at the time, when born, resembled a cat in the looks of its head, with its brains knocked out, or head beat in, and died in a short time. THE MASHED HEAD. 99 THE MASHED HEAD. The accompanying engraving was drawn from a plaster cast of a deformed child, born in Lowell—also reported by Dr. Curtis—the mother of which, some months before its birth, was terribly frightened by see- THE MASHED HEAD. Ir.g her only son brought in with the back and top part of his head crushed, as she supposed at first sight, by being run over by a loaded cart; yet it proved that only the scalp was torn off. Dr. Chapin delivered a woman in Abington, Mass., ol 100 MARKS and deformities. a malformation, resembling a hideous idol which she saw at his house. He has it preserved in spirits, along with other malformations, also caused by maternal frights. DUMBNESS. In 1847, I visited a family, in which was a boy and girl that could not speak plainly. The boy was the worst, and was underwitted. Their mother said, that while carrying him, the daughter, who had before talked plainly, was taken with the scarlet fever, that destroy- ed her speech, which aggrieved her exceedingly. This affection of her girl, by affecting the mother's mind, in- capacitated her boy from talking. HANKERING AFTER GIN. Mrs. K., of Cohocton, N. Y., while carrying a child, longed for gin, but could not obtain it. This child cried almost incessantly for six weeks, as if in perfect misery. Nothing afforded relief till gin was given it, which it clutched eagerly, and drank with perfect greediness, after which it stopped its crying, and from being a most miserable object, become healthy. Every close observer will meet like cases every where, and among all classes, though most frequently among the rich, probably because their mothers were ren- dered the more susceptible by being nervous. Some more recent medical authors have openly avowed this doctrine, and Dr. J. V. C. Smith, the able editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, a liberal and highly scientific medical work, avowed it in a conversa- tion with the author, and cited cases to prove it. But there is really no end tc facts of this class—incon- EXPLANATION. 101 testible, irresistible facts—establishing the great principle already laid down, that the state of the mother's mind affects the child's form of body, even far enough to pro- duce marks, malformations, and monstrosities. But it is neither necessary or desirable to multiply facts of this kind, especially since they are so numerous and palpable, that those already given will, doubtless, suggest analagous ones to every reader. And the more so, as the policy of this work is not to swell its pages with all the facts that might be collected on every point— facts that scores of volumes could not contain—but to state its doctrines clearly, and bring forward a few cases as illustrations mainly, and of sucm a character, that the reader will be able to recall many other similar ones as having occurred within his knowledge. Besides, the belief is general, and pervades all classes. What husband, who has the true feelings of a husband, but exerts his utmost energies to get for his wife what- ever she longs for ; and who does not know that things at other times injurious, if longed for, are harmless, and even beneficial! Not that I would, by any means, en- courage the whims of pregnant women, or facilitate their taking this advantage of their husbands, but I would have real longings, those that are too strong to be subdued by force of will, gratified. EXPLANATION . t' THESE MARKS. Magnetism furnishes a rationale or solution of this class of facts. It shows that particular mental natures assume corresponding material forms. Thus the tiger mentality always clothes itself in the tiger shape, and the nearer any other animal approaches to the tiger type 9* 102 MARKS AND !. KFORMIT1KS. of mentality, the nearer its ouf.ward form resemlles that of this animal. The monkey tribes approximate to- ward the human in mentality, and therefore in shape, and the ourang outang still more nearly in both. This law of correspondence between shape and character is uniform and perfect. Which, then, governs ? Do given mentalities take to themselves their respective physical forms, or do these forms control the characters ? Does matter govern mind, or mind matter ? To argue this point here would be out of place; but my own conclusion, based on ex- tensive observation, comparison, and reflection, is, that the mental character of every thing—vegetable, animal, and human—determines its shape. That is, specific mentalities take on each its respective bodily form. Consequently, if you could infuse the mentality of the elephant into an embryo swine, its shape would propor- tionally depart from that of the swine, and approximate toward that of the elephant. An illustrative fact. An elephant was walking through a street in which was a sow with pig, which he hit a slight rap with his trunk to remove her. One of her pigs can now be seen in the medical college in Albany, preserved in spirits, having its snout elongated and gristly, and formed like the trunk of an elephant, and its feet and other parts approximating toward the elephant shape. Other like specimens of brute malform- ation are to be seen in other places, and at least estab- lish the fact of such malformation. I reason on this matter thus : The elephant imparted a powerful charge of his magnetism to this sow. This elephant magnetism or mentality, she passed off to her embryo pig, whi:h caused it to assume the elephant EXPLANATION. 103 shape, just as tigei magnetism or mentality causes it to assume a tiger shape, or human mentality clothes itself in human form. Another fact reported to the author, by a woman of superior natural abilities, and an eye-witness of the fact, so that no doubt of its authenticity need be entertained: A woman, about four months advanced, was on a visit to her native town, on the northern shore of Lake Erie, and stopped at her father's. A fishing excursion, in a row-boat, and in the night, was proposed, and which she was persuaded to join. The fish were to be caught with a spear, while asleep in the water, and were dis- covered by means of a torch. The kind of fish caught, have a gristly snout that turns upward and backward, thus forming a kind of hook, and often weighs twenty pounds. She took a seat in the middle of the boat. A large fish, probably frightened, leaped from the water clear over the boat, and right before her face, uttering, as it passed, a kind of snort or wheeze peculiar to the fish when it jumps out of the water or is captured. This frightened her terribly; so as actually to sicken her for several days. Her progeny, when born, proved to be a monster, half fish and half human, without a mouth, but having a nasal appendage like that of the fish alluded to above. Its lower extremity resembled that of a fish, and every few minutes it would spring and throw itself up a foot or more from its pillow, and at the same time utter the same noise made by the kind offish alluded to. Having no mouth, of course it could not be fed, and lived only about twenty-four hours. Being a monster, it was refused a Christian burial, and was interred in the corner of a field. Now, as animals can n agnetize men, and men ani- 104 MARKS AND DEFORMITIES. mals, dia not this fish magnetize the woman, and there- by impart to her of its fish magnetism, which she, of course, imparted to her embryo, thus causing it to as- sume a part of the magnetism, that is, of the nature of tne fish, aid consequently of its form of body ? And this theory is strengthened by the fact, that the magnetizer imparts of his magnetism to the magnetized, and the latter is impregnated with that nature. Thus, being magnetized by one who has a headache, tooth- ache, or rheumatic affection, will cause the magnetizer to lose his headache, toothache, etc., and the magnet- ized to receive them. Hence, being magnetized by a well person, generally invigorates the magnetized, but frequently exhausts the operator.* Being magnetized by an intellectual person brightens up the ideas and quickens the flow of thought; but being magnetized by a slow, or an easy, or a good, or a bad person, makes the magnetized slow, or easy, or good, or bad. That is, the one magnetized, receives of the mental and phy- sical nature of the magnetizer. This theory is introduced, not because it is fully adopt- ed, but because it explains these and kindred admitted facts better than any other, and shows that the embryo might be so related to the mother as to receive marks and deformities from her mental and physical conditions, But, be it true or false, the point at issue, namely, that marks and deformities are of frequent occurrence, and caused by the mother's state of mind, cannot well be doubted. Nor do physicians who dispute this doctrine, pretend to deny its facts. They are compelled to admit them, and yet they evade them by saying that they are anatomically impossible. * See " Fascination or the Philosophy of Charming." EXPLANATION. 10„ "But," say the doctors, "this point being admitted, still, its promulgation will render all our women miser- able merely with fright, fearing lest any unusual thing they see should mark their children. Better keep them in ignorance of this principle, and deny it stoutly, so as to quiet their fears." Rather teh women the facts of the case, and let knowledge put them on their guard. Properly to fortify mothers on this point, is to spread light, so that they may know what to do, and what to expect. Besides, to make women believe that these things do not mark their children, is utterly impossible; for the whole community, high and low, intelligent and ignorant, are compelled either to believe in the doctrine, or else deny the evidence of their own senses—to dis- believe what they see and feel. Hence, since this fear cannot be prevented, let it be properly directed. Let them know what conditions will prevent their feelings from marking their children, and how to avoid feelings likely to do injury. But, by another method still, should I advise mothers to avoid these evil consequences—namely, by strength- ening their nervous systems by air, exercise, and pre- serving and invigorating their health. It is not the strong, healthy, and robust that mark their children, but the weak- ly, the nervous, and those easily impressed, that is, easily magnetized. But, if our women would follow the advice given in preceding sections, so as to keep up a full tide of health and vigor, they would seldom mark their children, because they themselves would seldom be impressed with these foreign influences, but would gen- erally resist them. 106 THE MOTHER'S MENTALITY CONTROLS THE CHILD'S SECTION III. nfluence of the various states of maternal men- tality, or the primitive character of offspring. 431. the child's mentality derived directly from its mother's. But, however much may depend on the physical nutrition of the embryo, more depends upon its being well supplied with food, for the development of its mind. All that the child gets, it obtains from its mo- ther418. And as all its material for the formation of bone, flesh, and organ, must be furnished directly by her, so all the materials for the formation of nerve and brain must come from this same maternal source. In fact, she must supply its entire mentality, as well as its entire anatomy. Then, however important that she furnish it with vitality407, is it less so that she supply the materials for intellect and soul ? And as she cannot supply the for- mer unless she possesses them herself, can she the lat- ter? Can she whose intellect is dull, and whose feelings are obtuse, bear smart, strong-minded children ? Be it even that the father is highly mental, and stamps his cerebral image upon them, that mentality must be fed from day to day with its appropriate food, or it will become nearly starved before it is born. Hence it requires a superior mentality in both parents to pro- duce highly-endowed offsr.•* ig. its philosophy. 107 But to canvass this whole subject, of the various states of the mother's mentality on that of offspring, in the light of facts—yet, to attempt to prove this point, seems to be superfluous; for who that has observed or thought upon this subject but admits it—but mainly to impress it deeply upon mothers—to brand into their- inmost souls an ever-present consciousness, that their states of mind and feeling, while carrying their children, will be faithfully daguerreotyped, in all their shades and phases, upon those children, and remain there for- ever, growing clearer and deeper as their existence progresses. The real philosophy of this whole matter, is this— the blood is the grand porter of the entire system. All the materials for forming the embryo, bones, muscles, organs, nerves, and brain, are derived directly from the mother's blood. And since the foetal blood is secreted directly from the heart's blood of the mother, of course all the ever-varying states of her blood enter into the formation and organic constitution of the child's body and brain. So, too, all the mother's mental states affect her own system throughout. The brain is the organ of the body quite as much as of the mind. It generates all those influences and powers which keep the entire sys- tem in motion. It holds perfect control over the entire body. All its states ramify throughout the whole sys- tem. A disordered state of the mind does far more to disease the body, than that of the body the mind, and remedial agents applied to the mind are far more potent than those administered to the body merely. The ab- solute tyranny with which all the states of the mind lord it over heart, lungs, stomach, muscles, nerves—in short, the whole body—to break down and build up— 108 THE MOTHER'S MIND CONTROLS THE CHILD'S. to expel disease and to invite it—to promote and retard digestion, circulation, etc.—to drive off fatigue or induce it—to even protract life and to cut it short—is beyond computation. This great practical truth—how little is it realized ! Now this law applies with the same power to the body of the embryo, as it does to that of its mother, and to its brain and nerves as to hers. Does it not seem reasonable—is it not accordant with all we know, as appertaining to this subject—that in exactly that proportion in which the mentality as a whole, and each of the faculties in particular, abound in the mother, will they be woven into the texture and tone of the child's constitution ? As plants obtain from the soil just those qualities which abound in the latter, so, if the mother, while carrying one child, has her Combativeness unusually excited, that child will take on most of the combative spirit, because it abounded most in the mother at this particular period—no matter whether it be naturally large or small in her ; but if, while carrying another, Benevolence should be power- fully wrought up, it will take on a proportionate quan- tity of goodness and humanity : and thus of the mother's intellect, or wit, or fears, or devotion, or acquisitive, 01 vain, or amiable, or any other temporary characteris- tics. In short, while the parentage—that is, the stamp- ing of the original impress of life—may be called the warp of the child's physical and mental constitution, the mother's states of mind and body, during carriage, are the woof or filling of that warp, and variegates its color, texture, tone, durability, and primitive constitu- tion, in accordance with itself. This is the inquiry to which we now address ourselves. HAGER AND 1SHMAEL. 109 HAGAR AtfD ISHMAEL. The state of Hagar's mind while carrying Ishmael, and his hating every body, and being so hateful, as well as the ugliness and ferocity of the Ishmaelites, through- out the whole history of that fighting nation, is in point, and by it the Bible undoubtedly designed practically and powerfully to enforce this law. " And when Sarai dealt hardly with Hagar, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, and said unto her, Thou shalt bear a son, and he will be a wild man ; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him."—Gen. xvi. Mark—Hagar became insolent, because likely to be- come a mother, and Sarai became jealous : so that a most desperate and perpetual quarrel sprang up be- tween them, till finally Sarai became outrageous, and drove Hagar out into the wilderness to starve, and this wiLD-erness babe was " wild," and both hated and was hated of every body—the very states of the mother's mind giving direction and character to the child. What historical fact can be stronger, or more in point ? Why should so succinct a history as the Bible was there giving, stop to detail minutely this case, un- less it designed thereby to teach this identical moral truth, this great practical law of the maternal rela- tions we are endeavoring to enforce ? Does the Bible waste its pages on mere narratives, devoid of moral bearing? And. is it not surprising that its pretended expounders never preach from this text, or enforce this truth ? Do they proclaim the whole counsel cf God ? Could they disseminate more momentous truths ! 10 110 THE MOTHER'S MIND CONTROL'S THE CHILD'fl. SAMUEL AND HIS MOTHER. Take .he mother of Samuel as an opposite example. Her mind was in a peculiarly devout frame all the time she was carrying him, and had his exalted piety nothing to do with her devout state of mind ? Was it not this very maternal devotion which sanctified him " from his mother's womb ?" Did the Bible mean nothing when i' put this and that so nearly together ? Did it not intena to relate them by cause and effect ? Where have been the wits of Bible commentators, great and small—book commentators and pulpit commentators, and the end- less army, in all ages, of Bible defenders and expound- ers—that they have not seen and reiterated this mighty truth, worth more than ship-loads of their old sermons and new ones, their big commentaries and little ones, and all their sectarian dogmatism to boot, and a thou- sand-fold better calculated to regenerate and save mam kind, and make them better by nature, so that they would have less "original sin" in them to be beat out of them by preaching, and be more ready recipients of al. religious impressions ? MARY AND CHRIST. And as if this was not enough, it caps the climax by a minute account of Mary's happy frame of body and holy state of mind, all along before the birth of Christ. She was " in the hill country," quaffing copiously the in- vigorating breezes of Judea's balmy clime—telling her friends how happy her vision had made her—and full of heavenly joy and spiritual exaltation. " My soul doth magnify the Lord, and rejoice in God my Saviour !" is CHRIST—30NAPARTE. Ill tier rapturous exultation. Read Luke's account of this matter, and especially her song. Would a cross, or diseased mother, have been as well fitted to give birth to this embodiment of divine goodness and love ? Does holiness of soul and sweetness of temper, in the mother during carriage, have no influence in moulding her pro- spective infant into a state of loveliness and goodness, and her warring passions leave no Satanic marks upon its then forming mirror ? Out upon that clerical stu- pidity which has failed to perceive this Bible truth, or else upon that mealy-mouthed squeamishness which has thus far shrunk from proclaiming it. Episcopalians pray for " all women in the perils of childbirth ;" then why not preach to them on the responsibilities of child- bearing ? I hate this pretending to teach man's whole moral duty, yet leaving out such cardinal and moment- ous obligations ; for what one of them ever opens his dumb-dog mouth on this point ? But leaving them to glory in their shame, let us look to profane history. bonaparte's fcetal history. Who was the greatest general of modern times ? Who chose martial life from innate love of it, and at twenty-three planned so wisely, and fought so bravely, as to be lifted over the heads of tried veterans, to sway the mighty armies of war-loving France ? And what was the state of his mother's mind all the while she was carrying him ? On horseback, exercising queenly power over her spirited charger and the sub- ordinates of her husband, and commingling with the army. Had her state of mind nothing to do with his '' ruling passion, strong in death ?" 112 the mother's mind controls the child's. JAMES I. Mary. Queen of Scots, while carrying that timid fool of a monarch, saw the wild ragings of infuriated De- structiveness draw the naked steel, and plunge it through its falling victim. Oh, horrid sight ! One of her own friends, weltering in his gurgling blood, gasps and dies in her palace, in her sight, while preg- nant ! And her son—a paragon of conflicting emotions —trembling and fainting at even the sight of an un- drawn sword, timid as a hare, a prey to mere whims, yet tyrannical and vindictive. Did her fright have no hand in causing his timidity ? a timid friend of the author. In 1806, Mr. Purrington, near Augusta, Me., committed the most shocking murder on his wife and nine children, by beating out, with an axe, the brains of all but one boy, into whose back he struck the axe while escaping, and completing the tragedy by cutting his own throat with the razor H- 343. This, of course, terribly alarmed all the women in the neighborhood, for fear their hus- bands might commit a similar outrage upon them : and the mother of a friend ^>f mine, suffered every thing from fear lest she should be murdered, and this friend, born six months after, has suffered more, she says, than tongue can describe, from fear of being murdered ; and now, though nearly forty, and compelled by her busi- ness—a seamstress—to go from house to house, she can hardly endure to sleep alone, lays and thinks by the hour together how she shall escape if attacked, and is started by the least noise, so as to be obliged to get up MISCELLANEOUS CASEri. 113 and go down stairs, and kindle the fire. She says she has a friend, born in the same place, and a month or two younger, who is afflicted by the same foolish fear, and whose mother suffered similarly from the same cause. The brother of a friend of mine was very much afraid of being killed, and when crazy, he often ex- claimed, " Oh, don't kill me ! don't!" with as much anxiety as if he were about to be murdered. His father was a notorious drunkard, and when drunk, would beat and abuse his wife, and try to kill her. Once he drew a large knife on her, and when she fled, he followed her up into the garret, where she hid herself among the rubbish, so as barely to escape with her life. While thus standing in continual fear of being killed, this son was born ; and this same fear of being killed always haunted and tormented him, till he finally took his own life. In Charlestown, Mass.. I saw an idiotic girl, ren- dered such by her mother's having a severe and long- continued fever, by which she was confined some three months to her bed, which terminated only by the birth of her child. In the same time, she buried two children in one grave, and had other troubles, which she said rendered her completely miserable. While lecturing in Nantuclfet, in 1844, an anxious mother brought a whimpering daughter to me for pro- fessional examination and advice. The first error I pointed out, though it was but slight, she burst into a flood of tears, and cried and kept crying, though six- teen years old, so that I was compelled to suspend the examination. I found almost no Combativeness, DestrUc- tiveness, Self-Esteem, or Firmness, and perfect pusillani- 10* 114 THE MOTHER* d MIND CONTROLS THE CHILD'S. mity and inefficiency, along with the most exquisite sus- ceptibilities, and extreme Veneration and Spirituality. Yet the mother had great Firmness, and full Combative- ness and Destructiveness. The child was totally unlike her mother, yet I knew she could not take her tame- ness from her father H M1; so that I saw it must have come from her state during carriage, and requested her sometime to enlighten me on this point, and bring her daughter, as I supposed facts calculated to do her good would be elicited. Her sad story was to the effect that, well off and genteelly educated, she married, against the will of parents and remonstrances of all, one whom she supposed to be a good man; that she was married at his father's, and that, after packing and locking her trunk, and putting her key in her pocket, she dressed for the wedding, leaving the dress which contained the key behind; that after the wedding, on finding her trunk locked and key gone, she was for telling her husband, but his brother and sister seemed very desirous that she should not, and broke open the trunk for her, which astonished her; that the next morning he ordered her up, and because she did not mind instantly, broke out upon her in a fit of rage and abuse; that then the dread- ful reality burst suddenly and fully upon her mind, and she gave up in despair; that, being at his father's, who was wealthy, and havinf nothing to direct her mind, she gave completely up to soul-crushing despair, refused to see any of her old friends, because so ashamed of her blind obstinacy, and did nothing but read the Bible and cry most of the time from morning to night, day after day, for one whole year, till this child was born; that, when a babe, the least unpleasant word or look would make hei cry piteously for hours together; that, when MRS. D.'s CHILDREN. 115 older, if spoken sharply to in the morning, she would go away by herself and sob and cry, heart-broken, all day long, and was always pensive, yet learned to read in the Bible at five years of age, and was so taken up at this infantile age with this book that she cared for no other. She could not sleep without the Bible under her pillow, or the Testament clasped to her breast. Behold the perfect contrast between her natural disposition and that of both parents, which shows that it could not be parentage ; but its perfect accordance with the state of her mother's mind during pregnancy, shows that it was Wholly MATERNAL. Since then I have observed scores of cases in which mothers, naturally forcible, but whose spirits were crushed at this period, bore children with weak Com- bativeness, Destructiveness, and Firmness. These facul- ties were crushed in the mother, by the tyranny of the husband, or some other cause, so that, being dormant, they were but feebly represented in the child. They were weak in the mother's mind at this period, though strong by nature, and this left them as weak in the children as though they were naturally small in the mothers. Yet if these faculties had been excited in these mothers during their pregnancy, the-v would have abounded in the children. MRS. D. AND HER CHILDREN. Mrs. D. remarked, for the thousandth time, man) years ago, that she could trace minutely, in the great diversities of character and disposition of her numerous children, just those very states of mind she was in while bearing them. She was happy while bearing her first 116 MATERNAL STA'l ES ul' MIND. child, and it is peculiarly beautiful and amiable. But her husband began to drink, and this overclouded her sky, and awakened her displeasure, and her next child corresponds to this slate of her mind. Then came pov- erty, and that severe buffeting of the waves of adver- sity, which called out all her force-imparting and unami- able traits : and this is the character of those born during this sad period—and thus of her other changes— so that she reads in their characters the history of her life and feelings while carrying each one. A HALF-STARVED, PESPAIRING MOTHER. A husband and wife moved to Sharon, near Lake George, while it remained an unbroken forest. Having no neighbors, they got out of provisions the first year ; and before they could raise any, they could barely obtain sufficient sustenance to support life, and that by eating roots, boiling bark, etc. Their child, born under these circumstances, and now living, is the very picture of despair—poor, dyspeptic, hypoy, and feeble both in mind and body. But they put in a large crop of wheat, which the influx of emigration enabled them to sell at great prices, so that they had abundance, and cleared some $3000 the second year—every thing going pros- perously. Their next child, born under these auspicious circumstances, is a fine, manly, strong, noble-looking, energetic, and highly-talented man, and a real steam- engine for driving through whatever he undertakes. His mother told him the cause of his brother's debility and charged him to let him want for nothing. I as moulding that of cffspring. 117 the son who could never face his father. About 1798, Hezekiah B., of H., Vt., a very pas- sionate, blustering man, and very angry, when angry, but soon over, becoming deeply exasperated by some- thing his wife had done, came into the house at a door opposite to where his wife was kneading bread—her back being toward the door—and emptied a most abu- sive vial of wrath and sputter upon his wife, who, turn- ing round to reply, was so overcome by her feelings, that she choked for utterance; and for one hour she kept kneading that bread, so stifled by the overflow of her feelings that she could not speak ; her back, mean- while, being turned toward the door and from her hus- band. Three months afterward her son Solomon was born ; and though he has always lived in the house, and worked on the farm with his father, and has a wife and child there, yet, till he was thirty-five years old, he never spoke the first word to him. Finally, one day, being at work in the field with him, and wanting very much to ask him a question, he involuntarily came up with his face toward his father, and turning short around, so as to present his back to him, and then walking from his father, he made out to speak to him for the first time in his life. And now, whenever he addresses him, he turns his back to him, for in this way only can he ad- dress him, though he has tried his utmost all his life to do so while facing him, but all in vain. When a boy, he sat peaceably on his father's knee only once. These miscellaneous cases will serve to establish the great law of the transfer of the mother's mentality at this period to her offspring. Both to warn mothers, as 118 MATERNAL STA1ES OF MIND well as to enforce this law, let us examine a few groups of facts. A FOOLISH BUT FIENDISH SON. Manchestkr, N. H., June 14, 1848. 0. S. Fowler—A young lady who was an associate of my oldest sister, married an enterprising mechanic about the time I was twelve years of age. Not long after her marriage, her husband got into a collision writh one of his apprentices and they finally fell into a regular battle. So desperate and formidable was the fight of the apprentice, that the young wife became alarmed for the safety of her husband, and with a terrible spirit of revenge and fury rushed to her husband's rescue; and she said afterward that she hardly knew what prevent- ed her from killing him outright. Within six months from that time she gave- birth to a male child, whose only cry and roar was that of frantic rage. I recollect to have heard of this misfortune at the time. Some thirty years afterward I lectured in a destitute part of the Empire State, and after the meeting, in compliance with an urgent request, I spent the night with this fam- ily, who recognized me as an old acquaintance. The evening, until a late hour, was spent in tracing the his- tories of the two families, and at the time memory did not recall her misfortune in her first child. In the morning, in descending the staircase, I was arrested by the sudden outcry and frightful snarling, or maddened yell of that son. I stood for a moment almost petrified with horror, but the memory of the past brought relief, and had I not recollected the above facts, I should.not, I could not, have imagined what it was that made such a frightful outcry. The idiot had lived to be a man in size, but gave no other demonstrations of intellect AS AFFECTING THAT CF THE CHILD. 119 than this frightful maddened cry. On coming down the mother, with a downward look, stated the condition of her child ; and I well recollected the cause to which at the time it was attributed. Yours truly, G. W. Finney. A PROVOKED MOTHER AND PROVOKING CHILD. Mrs. D. rented a part of a house from a woman who had a saucy, selfish, haughty girl. Assuming a most imperative, authoritative air, because her mother was landlady and Mrs. D. her tenant, this girl often ob- truded into Mrs. D.'s apartment, was insolent, over- bearing, and teased and tantalized poor Mrs. D.'s life almost out of her, and this many times a^day. Mrs. D. was then carrying a child, which, when an Infant, was as cross and spiteful as a little witch, and cried unmer- cifully : and now grown up, she has a proud, bold, imperious air, as though queen of all around her, is ungovernable and violent tempered, torments the very life out of all those around her, and is the exact coun- terpart of the girl which tantalized her mother. Mrs. D., a fond mother, has been so tried by her as, though kind to her, to hate her most thoroughly. Mrs'. D. has active Combativeness and Destructiveness, yet a great deal of real goodness, and stamped the former on this daughter more than on her son—a sweet, noble hoy—because these feelings were thus perpetually awa- kened while carrying her, and thus sent in that relative proportion to the child in which they abounded in the mother at this time. MRS. M'C. AND HER BONAPARTE-ADMIRING SON. Mrs. M'C. bore a promising son during Bonaparte's 120 MATERNAL STATES OF MINI). triumphal career. His life and character intensely interested her at this period—so much so that she got. and read all the books she could find out of all the libraries—public, private, and circulating—and cher- ished a sort of hobby or passion for his character and exploits. This son is now a brilliant lawyer in Boston, a splen- did speaker, excessively fond of the martial, and a most enthusiastic admirer of Bonaparte. He has read all he can hear of respecting him, has filled every nook and corner of the house, suitable for a picture, with his likenesses, battles, etc., and turns all his conversation into something relating to the hero of his soul. I have this narrative from the mother's and sister's lips. Does it seem necessary or desirable to follow out this branch of our subject further into detail ? Have we not both abundantly proved and enforced the maternal law, that when the mother's combative and cross-grained feelings are habitually provoked while carrying a child, it will infect the then-existing state of her temper ? But, before summing up, let us look at the converse. SWEETNESS OF TEMPER IN THE MOTHER. A very superior woman, yielding to her mother's earnest entreaties, married a most inferior and every way depraved man, toward whom her repugnance was extreme. She submitted gently to her fate, with lamb- like resignation, and her first child, inheriting all its mo- ther's power of constitution, along with all her meek resignation, was a perfect specimen of angelic loveli- ness.. So complete a paragon of sweetness and amia- bleness, as well as beauty, has rarely been born. She died in childhood, of excessive doctoring. Her mother AS FORMING THOSE OF OFFSPRING. 121 has large Combativeness, and fu.l Destructiveness, yet lulled them to sleep, with the conscientious idea that she was a lawful wife, and must bear from a husband whatever stripes he chose to inflict: so that this lamb- like goodness was not hereditary—the father being a domineering, violent-tempered man—but was caused by the mother's subjugation. Her mother, seeing her mis- take, urged her to seek a divorce, and slightly rallied her resistance, and her next child has a little less ami- ableness, yet is an uncommonly sweet-dispositioned young woman. She obtained a divorce, and married again. Meanwhile, her health had suffered from poison- ous medicines, her nerves became preternaturally ex- cited, and accordingly her next child is quite spirited, cross-grained, and totally unlike any of her sisters. Becoming aware of the great maternal law under discussion, the husband took every means in his power, while she was carrying her next child, to render his wife happy in feeling—arranged a visit from his father and mother, then at the West, which was peculiarly agreeable to her—placed a horse and carriage at their disposal, in which they took many pleasant rides—dis- missed domestics who were not agreeable to her, and relieved her from previously oppressing cares—took many walks, and had many sweet talks with her—sus- tained, soothed, and humored her, and did all he could to render her situation as agreeable, and mind as happy, as possible ; and she has often said that she was in an unusually pleasant frame of mind during this period. This state she has transmitted to the next child, who is peculiarly sweet tempered, affectionate, pleasant, and every way lovely, and a perfect contrast to her sister next older, born before these oarents understood this law 11 122 RESPONS1B L1TJES OF MOTHERS. But in case any one part of our subject is true, all is. If either excessive fear, or anger, or sweetness, or gloom, or any one characteristic of the mother's state Df mind at this period, is stamped upon the constitution, all is. The whole or nothing409. And that a part is, every mother is the witness. Thousands of times, while examining the heads of children, have I predi- cated correctly the states of the mother's mind and body, previous to their birth—founding my prediction solely on the developments of these children. The va- rying dispositions of large families furnish a correct history of the mother's states of mind and body while bearing them, written not on tables of stone, but en- graven, as with the point of a diamond, on the tablets of their inner being—not only stamping all their feel- ings and conduct through life, but perpetuating itself in generations yet unborn. What family but furnishes a . living illustration of this law ? Momentous indeed, then, is the responsibility of moth- ers as mothers. If their educational responsibilities incalculably affect human happiness and destiny, hov; much more these maternal relations ? How many tremble when they put their hands to important papers, notes, mortgages, etc., and well they may, yet what pitiable trifles all these things, compared with stamping these sons and daughters of immortality with the die of character and consequent destiny—goodness or loveli- ness, ugliness or amiableness, etc.—forever ! Prospective mothers, by the love you bear the chil- dren of your bodies and souls, be entreated to cultivate in yourselves, at these eventful periods, those disposi- tions and states of mind which you would delight to witness in them. More than language can express, ADVICE TO MOTHERS. 123 every day and almost hour of your lives, lovely dispo- sitions in them contribute to your happiness ; and sour- ness—a cross, grieved, teasing disposition in them—■ torment you your life; long and thus of your grand- children. All this, and inexpressibly more, as regards yourself, to say nothing of them, depends upon your putting yourself into an agreeable frame of mind at this period. And, bear in mind, that this your frame, so far from being trifling or transient, is to be woven into THEIR INMOST BEING--tO form a CONSTITUENT PART AND PARCEL OF THEIR VERY NATURES ! What, then, if OUt- ward things do provoke, is not this mighty motive suffi- cient to bear you far above these trifling irritants ? I have closely watched mothers at this period, and found them instinctively to guard their precious charge from blows, etc., by instantly and unconsciously folding their protecting arms upon it, and parrying danger from this part, let it strike wherever else it might. I have like- wise observed, that when not too jaded out by fatigue and fretted by outward privations, they naturally cher- ish a calm and happy frame of mind, and that placidity and quiet just shown to be so promotive of angelic sweetness and purity in children. Nature favors this state of mind thus. She has made children the most desirable treasure mothers can possi- bly possess. The real, sincere feeling of the true mother is this: "Oh, I had rather give birth to one dear child, than accomplish all other possible ends, and enjoy all other conceivable good !" We have already shown that to bear, children is the great destiny of woman as such 118. In beautiful accordance with this law, nature has made her pleasure in the prospect of becoming a mother commensurate with this he * paramount destiny—that is, 124 RESPONSIBILITIES OF MOTHERS. incomparably surpassing all other. Ti ae, other feelings are often allowed, by women who are not true to their natures, to stifle this feeling. Some women—actual monstrosities in nature—in violation of this cardinal law of female being, hate to bear children, and even destroy the germ before it sees the light—of which in its place —but does the first cry of her fresh-born babe thrill every nerve of her body, every fibre of her soul, and should not the prospect of becoming a mother naturally tend to fill her with a calm and happy flow of feeling? How she delights to talk about her prospects—espe- cially to a sympathizing husband !—recount all her signs, and indulge a happy revery of contemplation concerning it. Say, mothers, have I not here drawn the veil from the inner consciousness of your being, and disclosed the maternal altar decked in its sacrificial robes ? And it is fitting that this should be thus ? Na ture would not be true to herself if she did not implant this strong maternal yearning in every female. It would be like rendering food absolutely requisite to life, yet giving us no relish for it. But this maternal yearning is to child-bearing what hunger is to our need of food— attracting and compelling us to eat with resistless force. It is this maternal yearning which induces in mothers this happy frame of mind so promotive of goodness in offspring. Be ye persuaded, then, O mothers, at this forming period of your child's mentality, to yield to that eleva- ted current of feelings which your situation induces. How happy will it render you for the time being—how happy will it render your prospective heir of immor- tality, and you in it throughout the remainder of your being ! Why let little things trouble you ? Why not CHILD BEARING PARAMOUNT. 125 rise in the dignity and power of your situation, into a mental atmosphere so exalted, so spiritually minded, that what provokes you at other times shall only confirm your serenity ? " But I have my family to see too. I am worn down with labor by day, and watching by night, and have squalling children always under my feet, so that, how- ever desirable this calm and holy frame, I cannot com- pose myself till I can attain it," say bearing mothers. Better that your family live on bread and water at these periods, and you have lovely children, than that you do all the work you now do—most of which, strictly speaking, is intrinsically useless—and have ill-natured ones. What are clean rooms and furniture, high sea- soned dishes and many of them, and all the property youdo or ever will possess, in comparison with a sweet or crabbed child? Mothers, remember this. While " after the manner of women," you are solemnly bound to attend to this, and give all else at all incompatible with it, the go by. "One thing at a time." Let these household trifles sink into merited neglect, while you attend to your great mission. Why leave dollars to gather pennies ? Do what else you can without con- flicting with this, but give your whole soul and body to this as far as it requires either, nor let any thing else interfere. Your cooking, and scrubbing, and dressing, and dish-washing, and sewing duties—what are they when they conflict with your maternal? As the latter is the paramount function of your being—that expressly for which you were created—of course your sacred duty is to let them all go while you are employed at this. Suppose an employer hires a servant, mainly and ex- pressly to do a given kind of work—yet, as there are 11* 126 DUTl OF HUSBANDS. times when he cannot be doing this work, but can do incidentals, his employer explicitly requires, that as far and as long as the paramount work requires, he shall give up wholly to it all his time, all his energies, and at- tend to these incidentals only when he cannot fulfill his paramount and specific service—suppose, when this paramount work was required to be done, this servant should plead, " I have this, that, and so many other things to attend to, that I really cannot take time and energy to attend to it." Now your child-bearing mission has already been shown to be the mission of your being—the destiny of your creation. Will you then, when fulfilling it, pile care after care, and labor after labor, upon yourself ? Do this in the very best manner possible, and the others only as mere incidentals of life. Besides, if you had borne your first children just right, they would probably have been so sweet and )bedientj as, well as so healthy, as to have enhanced that holy state of mind required by yt ur existing situa- tion, and bearing this one right will relieve you here- after. Do this one duty, and " all other things shall be added unto you ;" but she " that committeth this one sin, is guilty of all." DUTY OF HUSBANDS TO THEIR WIVES AT THIS PERIOD. But has the husband no part nor lot in this matter ? Though nature 'nterdicts his exerting a direct influence on the forming character of his child, after he has stamped it with the first great impress of being and character, yet does she not allow him to mould it through the mother ? Nay, does she not REQUIRE his co-operation ? Wfal'. unde- the whole heaven is as REQUISITION FOR TENDERNESS. 127 agreeable to her, at this period, as his caresses and con- solations ? What can exert as calm and heavenly an influence over her mind ? To be beloved by the father of her dear babe, is the true wife's all and in all. No other thing at all compares with this, in its soothing, happifying, soul-ravishing influence on her mind. And if these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? If a husband's fondness is her soul's idol in general, how much more so now ! If to be told, at other times, in sweet accents, how much he loves her for other charms, is so enchanting, with what overflowings of joy does she hear, " I love you always, but oh, I love you now as the prospective mother of our dear little babe ! My whole soul is melted with parental tenderness for it, and in conjugal love for you, as carrying it in your sacred embrace, nourishing it with your own heart's blood, and infusing into it your own lovely spirit. In the holiest and sweetest relations of our being, we united to give it existence, and you are now maturing this precious germ of humanity and im- mortality. You were lovely always. You are tenfold more enchanting now." And is it not natural for husbands, who love their wives at all, to love them most at this most interesting period ? Have we not proved that the entire loveliness of woman, as such, consists in her maternal charms418? He does love, should love, the blushing maiden much ; but should he not love the bearing matron more ? He should dote upon that confiding bride, who forsakes fa- ther and mother and cleaves to him, and bestows upon him every feeling of her soul, every power of her na- ture ; but should he not love this same being far more, Pnd with a far higher order of love, when she is fulfill- 128 DUTY OF HUSBANDS. ing these most endearing relations / Indeed have we not already proved, that as the charms of woman con- sist in her maternal elements, so man, in virtue of his nature as man, loves woman most when fulfilling the maternal relations ? " Husbands, love your wives" always, but lavish upon them one perpetual flow of tenderness and devotions, while they are thus perpetu- ating your name and race upon the earth. Oh, who can duly prize a lovely child ! What, in comparison, is the gold of Ophir, the honors of nations, the crowns of the whole world—wmat all other earthly goods ? What husband, then, can duly love her who bears them, and while thus bearing ? She who bears her husband one fine child, is therefore entitled, in de- spite of all her faults, to all the gratitude and love of his being, as well as to the thank-offerings of his race. Nor will any true husband—any real man—ever cease to love her, who having participated with him in the holiest rites of their being, crowns him with all a fa- ther's glory and happiness. Who but a flint-hearted gelding, emasculated of every manly virtue and feeling, can ever cease to love her who has borne him even but one child, and love her more and more by every new object of parental love ? Certainly, who not riddled of every masculine feeling, but will be doubly enamored of her maternal charms, and chant anthems of perpetual love to her, while carrying within her the sacred casket of all his joys and treasures ? Husbands, at the bar of this great law, and duty, and pleasure of the masculine, how stand you with your wives at this tender period ? If they imploringly lean on you for support, do you always uphold and console them ? When their situation, in conjunction with pre« FORBEARANCE ENJOINED. 129 *~ious disorders and exhausting family burdens, ren- ders them peevish and whimsical, do you forbear with and pity them, or do you not rather lay up against them, as heinous sins, actions and sayings consequent wholly on their existing situations ? Oh, how many of you cruelly wrong your pitiable, in- stead of blameworthy wives, by taking offence where reason and humanity, as well as- conjugal tenderness, require you to overlook with love ! They can no more help these feelings or actions than the wildest lunatic, and are no more responsible, but deserve all love—still more pity. Though they may scold like seven furies, and be as ugly as Satan, return only the kiss of love, remembering that it is not they who do it, but the child you gave them. It so affects the organs of their sex, and these organs their nervous systems—the recipro- city between which is perfect, in order that the men- tality of the mother may be conferred on the child—as to cause these outbreaks of petulance or passion by pure- ly mechanical means. Where is your love? Where your magnanimity ? Where your manhood, even ? De- funct all, unless you love her all the better for her tem- per—considering its cause—and do your utmost to as- suage it. Nor *s there any telling how much the husband can do, at these eventful periods, to soothe down her irritability, calm her excited nerves, dispel gloom and all unfavorable emotions, raise her flagging spirits, and put her mind exactly into the state required. Then, of all other times, should he clasp her fondly in the arms of his love, cheer up her spirits, strengthen her, lavish upon her every attention, do every thing for her comfort, and inclose her in the lambent flame of conjugal love. 130 DUTY O? HUSBANDS. Call this soft, weak, extravagant, or what you like ; it is the softness of nature, the weakness of stiength, the extravagance of utility—of your, her, and your off- spring's highest good. See to it that ye fulfill this ordinance of high heaven. This imperious duty you, you alone, can fill. By the value you set upon sweet- dispositioned children, be entreated to do what no other being can do, to sweeten and soothe your wife's feelings at this period, pregnant with so much happiness to all concerned.' Nor does your duty end here. You are most guilty if you let your wives overwork at these times. Yet how many of you actually add to their burden, already crushing both health and spirits, by requiring things in the matter of cooking, sewing, and domestic work, which you could dispense with about as well as not. You require too much done about house—things of more imaginary than real use. Be entreated to dis- pense with all artificial wants, and see that they take that rest, by day and night, already shown to be so absolutely requisite. Or, if you must have just so much work done, hire help. Your wife will repay it a hundred-fold in the long run, by preserved health, and bear you a far higher order of a child besides. Upon the importance of recreation, at this period, I have already spoken. To see that she has it, is one of your first duties. And you must recreate with her— walk, ride, laugh, play, stroll, lounge, visit, and make merry. Oh, how sadly, wickedly, husbands fail in these essential respects ! How far higher an order of chil- dren they might have, by employing these and such other means as intellect and love will suggest to each, nccording to their means and circumstances ! BAD CHILDREN PIT1 4BLE. 131 BAD-TEMPERED CHILDREN TO BE PITIED. In this irritability of the mother at this period wi 1 be found probably the greatest existing cause of ill-nature n children. That ugly boy, always provoking his sister, saucing his mother, quarreling with his mates, torment- ing dumb brutes, perhaps cursing and fighting, is, after all, probably the more to be commiserated the worse he is, just as he would be if he had inherited a white swelling or excruciating cancer. Granted that he is so very provoking, and pesters the very life out of you, yet did you not as parents, or as his mother, saddle on to him, while powerless and completely in your control, those very passions which are the thorns of his as well as your life, and which you are thus vainly endeavoring to punish out of him ? " Dyed in the wool," by your dwn hands, will you thus beat him " as in a mortar with a pestle," to rid him of these " fast colors ?" He is but the passive agent. Suppose you punish the real cause —your own self. Rather, suppose you supersede se- verity by forbearance, and take warning for the future. THE BAD-DISPOSITIONED DAUGHTER. An irritable mother in C, N. H., brought her daugh- ter to me, with a spirit completely broken down by her unmanageable daughter. She said that this daughter was a perfect mule in even trifles ; that she would sit sometimes all day, nor could any one get her to do any thing, not even to comb her hair ; that without any cause she would become angry, and remain sulky and speechless the whole day ; often plague the very life out of her little brother, and when told to stop, declare that she had no spoken to him since morning; that when 132 At FECTION A'l'K L'llILDREN. dressed for church, she would often strew her clothes all about the floor, dishevel her hair, etc.; that neither reasoning, nor persuasion, nor any thing they had tried, made any impression on her ; that she was the very worst girl, in nearly all respects, she ever saw, and would not have thought it possible for as bad a one to exist till she saw it, etc. I asked her what her own state of mind was while carrying her. She said she was never in as bad a state ; that she then had the very worst of servants— impudent, lying, thievish—which provoked her almost to death, so that she was about crazy; that she changed them, but met with no better luck, and much more to this effect. Reader, put this and that together. Mark, especially, that this girl had not her full senses, and the mother, at this period, was so confused as to cloud her intellect. I have seen many like cases ; but of this in its place. Now I submit whether the mother was not mainly guilty, for branding this badness and stupidity into her inner being thus effectually ? And is not this unfor tunate dispositioned child more sinned against than sinning ? I asked this mother how she could be thus severe on her daughter, now that she knew that this child could not help receiving this nature, and from her very accuser t->o. I doubly pity bad-tempered children, and am tryiDg to teach parents how to avoid these thorns of their being. The principle under discussion, teaches us HOW TO SECURE AFFECTION IN CHILDREN. How dear, how charming, are affectionate children ! Oh, how I love to have my little ones steal on tiptoe to HOW TO SEJLTiE THEM. 133 my side, and imprint the warm kiss of filial love on my care-worn, fatigued brow ! How I love, at table, to have that little dear at my right say, " Father, I want to whisper to you ;" and putting those sweet lips to my cheek, steal a filial kiss. I love to have them hang affectionately on my neck, and clamber up lovingly on my knee. How can so delectable a result be secured ? By reciprocating love with our wives while they are carrying these dear pledges of our love. But how it does annoy me to see children always picking, and snarling, and finding fault! How their angry tones grate on my pained ear ! Behold, in these pages, the panacea of the one and the guarantee of the other. FEAR AND ANXIETY IN MOTHERS. Both the great maternal law under discussion, that the child takes on the existing states of the mother's mind at this period, and also some of the specific facts already cited, prove that extreme solicitude and anxi- ety of mind on her part will unduly develop her off- spring's Cautiousness. I have seen children by thou- sands rendered so irresolute and cowardly as to be literally spoiled by excessive maternal anxiety. To detail cases where there are so many would almost mock our subject. They will be found every where, in any required abundance and aggravation. This state of mind is indeed most unfortunate—a per- petual curse to its luckless victim. Then be entreated, mothers, not to indulge in yourselves a state of mind so foolish, and yet so self-torturing to them. To par- ticularize. You dread your prospective confinement. Every dav and almost every hour you .ndulge this dread. 12 134 CHILDREN RENDERED INTELLECTUAL Why ? Does this lessen your prospective pains one jot or tittle ? Does it not increase them by unnerving your mind and body beforehand, instead of fortifying both against them? If these fears did the least good, you might have an excuse; but since their whole influence is evil, and only evil, anc that continually, why indulge them ? Rather rise above them than succumb to them. " Take no thought for the morrow; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." But there is a way of rendering parturition compara- tively easy, and never hazardous ; of which in its due place. Use these means, and you may anticipate your confinement with pleasure, instead of dreading it with pain. Nor let fears about husband, or children, or property, or any thing whatever disturb the placid flow of happy feeling. Especially, disperse these merely whimsical fears, that are as senseless as injurious, by offsetting them with cool reasoning. Rise above such nonsense by putting yourself into that exalted state already de- scribed. 432. HOW TO ENDOW CHILDREN WITH SUPERIOR NATURAL INTELLECTS BEFORE BIRTH. Taletits in children, next to goodness, are their father's joy and mother's "heart's desire." What a world of pains do mothers take to render their children smart, and prodigies of learning! The best of teachers and schools from three years old and upward are provided. And how many crowd their children into premature graves by so doing ? Yet listen to a far more effectual way to render yDur offspring intellectual prodigies. Let the bearing mother study. This exercise of her intel- BY STUDIOUS MOTHERS. 135 lect will increase its amount in her for the time being, and of course enhance its flow to the child, in accord- ance with that great maternal law already presented, that every faculty of the mother's mind flows to the child in proportion to its existing abundance in her at this period. Innumerable and most striking illustrations of this law have fallen under the author's observation. The perpetual recurrence of facts observed in his ex- tensive professional practice from day to day, and year to year, for almost a quarter of a century, have forced him to believe this to be a law of child-bearing as much as to believe in his own existence. The admirer of Napoleon, already specified, is one of these cases. And this law is in perfect accordance with the entire facts and principles presented in this work. To one class of facts, illustrative of this law, yet not generally considered as such, special attention is invited —to precocious children. I have never seen one that did not illustrate this principle. One case must serve for all. A most excellent doctress, while carrying her first child, was in daily and quite extensive practice—receiv- ing patients instead of visiting them—and, being highly intelligent, brought a great amount of intellect to the analysis of her cases, in the treatment of her juvenile patients. Her child was a perfect prodigy. Its bright eyes would often light its countenance with almost superhuman intelligence, and its capacities we^e indeed surprising. But its brain consumed its body, it declin- ed, lingered, and finally died of brain fever; not, how- ever, till its precocious brain had literally spent the entire er.argies of its system. 136 DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT. THE ARITHMETICAL GIRL. To examine this subject in the light of specific facuh ties. Mrs. S----was naturally averse to arithmetic, and very poor in Calculation—this organ is small in her head—and her husband was quite as deficient in this respect in both head and character. He failed in busi- ness at the east, and went west. Here his eyes failed him, so that he could not apply them to keeping books. His ambitious wife, determined to help him rise in the world, applied her whole mind to keeping his accounts, answering his letters, etc., and as they soon secured a large business, her calculation was perpetually employ- ed, for she kept his accounts in first-rate order. Mean- while, she gave birth to a fine daughter, who has a most extraordinary talent for computing numbers in her head, and acquiring arithmetic. Observe that both father and mother were poor in figures, so that her superior calculating powers were not hereditary. From what source, then, could she have obtained them, but from the mother's vigorous exercise of Calculation while carrying this arithmetical child ? Is not this cause adequate to this effect ? And ascribing it to this cause is in perfect keeping with all the laws, all the facts, set forth in this work. She also taught music at this period, and this daugh- ter is a splendid singer and performer on the piano, and often composes superior music impromptu. She also excels in composition. Though only nine years old, yet her letters are really beautifully inaited. I speak from personal observation. This was doubtless exercised by her mother's answering all the letters, and doing all the writing of a large business. Indeed, the colburn's history. 137 child has a splendid intellectual lobe, far superior to either of her parents, caused, doubtless, by the intense action of the mother's entire intellect at this period. The case of a son, born soon after, and carried under similar circumstances, is almost equally proof of the maternal law that the vigorous exercise of maternal intellect as a whole, or of any special intellectual faculty, during pregnancy, will render the exercised faculties far more powerful by nature in children than in their parents. Neither of these children took after either of their parents, yet the natural talents of both bear a close resemblance to the states of the mother's mind during their carriage. ZERA COLBURN'S FCETAL HISTORY. In 1843, I visited the native place of this greatest of modern calculators and natural arithmeticians. A Mrs. Grimes knew his mother well, and related the following fact touching her state of mind before his birth: She obtained her living in part by weaving figured cloths, such as diaper, and other like work. This required a great exercise of calculation, for she often invented and copied new figures. But she undertook one figure which troubled her exceedingly. For several days, she tried, and kept trying, to work out the problem, but in vain, till she was on the point of giving it up' wholly. It even kept her awake nights, so intent was she on studying it out. At length, one night, after laying awake the whole night, she solved the problem, which was to the effect that so many threads woven thus, and so many more woven thus, etc., would bring the requir- ed figure. She arose in the morning, without having 12* 138 RENDERING CHILDREN INTELLIGENT. slept a single wink during the night, and wove the figure at once, without any difficulty, because she had, during the night, deciphered it all out in her head. Meanwhile she was pregnant with this arithmetical prodigy, which, in his day, astonished the entire civilized world. Attention was first drawn to his wonderful arithmetical powers by his often standing, before he was three years old, and saying to himself, " So many of this, and so much of that, make so much of the other." That is, he showed not only extraordinary arithmetical powers, but of that particular species which his mother exercised so vigorously before his birth. I think her study occurred within about two months of his birth. Mrs. Pendleton, in her Parents' Guide and Child- birth made Easy—a work written by a mother to mothers, and deserving extensive circulation—gives the following facts in point: " The mother was past forty years of age, of an en- ergetic temperament, active habits, and self-educated. For some months previous to the birth of her fifth child, she had become a convert to the belief in the transmission of mental and moral qualities. To test the truth of this belief, she exercised her own mental powers to their full extent. She attended the lectures of the season, both literary and scientific ; read much, but such works only as tend to exercise and strengthen the reasoning faculties and improve the judgment—the domestic and foreign reviews, history, biography, etc. She was also engaged in the active duties of a large family, in which she found full scope for the exercise of the moral sentiments, but never allowed any thing to disturb the equanimity of her temper. When her time came, she was in laboi OBJECTION ANSWERED. 139 two days ; al her suffering, however, was forgotten at the birth of a son, with a head of the finest form, firm est quality, and largest size—with the reflecting organs of a Bacon, and the moral ones of a Melancthon. A head, in short, on which nature had written, in charac- ters too legible to be misunderstood, strength, power, and capability ; and of whom it is already said, ' He is the youngest of his family, but will soon become its head.' " But it may be said, the number of women is small who would be willing to encounter the extra pains and perils of childbirth, induced by the training of the last example. To such we can only say, that when they discover the minds of their children to be ' unstable as water,' with scarcely understanding enough to distin- guish good from evil, and not firmness of character sufficient to pursue any steady course through life, in the anxiety and unhappiness which such conduct occa- sions, they must reap the punishment of their own want of moral and physical courage, at the time when the exercise of those qualities would have been transmitted by them to their offspring. It is, however, my firm conviction, that if women would study the structure of their own bodies, and the functions of its different organs, and acquire some knowledge of the principles of obstetrics, they might escape a great portion of the present dangers and sufferings of childbirth ; but in the present system of female education, that branch of knowledge which would enable them to raise a family of healthy children with success, appears to be most neglected. " « There is no question,' says Dr. Elliotson, ' that the cultivation of any organ or power of the parent will 140 MOTHER'd STATES OF MIND. dispose to the production of offspring improved in the same particular.' "' It is well known,' says Walker, on Intermarriage, 'that the whelps of well-trained dogs are, almost at birth, more fitted for sporting purposes than others. The most extraordinary and curious observations of this kind have been made by Mr. Knight, who, in a paper read to the Royal Society, showed that the communicated powers were not of a vague or general kind, but that any particular art or trick acquired by the animals was readily practiced by their progeny without the slightest instruction.' " ' It was impossible to hear that interesting paper without being deeply impressed by it. Accordingly, in taking a long walk afterward for the purpose of reflecting upon the subject, it forcibly struck me, that the better education of women was of much greater importance to their progeny than is imagined ; and in calling on Sir Anthony Carlisle, on my return, to speak of the paper and its suggestions, he mentioned to me a very striking corroboration of this conclusion. "' He observed, that many years since an old school- master had told him that in the course of his persona experience he had observed a remarkable difference ir; the capacities of children for learning, which was con- nected with the education and aptitude of their pa- rents ; that the children of people accustomed to arith- metic, learned figures quicker than those of differently educated persons ; while the children of classical scho- lars more easily learned Latin and Greek ; and that ix>twithstanding a few striking exceptions, the natural dullness of children born of uneducated parents was proverbial.'" - APPLICATION. 141 Other examples of the cultivation of otheiv faculties in the mother during pregnancy, as rendering these facul- ties stronger in offspring than in their parents, might be adduced; but is not this law too apparent to require fur- thei proof or enforcement ? What intelligent mind can examine this subject, in the light of either its facts or principles, without the full conviction of its truth ? And if one intellectual or moral faculty can be in- creased in the child by being exercised in the mother, all can. This period, so frequently employed through- out the work, applies here with its greatest power, because this is the great point of character. And now, mothers, behold in this law the possibility and the means of endowing your children, either with any specific talent, or with superior natural talents as a whole. To render your prospective children musical, or mathematical, or eloquent, or literary, or methodical, or deep reasoners, or superior composers, or authors, or editors, or wits, or critics, or mechanics, or poets, or naturalists, etc., you have only vigorously to exercise the faculties required by these callings in yourselves before their birth. And I appeal to you to say whethei a knowledge of this fact is not of incalculable value Will.you not be persuaded to study it in its various ramifications, and apply it to the augmentation of the talents and morals of your children ? 433. securing balance in offspring. To one application of this law, special attention is invited. Many children are just about spoiled, not foi want of talents, or morals, but for want of balance of faculties. They lack harmony of character, and con- sistency of judgment. Their opinions are one-sided 142 SECURE BALANCE. and conduct improper, because some faculties are too strong and others too weak. They are full of imper fections, and effectually crippled and marred throughout their whole being, because of these constitutional dis- tortions, inherited from their parents. Mothers, have you no such idiosyncrasies ? You are not as likely to see them as others ; yet are you not sensible of having many faults ? And would you transmit these faults to your prospective offspring, if it were possible to avoid it ? Behold, in this mater- nal law, the means of rendering your future chil- dren far more perfect than yourselves. Are you ren- dered imperfect and unhappy by excess of Cautious- ness—by groundless fears and halting procrastination ? You have only to fortify yourself, at this period, against these fears, and at the same time to cultivate resolution and courage, and your offspring will not be cursed with so weakening a predisposition. Are you excessively fond of praise, or property, or deficient in devotion, or taste, or memory, or conversational powers, or Causal- ity, or Tune, or any faculty of mind whatever ? Be- hold in this law the means .of supplying these defects, and obviating these excesses in your prospective off- spring. What you require to do, then, is this : Learn from Phrenology which of your talents are too weak, and assiduously cultivate them at this period. A phreno- logical and physiological examination of yourselves, with special reference to this point, would be of incal- culable service to you. And the author may yet con- clude to append a table to this work, with a view of facilitating the marking of a maternal chart, by way of directing mothers what faculties given individuals REGIMEN AT DIFFERENT STAGES. 143 should more especially cultivate in themselves, in ordei to the perfection of the offspring. But while expounding this maternal law, and in order to its complete impressment, let us take a little broader view, and develop a law of foetal formation, more prac- tically important to mothers, as showing them how they should manage themselves at this period, than any other. THE REGIMEN REQUIRED AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF ADVANCEMENT. To state as well as illustrate this law by facts. In Watertown, N. Y., the author saw a child, whose looks, actions, and shape of head, bore a close resemblance to those of the monkey. The organs at the root of the nose were immense; Causality was wanting, Approba- tiveness and the animal region were large, and the head sloped back from the perceptive organs to the crown of the head, except at Imitation, which was large ; and the first position the child attempted was to catch hold of the table or any thing else, and swing by the hands, analogous to the monkey's climbing with its hands. Some three months before the birth of this child, the mother visited a menagery, and was particularly im- pressed with a fine monkey, which so engrossed hei attention, that she could not keep her eye3 from it, and it appeared equally interested in her. What struck me most, was the resemblance of the chilli's head and phrenological developments to those of the monkey, they being only those of the monkey enlaced ; with which, also, its cast of mind harmonized. A young woman'called at our office for pio-fo*sional examination. Her head was very large, aud brain extremely active, while her body was weak and health poor. Her mind was so far above the common run of 1 M utiGIMEN REQUIRED her associates, that they failed utterly to appreciate hci and she felt no sympathy with them. She therefore leo a miserable life, because, first, she was on a mental plane so far above those about her, and secondly, because she had so great a preponderance of brain over body. Her case interested my sister so deeply, that she requested her to call again, to talk over her state of mind, with a view of suggesting some remedy. She called, and on my sister's inquiry, " What age was your mother at your birth?" was answered, forty-six. This solved the problem. Her mother had become so mentalized—to coin a new word—by age, as to have imparted to her far too much mind for her body ; yet this was not the case with her other children, because the mother's mind had not yet predominated so much over her body as now. A range of converse facts bearing on this point is to this effect, that " the youngest children are generally the smartest." The reason is, that since the animal is rela- tively stronger in youth than in mature age, and since children take on the respective qualities of parents exist- ing in the latter when the former received being and character, of course the eldest children, born while their parents were yet wild, rattle-brained, frolicksome, impul- sive, and swayed by various animal passions, are more animal and less intellectual and moral than the younger children, who are born after the higher faculties of their parents have assumed the reins of government. About ten miles southeast of Adams, N. Y., the author saw an idiotic girl, who talked, walked, and acted every way like a drunken person. The father, in accounting for it, said, that about three or four months before the birth of this child, as he and his wife were riding home or. horseback, in the dusk of the evening, she became AT DIFFERENT STAGES. . 145 very much frightened, and thrown almost into an hys- teric fit, by seeing a drunken man by the side of the road have a fit, in which he lay and rolled back and forth, from head to foot. The first position into which this child was known to put itself, was to throw itself on its back, and roll back and forth, exactly like this drunkard. She walked like him, talked like him, and looked like him. On examining her head, I found large Combativeness, Destructiveness, Self-Esteem, Firmness, and perceptive and social organs, but small Causality, Comparison, Benevolence, Veneration, Conscientious- ness, Hope, Marvelousness, and Ideality—an organiza- tion which harmonized entirely with her character. Dr. Kimball, of Sackett's Harbor, showed me a lad having a splendid intellectual lobe, whose mother was called, by the sickness of her husband, to leave her na- tive village and go to New-York. On arriving there, she found him convalescent, and, being there, she staid some time, to visit the city, with which she was delight- ed immeasurably, and of which she often spoke after her return. Seeing so much of the world, and of men and things that were new to her, seemed to give to her mind a new start, and the child, born four months after, was prodigiously smart, and had a towering intellectual lobe. Other facts, of a similar bearing, might be stated in any required abundance, but these will suffice to illus- trate our principle, which is, that during the first four or five months of gestation, the phy-sical system, and the propensities and perceptives, take" their size and tone, but that the mental apparatus, and with it the reasoning and moral faculties, are formed, and their size adjusted, after the fifth month. Hence, during the first portion of gestation, mothers should take much 13 146 MATERNAL regimen rkqu.red sxercise, and keep up a full supply of physical vigor— the materials then most demanded by the embryo—but that, after the fifth or sixth month, or while the top of the child's brain is forming, they should study much, and have their moral faculties called out in a special manner, so as to furnish an abundance of these materials at the time when they are in greatest demand by the child. This theory is supported by the following concurrent testimony: First, when causes like those mentioned above, arrest or retard the growth of the foetus, about or before the sixth month, the propensities and per- ceptives are found fully developed, while the coronal region is small; and the reverse results from opposite conditions. Secondly, by the formation and growth of the brain, from first to last. At first, its base only is developed, and it forms, not all its parts equally, but its base first, to which is added layer after layer, upward and for- ward, as it becomes more and more developed. The skull, at birth, is also much larger, relatively, at its base than at its crown, but the lop of it grows much faster, relatively, after birth, than he base; and it is devel- oped, hot proportionally and simultaneously in all its parts, but most coronally and anteriorally. Thirdly. The mentality is successively developed in harmony with the same law. The animal passions are much stronger in children than in adults, because the reciprocal relation existing between the body and the propensities is much more intimate and powerful than that existing between the body and the coronal region. Hence, during childhood and youth, while the body is most vigorous, the reasoning and moral faculties make AT DIFFERENT STAGES. 147 poor headway against Acquisitiveness, Combativeness, Destructiveness, Appetite, etc.; in middle age, both the basilar and the coronal region are strong, but as age advances and the body wanes, the mental and moral gain rapidly on the animal, overtake them, subject them, and pass them, causing men to take their highest plea- sure in things that partake of a moral and intellect- ual cast. Hence, children rarely feel the importance of study, till they are fifteen, because intellect is yet immature; but, taking a new start about that period, it wakes up to a new existence, and progresses more in acquiring knowledge, extending and deepening the range of thought, and studying into first principles in a year, than the whole time before; and, as the bodily vigor decreases, mental power and energy increase. Milton began to rear his eternal monument of fame, "Paradise Lost," when fifty-seven, and old and decrepit at that; and most works of genius, the chief merit of which depends on clearness and power of thought, have been written by men whose physical powers, and with them their animal propensities were waning, and whose re- maining energy, therefore, was consumed by their coro- nal region. And death itself illustrates this principle, by extinguish- ing the fires of animal passion first, and letting those of the intellect and the moral sentiments go out last; thereby rendering our descent to the grave much less painful than if torn from life and its pleasures, while the appetite for them retained all its former energy, at the same time that it prepares us for that great moral change sought by the truly good, in which the moral sentiments shall maintain complete sway over the propensities—a principle rich in philosophic beauty, 148 maternal regimen rluuired and most beneficial in all its multifarious bearings on the happiness of man, but more fully demonstrated in the author's work on " Education and Self-Improve- ment." To repeat, then, with emphasis, let the moral senti- ments and intellect of the mother be called into habitual and vigorous exercise, during the latter stages of pregnancy, by books, lectures, and agreeable con- versation and associations, attending meetings, etc., and let every thing calculated to vex her, or excite her pro- pensities, or disturb her equanimity and serenity of mind, be removed, and her condition rendered as agree- able, as wholesome, and as happy as possible. And let husbands remember, that in this one respect merely, they owe a most important duty to their wives and their posterity. " Be ye wise." In summing up this whole subject of the states of the mother during pregnancy, as affecting her children, both physically and mentally, let me beseech prospective mothers to study it thoroughly in all its complicated ramifications. All contemplated in this work, is to de- velop some of the fundamental laws which govern the maternal relations, so as thereby to put you upon the track of observation and reflection. So far from having exhausted this theme, I have only just opened it. A world of detail remains for ycu individually to search out and apply according to the maternal defects of each mother, and to the virtues and capabilities with which each would endow each child. And remember, that " every little helps"—that even trifling improvements in yourself will stamp the inner nature of your child the more favorably. Let mothers talk over this whole subject among themselves, and exchange experiences • AT DIFFERENT STAGES. 149 and suggestions. Especially, let them instruct their daughters and young female friends. Put young wo- men upon the look out, so that when they come to fulfill these relations, they may be already informed what re- gimen in them will secure the best children. As this child-bearing function is the one great destiny of wo- man, so the study of its conditions is the paramount study of all women, young and old—at least, till they are past bearing. And what study is equally important, in itseJf, or appropriate to the female sex ? 434. appeal to mothers. And now, mothers, behold the length, and breadth, and sweep of this law ; and while you behold, tremble in view of the infinite power for good it puts into your hands. Tremble ? rather exult. Let your souls leap for joy, in view of the potential influence placed by this law at your disposal. You prize your children beyond all expression or conception. Your souls are bound up with theirs, in all the intensity of maternal yearnings. It would give you pleasure to be rich, to be fashionable, to be praised, to be comfortable in this world's goods, but no other thing—not every thing else combined— would pour into your soul a perfect overflowing of joy as rich, or pleasure as delightful, as would angelic chil- dren. Sweet, amiable, and affectionate—pure in their morals, refined in their tastes, quick and correct in all their mental operations, adorned with every virtue, marred with no defects, and as happy as angels—would not every day and hour, every manifestation of excellen- cies, thrill through your whole soul, and render you per- fectly happy ? Bear this in mind, that while most of the other pleasures of life are temporary, and can be 13* 150 appeal to mothers. enjoyed only at particular seasons, the delightful emo- tions awakened in the parental bosom by magnificent children are perpetual. Every day, every hour, en- hances them. Every look you cast in their sweet, beautiful faces, every bright scintillation of their quick, free intellects, every exercise of the heavenly virtues, renews your pleasure. Flowers give us pleasure, food gives us pleasure, friends give us pleasure, pictures give us pleasure, doing good gives us pleasure, so does doing well. Music, poetry, knowledge, conversation, thought, wit—all our faculties give us pleasure ; but there is something in the feelings which a tender mo- ther cherishes for the child of her own flesh and blood, which she has carried, borne, nursed, and cared for from darling, infancy—there is a concentrated joy grow- ing out of a mother's relations to her child, by which superior children confer on their mothers the very acme of bliss. On the contrary, nothing will aggravate a mother's feelings as deeply, and as perpetually, as children that are cross-grained, ultra, imbecile, cunning, and selfish. Mothers, have you ever duly considered this point ? And now that your attention is called to it, revolve it over in your minds. Is any pain, any sacrifice, which will improve the original stamp of your children, too great to make, by way of conferring this source of pleasure on yourselves ? For your own sake—mere- ly as a matter of selfish interest—what can you do, throughout the whole course of your lives, which will confer more and more exalted happiness upon your- selves ? But you are not the only ones to be blessed by good, and cursed by bad children To say nothing of the THEIR COMMISSION. 151 nappin?ss of your husbands, and society at large— points which involve a great amount of happiness— consider for a moment the bearing of this momentous .aw on the destinies of your children themselves. It is left for you to decide, whether your children are to be cursed with a malignant disposition, or blessed with a happy one—whether they are to be the indwelling ot any or all the virtues, or of any or all the vices, and which. And, what is more, you are compelled to de- cide this matter. Willing or unwilling, you are obliged to stamp upon your prospective offspring the impress of goodness and talents on the one hand, or sinfulness and misery on the other. It is not one of those matters which can receive the go-by. A necessity exists. If you do not determine this matter for yourselves, you must determine it by leaving it to its own course. And oh, with what ecstasy of maternal joy should you hail this ordinance of nature ! Look—behold ! heaven opens—a commission is sent down from the august courts of eternity, directed and delivered to you in your own persons, conferring on you the highest prerogative of heaven—that of bearing good or bad children, as you will, and possessed of just such kinds of goodness or badness as you please. As rulers and presidents are empowered to form their own cabinets, so you are both empowered and commanded to form the cabinet of your children's mentality. And infinitely does your power exceed that of kings and courts ; and if any thing on earth should fill you with joy, surely this should. An- gels might fc*" themselves infinitely honored to fulfill j ?ur maternal commiss/^n—to wield the destiny you wield—to form immortal spirits into whatever image thev chose What other ends of life are not the merest 152 APPEAL TC MOTHERS. trifles when compared with this ? Should you not con- centrate, in this grand function of the female, every energy of your being? Should you not, all the way up from girlhood, have a " single eye" to this, your para- mount duty and destiny ? Should you not make every possible preparation, before these relations overtake you, to fulfill them aright when they do come ? Prepa- ration for maternity—should not this be the grand pre- paration of every young woman before marriage, and its fulfillment "the one thing needful" after marriage? Now, the wedding is the great object of our young wo- men. They put forth every energy to secure this object, until it is attained ; and after the great nuptial day is appointed, what hurrying, and bustling, and buying, and fixing, and sewing, and worrying ! If a king were about to visit them, that would be the merest trifle, compared with the advent of this, their earthly Messiah. Every thing else must give way. This must be, not first among equals, but the very first. Yet the wedding day, and even the marriage itself, is only the outside gate to this splendid mansion of woman's being. But for maternity, matrimony would be a comparative trifle to woman ; and as many thousand times more pains,and labors, and expenses should be incurred, in fitting out this paradisiacal mansion, than in constructing this outside gate, so every young wo- man, from the first dawn of womanhood, should make it her labor of all labors, her preparation of all prepara- tions, her anticipation of all anticipations, her end of all ends, her alpha and omega, her internal and external, her all and in all. her very life and soul, to fit herself for discharging these maternal relations. And after she has entered the gate of marriage, and has enthroned herself and been enthroned bv her husband, qu»en of this ma- THEIR BSALTED OFFICE. 153 ternal palace, oh, how should every energy of her being be directed and expended upon the formation of that dear prospective spirit—that germ of humanity—that son or daughter of God himself—that image, and like- ness, and embodiment of divinity ! She is called Upon to become a coworker with the Creator of the human mind and soul. He places the materials of humanity at her disposal, and requires her to work them up into such human subjects as she may choose. He has ordained the maternal laws, and extolled her as their executor. He has done all that even a God could do, to enable every human mother to bring forth perfect human be- ings. He commands them, in the name of this maternal law, and entreats them by all the yearnings of a mother's love, to endow their offspring with all that is lovely, all that is noble, and all that is great, while He adjures them, by the same means, not to corrupt their pure spirits with wrangling passions, nor cripple them with intellectual or moral incapacity. Awake, O prospec- tive mothers, from this ignorance, and stupidity, and foolery of the past, to the exalted destiny thus imposed upon you ! Long enough—oh, too long—have you tri- fled away your time, and your feelings—your whole souls—in chasing this phantom, Fashion, than which no- thing could equally unfit you for bearing fine children ! Satan himself, aided and abetted by all his privy coun- cilors of malignity, could not have devised or executed a system of female education, and habits, and associa- tions every way, as utterly ruinous to the health, as de- praving to the morals, as deteriorating to the intellect, as that system imposed on woman by the fashions, and pursued by our middling and upper-classed females, as if it wer* the only real obiect of life. What we have 154 APPEAL TC MOTHERS. said about tigft-lacing, illustrates this remark in one particular, and nearly every thing which fashionable females essay to do or become, is of the same child- ruining piece. How long shall these things be ? How long shall women spoil themselves, spoil their issue, and spoil the race, just to be fashionable ? How long shall woman waste her whole being on these insignificant nonentities, when such momentous destinies are hers to wield ? If woman's office in the economy of nature were insignificant, this expending of her time, her mo- ney, her very self, in ribboning, and padding, and bus- tling, and curling, and painting, and flirting, and playing fool, might pass unrebuked ; but since she fills an office more exalted, and wields destinies more momentous than archangels, what earthly language can express her folly or her guilt ? If to bury one small talent is wick- ed, oh, how awfully criminal to turn such a talent to such a use ! Girls, young women, bearing women— woman as a sex—do be persuaded, entreated, implored to learn, and then fulfill your maternal duties and des- tiny. Our world is soon to be regenerated—the decree has gone forth—the millennium, ordained from everlast- ing, is at hand. But a little longer is our world to be scourged with physical suffering, so universal, so aggra- vated, with intellect so crippled and distorted, with vices so many and so monstrous, with all the godlike capabili- ties of humanity thus perverted and depraved. Words utterly fail to express either the inherent capabilities and perfections of humanity, as it came from the hand of its Maker, or its present state of corruption and distortion. But the regenerating process has commenced. Repub- licanism in this country opened the first seal. It snap- ped the fetters, in which the human mind and body had WHAT THE RACE DEMANDS OF THEM. 155 been bound from the first. It begat a spirit of scrutiny and inquiry, which is eventuating in the rejection of man-destroying errors and application of man-improving . truths. It set the mighty car of human improvement, freighted with every conceivable facility of human hap- piness, in rapid motion. It snatched the French crown from its ignoble wearer, "and a nation was born in a day." Republicanism, and with it the highest happiness of the mighty many, is now the world's irrevocable destiny. Heretofore, society has not been in a fit state to render highly-organized human beings happy. Too much sick- ness and vice—too many graters of all the finer suscep- tibilities of our nature—have every where abounded, to allow a high order of human beings to enjoy themselves, because there was so much more to lacerate their keen, t pure, delicate susceptibilities, and torture high-toned moral feeling, and outrage correct and powerful intel- lectual perceptions, than to gratify those thus exquisitely organized. But this will soon have passed away for- ever. Society will soon be in a state to delight, instead of torturing, those thus delicately constituted. What we therefore now require, is highly-organized children, adapted to this progress of the race, and calculated to put it upon a still higher pinnacle of goodness and happiness. And you, prospective mothers, must furnish them. To you—you alone—we look. From no other source can this, the great salvation come. Others can carry forward other departments of human reform and improvement. The temperance reform, and prison reform, and govern- mental reform—the social, religious, educational, and other reforms—will be vigorously prosecuted by others; but it remains for you to regenerate and purify the origi- nal stock of humanity—to uproot the very germs of de- 156 DELIVERY MADS EASY. pravity, and plant in their stead the seeds of virtue and talent. Oh, mothers, sleep no longer over this momen- tous subject. We implore you to render our earth again more lovely than Eden, and its occupants more # holy and happy than those of Paradise. First, then, apply every energy of your being to the acquisition of light on this subject. Learn precisely what your des- tiny requires you to do, and then fulfill it. Address your whole selves, soul and body, to their fulfillment— to the bringing forth and bringing up magnificent chil- dren—and then proclaim these things to every prospec- tive mother whom you can possibly reach. Let your one passion be, not rich furniture, or fashionable dresses, but fine children, and a regenerated world will pour forth thank-offerings and hosannas, in their highest strains, here and hereafter, forever. SECTION IV. DELIVERY--ITS PAINS LESSENED. 435. SEVERE LABOR-PAINS UNNATURAL AND AVOIEABLE Though the great thought of this book—namely, mat the states of the mother's mind and body before birth similarly affect offspring—is now developed, so that we might with propriety here suspend it, yet a few general remarks on delivery and nuksing will doubtless enable prospective mothers to lighten materially those ao-oniz ing pains too often consequent on childbirth, and relieve themselves of many of the burdens of nursing. Nol SEVERE PAINS UNNECESSARY. 157 unfrequently, these pains are more terribly severe than those of death itself, and in general, in civic life, they are indeed dreadful. But this is not the worst of it. The pains themselves do far less injury than the dread of them, because the former pass off with the mother's confinement, while the latter stamps the impress of fear and terror upon the primitive constitution of the child itself, which imbit- ters its whole life with indefinite apprehension of impend- ing calamity, when there is none. He who can essen- tially mitigate the pains and dread of parturition, will render incalculable service to mankind. But to dwell on the fact of these pains, or on the in- jury they occasion mothers and children, is not our pur- pose, because they are too palpably apparent to require it. We therefore pass to the inquiry, ARE THEY NECESSARY ? Many think them ordained by God, and rendered inevitable by the fall. They interpret, " I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children;" as pronouncing special judgment upon Eve, and through her upon universal woman, for tempting Adam ; and hence infer that there is no obviating them. But is this opinion tenable ? Not at all; either in the light of philosophy or fact. It is in direct conflict with both. How ungodly to sentence all women for one sin of one woman ! Or if the Deity should pass so unright- eous a sentence, would he not execute it? "Hath he said, and shall he not fulfill?" Since this sentence was passed upon all women alike, of course there is no absolute need, as fer as this sentence is concerned, that 14 158 DELIVERY MADE EASY one should suffer any more than another. If these labor- pains were really the fiat of the Almighty, would he be so doubly unjust as to impose, as a special judgment, so much more pain on one than on another ? And the fact that some have so easy a delivery, is positive proof that, in spite of this judgment, all might have as easy times as any now do. Since the labor-pains of some women are so trifling as not to be worthy of a second thought, therefore this sentence, passed upon those of easy delivery just as much as upon any others, will not prevent every woman from having as easy a delivery as any woman that ever has lived or may live. This idea that women are compelled to bear children in sorrow, is contrary to nature, disapproved by fact, and a practical libel on the character and government of God : nor can any reasonable construction be put upon this passage other than as simply declaring what was then a fact; for if it curses woman with severe labor-pains, it curses all women equally, whereas some have but little pain, and a rapid recovery. NATURAL DELIVERY EASY. Though I do not believe in " childbirth without pain," yet I do believe that where nature is allowed her per- fect work, these pains will be too slight to deserve a moment's consideration, and especially to awaken pre- vious apprehension. One of my female friends says, she " rather bear a child than have a tooth drawn." I have seen many women who have done all their own nursing, and all the housework for their families during their confinement. How slight the sufferings of many Irish and German women at these times ! How many of them are up and about house the very next day ! BY VIGOROUS HEALTH. 159 '" Women in uncivilized life suffer still less, and recover even sooner. Dr. Rush, speaking of child-bearing among the Indians, says, " that nature is their only mid- wife ; their labors are short, and accompanied with little pain; each woman is delivered in a private cabin, with- out so much as one of her own sex to attend her: after washing herself in cold water, she returns in a few days to her usual employment; so that she knows nothing gf those accidents which proceed from the carelessness or ill management of midwives or doctors, or the weak- ness which arises from a month's confinement." " The wonderful facility with which the Indian women bring forth their children," say Lewis and Clark, in their well-known journal, "seems rather some benevolent gift of nature, in exempting them from pains which their savage state would render doubly grievous, than any result of habit. One of the women who had been lead- ing two of our pack-horses, halted at a rivulet about a mile behind, and sent on the two horses by a female friend. On inquiring of one of the Indian men the cause of her detention, he answered, with great appearance of unconcern, that she had just stopped to lie-in, and would soon overtake us. In fact, we were astonished to see her in about an hour's time come on with her new-born infant, and pass us on her way to the camp, apparently in perfect health." Washington Irving, in his work entitled Astoria, re- lates a similar incident in the following language : " The squaw of Pierre Dorion (who, with her husband, was attached to a party traveling over the Rocky Moun- tains in winter-time, the ground being covered with several feet of snow) was suddenly'taken in labor, and enriched her husband with another child. As the forti- 160 DELIVERY MADE EASY tude and good conduct of the woman had gained fo; her the good will of the party, her situation caused con- cern and perplexity. Pierre, however, treated the mat- ter as an occurrence that could soon be arranged, and need cause no delay. He remained by his wife in the camp, with his other children and his horse, and pro- mised soon to rejoin the main body on their march. In the course of the following morning the Dorion family made its appearance. Pierre came trudging in advance^ followed by his valued, though skeleton steed, on which was mounted his squaw with the new-born infant in her arms, and her boy of two years old wrapped in a blank- et, and slung on her side. The mother looked as un- concerned as if nothing had happened to her ; so easy is nature in her operations in the wilderness, when free from the enfeebling refinements of luxury and the tarn pering appliances of art." Mr. Laurence also tells us that " the very easy labors of Negresses, native Americans, and other women in a savage state, have been often noticed by travelers. This point is not explainable by any prerogative of physical formation, for the pelvis is rather smaller (by itself an unfavorable circumstance) in these dark-color- ed races, than in the European and other white people. Simple diet, constant and laborious exertion, give to these children of nature a hardiness of constitution, and exemption from most of the ills which afflict the indo- lent and luxurious females of civilized societies. In the latter, however, the hard-working women of the lower classes in the country, often suffer as little from child- birth as those of any other race." Stevens, speaking of the Araucanian Indians, says, that " a mother, immediately or. her delivery, takes her BY HEALTH. 161 child, and, going down to the nearest stream ot water washes herself and it, and then returns to the labors of the station." That one cause of the easy delivery of these robust women is the small heads of their children, consequent on the deficient mentality of both parents, is undoubted; yet does not the larger chest and shoulders, consequent on the larger bones, muscles, and vital apparatus of these children of the forest, render their parturition as difficult, in itself, as the larger heads of the children of civilized life ? Is not the chief difference in the mothers ? Is not the great cause of these excessive pains of child- birth in the feebleness of civilized women, and the easy parturition of Irish, German, and Indian women, in the robust health of the latter ? Its cause is not thai woman in the higher walks of life is doomed to " bring forth in sorrow," but that she outrages every principle of health, from the very cradle. Else why this dif- ference against city ladies, as compared with healthy country women? Though some robust women have hard times, and some sickly ones rather easy ones, be- cause of the difference in their forms, the size of th father, and especially of his head, yet, in general, the more healthy any given woman, the more easy her de- livery, and as her health declines her labor becomes more painful and dangerous. Now I press the great fact here involved upon the observation and reflection of women, and submit whe- ther health does not lessen the pains of delivery, and feebleness of constitution aggravate them? Remains there any doubt on this point ? Is it not founded in rea- son, and sustained by fact ? The general fact that health lessens labor-pains is too 14* 162 DELIVERY RENDERED PAINFUL palpable to require proof, yet few realize to wnat ex- tent these pains can be diminished, by observing the physiolog'cal laws. lean read in nature no absolute necessity for much pain. On the contrary, all hei functions are pleasurable; and shall this form an exemp- tion ? Unless she has made provision for rendering this function more agreeable than painful, she has not been true to herself and her uniform laws. If even sav- ages, with all their necessary privations and exposures of health, can bear children with so little suffering, how much easier could civilized women, aided by all the lights of Anatomy and Physiology, render this opera- tion. The idea that civic life is necessarily detrimental to health, is preposterous. All the knowledge, property, advantages, every thing we possess over them, confer on us the means of becoming more healthy than they. If we are not so, ours is the fault. CAUSES OF SEVERE AND DANGEROUS LABOR. Since, then, severe and dangerous labor is not the ordinance of nature, by what is it caused ? By those OUTRAGES OF THE LAWS OF LIFE AND HEALTH perpetrated by women in civilized life. And most of them are in- flicted by that tyrant goddess, fashion. The injury done to children by tight-lacing, has al- ready been shown. Its aggravation of labor-pains is incalculable. It fills the whole system with fever and disease, and especially the female organs ; and than this, what could more effectually enhance all the pains and perils of child-bearing? It stifles heart, lungs, and stomach, and thus so exhausts the vital powers as to leave too small a supply of strength to carry the pa- tient through this peri d. Tn conjunction with load- BY BAL PHYSICAL HABITS, 163 ing the hips with enormous loads of surplus clothes, it relaxes and disorders the muscles employed in this func- tion, and aggravates the pains and dangers of parturi- tion beyond calculation. SEDENTARY HABITS. The want of fresh, invigorating air, the excessive warmth of our coal-heated rooms, the ruinous posture of seamstresses, and indeed of most of our women, the imperfect circulation, digestion, perspiration, and exer- cise of almost all American women, aggravate, in the most effectual manner possible, the sufferings of this period. It would not be possible to devise a course every way calculated to render labor dreadful and dangerous, as the habits of our women from the very cradle now are. Late hours, late rising, excessive in- tensity of feeling, bad eating, bare arms and necks thin shoes, refusal to labor, while the abdomen is made to sweat like rain with supernumerary skirts, and a thousand like enervating habits, completely ruin the constitution of our women, and they pay the dreadful forfeit in " the perils of childbirth." These and kindred causes disclose an effectual 436. MODE OF OBVIATING LABOR-PAINS. Animal vigor is the great guarantee against them. A powerful constitution will proportionally obviate all danger and lighten these pains, so that you can render this function more and still more easy in proportion as you improve your health. Observe, that this principle involves a complete remedy. Reference is no. now had tc reproving the health 164 ^ELIVEItY MADE EASY during pregnancy merely, but mainly during life. The former will aid as far as it goes, yet this is the grand point we would rivet upon your minds. Provide be- forehand against these pains by invigorating all the bodily functions. This provisionary process should be begun in girlhood, and continued till the child-bearing period ceases. The education of girls should be con- ducted with special reference to this point. Since girls should be educated with primary reference to fitting them to bear fine children41S, and since those very con- ditions of maternal health requisite to bear healthy children facilitate and lighten delivery, of course their education should include fitting them for easy delivery. But to canvass a few items. A VIGOROUS MUSCULAR SYSTEM. Already has the requisition for powerful muscles in mothers been pointed out as a means of endowing their offspring with a strong locomotive apparatus. This muscular system is the chief instrumentality by which delivery is effected. By what means is the child urged from its pent-up inclosure in the womb through that narrow pelvic orifice, and, in spite of all other obstruc- tions, forced into the world ? Solely by muscular con- traction. Then, other things being equal, will not delivery be more and more easy, the more powerful these muscles ? And what is it that causes prolonged and difficult labor ? Mainly insufficiency of these muscles. They are too weak to expel the child. Yet, if allowed to remain, it would grow till too large to be expelled, so that nature labors and does her utmost, often for many BY A VIGOROUS MUSCULAR SYSTEM. 165 long days and nights in succession, but in vain. Every labor-pain strains these muscles to their utmost tension, yet even then does not make progress. As a weak team, stuck with a heavy load, strains every nerve, yet each trial, while it still further exhausts, eaves the load as fast as before, so every pain fatigues these muscles, but fails to advance the child, and recourse must be had to that horrible alternative of artificial delivery by instru- ments ; whereas, if the mother's muscles had not been so weak, they would have controlled with such power as to have expelled the burden. Ninety-nine cases in every hundred of excessive labor-pains, are consequent on weak muscles or debilitated health in mothers. In- deed, every case has one or both these causes. All nature's operations are perfect. Not one case in mil- lions—not one from the beginning' to the end of time— would ever occur, if nature were allowed her perfect work. Wrong presentations may be cited as exceptions, yet they are not. Every single instance of wrong presen- tation is caused by some interference with nature, and can therefore be avoided by woman's observing the laws of nature. Who ever heard of them in unciv- ilized life, or among healthy Irish or German women? But do they not occur most frequently in " high life"— among our fashionable ladies ? Why ? Because they depart farthest from nature's requirements, and violate the laws of health most, whereas they might and should be the most healthy, because they enjoy the greatest advantages for promoting health. This wrong presen- tation is a natural consequence of abuse of health, and might be wholly avoided, unless this abuse were per- fectly outrageous and long continued. 166 delivery made easy What our women, what our girls require more than any thing else, by way of preparing them for easy de- livery, is vigorous muscular exercise, such as house- work, gymnastic exercise, invigorating walks, rambling over hill and dale, and every thing calculated to develop their muscular systems. Not that I would make them mere kitchen drudges, but I would have them work right hard several hours daily, just for exercise and health, and this will do up all the housework really re- quisite to be done. Washing is excellent 'exercise. And every woman, in high life and low, who has not already ruined herself by fashionable indolence, should take right hold of hard work till comfortably tired; {or, besides developing her muscles, it will promote all her vital functions. Women should especially play much. This is as natural to them as breathing—rendered so in order to develop their muscular and vital powers. How strong this propensity in girls ? Nor would it decrease, bu' rather increase, in middle age, if women were not gen- erally crushed by unhappy marriages, the death of children, broken constitutions, etc. Nothing is more promotive of health, and therefore of easy delivery, as well as of briskness and snap in children. Dancing, too, is most excellent exercise for girls and women. It may be excessive, or unreasonable, and therefore injurious; but properly practiced, nothing is better. Oh, I do wish some of this prim, sedate, stiff- jointed, inert, ladified, starched-up artificiality, could be shook out of our women! They think they must be iust so exact, and precise, and citified—must check every rising of that wild, free, frolicksome disposition so constitutional in girls—must always ride in spring and ugkt female education 167 covered carriages—must never be caught climbing fences, or ranging fields, or at work in the kitchen-r must rarely laugh, but only smile—must restrain all the gushing sympathies of their nature—and must be pas- sive nonentities, except in fine sewing and on the piano. Oh, I abominate this strait-jacket restriction, under which our women are brought up, because it ruins them as mothers, and enhances all the sufferings of childbirth. It just about spoils them. Come, women, snap these fashionable restraints, and give yourselves that freedom so promotive of the specific functions of your sex 418. Do take exercise. Suit yourselves as to the what, how, and when, but take exercise in some form, and a great amount of it. This will so strengthen your muscles, that when you come to your accouchement, your uterine and abdominal muscles will play their part to perfection, so Jiat a few efficient pains will deliver you. 437. developing the muscles of girls. And you who have these dreadful times, be entreated not to put your girls into the way of suffering in like manner, by confining them within doors, and bringing them up so very delicately and fashionably. I have al- ready discussed the necessity of girls taking muscular exercise, in order to develop their vital apparatus—but I now urge it on the ground of its lightening the pains of delivery. Make them work, and work hard. For- bid them sitting much for the purpose of sewing, music, study, or any thing else. Keep them much out of doors. Supply them with small hoes, spades, and hatchets, that they may cultivate flowers, gardens, shrubbery, etc., and' learn the use of tools ; and allow them to scale fences and climb trees. Only give them a chance, and 168 PSl!VE?vY made easy. they will find ways and means to take exercise in any required abundance, and this will guarantee them a safe and easy delivery. The entire system of female education is fundamen- tally wrong, and must be remodeled. Girls must be taught things more, and books less—must be shown nature, and be educated on foot, instead of being con- fined to the school-house and the piano. Make them children of nature, not of art. Let them be girls till twenty, nor once think about rendering themselves at- tractive by dress or starched-up manners. Develop their bodies first, and this will give them clear and strong minds, as well as obviate all the perils and most of the pains of childbirth. Oh, when will the true nature of woman be understood and developed by education I May this book aid the result. 438. the midwife's office. My remarks here shall be brief, but pertinent. Let nature do all, and art " stand silent by." All noise, and bustle, and parade, have a most injurious influence on the mother's mind, and thus retard delivery, by awa- kening her fears. Making a great ado does no sort of good—does not promote delivery one iota—but it does excite the mother's fears, and unnerve her, and this ren- ders her labor far less efficient and speedy. The mother's first requisite at this period, is resolu- tion. She should be encouraged to grapple with her des- tiny with the spirit and determination of a heroine. She should feel that she can and will discharge her burden, and that without any great difficulty. Instead of break- ing down under it, and feeling, " Oh, I never can get through and live," she should enter right into the spirit DIRECTIONS to midwives. 169 of it, as though it must be done, and the more energeti- cally she takes hold of it, the sooner and more easily she can dispatch it. The assistance afforded by a cour- ageous state of mind is incalculable. It renders every spasm far more efficient than it would be without such mental aid. She should bear down upon herself, and strain writh a strong mental determination to expel her load. But if she sink under labor, it will be far more painful and protracted, because the muscles will be in exactly the state of a man lifting at a load which he thinks far beyond his strength. "I can't," always palsies ; "I can and I will," always nerves and propels. Incalculably can mothers promote easy and successful delivery, by this spirit of determination and courage. And all the influences that surround them should be of this nerving, encouraging, inspiring aspect. Every attendant—and they should be few, and of the right stamp—should be cool, calm, quiet, perfectly self- possessed, and enter into the operation as though they would speed it onward. But all this flying from room to room, and fussing, and fixing, and preparing, and bustling about, flusters the mother and retards delivery. Two or three immediate attendants are all-sufficient on ordinary occasions. It may perhaps be well to have others within call, yet in almost all cases, the less done the better. Nature must do all. Let her have her perfect work, and it will be well done But all inter- ference is very bad for both mother and child. The simple fact that artificial delivery is so extremely diffi- cult, and access to the child by way of pulling it into the world so almost impossible, as well as detrimental to the brain and mind of the child, is admonition positive 15 170 DELIVERY MADE EASY to leave this matter to nature. And every honest ac- coucheur will bear the witness that all common cases should be left wholly to nature, and that meddling with uncommon cases only makes them worse. Instrumen- tal delivery ought never, need never, be resorted to. It is an outrage on mother and child, and may always be avoided by a due preparation of the mother before- hand. " But," it is asked, " after nature has done all she can, and the final crisis has come when the mother must die unless the child is taken from her by force, what shall we then do ?" I answer, such cases need never occur. A due physiological preparation of the mother before- hand will always prevent them. And when worst comes to worst, relax the parts by the warm sitting- bath, which may be advantageously taken for days and weeks beforehand, in even ordinary cases. On this point, I do not claim originality ; but my full conviction is, that the water-practice is the all and in all at ac- •couchements. The following is from the Water-Cure Journal, a periodical with which every bearing mother should be familiar, edited by Dr. Shew, whose repeated visits to Priessnitz, long and eminently successful prac- tice, physiological and dietetic knowledge, and strong common sense, place him among the very first water- cure doctors on this continent. WATER-CURE IN CHILD-BEARING. " The following remarkable case might by many be reckoned as one forming an exception to the general rule, as to what would be the general result under simi- lar circumstances. In reality, striking as the case is, it is only an exemplifbatior of what has fisqusntly been BY THE WATER-CURE. 171 proved, that it is possible for women of ordinary health so to live that childbirth and the period of pregnancy can be rendered comparatively free from pain and suf- fering. " A lady of this city whose name from motives of delicacy we are not at liberty to mention, of seventeen years of age, small form, with very good constitution, was lately with cnild, and passed through the whole period as follows : She took regularly a shower bath every morning, exercised every day, wet or dry, in the open air, and when by any means the amount of exer- cise was considerably less than common, a quick bath was taken before dinner, and regularly a sponge or rubbing bath was used before going to rest. Sitz baths were taken daily, and the body bandage worn much of the time. No permanent chill was allowed to take place. The evening sitz bath seemed to have a decided effect in causing sound rest. The bowels were kept free by clysters of cold water whenever these were necessary. Very plain vegetable and farinaceous food and fruits constituted the sole diet. The meals were light, and for three months previous to confinement, the supper was always omitted, so that only two light meals were taken daily and no food between times. Drinking of water is a powerful means to reduce the inordinate craving appetite with which many are afflicted in child- bearing. In the case of this lady, no other drink than pure, soft Croton water was taken during the whole time. " As the expected time drew near, one morning while in the sitting bath labor commenced. The pains were prompt, and in about twenty minutes a fire healthy child was born In about ten minutes more the after 172 delivery made easy birth came away, followed with but little flowing of blood. The patient was allowed to rest a short time, after which the body was sponged over and quickly made dry and comfortable. Wet cloths were laid upon the breasts to prevent inflammation or undue swelling of the parts. A wet bandage was also placed about the abdomen covered with a dry one, so as to be of comfortable temperature. The sponging, rubbing, and bandages, were the means of reducing the feverish ex- citement caused by labor, and of soothing the body in a remarkable degree, so that sweet and quiet sleep soon followed. On the third day, water having been used as the case seemed to require in the mean time, the woman walked into the open air without injury, but on the con- trary with benefit. Daily exercise, however, was pre- viously taken, in the sick room, which was at all times kept well aired. " In this remarkable case there was not a single scar left upon the body, it being the first child, and the amount of suffering was by far less than is often expe- rienced in mere menstruation, by women who do not bathe regularly and adopt a generally correct hygienic course. Physiologically as well as morally, ' wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness,' and happy is that mo- ther who understands nature's laws, and who has in them a confidence sufficient to live accordingly. " It may be objected in reference to the above case, that it would be unsafe for most females to attempt to carry out a similar course to the one described. This is not true. Every individual, old or young, sick or well, and of either sex, should have at least a daily bath. Who would think of leaving for a single day the face and hands unwashed ? Those who have adopted daily DELIVERY MADE 3ASY 173 bath.ng, know well the comfort and advantages arising from it. Nor is a rigid vegetable, farinaceous, and fruit diet, as was used in the above case, a dangerous one as many suppose. On the contrary, such a diet judiciously selected, is highly conducive to bodily vigor and com- fort, and renders one in all cases far less liable to dis- ease of every kind. All who will in every respect take a judicious course, similar to the one described, will, as certainly as the sun shines, render their sufferings in child-bearing very much less than by any other possible means that can be adopted, and in most cases, so great will be the benefit derived, that, comparatively speak- ing, child-bearing will be unattended with suffering—be without pain. " The condition of the child in this case, was not less remarkable than that of the mother. It was healthy and vigorous, and as a natural result was far less liable to disease than children generally are. It is not at all natural for one half of the race to die under five years of age. If mothers and children were universally man- aged as in the case above, mortality of infants and chil- dren would be comparatively unknown." CASE OF MRS. SHEW. " On the 16th of September, 1845, Mrs. Shew gave birth, under peculiar circumstances, to a child. Her ancestry on both sides are consumptive, so that she inherits a strong predisposition to that disease, and has, in fact, for years had much to contend with, in reference to the condition of the chest. Pleurisies, inflammation of the lungs, cough, and hemorrhages, she had at differ- ent times, and is constantly liable to affections of this kind. She is likewise naturally of very delicate frame 15* 174 BY THE WATER-CURE. and extreme nervous sensibility, and it has ocen only by exercising great care in every thing that pertains to health, that she has now for a number of years, with twTo or three exceptions, kept free from the outbreaks of disease, and has enjoyed what would ordinarily be termed good health. " The summer of 1845, it will be recollected, was very tedious and hot. The whole season the drought was severe, and there was scarcely a single shower to refresh the earth. It was, therefore, very depressing to the health. However, by daily bathing and being much in the shade in the open air, wearing usually a part of each day the wet girdle, to refresh the system, using the cooling hip bath and injections now and then, -as oc- casion required, and partaking lightly of food but twice a day, Mrs. S. passed through the summer remarkably well ; but more than once during the season, certain things transpired that were very much against quietude peace of mind, and mental repose so necessary in the condition she was then in. " At length her expected time drew near. By the exercise of great prudence and care, she was enabled up to the very last, to discharge the ordinary duties of overseeing the household affairs of her family, and to walk and ride daily and frequently for exercise, or as business called, in the open air. " I must here mention, that one of my respected pre- ceptors in medicine, arid a man who is scarcely second to any other in his thorough acquaintance with medical lore, gave it as his decided opinion, that from the ex- treme smallness of the pelvis, Mrs. Shew could never give birth to a full-formed living child. The expedient of causing premature birth, or the still more horrible BY THE WATER-CURE. 175 one of destroying the child, seemed to nim inevitable, either of which Mrs. S. could not for a moment listen to. That the labor must be exceedingly severe, was evident enough to all. But she was resolved to let nature take her own course, whatever it might be. " Labor came on at evening of the 15th of September, the weather being yet hot and sultry. Mrs. S. would not listen to the proposal to have medical aid besides myself; nor would she consent to have any nurse or female attendant of any kind. Ordinary servants only were to bring water, and do whatever of like service was necessary. " The labor-pains went on, becoming exceedingly se- vere, and continued until three o'clock in the morning, at which time she gave birth to a large, healthy, and well-formed female child. Almost immediately the after- birth was expelled, followed by most frightful flooding. The night was, I confess, a long, dark, and dismal one to me. There was, I knew, in my wife's system, and always had been, as well as in her family, a strong ten- dency to hemorrhages. I understood perfectly well the different modes resorted to in these dangerous ex- tremes. Cold applications are, the world over, the means relied upon. As to the mode of applying the cold, I had resolved, in this case, to take a different course from any I had ever heard of. I had procured a large hip bath, with a good back, in which a person could be placed in a sort of half-reclining position, with the head supported upon pillows. Instead of applying the cold water by the stream from a pitcher, by wet cloths, and the like, I had resolved, that if flooding came on, I would take Mi.*. S. in my arms, and instantly place her in this hip bath; and thus, as I believed, I could 176 DELIVERY MADE EASY more quickly chill the whole of the pelvic viscera, than by any other means. Be it remembered, that wherever there is hemorrhage, whether from the lungs, stomach, bowels, or womb, there is great heat in and about the part from which the blood issues ; and the quicker and more effectually this heat can be abstracted and the parts chilled, the more certain are we to arrest the flow, by the constringing effect of cold upon the open vessels. As for the shock of the douche, or pouring of water from a height, so much in vogue, I believe that, so far as the shock is concerned, it is better avoided. If I am not mistaken, that only tends to keep up the flooding The cooling should be passive, and not violent. " Having every thing in readiness, I took Mrs. S. in my arms, and before she had time to faint entirely, I placed her in this hip bath of cold water. The water covered from near the knees over the whole abdomen, and no sooner had these parts come in contact with the water, than it seemed as if by magic the flooding ceased. The water revived her, and in a few minutes, before she had become much chilled, I raised her carefully and laid her in bed, put wet cloths about the abdomen, and wrap- ped her warmly in blankets. The feet were cold, as they generally are in severe hemorrhage. These parts, and from the knees down, I rubbed briskly with the warm hand, to restore the natural warmth. I kept good watch that she should not become too warm, as in that case flooding would be apt to return. It was not long before Mrs. S. fell into a sound sleep, in which she rested for some time. " I have regretted much that I did not, at the time, write down the notes of this case ; that is, of the re- maining part of the treat mer.t to be spoken of. From BY THE WATER-CURE. 177 the severity of the labor and the loss of a large amount of blood, Mrs. S. said she felt a greater degree of weak- ness than she had ever before experienced, a sense of sinking of the vital powers, and an oppression at the heart, with which she was before wholly unacquainted. The sleep I have spoken of did her much good, and was, of all things, the most desirable. Still, she was very weak, and after-pains set in, growing more and more severe. Her system being so highly sensitive, I expected this, and resolved upon the use of the hip bath. I would here remark, that the objection that would be raised by almost any practitioner to this procedure, here as well as in the flooding before spoken of, would be, that the position, the raising up a person in this weak state, and placing the trunk of the body in an upright position, would be likely to cause a return of the flooding. This objection, I admit, would have great weight, were it not for the fact that the water acts so powerfully to check that symptom. Still, there is no- thing like the danger feared, even without the use of the water, that there is supposed to be. And persons are found every where, in fact, it is almost a universa thing in childbirth, that females are required to lie, day after day, in too warm beds, thus debilitating the body by the heat caused by the fatigue of remaining much in one position, and by the unnatural position of the brain. Females thus become debilitated, nervous, restless, and are kept back-day after day, and often for weeks, and all for the want of what may be called good nursing ; and then in this debilitated state, when they do begin to get about after the ninth day, as superstition has it, the opposite extreme is practiced ; too much is done at once, a cold is taken, inflammation of the breasts oc- 178 l'ELIYERY MADE EASY curs, or falling of the womb takes place, or perhaps a powerful hemorrhage. I repeat, that in my practice, as a rule to which there can seldom be any exception, my patients of this kind sit up, even if it be but one or five minutes at a time, the first day of the confinement and onward. The sitting up to rest the patient, that is, to rest from the fatigue of the lying position, is one of the best means that can be adopted. The bed is at the same time aired and becomes cool, so that when she re- turns to it, the change back is salutary, and the reclining position becomes one of rest. The patient should be taught not to overdo in this matter, for every good thing has its abuse as well as use. I had now, in Mrs. Shew's case, a good opportunity to test fully the powers of water and good nursing. There were in her mind no prejudices to overcome—no lack of confidence, no superstitious, yet good-meaning old women about us, to whisper their fears and prognosticate evil. There was nothing in the way, and what was better than all the rest, Mrs. S. had herself a good knowledge of the prin- ciples that should guide us in the management of such cases. " After Mrs. Shew had slept, as before mentioned, and the after-pains had commenced, I administered the hip bath. These pains, as well as hemorrhages, are at- tended with internal heat; but, as regarded the general system, Mrs. S. had now a feeling of dread of cold wa- ter. The objects in view in the use of the hip bath and frictions, were to lull the pain, and to invigorate the system by the tonic effect of the water and friction. I laid a folded blanket in the bottom of the bath, in which was put a small quantity of tepid water, of such tem- perature as would produce no unpleasant sensation SY THE WATER-CURE. 179 Blankets were also used to wrap about the feet and limbs, and the whole surface, except the parts exposed to the water. Reaching my hand under these blankets, 1 commenced rubbing the spine, abdomen, and other parts ; and as the surface became accustomed to the water, I dipped the hand into that which was of a little lower temperature, and at length lowered the tempera- ture of the water in a bath gradually, by adding to it cold water. In a short time the pains ceased. The bath was continued some fifteen or twenty minutes, possibly a little longer, and then Mrs. S. was placed comfortably in bed. It was indeed truly wonderful to behold the change produced by this bath. Besides the removal of all pain, it seemed as if the strength was increased tenfold, all in the space of less than half an hour. " The after-pains returned frequently during the day, and as frequently they were combated with the hip bath and frictions. At least as many as ten times, and I think more, through the day and evening, I administered these baths, every one of which appeared to do an astonishing amount of good. Besides the removing of after-pains and the tonic effect of the baths, there was another palpable one: at times, sharp, cutting pains were expe- rienced in the bowels, caused by flatulency. The bath removed them like a charm. The urine was found to pass freely, in consequence of the bathing and drinking; and the soreness so much felt in these cases was all re- moved. '; As Mrs. S. grew stronger, the water was used somewhat colder, but all the time of moderate temper- ature. She slept very well during the night, having little or no more of the after-pains. In the evening, she 180 DELIVERY MADE EASY sat up, bore her weight, and walked a little about the room. "In consequence of more than usual fatigue, I did not awake the next morning until between six and seven o'clock. I confess I was not a little surprised, on awaking, that Mrs. Shew had left the room. This was only twenty-six hours from the birth; and she had taken her child in her arms, and gone down to the kitchen, She felt that she was perfectly able to do this, and acted accordingly, on her own responsibility. She was, how- ever very careful this day ; took but little nourishment • and in three days' time, we moved to the large house, 56 Bond street, Mrs. S. walking up and down stairs numbers of times during the day, overseeing things as they were moved, and so every day onward. Bathing was kept up as usual, daily, and she partook now, as was her usual habit, of the plainest food, and but twice per day, using no other animal food except a trifling quantity of milk, and no other drink except pure water. " The second day after the birth of our child, a wor- thy old gentleman, one of our patients, from New Eng- land, called upon us. He inquired, kindly, respecting Mrs. S.'s health, he having seen her much in the sum- mer, and in a few minutes she met him in the parlor. He raised his hands, and, in astonishment, exclaimed, 'This is indeed bringing things back to nature !' " In conversation with one of the first medical men of our city, or of the world, I described this case of Mrs. Shew's, and also others of like results. He said that he could not conceive it possible for a woman to get up and go about, with any thing like safety, in twenty-four or even forty-eight hours after childbirth. I admit, that as a rule, women could not, under ordinary modes o'* BY THE WATER-CLKE. 181 ireatment; but, at the same time, asked him how it was that the Indian women were so little troubled with these matters. I then said, our patients practice bathing daily, bathing continually ; drink no tea or coffee to weaken the powers of digestion, constipate the bowels destroy the relish for food, shatter the nervous system, and impair the soundness of natural and refreshing sleep ; their modes of dress do not distort and debilitate their frames, and instead of remaining mostly within doors, according to the foolish customs of civil life, they go regularly and often in the open air, thus gaining strength upon strength, by means of these natural and powerful tonics, exercise, pure air, and light. He ad mitted that such modes, persevered in, must produce powerful effects of some kind, and- added, that he intend- ed always to sustain good health by means of the showei bath, the daily use of which he had adopted with the greatest benefit. " I hold that, strong and enduring as are the Indian women, the generality of females of the present genera- tion even, may, if they commence in early life, become more hardy and strong than are those daughters of the forest, whose habits are, in many respects, unnatural and detrimental to health. But all this requires an amount of knowledge that few yet possess. " I could add numbers of cases of childbirth scarcely less striking than that of Mrs. Shew; and if the reader has any doubts of the authenticity of such narrations, I ask him to take the names and residences of my pa- tients, and hear their stories for himself. Persons who have experienced the invaluable, untold, and apparently miraculous effects of cold water, will not hesitate to make known the blessing of the new system." 16 182 BLEEDING, CHLOROFORM, ETC. Would that I could duly impress upon mothers this cardinal point—to prepare themselves beforehand by roRTiFYiNG their health instead of unfitting them- selves by health-ruining practices from the very cradle. BLEEDING, CHLOROFORM, ETC. Bleeding at such times is most pernicious, for it weakens mother and child by withdrawing the life- blood from both. They require nothing as much as blood. Granted that it is impure, does taking away a part purify the rest ? Abundance of pure air is the thing for cleansing the blood. To chloroform there exists strong objections. Its stupefying influence on the child must be most detri- mental, because, since its brain and nerves are exceed- ingly weak and susceptible, they are easily injured for life ; whereas adults readily throw off such injurious influences. It must deaden the child's nervous suscep- tibilities quite as much as the mother's, and can this be done without seriously impairing its cerebral consti- tution ? Nor is there any need of it. The previous prepara- tion recommended in this work will carry mothers through this period without any such stupefaction. Still, if women will enhance their pains by abusing health, and then resort to chloroform, let them. Theirs, and not mine, be the consequences. MALE AND FEMALE MIDWIVES. Until within about two centuries, male accoscheurs were wholly unknown. Women alone presided at births. And the alledged origin of this modern custom reflects no special credit upon it. Its propriety is ques- MALE AND FEMALE MIDWIVES. 183 tionable, because it is directly in the teeth of that native female modesty so innate as well as necessary to wo- man. Let those who know, testify to the extreme re- luctance with which young mothers submit, in their first confinement, to be handled by doctors. It is perfectly revolting to their finer sensibilities. This is not the re- sult of prudery, but of natural modesty. And that mo- desty—the great safeguard of female virtue—it does much to annul. It breaks the ice, and paves the way for familiarity with other men than their own husbands; and that not a few doctors take advantage of it and the confidence required by this custom, to excite improper feelings in women, and to gratify unhallowed passions in themselves, is more common than husbands for a moment suppose. These husbands, before and at ac- couchement, persuade, and scold, and almost force their wives to allow the doctor to make his observations— of which there is no sort of need in one case in hun- dreds—and the bars of virtue thus torn down, both the doctors and others find subsequent access too often al- lowed, whereas, but for her having been thus " broken in," nothing on earth could have induced her to have tolerated the least familiarity. And, what is worse, women must lay all their female complaints before the doctor, and talk much about these private matters, of which physicians can take advantage to excite impure desires. Husbands, look well to this matter. Besides, till every feeling of instinctive modesty is worn away, the presence of strange men around the lying-in bed has a dampening, repressing influence on the mother's mind, which materially retards delivery. She tries to suppress her spasmodic efforts, and this 184 FITTING WOMEN i OR MIDWIVES. i stifles the operation. Yet the presence of husbands n admissible, and even desirable, as it sustains the mother ; but this turning out husbands, because their presence is improper, yet admitting doctors, is s*~ange. And why are not women quite as well qualified as men to officiate on such occasions ? They have smaller and softer hands, more tact, more of the child-loving instinct, which is an important pre-requisite, and espe- cially more tenderness and quickness of perception, to- gether with personal experience—the most important preparation of all. How infinitely better does this experience fit mothers to preside, than all the learning of the schools does men? This book-learning unfits men for accoucheurs, for it induces them often to resort to instruments where nature, left to herself, would do the work far better, and save mother and child. FITTING WOMEN FOR MIDWIVES. What our women want, mainly, is self-confidence. They can do all that is necessary, if they only think so. Of course, it is presupposed that women of intelligence and nerve become practitioners. They next require anatomical knowledge ; for I would not have ignorant women placed in so important a situation. They should be thoroughly prepared for this important office ; and, accordingly, our women have a strong craving for anatomical knowledge, which is instinctive, and should therefore be gratified. This craving is implanted partly for the very purpose of fitting them for this and other like healing offices. Nor is there a shadow of reason why they should be denied access to colleges, or to any of the advantages proffered to medical students. Nor is the day far distant, when unless medical colleges are FEMALE PRACTITIONERS. 185 opened to them, they wil have o.ie of their own. In- deed, one is now in progress. That heroine who re- cently graduated at Geneva College, purposes to go to France, and after thoroughly preparing herself, to estab- lish, in connection with others, a college for the educa- tion of doctresses, with special reference to fitting them for midwives. Her advantages as present matron of the lying-in hospital at Philadelphia, eminently fit her to lead off in this much-needed reform. female practitioners for female complaints. That women are far better adapted than men to pre- scribe for female complaints, is apparent. The number and aggravation of female diseases, are incalculable and most frightful. And many of them are caused by the ignorance of girls, and their consequent careless ex- posures in the early stages of menstruation. And this ignorance is occasioned, mainly, by the fact, that men must be consulted ; and girls have so shrinking a repug- nance to disclose any thing to men, on this to them delicate subject, that they prefer to suffer in silence Meanwhile the disease, easily checked in the start, be- comes incurable, and a short life of suffering is the con- sequence of men assuming this department, which be- longs exclusively to women. Besides, severe medicines are far less needed than appropriate physiological advice, which our women are especially fitted to give. Sympathy, and unreserved disclosure of all symptoms—a feeling of perfect free- dom, as if at home, and talking to a friend—are indis- pensable ; yet, between men and girls, this never can and never should obtain, but is easy and natural be- 10* 186 mothers shoull instruct their daughters. tween female practitioners and female patients. This point is especially important. Female physicians would also disseminate preven- tive instruction, which men will not, or, at least, do not do. Girls should be put upon their guard. Many mothers have brought their daughters to me for advice, whose health had been ruined by improper exposures at ihe first menstruation, which a little knowledge would have prevented. Oh, it is a pity, and a burning shame, that girls are allowed to arrive at puberty without even suspecting its approach, or knowing one thing in regard to this all-important subject, in which their healths, and even their lives are so intimately concerned, as well as this child-bearing function. Mothers, why will you let them approach this crisis without instructing them what to do, and especially guarding them against injurious exposures ? Let your own experience attest the practi- cal importance of this kind of knowledge, and on no account fail to talk familiarly with them concerning it. Girls and women must have light on this subject. Mis- ery and premature death enough have already occurred, in consequence of that mock-delicacy in which it is en- shrouded. Away with this squeamishness, and look this whole ordinance of nature fairly in the face. There is one other call for female physicians, even greater than any yet named. Pregnant mothers, espe- cially before their first confinement, have a strong craving for sympathy—for some intimate female friend, with whom they can talk over all their symptoms and signs, and from whom receive cheering advice. This requirement of bearing mothers, it is not possible for doctors ever to fill. Women alone can freely confer with each other concerning it. Nor is the day far dis- HARRIET K. HUNT. 187 tant when this gi eat desideratum—female practitioners of medicine and midwifery—will supplant male ac- coucheurs. Harriet K. Hunt, of Boston, one of, if not the very first female physician in our country, and the pioneer of female practice, justly remarked, that no one thing would do more to restrain the licentiousness of hus- bands, than female physicians; because these erring husbands now feel safe from exposure, because they know their wives will not expose them to doctors, whereas they would tell all freely to doctresses. She thinks her own practice exerts a most salutary and needed restraint on the husbands of not a few of her patients. This good woman, bringing much good sense. information, talent, and energy of character into this new department, is doing much to add respectability to female practice, and is really doing immense good. Her practice is very large, and embraces many women who move in the first circles of Boston; and one of her strongest recommendations is, that she gives more advice than medicines, and directs as to the prevention of dis- eases as well as their cure. She will soon commence a course of free lectures to the poor, and is determined to do all she can for the health of her sex. She is a true philanthropist. May she be duly rewarded. 439. abortion. That this mother-ruining as well as child-destroy- ing practice prevails to a most alarming extent, is a mournful fact. Few realize how many mothers, here in this Christian (?) land, do and take what is expressly calculated to produce miscarriage, and taken with that specific and sole object. Many unmarried women, who 188 THE CRI.MvE OF ABORTION. stand high in public estimation, have perpetrated this heinous crime, in order to hide their shame. Married women, too, by hundreds and by thousands, have dealt out death against their own bodies, and the fruit of those bodies. It seems so revolting, so unnatural, such an outrage of every principle of our nature, that its per- petration evinces both consummate ignorance and total depravity combined. Touching this subject, the Pa- rents' Guide thus remarks: " The practice of procuring abortion, or, to use a less offensive expression, inducing a miscarriage, has of late become so common, that it requires to be placed before the public in all its naked atrocity. From the increas- ing number of unprincipled persons who publicly adver- tise this destructive practice, it is evident that it is ex- tending to a fearful degree throughout our country : some knowledge, therefore, of the dreadful consequences attending such utter violations of nature's laws, may be useful. That the act of procuring abortion is a crime of the deepest dye, on a par with that of murder, no ar- gument can controvert; nor can any, except the weak- minded or the vicious, be persuaded to the contrary Is it possible that any woman of sane mind can look upon her living child, and admit for a moment that it would be a greater crime to deprive it of life by violent means then, than it would have been while in a state of embryo ? Many early married, unreflecting females, to avoid the cares and responsibilities of a large family, allow themselves to be deluded by the miserable sophis- try, that there is no harm, previous to quickening, in taking the most deadly drugs, or in making use of the most violent means to procure abortion. Let them not, however, thus deceive themselves, for whatever appa- FATAL EFFECTS OF ABORTION. 189 rent success may, for a time, attend these atrocious practices, retribution is sure to follow such gross viola- tions of nature's laws. The moral and physical institu- tions of a wise and just Creator cannot be thus outraged with impunity—effect follows cause, as unceasingly here as in any other department of organic life. " Scarcely any misfortune to which humanity is liable, is more to be dreaded than a natural tendency to miscar- riage. How often has it been the bane of an otherwise happy existence ? Its uniform evil effect, upon the gen- eral health of the sufferer, is well-known and admitted : and yet, strange perversity, an incredible number of fe- males, in all ranks and conditions of life, are found, who in their pitiable ignorance are willing, often for slight per- sonal considerations, to risk a constant liability to this constitutional evil, and thereby commit, in an indirect manner, the crime of self-murder. Among several cases fresh in the memory of the writer is that of Mrs. W-___, a woman highly respected for her piety, and in some respects good sense, having borne four healthy children, and thereby acquired a priceless treasure. Some plausible demon incited her to the use of these unhallowed means, to avoid, in the cant phrase of the day, a too numerous family. After five years of suc- cess, she is now a helpless ruin, totally prostrated in her nervous system, and entirely blind. And again, these days of modern refinement have given rise to another baneful practice. The newly-married, youthful couple, must for a season enjoy the butterfly-life of gayety pro- per to their condition in the present improved scale of existence, to do which, it is absolutely necessary to avoid the inconvenience and cares of offspring. This can onlv be accomplished by encouraging--harmlessly 190 ABORTION COMMON IN AMERICA. and for the present only, mind you—a miscarriage, for- getting that this outrage upon nature can only be inflict- ed by incurring the heavy liability to the mother of permanent and irreparable injury, or perhaps laying the train for a premature death. " Thus it is with the family of R.—or, more properly speaking, thus it is with that lonely, unhappy, because childless couple, who, in their early marriage day, long years ago, threw away, like the unbelieving Jew, the pearls that would have enriched his tribe. "' In England,' lately remarked a native of that coun- try, ' every mother feels proud of having reared a large family of healthy, joyous children—ten or fifteen being no unusual number. While the American mothers, I observe, generally have small families, particularly in the higher classes of society.' An old and experienced physician present significantly referred the speaker to the advertisements of professed female physicians, re- marking, that these fiends in human form escaped un- whipped of justice, because the patronage they received enabled them, when prosecuted, to employ the best legal defence in the country ; and that their practice being principally confined to the wealthy portion of the com- munity, many a dark deed of iniquity has been conceal- ed—the patients in such cases preferring any amount of suffering, or even death, to the public exposure which must ensue in bringing the criminal to justice. " In a subsequent conversation, this physician stated to the writer, that many distressing cases of this kind had - fallen under his observation—cases in which it was clear to the experienced eye ork the physician, that the patient had most ignorantly tampered with her constitution, in- terfered with, and interrupted the natural functions of THE CASE OF MRS. M - Id) her system. For after giving birth, at regular intervals, to healthy children, the young and vigorous mother sud- denly becomes sterile. Years pass, during which fre- quent indispositions occur, leaving behind them.a consti- tution strangely shattered, and a nervous system in ruins. The misguided sufferer at length perceives the dreadful results of her practices, and desists—pregnancy ensues, but the whole term of gestation is one of painful debility, and at its close, in the effort for relief, outraged nature denies the necessary energy : the patient sinks to the tomb, another victim to the Moloch of selfishness, leaving a family of young children motherless, to grow up in ignorance and tread the same path of error which led to her destruction." The very painful and dangerous consequences which attended an unsuccessful attempt at abortion, is thus given by an eminent practitioner of this city : " Mrs. M-___ was the mother of two children, and had been suffering severely, for the last fourteen hours, from strong expulsive pains, which, however, had not caused the" slightest progress in the delivery. I was likewise informed that, about four hours before I saw the case, Dr. Miner, an experienced physician, had been sent for, and, after instituting a vaginal examination, re- marked to the attending physicians, that, 'in all his practice, he had never met with a similar case.' Dr. Miner suggested the administration of an anodyne, and having other professional engagements, left the house. Mrs. M— was taken in labor Monday, Dec. 18th, a 7 o'clock, p. m., and on Sunday, at 7 o'clock, p. m., I first saw her Her pains were then almost constant, and such had been the severity of her suffering, that her cries for relief, as her medical attendants informed me, 192 THE C'A^E OF MRS. M had attracted crowds of people about the door. As soon as I entered her room she exclaimed, ' For God s sake, doctor, cut me open, or I shall die ; I never can be delivered without you cut me open !' I was struck with this language, especially as I had already been in- formed that she had previously borne two children. "On assuring her that she was in a most perilous situation, and at the same time, promising that we would do all in our power to rescue her, she voluntarily made the following confession : li About six weeks after becoming pregnant, she called on one of these infamous female physicians, who, hearing her situation, gave her some powders, with di- rections for use ; these powders, it appears, did not pro- duce the desired effect. She returned again to this woman, and asked her if there were no other way to make her miscarry. ' Yes,' say?» this physician, ' I can probe you ; but I must have my price for this operation.' ' What do you probe with ?' ' A piece of whalebone. ' Well,' observed the patient, ' I cannot afford to pay your price, and I will probe myself.' She returned home, and used the whalebone several times ; it pro- duced considerable pain, followed by a discharge of blood. The whole secret was now disclosed. Injuries inflicted on the mouth of the womb, by other violent attempts, had resulted in the circumstances as detailed above. It was evident, from the nature of this poor woman's sufferings, and the expulsive character of her pains, that prompt artificial delivery was indicated. As the result of the case was doubtful, and it was import- ant to have the concurrent testimony of other medical gentlemen, and as it embodied great professional in- terest, I requested my friends. Drs. Detmold. Washing- THE 3ASE OF MRS. M"==—. 193 ton, and Doane, to see it. They reached the house without delay, and, after examining minutely into all the facts, it was agreed that a bi-lateral section of the mouth of the womb should be made. " Accordingly, without loss of time, I performed the operation in the following manner: The patient was brought to the edge of the bed and placed upon her back. The index finger of my left hand was introduced into the vagina as far as the roughness,'which I supposed to be the seat of the os tineas. Then a probe-pointed bistoury, the blade of which had been previously covered with a band of linen to within about four lines of its extremity, was carried along my finger, until the point reached the rough surface. I succeeded in introducing the point of the instrument into a very slight opening which I found in the centre of this surface, and then made an incision of the left lateral portion of the mouth, and before with- drawing the bistoury, I made the same kind of incision on the right side. I then withdrew the instrument, and in about five minutes it was evident that the head of the child made progress. The mouth of the womb dilated almost immediately, and the contractions were of the most expulsive character. There seemed, however, to be some ground for apprehension that the mouth of the uterus would not yield with sufficient readiness, and I made an incision of the posterior lip, through its centre, extending the incision to within a line of the peritonal cavity. In ten minutes from this time, Mrs. M----was delivered of a strong full-grown child, whose boisterous cries were heard with astonishment by the mother, and with sincere gratification by her medical friends. The expression of that woman's gratitude, in thus being pre- served from what she and her frientfs supposed to be in- 17 194 THE CASE OF MRS. M —. evitable death, was an ample compensation for the am iety experienced by those who were the humble instru- ments of affording her relief. This patient recovered rapidly, and did not, during the whole of her convales- cence, present one unpleasant symptom. It is now ten weeks since the operation, and she and her infant are in the enjoyment of excellent health. "At my last visit to this patient, with Dr. Forry, she made some additional revelations, which I think should be given, not only to the profession but to the public, in order that it may be known, that in our very midst there is a monster who speculates with human life, with as much coolness as if she were engaged in a game of chance. " This patient, with unaffected sincerity, and apparent- ly ignorant of the moral turpitude of the act, stated most unequivocally to both Dr. Forry and myself, ' that this physician, on previous occasions, had caused her to mis- carry five times, and that these miscarriages had, in every instance, been brought about by drugs administered by this trafficker in human life. The only case in which the medicines failed was the last pregnancy, when, at the suggestion of this physician, she probed herself, and induced the condition of things described, and which most seriously involved her own safety, as well as that of her child.' In the course of conversation, this woman mentioned that she knew a great number of persons who were in the habit of applying to this physician for the purpose of miscarrying, and that she scarcely ever failed in affording the desired relief; and, among others, she cited the case of a female residing in Houston street, who was five months pregnant: this physician probed her, and she was delivered of a child, to use her own ABORTION NVOLVES MATERNAL SUICIDE. 195 expression, ' that kicked several times after it was PUT INTO THE BOWL.' " Against this deed of death nature most solemnly pro- tests, by rendering it so ruinous to the general health of the mother, and especially so destructive of her sexual apparatus. So intimate is the relation between mother and child, that it is not possible to destroy the life of the latter, without doing fatal violence to that of the former When she effects this destruction, by taking powerful medical poisons, such as strong decoctions of ergot, tansy, etc., she equally poisons herself ; for how can this poison be administered to the child, except through her blood ? And how can that blood be so effectually poisoned as to quench the life of the child, without therein and thereby proportionably poisoning her own system throughout? And the only reason why this fatal draught does not destroy her own life also, is her greater power of constitution. Now, is it possible, in the nature of things, to poison it to death without there- by palsying, crushing her own life-power ? All abor- tive medicine this reciprocity between mother and child equally condemns. It passes the same sentence of maternal suicide upon every and all other possible means of producing mis- carriages. Does not probing do as great violence to her sexual organs, as to its life ? The relation between it and them is perfect, so that whatever injures the one, correspondingly impairs the other also. And, since the relation existing between these organs, and her entire physiology and mentality, is also perfect, in order that it may take on all her existing conditions of mind and body, of course whatever impairs it, correspondingly in- jures not only her sexu: apparatus, but thrcugh it her 196 recovery ?rom confinement. entire nature. And when this violence is so extreme as to cause infantile death, it must necessarily be suici- dal to her. Oh, if mothers only understood this law of intimacy, they would no more dare to attempt abortion than suicide, because they would know that the former necessarily involved the latter ! Leaving the horrible crime of infanticide entirely out of the question, I ask, prospective mothers, how you dare take no small part of your own life ? I press it solemnly upon your con- sciences, whether you had not rather let nature take her course, even though you may be unmarried, than stand before the bar of your God, and eternal retribution, a partial or total suicide. God forbid that you perpetrate this unpardonable crime, in addition to that of child- murder, for you cannot commit the latter without ren- dering yourself, in part or in whole, amenable for the former. All the shame, all the pains, all the cares, all the troubles of child-bearing, are trifles compared with these two monstrous sins. May God Almighty deliver you from such heaven-provoking enormities ! No other deed so outrages Philoprogenitivencss, Con- science, Vitativeness, Benevolence—every law of health and morals, as well as every ordinance of nature and command of God—or will insure as terrible retribution here and hereafter. 440. RECOVERY FROM CONFINEMENT. Those who come to their accouchement with good health, need have no fears of a lingering or painful "getting up." The better the general health, the sooner the recovery, and the less liability to those complaints incident to confinement. General attention to the laws of health, too, is a far more effectual remedy than a re- THE DRUGGING SYSTEM ?ERN10I0U3i. 197 sort to dosing and drugging. Wcmen at these periods need neither emetics nor purgings. The water treat- ment here, as in labor itself, is incomparably superior to the old practice. Nursing is required far more than doctoring. Or, rather, what the patient requires, main- ly, is to let nature do her own work in her own way. Such exposures as are calculated to bring on a relapse, should be sedulously avoided, and this is the main se- cret. One single principle will suffice to prove, that the drugging system is most pernicious—its influence on the child. That the mother's milk is the child's natural food, will presently be shown ; and that all medicines taken by the mother, are secreted directly from the mother's system into this milk, is an established fact. Hence, all physic administered to the mother similarly affects the child also; and all drugging of infants, must, in the very nature of things, disorder and poison their systems. You cannot doctor the mother, without there- in and thereby doctoring the child; and against all med- ical interference with the child's system, in the name of nature, I unequivocally protest. No more effectual method of injuring the extremely susceptible systems of infants, can be devised. I solemnly warn mothers and nurses against it; and this, of course, interdicts all administrations of medicines to nursing mothers. " But her bowels require relaxing, or checking, and this or that systematic difficulty requires to be regu- lated." Then relax, restrain, and regulate by food and water ; directions for doing which will be found in « Physiology, Animal and Mental",s9-16°-161-164-169'175. The idea that medicines can remove disease or restore to health, is preposterous. These a e nature's exclusive 17* 198 RELAPSES DANGEROUS. works. She does this partly by medicated food, herbs, etc., and hence all medicines should be eaten in food, and form a part of our diet. The medicated herbs, etc., should themselves be eaten, not their decoctions, ex- tracts, etc., be taken in a concentrated form. This healing law applies with peculiar force to nursing mo- thers. And of all remedial agents, I consider fruits the best, as they certainly are the most palatable PS7. RELAPSES. As the mother's system is now unusually susceptible to foreign influences, any violence done her brings on a relapse, which is usually more painful and dangerous than the confinement itself. Suppose such a disaster has befallen her, what is to be done ? First, ascertain its cause. This will generally be found in one of two things—over-exertion, or colds—and usually the two combined. What is then to be done ? Resort to the opposite extreme. If over-exertion caused it, take extra pains to keep the whole system quiet, and let tired nature rest. Indeed, she requires rest, calm, quiet sleep, more at this period than any other thing, a right diet not excepted. Her system has put forth a mighty effort, is exhausted, and therefore requires rest. Whatever is calculated to vex or perplex her is always injurious, and especially detrimental in relapses. All should be pleasurable, and she rendered as happy as possible. But if, as is most probable, the relapse was caused by cold, break it up as soon as possible. This can best be effected by producing perspiration. Cold consists in suppressed perspiration, and can therefore be cured by, and only by restoring this perspiration. And for BLEEDING AND CALOMEL PRACTICE. 199 effecting this, water and friction are by far the best in- strumentalities. But for the full presentation of this sub- ject, the reader is referred again to Physiology107'108-109- U1. A most affecting instance of the destructive conse- quences of the bleeding and calomel practice, recently fell under the author's observation. Mrs. M., confined with her sixth child, recovered very rapidly for about a week, when, on her mother's coming to see her, she sat up most of a cold, raw April day, took a chill, and sent toward night in considerable haste for her doctor—a great lancet and calomelite. He put her, to use his own words to me, " under the usual treatment in such cases" —that is, bled and salivated. Meanwhile, the child had to be nursed, which alone reprobates this practice. " But," continued he, " she was attacked with a severe rheumatic affection, which settled in her limbs—espe- cially knees." His own story satisfied me, fully, that the poisonous calomel produced these most excruciating rheumatic sufferings, under which she gradually sank; yet, having a powerful constitution, the wretched pa- tient suffered beyond all endurance, but finally yielded to the deadly poison, and died, a martyr to calomel, universally lamented, and an irreparable loss to her husband and family. The too early dismissal of her nurse, also doubtless contributed to this sad result. Mothers should not be too strong too soon. They often retard recovery by being too smart, and by sewing as soon and as long as they are able to sit up. Let your sewing go. Dismiss all family cares. Consider yourself fully entitled to a long holiday. And as soon as you are able to be " up and doing," instead of working, recreate. I would not recommend tSat you keep your bed an hour longer than 200 DIET OF RECENTLY-CONFINED MOTHERS. is really necessary—of which fact judge for yourselves —but I insist upon your riding and walking out, seeking amusement, chatting pleasurably with friends, etc., in- stead of taxing your weak system with labor. This "keeping the bed nine days, till the parts unite," irre- spective of the patient's state of health, is a granny's whim. Some are able to be up and about in two or three days, while others require to keep their beds as many weeks or months. Nor can any other one judge for them, but each must decide for themselves. Yet in general there is more danger of getting about too soon than of keeping confined too long. THE DIET OF RECENTLY-CONFINED MOTHERS. On this very much depends. It should be much as that already recommended before confinement428—nutri- tious, yet easily digested. Wheat boiled, cracked, or coarse ground, and made into bread or puddings, in connection with sweet fruits, eaten freely, and perhaps milk and cream, will probably be found the best general diet. In meat, gravies, butter, I do not believe. They are too strong and too heating. Porter, so much used by many English women, I re- gard as particularly injurious to both mother and child. It contains considerable alcohol, and this is rank poison to infants. It powerfully irritates and stimulates the child, whereas it requires sleep and quiet. Cocoa con- tains all the nutrition required, and has a very soothing and quieting influence on the mother and child—exactly what both require. This drink probably stands unri- valed. If the grease it contains is objectionable, let it cooj md skim, and re-warm or drink cold ; but as a drink for nursing mothers, it far surpasses tea or coffee NURSING--CUTTING THE NAVEL CORD. 201 neither of which they ought ever to take. Fresh air wholesome food, and as much exercise as can be taken without injury, are the panaceas of confined mothers. 441. THE NURSING AND MANAGEMENT OF INFANTS. The author does not claim to be a nurse. He is per- fectly aware that women instinctively understand this subject better than men, and hence proposes only to of- fer a few general suggestions, based in physiological principles too often overlooked by nurses. Yet though women have more of the child-caring instinct than men, they generally err in one essential respect—they over- nurse. They too often literally kill with kindness. This their excessive Philoprogenitiveness, too gener- ally ungoverned by intellect, predisposes them to do. Their love for the new comer exceeds their knowledge of the best mode of managing it, and hence they devise a thousand things for its comfort which are most detri- mental. But, to begin with its proper treatment from birth: TIME OF CUTTING THE NAVEL CORD. Is not this generally done too soon ? What harm can accrue from leaving this connection unsevered for some minutes ? On the contrary, would not a decided benefit result therefrom ? The more of the mother's blood the child can retain the better. Now by leaving the umbili- cal cord uncut a few minutes, it is obvious that more blood will be propelled from the mother into the child, than will be withdrawn from the child to the mother. At least till all pulsation in this cord has ceased, it should not be cut. This is too apparent to require proof. In Ireland, the cusr.om prevails, of not only not sever- 262 VASHINO AND DRESSING. ing the connection at oncj, but of gently pressing the blood along from mother to child; and I have known several cases of children born nearly dead, evidently resuscitated by leaving this connection unsevered for some time ; whereas if it had been cut immediately, they would have died. We commend this point to the care- ful consideration of midwives. Still, care must be taken lest the child take cold. WASHING. This should be performed just as soon as possible af- ter the navel cord is cut, and done as rapidly as a due regard to tenderness will allow, in water nearly blood- warm, followed by rubbing with the hart 1. A case came under my own observation where the nurse was so long in washing and dressing a child, that it took a cold from which it did not recover for several weeks, and probably will never wholly get over it. DRESSING. To wait to put on the common under and outer clothes now used, is altogether wrong. Wrap them in a woollen blanket. They are usually over-dressed. I would have them kept warm, but this clothes can never do p> 11S-118, 12°. Their own internal heat must warm them, or they must remain cold-. All that clothes can do is to retard the escape of heat—not to create that heat. But they are generally dressed too warmly; then the room is usually kept too warm, and they are often kept under an excess of bed-clothes—too much for them even if naked. And all in consequence of the extra Cautiousness and Philoprogenitiveness of mothers and nurses. This weakens their skin, induces too great perspiration, and exposes them to colds. Be per- " A DOSE OF SWEET OIL." 203 suaded not to over-clothe, and lay them on a bed instead of under bed-clothes, for that clothing which suffices them when awake is all-sufficient when asleep. Also put on no caps. They are especially injurious. Yet this practice is now generally obsolete. " A DOSE OF SWEET OIL," Must of course be administered immediately on their being dressed. This is both utterly unnecessary, and especially pernicious. The simple fact that the first nourishment received from the mother is aperient, is proof positive that no other purgation is needed. Since nature has thus provided for moving their bowels, why make any additional provision ? The fact that nature always takes this work in hand, shows that art should not interfere. What proof can be stronger? What needs to be done, nature will do, and the fact that she always undertakes it, is ample guarantee that it will be well done. Besides, all such medicines only induce the very con- stipation designed to be removed. It is the nature of all aperients to tighten the bowels afterwaed. This is an absolutely necessary consequence of aii purga- tives. How especially palsying, then, to the weak and highly susceptible bowels of.infants? It disorders them always, and in the very constitution of things. They are always left worse than they would have been without any aperients. Let nature alone, and she will move the bowels in due time, unless the mother is very much disordered. Or if, in extreme cases, art should be required to quicken her movements—which I exceed- ingly doubt—tepid water is aid enough, and leaves no palsying influer ^,e behind. Not a few of the colics, and 204 NATURAL 1'OCC OF INFANT*. stomach aches, and kindred complaints which distress children, have their origin in sweet oil. I repeat, give no medicines to either mother or child. Yet, if aperi- ents should be needed, let the mother eat opening food. NATURAL FOOD OF INFANTS. That its mother's milk is the only natural food of the infant, is perfectly obvious, from the fact that nature has made provision for no other. She never fails to make ample provision, and that of the very best kind.. And that provision she has made in the mother's milk. It is perfectly adapted to the nutrition of infants. It con- tains just the elements required for sustaining life, and developing all the organs, and in the most soluble form. possible. Nothing can exceed the adaptation of the mother's milk to infantile nutrition and growth. That child is really to be pitied who has not abundance of such nourishment. The fact that they have no teeth is negative proof of a positive character, that solid food is not adapted to them. As the specific object of teeth is to masticate solid food, of course the latter should not be given till the former appear in sufficient abundance to masticate. Of course, in case the mother's milk is insufficient or diseased, better that infants be fed than starved. Solid food rather than none ; yet mothers who have taken first-rate care of their health, all along up from girlhood, will always have an abundance of milk, for nature, left to herself, always provides a surplus instead of allowino- a deficit. The reason why so many mothers have too little milk, is their previous destruction of health, and injury of their female organs. Whatever impairs the health and esp**"jally the digestion, lessens the quantitv large breasts. 205 and impairs the quality of their milk. Th'at they, in common with the impairment of the female organs, diminish the size of the breasts, has already been shown424, and whatever lessens their size diminishes their efficiency. Of course there are human, as well as other females, who, though healthy, give but little milk, because their vitality, though abundant, is mainly re- tained for their own personal use, just as there are others who run so much to milk as to keep themselves poor. Yet there are few females who would not, if healthy, give milk enough for a child. The chief cause of deficient milk, is too little vitality. Keep this abun- dant, and this difficulty will rarely occur. And those who, though healthy, furnish too little milk, can always be selected before marriage, and by those very signs which indicate good milking capabilities in stock. Good milking capabilities are one important sign of female perfection, and as easily predicated of the human as brute females, for the signs of both are the same. LARGE BREASTS Generally indicate good nursing capacity. Fleshy, corpulent women form a partial exception, because their breasts are composed proportion ably of fat, yet a prac- ticed observer can easily see how much allowance is to be made on this score. A large pelvis is also generally accompanied by a good supply of milk. It is strange that all—men especially—cannot designate a good and a poor female at a glance ; and one who is a good fe- male, will rarely if ever fail in this important respect. Large breasts, therefore, are quite important in a can- didate for matrimony, and small ones indicative of other defects besides poor nurses. Let me, then, again urge 18 206 TIMES OF NURSING. upon our young women and bearing matrons, to take that care of their health which shall secure round forms and full breasts Mark, moreover, that, at every step of our progress, from the very commencement of this work, we find requisition after requisition for maternal health. This is the paramount maternal requisition. Will not our women learn wisdom from this " line upon line, and precept upon precept" of nature ? But where maternal nutrition is not adequate to the infant's demand, it must of course be fed. Fed by what? That which most nearly resembles its mother's milk. In this respect, goat's milk probably stands fore- most. Yet cow's milk answers a good purpose. And when fed, it should be as warm from the cow as it can well be, and always from the same cow, and that a young and healthy one. It should be diluted with one half water, and be given blood warm, yet heated by the water put in instead of by the fire, because the latter causes a skin to rise which contains some of the most nutritious materials of the milk. Neither arrow root nor barley or rice water, nor any of the gums, equal new milk, of which the economy of nature is abundant guarantee. And this milk is better given from the sucking bottle than with the spoon. TIMJT3 OF NURSING. This is another important matter. Most mothers err exceedingly in giving their children the breast too often, and irregularly, or whenever they cry. Very likely their crying was caused by over-feeding, and con- sequent flatulence or colic, and they only increase the difficulty by trying to obviate it. The child will tell, by other palpable signs besides crying, when it needs to PERIODICITY OF BATHING AND SLEEP. 207 nurse, and it is ample time to nurse it when it asks ear- nestly for the breast. But this whole difficulty can be completely obviated by nursing the child at specified times. How often, is less material than regularity. A time for every thing, and every thing in its time, is a fundamental law of nature, and one which can be employed with special benefit in child-nursing. Nature is perfect clock-work. Then should not that part of it which relates to the management of children be regulated by the clock? Periodicity should be faithfully observed in every thing done for them. They should be bathed all over every day at one specified hour, put to sleep at just such and such intervals, and nursed by the clock. Nor was it in the power of Astor, with all his millions, to confer on his descendants as great a legacy as every mother, how- ever poor, can confer on her children by observing this regularity. And it should be continued through child- hood and through life, for nothing will contribute more to health, happiness, and virtue. And the relief this practice affords mothers alone en- titles it to observance. Take sleep as an example. Put your child to bed from the first at given times, and you can soon ascertain within a few minutes how long it will sleep, and this will give you just such hours, every day, to yourself, to ride, or make calls, or do what you please. Mothers generally keep themselves at home from evening meetings, lectures, etc., whereas they might just as well go as not. Suppose you put your child to bed evemngs at seven, or a quaiter before, you can easily so arrange it that it shall sleep soundly till nine, or half past nine, and then, after nursing and playing a little, 208 THE CRYING OF CHILDREN. put it to bed for the night; nor nurse it again till five o'clock next morning. It will soon become so habitua- ted as to fall asleep, awaken, and require nursing at these particular times, and no others, and this course will save mothers more than half the burden of the extra trouble they now impose on themselves, besides the in- calculable benefits it will confer on the children them- selves. Mothers who have not tried it, can form no conception of the utility of this policy. Every four or five hours is probably often enough. Suppose you nurse at five, nine and a quarter, a. m., one and a half, five and three quarters, and ten, p. m. Yet my own full conviction is, that once in five or five and a half hours is better, and then you might say five, ten and a half, four, and nine and a half. Or if you prefer three and a half hours, say at five, eight and a half, twelve, three and a half, seven, and ten ; or if four hours, say at five, nine, one, five, and nine and a half. Yet every mother can adopt such other times as she likes best. They will do better on five hours or over, than less than four. Yet their systems will soon adapt them- selves to whatever times may be appointed. Hence whatever times you select, be regular. Of course their bathing, which should be continued through childhood, should also be regular; and I would suggest nine o'clock in the morning as best, and sleep soon after, and again about one. Their under garments should be changed often, and special attention be directed to the skin. the crying of children. Most mothers consider crying as necessary as eating. Far otherwise. Such crying is a sure index that some MANAGEMENT OF CROSri CHILDREN. 20SJ of nature's laws have been violated, and the chile, ac- cordingly distressed. The saying, "That is a good child which is good with good tending," is based in igno- rance. The order of nature is, that children sho'uld not cry at all. Infants sleep most of the time till their mothers disorder their own stomachs, and thereby derange their children's, and this occasions that pain which causes them to cry. They rarely, if ever, cry for crossness, but generally on account of distress. Of this distress there is no need, nor of course of its bois- terous effects. How instinctively does their crying awaken our pity. Why ? Because we .are intuitively conscious that they suffer. The order of nature is to render them happy, and this will prevent their crying Those mothers who are tormented with cross children, deserve the blame themselves. They are ignorant who do not know how to manage their children so that they will rarely cry. Strange that girls and young mothers enter upon married life without one correct physiological idea upon this subject, so intimately con- nected with their happiness. And when the child does cry, they jolt, toss, rock, and dose or stuff it, which only increase its discomfort and consequent cries. They must give it this tea and that medicine, which, in the very nature of things, increase the distress. Catnip tea, provided it is very weak, is not particularly detrimental, yet warm water, sweeten- ed, is perhaps better. Tjy it, when your children are cross, and you will find it to act like magic. "But," you urge, "my child is cross, spiteful, and angry "' And do you not know that temper always ac- companies sickness, except where it is so severe as to cause prostration? Ar5 not children always peev.sh 18* 210 MANAGEMENT OF SICK CHILDREN. and irritable when unwell ? Hence your objection be- comes my argument. And if they are naturally ill- natured, very likely you entailed it upon them before they were born. Yet even this pre-supposes that your own feverish state of body caused your and their petu- lance, so that they are to be pitied, instead of scolded. Against much rocking, jolting, trotting, and carrying children, I protest. They do no good, because they do not remove that bad feeling which causes the crying. But they do prevent rest, which would cure both dis- ease and crossness. Infants require to be kept still and quiet most of the time. As soon as they need exercise, they will contrive ways and means to take it of them selves. MANAGEMENT OF SICK CHILDREN. Our suggestion, that children are often seriously injured by over-care and fussing, is doubly true when they are sick. Of course parental anxiety is extreme, and one recourse after another is tried in such quick succession, that each nullifies the effect of the preceding remedy, and every one only increases the disease. The fatal error is the supposition that medicines can cure. This is impos- sible. Nature alone can remove disease, and effect a cure, and the less she is interfered with the better. Do too little rather than too much. In general, medicines kill many more than they cure, even of adults, and ten- fold more children. Their systems are exceedingly susceptible, so that medicines .take a powerful hold on them, and therefore cannot but derange and weaken their organs. The more powerful medicines are almost certain death to them. How can they possibly with- stand them ? Doctors are utterly unfit to prescribe for them. "Old granny medicines" are far better ; that is, PLACIDITY OF MIND DESIRABLE WHILE NURSING. 211 less injurious. But the water cure is the treatment of all others for them. Still, if medicines must be taken, let the mother take them, and the child then nurse them from her. Yet the art is to keep them well. And this can al- ways and easily be done. They will never be sick, unless mother or child palpably violate the laws of health. These laws every mother should understand. Oh, when will our girls give to physiology a part of that time and energy now worse than wasted on dress ? NURSING CHILDREN WHEN THE MOTHER IS ANGRY, Has a pernicious influence on them. In some na- tions, mothers make it a superstitious practice to nurse only when in a quiet frame of mind. All the feelings of the mother are faithfully transmitted to her milk. How, will be seen in Physiology 1S2. All her mental troubles, her nursing child feels. Mothers, observe, that when any thing occurs to make you feel bad, you will soon find them begin to worry and cry, just as, be- fore birth, it causes unusual motion in your womb. Placidity of mind is peculiarly desirable during he whole time of nursing. HOW LONG SHALL CHILDREN NURSE V Nature requires that they nurse considerably longer than the feebleness and diseases of mothers now render it expedient that they should. As most mothers now are, probably one year is quite long enough, yet my own conviction is, that if mother and child were kept in a state of perfect health, they should nurse till three or four years old. Yet our mothers generally are so full of disease, that, in from six to nine months, infants im- 212 EDUCATION OF INFANTS. bibe quite as much disease as they can sustain. Yet ■ here, too, all depends on the state of the mother's health. The better it is, the longer they should nurse. 442. THE EDUCATION OF INFANTS. This point is one of great practical importance—suffi- cient to require a volume for its complete elucidation. Yet we are compelled to treat it cursorily. Few realize to what an extent infantile minds are sus- ceptible of development, and how much they can be taught. Every day and hour their minds can be sharp- ened up and expanded by maternal actions, looks, and expressions. Even before they can understand the. meaning of words, they feel the full force of intona- tions. Mind constitutionally quickens mind, and the more the mother or nurse puts forth, the more they imbibe. In view of this truth, I protest against the common baby talk with which children are dosed. It consists in saying very silly things, in a very silly manner. My great objection to it is, that this silliness must of neces- sity be uttered in flat, foolish intonations, and these simi- larly affect their tender minds. But if the operations of the mother's mind are sensible and vigorous, they will stir up the child's mind similarly. Every look, every intonation, affects them in like manner. RETAIN THEIR NORMALITY. But the great end of infantile training should be to retain their normality, or naturalness of feeling. At first, all their feelings are pure and right, and in accord- ance with the natural fitness of things. But society is in a wretchedly perverted state. Heaven-wide, and INFANTS SHOULD RETAIN THEIR NORMALITY. 213 most unaccountable, is man's departure from the basis of his nature. And this mental distortion is imparted even to infants. How often are they scolded, and their tender souls calloused to good impressions, and their pure feelings harrowed up by the distorted faculties of those around them ! Most children are soured, per- verted, and spoiled before they are three years old, by the irritability and evil passions of others. It is to this distortion and perversion of their faculties that special attention is invited. They should never be chided. If they evince temper^ it is because their physiology is in an irritated state, and this inflames Combativeness and Destructiveness. Cure their bodies, and you will cure their tempers. Be gentle and sweet to them, and you will find them apt copyists of what- ever patterns you set them. Would that mothers and nurses could be made to feel the importance of their al- ways being lovely, amiable, and good to infants, as well as the evils of all warring, unkind passions in themselves. Would that they could but realize how much their future characters depend on the direction their minds receive in the cradle. Much more might be said, and better said, on this fruitful theme of the management of infants ; yet the great thought which the book was written to develop is __not the management of infants—but the states of THE MOTHER'^ MIND AND BODY, AS AFFECTING THE CONSTI- TUTIONAL PHYSIOLOGY AND MENTALITY OF OFFSPRING. Since, therefore, this infantile training is only a second- ary matter, it has been thus cursorily treated. As woman is best adapted to give its details, all we have attempted is the statement of some of those fundamental physiological principles which govern this matter, which, 214 ELEMENTS OF FEMALE BEAUTY. though imperfectly presented, will doubtless be of no small service to some mothers in their nursing capaci- ties. Future editions may possibly present this part of our subject more fully. We specially commend it to the observation and study of mothers, and, moreover, earnestly recommend young women to make it an in- tegral part of their educational course. Than how to carry children, they can learn nothing more important than how to nurse them. 443. female beauty—its elements and perfection. This work, while developing those elements requisite for maternity, has incidentally developed the constitu- ent elements of female beauty. Those things render a woman beautiful which capacitate her to bear fine children : nor can a single condition of beauty be named which does not promote maternity. And every condi- tion of female beauty is beautiful, because it promotes and indicates superior child-bearing capabilities, and in just that proportion. This principle we have already proved, and applied it to a few physical elements of beauty. It remains to continue that application to some other elements, so that the reader may follow it out into its various ramifications. A HANDSOME SET OF TEETH. This element of beauty indicates balance and propor- tion of organization ; for when the teeth are well- proportioned—that is, handsome—the whole of the physiological conditions will also be well-proportioned, and this, of course, as already shown, is an important maternal condition of bearing a fine child42B-429. On the contrary, irregularly-formed teeth indicate a ELEMENTS OF FEMAIE BEAUTY. 215 want of such balance, and of course maternal imper fection, which is liable, unless counteracted, to be trans mitted to the child. PLUMPNESS OF FORM. Rotundity of features, or a filling out of face and figure, is another essential ingredient in female beauty, while a thin-faced, sharp-featured, angular, scrawny form, with here sharp bones, and there deep cavities, is destructive of it. Why ? Because such fullness—un- less caused by dropsy, or some other disease, which can be easily discerned, and causes homeliness instead of beauty—indicates abundance of that vitality already shown to be so essential an element of child-bearing perfection. As such vitality wanes, this plumpness gives place to irregularity, of which starving furnishes a pertinent illustration; and in proportion as this condi- tion of beauty wanes, does the maternal capacity de- cline. This coincidence is no mean proof of the law here involved. And that fullness of breasts, so essential to the nursing department of maternity 44\ is also pro- moted by this same vitality, and consequent rotundity. So is that abdominal and pelvic fullness already shown to be both so promotive of maternity, and so essential to female beauty4W 41Q. BRIGHT, CLEAR, EXPRESSIVE EYES, Constitute another indispensable condition of beauty. No woman can be handsome with vague, dull eyes. Why ? Because such eye-snap indicates soul, as well as condensation and sprightliness cf mentality; where- as a dull eye accompanies tameness and flatness of body and mind, obtuseness of feeling, and vacuity of mind. 216 ELEMENTS OF FEMALE BEAUTY. Of course ihe former, other things being equal, will have smart, sprightly, bright, whole-souled children that are all life, animation, and pathos, as well as clear- headed and efficient, while the latter will of course have soulless dough-heads, with little mind and less feeling. A FINE, SOFT SKIN, AND FINE HAIR, Contribute materially to beauty, and no less to mater- nal excellence, because they indicate a fine-grained and exquisite organization in the mother, and this guaranties a superior organization in their children—a condition in children of paramount importance as to talents, mor- als, every thing. AUBURN-COLORED HAIR Has heretofore been considered a mark of beauty, so much so that painters have copied it into their finest pictures. This indicates the utmost susceptibility of organization, intensity of feeling, and fervidness of imagination, together with refinement, purity, memory, and extreme ardor of affection—all of which contribute materially to maternal excellence. Light skin and eyes, and a florid complexion, generally accompany this tem- perament, and add to both beauty and maternal ex- cellence. FINE, GLOSSY, BLACK HAIR, Also indicates extreme activity and power of brain and nerves, clearness and strength of mind, high moral excellence, a thought-manufacturing cast of mind, dis- cernment, judgment, literary capabilities, and a fine and strong organization combined. All these physiological and mental conditions are essential to maternal excel- lence, and therefore are elements of feminine beauty. » ELEMENTS OF Ff.MALE BEAUTY. 217 GRACE, AND EASE OF MOTION, Are indispensable accompaniments of female beauty, and equally so of maternal excellence, because they in- dicate and accompany a superior muscular organiza- tion, the importance of which in child-bearing has al- ready been shown 439, along with good taste and perfec- tion of character, also constituent elements of maternal excellence. PERFECTION OF I 3RM, Always accompanies corresponding perfection of char- acter. This law we will not here attempt to prove, but will refer those who would understand the connection implied, both here and throughout this section, between certain physiological conditions, forms, etc., and cor- responding mental characteristics, to a series of arti- cles in the American Phrenological Journal, entitled, "Signs of character, as indicated by Phrenology, Physiology, Physiognomy, etc." At all events, such perfection of form indicates corresponding beauty of soul, and perfection of mind—the inner man correspond- ing with the outer—and this is a most important ele- ment in maternal perfection; quite as essential to it as to beauty, and to the latter because to the former strong social faculties Add materially to that spirit and soul so requisite to female perfection. What is a woman without love? How can she be beautiful without being lovely, or lovely without being affectionate? Love requires a return, and thi» implies that women should be loving in order to be lovely. 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