Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Female Hygiene: A Lecture Delivered at Sacramento and San Francisco, by Request of the State Board of Health of California
Beyond and above all that has been said, it must not be forgotten that while, through the in?uence of the introduction of anaesthesia and the progress of Obstetrical science, the pangs and perils of parturition have been lessened, and the chance also Of its subsequent evils, as vesico-vaginal fistula, crural and other embolism, and pelvic in?amma tion, and while an increasing self-control in the masses has practically subjected Venus to Minerva, and while the restlessness of the age has endeavored to introduce into public and private life a third sex, that of masculine women, - there are causes still effective in inducing ill health in our women which have been only indicated, and never as yet carefully studied. Such are long betrothals, attended as they so often are by hope realized and yet deferred, - for the physiology now taught in our schools gives the knowledge of much that were better then dispensed with the too prevalent custom of avoiding lactation, lest it interfere with the requirements of fashion and the fact, a very im portant one in this connection, that, thanks to improvements in sanitary science, the sickly children that in former times used to die in infancy are now many of them raised. The delicate girls that at puberty were mown down by phthisis as grass before the scythe, now many of them live to become wives and mothers, in their turn begetting frail and invalid offspring.
I do not believe with certain authors that the healthy woman is the physical equal of the man in every respect; but I do believe that, while a host of pelvic aches and ills have grown into existence as the result of a change from the age Of Force to that of Reason, there were in the old times behind us, that we are wrongly taught were golden, deaths without number from pelvic causes unsuspected, ovarian dropsies supposed ascitic, local organic hypertrophies, out growths and degenerations misnamed affections of the liver, and all sorts of disease from oversight or neglect by the physician, special in their causation, and wrongly designated as by the providence of God.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.