Part 32 (1/2)
9. STERILITY IN FEMALES.--Sterility in the female is sometimes caused by a morbid adhesion of the tube to a portion of the ovary. By what power the mouth of the tube is directed toward a particular portion of an ovary from which the ovum is about to be discharged, remains entirely unknown, as does also the precise nature of the cause which effects this movement.
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THE MYSTERIES OF THE FORMATION OF LIFE.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ripe Ovum from the Ovary.]
1. SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.--Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, Tyndall, Meyer, and other renowned scientists, have tried to find the _missing link_ between man and animal; they have also exhausted their genius in trying to fathom the mysteries of the beginning of life, or find where the animal and mineral kingdoms unite to form life; but they have added to the vast acc.u.mulation of theories only, and the world is but little wiser on this mysterious subject.
2. PHYSIOLOGY.--Physiology has demonstrated what physiological changes take place in the germination and formation of life, and how nature expresses the intentions of reproduction by giving animals distinctive organs with certain secretions for this purpose, etc. All the different stages of development can be easily determined, but how and why life takes place under such special condition and under no other, is an unsolved mystery.
3. OVARIES.--The ovaries are the essential parts of the generative system of the human female in which ova are matured. There are two ovaries, one on each side of the uterus, and connected with it by the Fallopian tubes. They are egg-shaped, about an inch in diameter, and furnish the {239} germs or ovules. These germs or ovules are very small, measuring about 1/120 of an inch in diameter.
4. DEVELOPMENT.--The ovaries develop with the growth of the female, so that finally at the period of p.u.b.erty they ripen and liberate an ovum or germ vesicle, which is carried into the uterine cavity of the Fallopian tubes.
By the aid of the microscope we find that these ova are composed of granular substance, in which is found a miniature yolk surrounded by a transparent membrane called the zona pellucida. This yolk contains a germinal vesicle in which can be discovered a nucleus, called the germinal spot. The process of the growth of the ovaries is very gradual, and their function of ripening and discharging one ovum monthly into the Fallopian tubes and uterus, is not completed until between the twelfth and fifteenth years.
5. WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS.--After the s.e.xual embrace we know that the sperm is lifted within the genital pa.s.sages or portion of the v.a.g.i.n.a and mouth of the uterus. The time between the deposit of the s.e.m.e.n and fecundation varies according to circ.u.mstances. If the sperm-cell travels to the ovarium it generally takes from three to five days to make the journey. As Dr.
Pierce says: ”The transportation is aided by the ciliary processes (little hairs) of the mucous surface of the v.a.g.i.n.al and uterine walls, as well as by its own vibratile movements. The action of the cilia, under the stimulus of the sperm, seems to be from without, inward. Even if a minute particle of sperm, less than a drop, be left upon the margin of the external genitals of the female, it is sufficient in amount to impregnate, and can be carried, by help of these cilia, to the ovaries.”
6. CONCEPTION.--After intercourse at the proper time the liability to conception is very great. If the organs are in a healthy condition, conception must necessarily follow, and no amount of prudence and the most rigid precautions often fail to prevent pregnancy.
7. ONLY ONE ABSOLUTELY SAFE METHOD.--There is only one absolutely safe method to prevent conception, entirely free from danger and injury to health, and one that is in the reach of all; that is to refrain from union altogether.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PATIENT MOTHER.]
1. The question is always asked, ”Can Conception be prevented at all times?” Certainly, this is possible; but such an interference with nature's laws is inadmissible, and perhaps never to be justified in any case whatever, except in cases of deformity or disease.
2. If the parties of a marriage are both feeble and so adapted to each other that their children are deformed, insane or idiots, then to beget offspring would be a flagrant wrong; if the mother's health is in such a condition as to forbid the right of laying the burden of motherhood upon her, then medical aid may safely come to her relief. If the man, however, respects his wife, he ought to come to her relief without the counsel of a physician. {241}
3. FORBEARANCE.--Often before the mother has recovered from the effects of bearing, nursing and rearing one child, ere she has regained proper tone and vigor of body and mind, she is unexpectedly overtaken, surprised by the manifestation of symptoms which again indicate pregnancy. Children thus begotten cannot become hardy and long-lived. By the love that parents may feel for their posterity, by the wishes for their success, by the hopes for their usefulness, by every consideration for their future well-being, let them exercise precaution and forbearance until the wife becomes sufficiently healthy and enduring to bequeath her own rugged, vital stamina to the child she bears in love.
4. IMPOSTORS.--During the past few years hundreds of books and pamphlets have been written on the subject, claiming that new remedies had been discovered for the prevention of conception, etc., but these are all money making devices to deceive the public, and enrich the pockets of miserable and unprincipled impostors.
5. THE FOLLIES OF PREVENTION.--Dr. Pancoast, an eminent authority, says: ”The truth is, there is no medicine taken internally capable of preventing conception, and the person who a.s.serts to the contrary, not only speaks falsely, but is both a knave and a fool. It is true enough that remedies may be taken to produce abortion after conception occurs; but those who prescribe and those who resort to such desperate expedients, can only be placed in the category of lunatics and a.s.sa.s.sins!”
6. PATENT MEDICINES.--If nature does not promptly respond, there are many patent medicines which when taken at the time the monthly flow is to begin, will produce the desired result. Let women beware; for it is only a question of a few years when their const.i.tution, complexion, and health will be a sorry evidence of their folly. The woman who continually takes a drug to prevent conception, cannot retain her natural complexion; her eyes will become dull, her cheeks flabby, and she will show various evidences of poor health, and her s.e.xual organs will soon become permanently impaired and hopelessly diseased.
7. FOOLISH DREAD OF CHILDREN.--What is more deplorable and pitiable than an old couple childless. Young people dislike the care and confinement of children and prefer society and social entertainments and thereby do great injustice and injury to their health and fit themselves in later years to visit infirmities and diseases upon their children. The vigilant and rigid measures which have to be resorted to in order to prevent conception for a period of years unfits many a wife for the production of healthy children.
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8. HAVING CHILDREN under proper circ.u.mstances never ruins the health and happiness of any woman. In fact, womanhood is incomplete without them. She may have a dozen or more, and still have better health than before marriage. It is having them too close together, and when she is not in a fit state, that her health gives way. Sometimes the mother is diseased; the outlet from the womb, as a result of laceration by a previous child-birth, is frequently enlarged, thus allowing conception to take place very readily, and hence she has children in rapid succession.
Besides the wrong to the mother in having children in such rapid succession, it is a great injustice to the babe in the womb and the one at the breast that they should follow each other so quickly that one is conceived while the other is nursing. One takes the vitality of the other; neither has sufficient nourishment, and both are started in life stunted and incomplete.