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sations to be engendered or experienced by physical contact, and hence it is not to be expected that any great degree of sexual pleasure can take place

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pleasure at all is experienced between parties sustaining these electrical relations to each other, it is obtained entirely from frictional electricity, as in masturbation, and the effects are injurious to both.

If mental adaptation exists between the mar

Fig. 191.
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ADAPTATION AND INADAPTATION ILLUSTRATED.

ried pair, so that they really feel ardently attached to each other, this difficulty may be partially remedied for a few months or years, and in some cases permanently, by electrical and mechanical means, accompanied with due regard to diet, habits, etc. But when there is neither mental nor physical adaptation, the indifference is not only irremediable, but anthropophobia may succeed, and continue until the marriage tie is dissolved by divorce or death, and a new alliance formed. Cases do occur among ladies, in which, after years of sexual indifference with an uncongenial partner, a second alliance, formed under the most favorable auspices, yields no amative gratification. The reason for this is, that cohabitation without love or passion destroys, after a time, the sensibility of the parts. If you want to destroy digestion, crowd your stomach with food when you do not need it, or with things you do not relish; if you want to destroy the sensitiveness of the palate, eat and drink habitually those things which are perfectly obnoxious to the taste; if you wish to overcome the sensitiveness of the uterine organs, and render them not only insensible to pleasurable excitement, but, eventually, incapable of reproduction, marry a man who is distasteful and disagreeable to you; one who cannot call out the first spontaneous amative emotion, or kindle the first desire, while you continue sexual intercourse year after year. Of course he will insist on being gratified, and habitual cohabitation with such a man can only end in the production of an abnormal condition of those delicate organs.

Another possible cause of sexual apathy, is presented in the closing portion of the chapter, entitled, "Defects of Marriage." When anthropopho bia or sexual apathy exists on the part of the wife, whatever may be the

cause, cohabitation is injurious to the husband; masturbation is not much worse than copulation under these circumstances. The wife fails to electrify him, and the pleasure he derives results mainly from friction, the same as in sexual abuse. In such instances seminal weakness or other nervous derangements are developed, such as afflict the habitual ruasturbator, and the physician is called upon to give his opinion and afford relief. I have had many such cases, and in no one of them did the sufferer seem to imagine the cause of his difficulties until I informed him.

Nothing can be more ridiculous than for a lady to arrogate to herself the possession of more voluntary chastity and virtue than her neighbor, because she feels no sexual desire. Nor can a husband present himself in a more laughable light to an experienced physiologist, than when he supposes that such apathy on the part of the wife is the result of extreme modesty and good breeding. If compulsory chastity, at the beginning of the menstrual period, lead to paralysis of the amative organs, no credit is due to her; for at the outset, she was restrained by custom, which she could not safely defy, and now she is apathetic because the organs are paralyzed. The fact is, the sexual appetite is just as natural as the appetite for food, and disease causes the loss of the one just as much as it does loss of the other. Fortunately, such exquisite people, as alluded to, are not numerous, or rather, do not so often present themselves to the skillful physician, as those who have more sensible ideas. It is no uncommon circumstance in my practice for ladies of education and refinement, affected with anthropophobia, or sexual apathy, to present their cases with the expressed conviction or seeming realization that their indifference is the result of disease. I admire the frankness and good sense of a wife like this, and I have been happily instrumental in remedying or curing the difficulty in a majority of such cases. In fact, sexual indifference in both sexes is usually partially, or wholly curable, except when both mental and physical adaptation have been disregarded in marriage. It is necessary first to ascertain the cause or causes, and this I can do whether the case be presented at my office, or by letter in answer to the questions beginning on page 583.

Food for Pregnant Women.

Experiment and observation have shown that the pains and perils of childbed may be greatly diminished, if pregnant women will only pay strict regard to their diet, and eat such food as possesses the least amount of calcareous matter. What I mean by calcareous matter, is that which, when taken into the system, goes to produce bone. There can be no mistake in the hypothesis that the foetus in the womb is nourished by the same food which is eaten by the mother, and if this contains a large quantity of calcareous matter, the frame of the unborn child is too rapidly developed, in

consequence of which its delivery is attended with greater danger and more pain. It is not necessary to enter into an argument to show why a child with a large frame should give the mother more pain in its delivery than one with a small frame-the fact is self-evident. It matters little how fat the little fellow becomes, because his flesh is yielding and readily conforms to the shape of the passage; but a large and inflexible frame reverses the fact, and makes the passage conform to it. Many women, during gestation, mistakenly resort to the very diet which produces the most mischief. All kinds of bread, puddings, cakes, etc., made of Indian meal, usually so wholesome for people both in and out of health, are often used, to the exclusion of almost all other food, by pregnant women, under the erroneous supposition that they are best suited to their condition. Now, analysis shows that twelve thousand five hundred pounds of Indian corn contain one hundred and eighty pounds of calcareous matter, while the same quantity of rice contains only ten pounds! The flesh of young animals contains only one twenty-fourth as much calcareous matter as Indian corn, and all kinds of fruits contain only one three-hundred-and-sixtieth part as much. It is therefore plain that all preparations of Indian corn are an unsuitable diet for women who are pregnant, although no one will question their wholesomeness for nearly all persons under other circumstances.

Common salt, which performs a very important part in the animal organism, and also all condiments, contain nearly as large a percentage of calcareous matter as Indian corn; and although food is insipid without at least a moderate use of these luxuries, it would be well for all women who are about to become mothers to abstain as much as possible from their use until after confinement.

Potatoes are much better than wheat bread; barley bread better than either; and preparations of arrowroot, sago, and tapioca, better than any of these; while all kinds of fruits, like peaches, prunes, apricots, tamarinds, nectarines, cherries, plums, apples, pears, pineapples, oranges, lemons, figs, raisins, grapes, blackberries, strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, cranberries, mulberries, elderberries, bilberries, currants, melons, etc., are the most harmless things that can be eaten during the period of pregnancy.

All kinds of animal food, fish, oysters, eggs and milk, are admissible, and, of course, such vegetables as lettuce, celery, onions, beets, turnips, carrots, mushrooms, parsley, parsnips, spinage, asparagus, cabbage and cauliflower; also potatoes and peas and beans in moderation. As to wheat, the gluten, whole-wheat and graham flours, and cereal preparations, ordinarily the best, because complete and rich in mineral salts, should, in the state of pregnancy, be substituted by the whiter grades or starchy flours. I have directed many women in the selection of proper food during gestation according to the foregoing rules, and, in all, the results have met my

moet sanguine expectations. Three who had previously suffered the mret agonizing labor paina, found a happy diminution in their length and severity; others, who, from their compact build, anticipated painfui and protracted labor, in many instances escaped with less than average suffering; while many have, in substance, said to me: "Doctor, it's nothing but fun to have children by pursuing your directions while eneinde."

Card to Married People.

In concluding this Chapter of Essays, I feel constrained to say that comparatively few married people attain the conjugal happiness which their relation is capable of imparting. Even those who are not altogether congenially mated, might, if moderation and proper remedial and conciliatory means were employed, pass the shoals and rocks of life's ruffled stream with comparative freedom from perplexity. When there is physical adaptation, sexual excess often detracts from the pleasures of the sexual embrace and the esteem which the married pair naturally feel for each other, while sexual indifference often results therefrom, embittering the cup from which they have sipped too excessively. Those who are not well mated physically are apt to fret in the uncongenial harness, and instead of adopting means to remedy in a measure the sexual indifference arising therefrom to one or both, allow mutual mental repugnance to set in to aggravate an estrangement which, in the outset, might perhaps in some cases be overcome. Again, barrennews as well as excessive offspring is the bane of married life. The latter, under existing statutes, physicians or the public have no permission to consider. The former is extensively treated in another portion of this volume, and in making a revision of this card, many years after the appearance of the earlier editions, it is with much gratification that I can say that hundreds of sterile marriages have been made fruitful. The hints on local inadaptation alone have enabled many a disappointed husband and wife to rectify the seemingly irremediable evil of going through life childless. In some marked instances, physicians have written to the author that this matter was a revelation enabling them to cure cases which had hitherto baffled their skill and ingenuity. In nearly all cases of matrimonial infelicity the old systems of medicine offer no relief, and those who are troubled in that way settle into the erroneous impression that there is none. To such I would say, consult me freely in person or by letter. My post-office address is given in page 910, and a list of "Questions to Invalids" may be found on page 583. No one need hold back from fear that I will betray confidencemy tongue is ever silent in reference to the consultations of my patients. I am daily consulted at my office or by letter on subjects of the most delicate nature, and all such secrets are locked up or forgotten, while the advice I give in such cases is almost invariably successful,

CHAPTER VIIL

PHILOSOPHY OF CHILD-MARKING.

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HERE are, perhaps, no functional phenomena which have engrossed the attention of medical writers to such a degree, as those pertaining to the formation of the physical and mental characteristics of the embryonic human being. Example after example, of a curious character, is given to surprise the wondering public, and yet no one seems to have ventured upon a philosophical solu. tion or explanation of the cause or causes. Nearly every medical writer tells his reader what singular instances of child-marking have occurred under his observation, and nearly every investigating reader finds them in any number within the range of his own observation.

I will here present, in as concise a manner as possible. the facts which are revealed to the eye and ear of those who keep these organs of vision and hearing open. I will also present, after each fact, a few examples illustrative thereof, and that any reader of these, who is unacquainted with me, or unfamiliar with the subject, may not suspect that I have drawn on my imagination for them, I will only adduce such as have been related by other well-known writers. I could produce. from the testimony of various authors, an unlimited number of examples in corroboration of each of my following five affirmations; but two or three will answer as well as a dozen :FIRST.-As a rule, the child exhibits, in its physical and mental organiza tion, more or less of the peculiarities of both parents.

SECOND. The offspring often resembles only one of the parents.

EXAMPLES.-All my readers have living examples illustrative of the two preceding affirmations all around them, and, inasmuch as no one can be found unobserving enough to deny them, it is unnecessary to consume time and space with their relation.

THIRD.-The offspring frequently seems to possess none of the physical and mental characteristics of either parent. It sometimes looks like some good minister, doctor, or neighbor, when wife, minister, doctor, and neigh

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