The ladies' medical guide : a complete instructor and counsellor, embracing a full and exhaustive account of the structure and functions of the reproductive organs, the diseases of females and children, with their causes, symptoms and treatment, the toilet considered in reference to female health, beauty and longevity, etc., etc., etc., with an appendix containing startling facts in plain words for mothers and the young / by S. Pancoast.

  • Pancoast, S. (Seth), 1823-1889.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ladies' medical guide : a complete instructor and counsellor, embracing a full and exhaustive account of the structure and functions of the reproductive organs, the diseases of females and children, with their causes, symptoms and treatment, the toilet considered in reference to female health, beauty and longevity, etc., etc., etc., with an appendix containing startling facts in plain words for mothers and the young / by S. Pancoast. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nage compact. It is necessary that there should be capacity to contract, and the consent of both parties. The various requisites for conjugal union, however, are seldom duly consid- ered by society; in fact, few persons trouble themselves about them. The age, constitution, or health of the parties are scarcely ever considered, though highly important. All physiologists agree that early or premature procreation is objectionable on many accounts, from the imperfect develop- ment of the parties, and the smallness of the pelvis, which exposes women to protracted suffering during parturition, and too often to loss of life. It is universally known to all practical obstetricians, that females, who become mothers at an early age, purchase the honor of maternity at a very dear rate. Such persons are liable to numerous disorders during gestation; the pelvis is unable to support the gravid uterus—it is too small for the passage of the infant; consequently, parturition will be laborious and protracted, aud finally must be completed by artificial means ; while the degree of pressure on the important organs of the pelvis, produced by parturition, causes great Buffering and danger to the woman, and may be followed by deplorable diseases, or death itself. It is a common belief, that gestation is a period of disease and suffering, and that parturition is inevitably a painful and dangerous process. Now, the great truth yet to be learned, is the very reverse of such impression. It is just as natural for a woman to bring forth children, as for a shrub to produce flowers and fruit. In a state of health, no natural process is painful. Pain, in all cases, is a sign of disease—it has no other signifi- cance. In its healthy condition, the uterus receives the germ of a new being, provides it with its proper nourishment, expands to make room for its development, and, at the time appointed by Nature, dilates its opening and contracts—a series of involun tary and painless muscular efforts—so as to throw the infanx int o the new existence which its growth demands. It performs its own proper functions, just as the lungs, the heart, or the stom- ach perform theirs ; because it was formed by the same Infinite Wisdom and. Goodness, who ordained that pain and sorrow should be the consequence of sin, and who ordains that health 4*