Woman, her diseases and remedies : a series of letters to his class / by Charles D. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Charles D. (Charles Delucena), 1792-1869.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Woman, her diseases and remedies : a series of letters to his class / by Charles D. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Take Martin Barry's microscope, and BischofF's History of Develop- ment, and study the myriad germ points that are buried in the depths of her stroma. I shall soon place in your hands the key that unlocks all the secret details of her mensual phenomena, and not hers only, but the ovula- tions of all that reproduce, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms of nature. It were an endless task to undertake the portraiture of all the characteristics of the sex, as exhibited in their intellectual and moral aspects. I have made the foregoing slight indications of them, with the pur- pose of turning your thoughts in that direction; for I believe the con- templation of such subjects is extremely useful to the practitioner of physic, and especially so to those that may design to engage themselves in business connected with the obstetric science and art. I shall not deem it necessary now to do more than merely hint at the potent influ- ence which must be exerted upon the pathological tendencies and states of the female, by the constitution of her organs, and, indeed, by the more delicate, gracile, and impressionable nature of her whole economy. I say I shall merely hint at the subject in this letter; for as much as the whole series is relative.to these effects, I shall treat of them herein in extenso. Appreciating as I do, at the highest possible rate, the influence of the gentler sex upon the character and action of the male, I cannot but see in that influence the cause of the major part of the happiness now enjoyed by mankind in civilized, or to speak more exactly, in Christian lands. It is true, that during the great glory of the Roman empire, manners, luxury, pomp, had attained to a high perfection; but it is equally true that the social and domestic position of the woman was even there elevated, although not to a station so coequal as that to which she has attained in our own age. Petulanter facimus, si matrem- familids, secus, quam matronarum sanctitas postulat, nominamns—ia the saying of Cicero. When, upon the dismemberment of the Roman empire, and the darkness that was consequent to the descent of the barbarians into western and southern Europe, society seemed to have lost all its security ; and when brute personal force appeared to be at the founda- tion of all administration, as well as of all domestic security, the sex came forth again, and by troubadour and knight, whom she created and moved, woman brought her humanizing hand to bear upon and recom- pose the shattered frame of society. The virelay and the tale of the troubadour, and the scarf and the triumph of the knight, were worth-