f X -N 
■' v ~ 'V'.' v '• rs \ n'v - 
■ V'-x ; -s v 
V . X . \V. \> N , - J. "'• 
\ K 
N. 'v ' • NV "> "*'\ *>• 
, - \ - \ , 
\ " A< "-V"- • ' 
r •;> NX CON T ROLLING SEX 
IN 
GENERATION. 
THE PHYSICAL LAW INFLUENCING SEX IN THE 
EMBRYO OF MAN AND BRUTE, 
AND 
ITS DIRECTION TO PRODUCE MALE OR FEMALE 
OFFSPRING AT WILL. 
By SAMUEL HOUGH TERRY. 
NEW YORK: 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., PUBLISHERS, 
No. 753 Broadway. 
1885. COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY 
Fowler & Wells Company. 
EDWARD O. JENKINS’ SONS, 
Pi-inters and Stereotypers, 
20 North William Street, New York. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 
PAGE 
.Introductory, 5 
•I 
CHAPTER II. 
'Importance of the Subject, shown by Statistics 
* ' AND OTHERWISE, 14 
CHAPTER III. 
Thoughts on a common view of the Cause of Sex 
in Offspring, 44 
CHAPTER IV. 
Stages of the Investigation, 50 
CHAPTER V. 
The ‘ ‘ Physical Law ” as Proven by the Obser- 
vations, 
CHAPTER VI. 
The General Conclusions in Chapter Four re- 
viewed IN THE LIGHT OF THE “PHYSICAL LAW ” 
ENUNCIATED IN CHAPTER FlVE, .... 67 
ni) IV 
CONTENTS, 
CHAPTER VII. 
_ PAG*. 
Conditions and Periods favorable to the Con- 
ception of Male Offspring, . . . .81 
CHAPTER VIII. 
On some of the Causes tending to Incapacitate 
Women for the Conception of Male Off- 
spring, 89 
CHAPTER IX. 
Some Observations on the Physical Conditions 
REQUIRED IN WIVES TO ENABLE THEM TO CON- 
CEIVE Sons, 107 
CHAPTER X. 
Application of the “Physical Law” in the case 
of Domestic Animals, 12 
CHAPTER XI. 
The Scientific Theory on which the “Physical 
Law ” is founded, 138. CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 
The writer of this little treatise has been a 
husband and a father over thirty years. The 
first five children his wife bore him were girls. 
A natural desire for sons led him to make some 
investigation into the subject of the origin of 
sex, and the first movement was to collect facts 
that seemed to bear on it. After much consid- 
eration of these facts, and of the constitutional 
characteristics of those families where a tendency 
to the production of one or the other sex exclu- 
sively prevailed, he formed a theory on the sub- 
ject, and, being the owner of some farm stock, 
he commenced experiments with them in the 
line of this idea, by which he was led gradually 
along to the adoption of the theory herein pre- 
sented as the true physical law governing the re- 
production of sex, and which he hesitated not to 
put in practice in his own marital relations, wdth 
the result that of the last four children born to 
him three were boys. 6 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
That in every instance the reduction of this 
theory to practice will produce as certain and 
definite results, will not now be positively claim- 
ed. The peculiarities of our physical condition 
are so varied, and often mysterious, that it is 
well known that what will act on one person, is 
inert on another. Remedies which are account- 
ed specifics in certain diseases occasionally fail. 
And it is enough to claim a like general rule for 
the operation of the “ physical law ” herein pre- 
sented. 
This much is done with confidence, so far as 
the comparatively limited range of one person’s 
experience can give confidence. By the nature 
of the subject there can be but limited opportu- 
nities of comparing the experiences of other per- 
sons in practically testing the theory so as to 
give greater confirmation. The theme and the 
instructions are such as modesty shrinks from 
introducing as subjects of ordinary conversation 
in the social circle, and it is only in the form ol 
a printed volume that an opportunity can be 
given to others to test the theory. 
It is hoped that confirmations of the theory 
in the personal experiences of any reader of this 
book will be communicated to the author through INTRODUCTORY. 
the publishers, as also failures where the condi- 
tions herein named are attempted to be complied 
with, giving the physical traits and other proper 
information regarding the parents in both cases. 
Such communications tend to confirm the truth, 
and to establish an array of facts all-important 
in further adapting the theory to the varied 
phases of man’s physical condition. Such com- 
munications will be held reverently sacred and 
confidential, and, in any public use of them, the 
names of parties, and everything that can direct 
attention to the persons from whom they may 
come, will be withheld. 
Perhaps a few words may be appropriate here 
on the propriety of making public such a dis- 
covery. There are a great many really good 
people who regard every new discovery in the 
laws of nature, by which man is able to control 
what has before been regarded as the special 
action of an overruling Divine Providence, as a 
blasphemous and sinful thwarting of God’s will. 
Rather than use direct means to obtain definite 
ends, they prefer uncertain results, believing that 
thus the Great Disposer of all events decides for 
them, and, of course, His decisions are always 
right. 8 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
“ Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise,” 
and I would not by an unnecessary act disturb 
the trusting faith of any. But since the Garden 
of Eden was closed against our first parents, and 
the decree went forth that men must labor for 
their daily support—must toil and struggle with 
the “ thorns and briers ” which the visible world 
everywhere brings forth, and in the sweat of 
their brows must earn their bread—everything 
that tends to ameliorate their hard lot must have 
God’s and every good man’s commendation. The 
workers of our race are necessarily the men. It 
is these that are specially fitted to the task. To 
the women is given the work of continuing the 
race. In “pain and sorrow are they to bring 
forth ” till the end of time. It is the man’s duty 
to care for her—to provide food, clothing, and 
shelter, she aiding, of course, incidentally, but 
without neglecting the great duty of her life. 
To this end God set the race apart in families, 
appointing unto one man one woman. In the 
natural order of events, that this equal division 
should prevail, many more sons should be born 
than daughters. The greater loss of life among 
the former, owing to their greater exposure to 
dangers', would leave the sexes at a marriageable INTRODUCTORY-. 
9 
age nearly balanced in numbers. But what is 
the condition now % For a half century past the 
women have been gradually increasing in propor- 
tional numbers to the men. 
The following table, made up from the last two 
United States Census Reports, shows the relative 
number of males and females composing the 
populations of the principal Eastern and Middle 
States of this country, being those where this 
surplus of females is greatest: 
STATE. 
1870. 
1880. 
Males. 
Females. 
Surplus 
females. 
Males. 
Females. 
Surplus 
females. 
New Hampshire. 
Massachusetts .. 
Connecticut 
Rhode Island 
New York 
Pennsylvania ... 
New Jersey 
Maryland 
155,640 
703,779 
265,270 
104,756 
2,163,229 
1,758,499 
449,072 
384,984 
162.660 
753,572 
.272,184 
112,597 
2,219,530 
1,763,452 
458,424 
395,910 
7.020 
49,793 
6.814 
7,841 
56,301 
4,953 
6.752 
10,934 
170,526 
858,440 
305,782 
133,030 
2,505,322 
2,136,655 
559,922 
462,187 
176,465 
924.645 
316,918 
143.5('l 
2,577,549 
2,146,236 
571,194 
472,756 
5,939 
66,205 
11,136 
10,471 
72.227 
9,581 
11,272 
10,569 
5,985,829 
6,136,329 
150,403 
7,131,864 
7,329,264 
197,400 
Increase in 10 years. 
In population. 
In female surplus. 
State of Massachusetts 
22.5 per cent. 
16 “ 
8.3 per cent. 
30 “ 
In the 8 States named 
11 “ 
31 “ 
The Census of 1880 shows that in the States 
east of the Alleghany ridge, there were over 10 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
300,000 more females than males then living, 
fitted, or soon to be fitted by nature and by edu- 
cation, to become the married partners of a like 
number of the opposite sex, and in the future 
the rejoicing mothers of happy families, who will 
have to forego all the felicities of married life, 
and all the enjoyment of seeing sons and daugh- 
ters growing up around them, simply and solely 
because there are not men in their vicinage for 
them to mate with. Without homes of their 
own, and without the near kindred ties and the 
solace of husband and children, they are con- 
demned, for no fault of their own, to pass 
through life aimless and unhappy because fail- 
ing to accomplish the great end of their exist- 
ence as women, too often regarding life itself as 
a burden, and looking forward to the grave with 
contentment as their only refuge. 
Reader, does tlie thought of this bring merely 
a smile to your face, or, worse, a sneer, with the 
usual shallow remarks about old maids ? Ought 
it not bring tears rather ? In the whole circle of 
unfortunates in the world at this time, there are 
none more deserving of heartfelt sympathy than 
these isolated and lonely superabundant women, 
many of them the very loveliest of their sex. INTRODUCTORY. 
11 
Nothing tends more to detract from the value 
of anything in the eyes of mankind than a sur- 
plus of it. This is a general truth applicable to 
women as well as to ordinary earthly possessions. 
A thing is raised in our estimation if we find a 
difficulty in obtaining it, even though the neces- 
sity for it be not great. Printed calicoes at ten 
cents a yard are too mean and common for any 
but the poor to' wear, but when they were raised 
in value by the high price of cotton during the 
late war to fifty cents a yard, how handsome they 
looked! fitted to adorn the persons of those who 
aspired to be considered wealthy. This being a 
governing influence in valuing lesser things, how 
does it affect the men in search of wives, who, 
looking around the circle of their acquaintance, 
see twice as many unmarried women of a mar- 
riageable age as there are men ? Is not their 
own importance in the human family as men 
likely to be overrated, and their appreciation of 
the opposite sex (some of them perhaps their 
own sisters) much depreciated ? Will they think 
it necessary to be uniformly moral and circum- 
spect in their conduct to ensure their obtaining 
respectable and virtuous women for their wives ? 
Notoriously this is not regarded as necessary 
now. 12 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
When the man’s own consequence in the mari- 
tal condition is thus so unduly exalted, what 
prospect of happiness can there be after mar- 
riage for educated and refined women—such as 
have been taught that God created the race, 
male and female, of one blood to dwell in equal- 
ity together ? especially for such of them as are 
unwilling to sink below their proper level with- 
out some struggle. Society is fast becoming 
converted to the idea that the bride must bring 
with her to the altar a certain number of dollars, 
as a dowry, to make her equal to the husband. 
It is unnecessary to pursue the argument 
further. It must be clear to every one who re- 
flects on the subject, that the large surplus of 
women in the community is now the fruitful 
cause of many social evils as well as moral ones, 
and that this surplus is year by year increasing. 
In view of this, shall there be any doubt of the 
propriety of publishing to the world a modest 
theory that professes to show how this relative 
disproportion of the sexes originates, and how 
the equilibrium can be restored? To state the 
case is to decide it, and I will not insult the 
moral perception of my readers by any further 
remarks on the subject, but will pass on to the INTRODUCTORY. 
13 
preliminary considerations appropriate to the 
purpose of the treatise, trusting that even if the 
reader, when he finishes it, disagrees with me in 
my inferences or conclusions, he will test them 
by his own observations and experiences before 
he finally decides against them; and that he 
will at least believe that I have been actuated 
by an earnest desire to do good in publishing 
the work, and that I honestly believe in the truth 
of the theory advanced. CHAPTER, II. 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT, SHOWN BY STA- 
TISTICS AND OTHERWISE. 
This subject of controlling the sex of offspring 
in generation is not one limited to the mere nar- 
row desires and wishes of the family, as might 
be thought by those who simply glance at the 
subject. The whole of society, not only in this 
country, but throughout the civilized world, must 
on reflection deem it of vital interest. As it is 
important that the reader have a sufficient con- 
ception of the magnitude of this subject, that he 
may take a larger view of it, than simply as it 
affects him individually, some labor has been 
bestowed in gathering and collating statistics 
tending to show not only the increasing propor- 
tion of women, but how and why it exists. 
An opinion somewhat prevails that this in- 
creased proportion of women is mainly confined 
to our Eastern States, and is due principally to 
the migration of the young men from this local- 
ity to the Western and Pacific States. While IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
15 
this increases the disparity, it is insufficient to 
account for the larger part. For it must be re- 
membered that we have also a large immigration 
from foreign countries to these Atlantic States, 
which is so largely composed of men as to be 
considered the principal reason for the increased 
proportion of women in the European countries 
from which the emigrants came; England and 
Wales alone showing a surplus of over 500,000 
females at the last census. 
The statistics of births are so imperfectly kept 
in this country that it is not possible to fully 
prove from them what the author alleges, and 
will endeavor to substantiate—which is, that the 
tendency of mothers who live in luxury and ease 
is to the production of female offspring. It needs 
but a careful observation around the circle of 
any one’s city acquaintance to see that in many 
of the older families in our towns, where there 
have been two or three generations of those liv- 
ing in indolence, that among the more recent de- 
scendants there is not an average of one boy 
born to two girls. While the statistics do not 
on their face, and in the aggregate given, show 
this condition, deductions drawn from them 
prove it to be true in many places. 16 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
It may fairly be inferred also from the statis- 
tics given that this result is not from any condi- 
tion of vitiated air, or other unhealthy character- 
istics often thought to be specially unfavorable 
to vitality in large cities, for this condition of 
more numerous female births occurs among the 
well-to-do people of the country towns, and seem- 
ingly wherever there is found in a family so 
much wealth that for two generations the wives 
and daughters are enabled to live in ease, and 
therefore too often without sufficient muscular 
exercise to give full vigor to their bodies. 
Tlie first result of this languid and inactive 
life is to produce a laxity and tenderness of the 
muscular system. We are wont to call this ef- 
feminacy, and the wrord is appropriate and sig- 
nificant, for under its influence the race tends 
largely to the production of females. 
Strange as it may seem, and not in accordance 
with popular belief in the relative powers of en- 
durance in the two sexes, the statistics show con- 
clusively that the boy in the lirst two years of 
existence more readily succumbs to disease than 
the girl, and it is only a fair inference that the 
same result follows in the various stages of the 
foetal existence. Indeed the records, on subse- IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
17 
quent pages, of still-born children, both in New 
York City and in Philadelphia, showing very 
uniformly through a number of years—in the 
former 1,000 boys to 682 girls, and in the latter 
1,000 boys to 712 girls—may be taken as quite 
conclusive on this point. 
This seeming anomaly is not without corrob- 
oration in the vegetable world. It is found by 
a special cultivation which tends to delay and 
enfeeble the growth of the plant, some varieties 
of strawberries can be made to produce only or 
mainly the female blossoms, and by a higher cul- 
tivation and more stimulating plant food be 
made on the other hand, to produce mainly male 
blossoms. Thus showing that in the enfeebling 
of the plant the male characteristic is the first 
to succumb. 
A circumstance noticed by some recent Arctic 
explorers corroborates this idea. They mention 
finding the female variety of a bisexual plant 
many miles further north than they found the 
male variety; the inference being that the fe- 
male had better withstood the rigors of the in- 
hospitable climate—had continued to passively 
live, where the male, if ever able to exist there, 
had died out. 18 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
Conversing on this subject with an intelligent 
gentleman—Mr. Nelson Sizer, Vice-President of 
the American Institute of Phrenology, and a mem- 
ber of the Fowler & Wells Co., publishers of this 
book—he suggested a very natural cause for this. 
As he said, “ The females of all creation are en- 
dowed with an ability to assimilate food beyond 
their own individual needs, for the supply of 
their offspring; placed in straitened circum- 
stances, especially when this additional supply 
is not called for by the offspring, it would add 
to their ability to maintain their hold on life.” 
There is a tendency in the vegetable world for 
the parent plant to throw off or abort whatever 
fruit it can not bring to perfection, as seen in 
the premature falling off of the surplus settings 
of fruit on a tree at their very early period of 
formation. It is a reasonable inference that this 
characteristic is so fundamental that the enfee- 
bled parent sometimes refuses to nourish the 
germ it is incapable of perfecting at its very in- 
cipiency, and that similar influences are exerted 
in the case of enfeebled mothers in the animal 
creation. 
Tlie United States census of 1880 shows that 
the great proportion of the surplus females is IMPORT AN CE OF THE SUBJECT. 
19 
composed of those between the ages of 20 and 
30, being over one-third of the whole. 
In order to show that this surplus of females 
of marriageable age is consequent largely on the 
decreased number of boys born in the effeminate 
conditions mentioned, and still more largely upon 
the increased number of boys dying in infancy 
from the, as I allege, same conditions, I present 
some statistics of births and deaths from differ- 
ent localities embracing a fair average of the 
years when these now grown people were born. 
From which I draw the inferences and make the 
deductions in proof of the allegations. 
These vital statistics will, I believe, be found 
more reliable for other purposes than those com- 
piled in the years following the civil war ; it 
having been often noticed that when society is 
unsettled, and business affairs uncertain, as they 
were for a time after the war, there are not so 
many marriages, and the same prudential mo- 
tives would tend to decrease the number of 
births at such times. Besides this the very large 
immigration to this country since the war would 
tend to make the statistics of births unreliable 
as giving the normal results from our own 
people. 20 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
1849. 
1850. 
1851. 
1852. 
1853. 
1854. 
Boys 
13,329 
14,137 
14,949 
15,246 
15,798 
16,352 
Girls 
12,263 
13,392 
13,613 
14,432 
14,965 
15,469 
Proportion: 
Boys 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
t 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
Girls 
920 
947 
911 
947 
947 
946 
Statistics of Births in Massachusetts. 
The details by counties are given for only one 
year, that of 1854, a fair average year, in which 
is also given the nativity of the mothers. 
Counties in 
Births. 
Parentage of 
Mothers. 
Massachusetts. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Native. 
Foreign. 
Barnstable 
399 
384 
692 
86 
Berkshire 
592 
612 
782 
384 
Bristol 
1,090 
1,096 
1,395 
768 
Dukes 
50 
37 
83 
4 
Essex 
2,173 
2,038 
2,581 
1,355 
Franklin 
410 
333 
514 
105 
Hampden 
759 
709 
793 
557 
Hampshire 
448 
421 
585 
237 
Middlesex 
2,841 
2,661 
2,792 
2,463 
Nantucket 
62 
56 
112 
10 
Norfolk 
1,489 
1,471 
1,493 
1,414 
Plymouth 
769 
822 
1,211 
318 
Suffolk 
3,137 
2,899 
1,934 
3,949 
Worcester 
2,121 
1,930 
2,207 
1,513 
Total 
16,352 
15,469 
17,173 
13,163 
It may be accepted as a fact, that the foreign- 
born mothers of the above table are mainly of 
the laboring classes, not doubting but that a 
large majority of the native-born mothers are 
also, it is yet fair to claim that the foreign born IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
21 
more nearly represent the working class, those 
who by some daily toil and bodily exertion hard- 
en their muscular development, and that if a 
separate classification of such were made they 
would show a largely increased percentage of 
male births over the more sedentary and syb- 
aritic class of mothers. Though this can not be 
definitely proven from the statistics, it may be 
indirectly. The State at large gives a total of 
946 girls born to each 1,000 boys. Of the 26 
principal towns in the State having the greatest 
number of births, 13 or one-half the number 
have an excess of foreign-born mothers - in pro- 
portion 1,843 foreign born to each 1,000 native 
born. The births of these show to each 1,000 
boys 950 girls. They are the following towns : 
Birtbs. 
Parentage. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Native. 
Foreign. 
Cambridge 
336 
333 
230 
420 
Lowell 
564 
521 
460 
580 
Roxbury 
283 
270 
183 
368 
Worcester 
354 
388 
333 
408 
Lawrence 
252 
231 
159 
319 
Fall River 
157 
155 
95 
216 
Dorchester 
196 
174 
174 
180 
Chicopee 
156 
119 
106 
167 
Milford 
139 
147 
98 
187 
Lee 
50 
55 
50 
54 
Taunton 
173 
190 
150 
209 
Salem 
270 
256 
120 
244 
Boston 
2,945 
2,742 
1,725 
3,806 
5,875 
5,581 
3,883 
7,158 22 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
The other 13 towns where the native mothers 
are in excess,—in proportion 1,000 native to 550 
foreign, the births are to. each 1,000 boys 975 
girls. These towns are : 
Births. 
Parentage. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Native. 
Foreign. 
Charlestown 
390 
381 
428 
338 
New Bedford 
248 
244 
364 
119 
Lynn 
255 
256 
338 
154 
Newbnryport 
158 
147 
232 
73 
Springfield 
221 
201 
225 
161 
Chelsea 
176 
142 
187 
134 
Danvers 
175 
132 
174 
131 
Gloucester 
148 
159 
233 
72 
Haverhill. 
105 
126 
169 
58 
Adams 
84 
98 
125 
55 
Great Barrington 
40 
47 
64 
22 
Pittsfield 
117 
123 
122 
112 
Northampton 
102 
107 
112 
93 
2,219 
2,163 
2,773 
1,522 
The proof may be further strengthened by 
taking the extreme cases in each classification ; 
for instance, the six towns in the last list, New 
Bedford, Newburyport, Gloucester, Haverhill, 
Adams, and Great Barrington, where the native 
mothers most preponderate,—in proportion 1,000 
native to 336 foreign, and there were born to 
each 1,000 boys 1,049 girls. 
While in the four towns in the previous table, IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
23 
where the foreign mothers are most heavily in 
excess, being in proportion 2,120 foreign to 1,000 
native, there were born to each 1,000 boys only 
903 girls. 
That this result is not due to the character of 
nationality is proven by a summary of the State 
at large outside of these 26 towns, which will 
comprise the rural population, and naturally 
mostly made up of an actively working class. 
The foreign mothers are there only 426 to each 
1,000 native, while the births are to each 1,000 
boys but 935 girls. 
Tlie statistics of births for the city of New 
York until recent years are very deficient. Those 
published as recently as the year 1864 give a 
gross total of only 5,877 births, while the statis- 
tics of deaths show 25,645 for the same year. 
The Registrar, in his report, estimates the total 
number of births at fully 32,000 for 1864. Any 
inference or argument, therefore, drawn from a 
classification of less than one-fifth of the whole 
must be weak. Of the whole number returned, 
3,059 are boys, 2,818 girls, or, in proportion to 
each 1,000 boys, 921 girls; being a less propor- 
tion of girls than is shown among the rural 
population of Massachusetts. The parentage is 
not classified as in that State. 24 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
With a view to learn something of the social 
condition of the parents, permission was obtained 
to look over the monthly reports as received in 
the office. Unmistakable evidence abounded in 
these that the births reported were mainly those 
among the German population, whose physicians 
and midwives, having been trained in the coun- 
try of their birth to the importance of these re- 
ports, had presented them with commendable 
regularity. In fact, with the exception of the 
reports from the public institutions of the city 
(and one other exception in which the names 
were Irish), they all gave undoubted evidence of 
German origin in the family names, in the chi- 
rography, and in the idiomatic errors of language 
common to that nationality when using the Eng- 
lish language, and not proficient in it. We may, 
therefore, fairly assume that this record gives 
the proportions of the sexes as they occur in the 
births among the immigrant population alone. 
The statistics of births in the city of Philadel- 
phia twenty years ago, the only other locality in 
this country from which it has been convenient 
to obtain them, make an exhibit for four and a 
half years, as follows : 25 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT, 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Proportion of girls 
to each 1,000 boys. 
1860 (6 months). 
4,426 
4,008 
906 
1861 
9,008 
8,263 
917 
1862 
7,609 
7,132 
937 
1863 
8,042 
7,251 
902 
1864 
8,237 
7,3M 
893 
Totals 
37,322 
34,008 
Average 911 
The nationality of tlie motliers is not given ; 
but, judging from the statistics of marriages 
there for the same period, the proportion of for- 
eign mothers was between 700 and 800 to the 
1,000 native: probably about the same as in 
the State of Massachusetts. The proportion of 
female births, it will be noticed, was less there 
than in the whole State of Massachusetts, and 
closely approximates to that of the four towns 
mentioned, where the foreign-born mothers were 
in greatest excess. As is well known, Philadel- 
phia city has many rural characteristics—a great- 
er number than is usual in such large cities. 
The mothers of the families, in a large majority 
of cases, do their own household work in their 
own isolated homes spreading out over a large 
territory, and thus secure a full share of bodily 
health and vigor. 
It needs but a comparatively small percentage CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
of the mothers living in indolent softness, to pro- 
duce enough girls to materially change the pro- 
portion of the sexes; and it may fairly be de- 
duced from the statistics that it is not so much 
owing to any greater vigor or robustness in the 
great majority of the mothers in Philadelphia, 
to which the larger proportion of boys is due, as 
to the smaller number who are deficient in sex- 
ual vigor as compared with the other localities. 
The statistics from all these places clearly show 
that, taking all classes, there are more boys born 
than girls. It is claimed only that under certain 
local circumstances there are increasing tenden- 
cies to an undue proportion of girls in the births. 
And that the mothers in circumstances of ener- 
vation and relaxation of muscular fibre, the re- 
sults mainly of idleness and luxury, are declin- 
ing in their ability to produce boys, and that 
even those they do bring forth are lacking in 
vital stamina. 
This first material indication of a decline in 
the mother’s strength is shown in the propor- 
tionally increased number of deaths of boys in 
early infancy from debility, marasmus, etc., who, 
as before mentioned, seem to succumb first or 
more readily to disease. IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
27 
The second stage of declining strength is shown 
in the increased proportion of boys among the 
still-born children. The third stage of the de- 
cline is a decrease of the conception of boys, 
more girls being born proportionally from this 
class of mothers. 
This last I have endeavored to show by the 
statistics already presented. 
The second stage is shown by the records of 
the still-born, given in detail on ensuing pages. 
The aggregate being in New York City, for three 
years, in the proportion, 683 girls to each 1,000 
boys. In Philadelphia, for the four and a half 
years, in the proportion, 712 girls to each 1,000 
boys. The first stage is shown by the terrible 
catalogue of infant mortality presented here. 
The following mortuary statistics of children 
under two years of age in the city of New York 
are for nine successive years, from 1856 to 1864, 
inclusive, and are so arranged as to show at a 
glance the totals of each class of organs affected 
by the disease causing death : 28 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
1856. 
1857. 
1858. 
1859. 
I860. 
1861. 
1862. 
1863. 
1864. 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Boys 
Girls 
Organs of Respira- 
tion. 
Bronchitis 
71 
73 
115 
89 
121 
107 
97 
89 
105 
91 
150 
126 
107 
92 
131 
106 
140 
106 
Congestion of Lungs. 
72 
54 
87 
74 
91 
71 
59 
48 
85 
58 
74 
55 
85 
63 
* 
* 
* 
* 
Consumption 
1(14 
95 
122 
80 
96 
78 
88 
88 
90 
HI 
95 
82 
1(4 
86 
97 
90 
95 
07 
Inflammation Lungs. 
225 
180 
311 
227 
310 
282 
322 
246 
316 
296 
233 
259 
283 
215 
404 
330 
414 
331 
Croup 
134 
114 
156 
139 
118 
110 
135 
103 
150 
124 
124 
87 
150 
141 
203 
179 
176 
148 
Diphtheria 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
13 
16 
97 
83 
101 
88 
134 
117 
218 
215 
168 
163 
606 
516 
85 
791 
609 
77 
736 
64S 
88 
714 
590 
83 
843 
713 
85 
777 
697 
90 
863 
714 
£3 
1,053 
920 
87 
983 
845 
86 
Organs of Nutri- 
tion. 
Cholera Infantum 
670 
652 
640 
596 
752 
753 
702 
588 
569 
555 
571 
578 
651 
584 
650 
600 
635 
590 
Diarrhoea 
221 
176 
205 
156 
185 
214 
170 
174 
131 
128 
123 
135 
155 
133 
237 
23(i 
209 
2 4 
Dysentery 
99 
92 
68 
65 
89 
68 
66 
54 
39 
58 
48 
49 
33 
27 
46 
33 
80 
67 
Inflammation Bowels 
47 
51 
78 
52 
62 
£3 
64 
40 
67 
48 
91 
43 
98 
72 
90 
70 
138 
95 
1,C37 
971 
9 
991 
869 
88 
1,083 
1.088 
100 
1,002 
856 
85 
806 
7 9 
08 
833 
805 
97 
937 
8*21 
88 
1,023 
939 
92 
1,062 
956 
90 
Organs of Sensa- 
tion. 
Congestion ot Brain . 
39 
67 
115 
94 
97 
99 
94 
85 
101 
80 
85 
56 
96 
52 
123 
70 
87 
67 
Convulsions 
691 
561 
744 
624 
776 
740 
822 
666 
7'4 
6! 4 
657 
554 
629 
555 
724 
638 
687 
563 
Dropsy of Head 
354 
287 
413 
28) 
426 
313 
343 
284 
310 
267 
347 
259 
301 
229 
.317 
262 
303 
250 
Inflammat’n of Brain 
83 
75 
110 
93 
138 
87 
114 
99 
118 
166 
143 
109 
148 
108 
166 
134 
186 
148 
1,217 
990 
81 
1,382 
1,091 
80 
1,437 
1,239 
80 
1,373 
1,134 
83 
1,233 
1,057 
86 
1,232 
978 
79 
1,174 
944 
80 
1,830| 1,110 
1 83 
1,263 
1.028 
80 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
29 
Contagious Dis- 
eases. 
Scarlet Fever 
Whooping-cough 
M easles 
Small-pox 
195 
71 
95 
88 
201 
95 
87 
99 
208 
93 
98 
110 
196 
95 
70 
101 
111 
116 
107 
122 
97 
144 
96 
118 
112 
130 
84 
15 
93 
137 
67 
11 
285 
68 
54 
64 
289 
81 
66 
60 
200 
48 
110 
137 
203 
68 
107 
103 
140 
88 
46 
67 
129 
103 
28 
50 
134 
50 
64 
9 
117 
40 
52 
16 
148 
43 
80 
66 
105 
06 
67 
64 
449 
482 
107 
509 
462 
90 
456 
455 
100 
341 
308 
90 
471 
496 
105 
495 
481 
97 
341 
310 
92 
257 
225 
87 
337 
302 
90 
Feeble Vitality. 
Premature Births 
242 
145 
231 
229 
204 
193 
222 
152 
139 
107 
176 
139 
147 
124 
156 
106 
142 
96 
Si ill-horn 
945 
611 
938 
62) 
856 
642 
t 
t 
Debility 
192 
134 
193 
159 
192 
157 
140 
128 
149 
137 
129 
114 
142 
131 
109 
102 
188 
162 
Teething 
185 
159 
173 
130 
69 
72 
91 
101 
04 
48 
75 
60 
38 
32 
44 
44 
48 
37 
Malformation 
42 
32 
48 
38 
42 
30 
17 
15 
15 
6 
16 
17 
22 
16 
21 
17 
19 
10 
Scrofula 
28 
24 
33 
26 
25 
30 
31 
24 
23 
27 
19 
19 
19 
14 
15 
13 
13 
13 
Marasmus 
654 
577 
751 
617 
698 
6a 3 
661 
560 
633 
574 
635 
515 
567 
512 
647 
573 
603 
525 
2,288 
1,632 
8uJ 
2,365 
1,817 
2,086 
1,7F7 
sit 
1,162 
980 
84 
1,023 
899 
85 
1,050 
864 
82 
935 
829 
89 
994 
857 
86 
1,013 
843 
84 
Death" from causes 
not included in the 
above 
346 
346 
361 
375 
420 
395 
558 
402 
437 
359 
551 
422 
398 
366 
471 
415 
383 
804 
Total 
5.943 
4,987 
6,399 
5,2.3 
86J 
6,223 
5,592 
93J 
5,150 
4,270 
83 
4,813 
4,313 
89 
4,938 
4,247 4,648 
86 
3,984 
86 
5,128 
4,466 
87 
5,€41 
4,278 
85 
Note.—The small figures under the footings of the columns of girls give the proportion of these to each 100 boys. 
* For the years 1863 and 1864 the deaths by “ Congestion of the Lungs ” are not given. They are probably included in 
the lbt of •' Inflammation of the Lungs.” 
t The record of still-born is not continued after the year 1858. 
X These figures show the proportions, leaving out the still-born. 30 
CONTIIOLLING SEX IN GENEKATION. 
It will well repay the reader to give the fore- 
going record a careful study. It presents more 
clearly than those hereafter given, the dread 
effect of certain classes of diseases on the male 
offspring of our race in the very early period of 
their existence. Recurring first to the still-born, 
which for the three years shows to each 100 boys, 
respectively, only 63, 66, and 75 girls. 
The next bearing most heavily on the boys 
are diseases of the brain—the organ of sensation, 
averaging, as will be seen, to each 100 boys only 
82 girls. 
The third in order is the class of diseases in- 
dicating feeble vitality, as marasmus, debility, 
etc., averaging to each 100 boys only 85 girls. 
The fourth (and only so because less produc- 
tive of deaths than the previous) is the class of 
the respiratory organs, averaging the same as 
the third, to each 100 boys 85 girls. 
The fifth class is the diseases of the nutritive 
organs—the stomach and bowels, averaging to 
each 100 boys only 91 girls. 
The sixth and last class, the contagious dis- 
eases, are equally fatal to both sexes; the deaths 
from these being about the same as the average 
proportions of births, that is, to each 100 boys 95 
girls. IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
31 
There is a notable circumstance in the special 
tendency of some diseases to find their larger 
proportion of victims from one sex, as dropsy in 
the head to boys, and whooping-cough to girls. 
One disease not sufficiently important in the 
number of cases to be given in the table under a 
separate head, shows such a remarkable fatality 
among boys that I present it as an additional 
argument to show that sex has some special sus- 
ceptibility to fatal disease. It is jaundice, which 
for the nine years presents a record as follows: 
1st. 
2d. 
3d. 
4th. 
5th. 
6th. 
7th. 
8th. 
9 th. 
Total. 
Boys 
18 
14 
14 
11 
7 
8 
10 
11 
93 
Girls 
6 
9 
7 
6 
3 
5 
8 
4 
48 
The mortuary statistics of Philadelphia city 
for the four and a half years herein presented 
tell the same story of the increased mortality 
of boys, though the reports which give the sex 
are not made up so as to show this feature in its 
full proportion. These reports classify the deaths 
of all under 20 years as infants; though a 
separate classification is made of. deaths by 
the various ages, in which the sexes are not sep- 
arated. 32 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
Statistics of Deaths in the city of Philadelphia for the four and a half years mentioned, 
of Infants—under 20 Years of Age giving Sex. 
6 months 
of I860. 
1861. 
O* 
CD 
00 
1863. 
1864. 
Totals. 
Males 
Fem. 
Males 
Fem. 
Males 
Fem. 
Males 
Fem 
Males 
Fem. 
Males. 
Fern’s, 
Organs op Respiration. 
Bronchitis 
10 
12 
42 
86 
37 
29 
28 
31 
50 
42 
167 
150 
Diphtheria 
97 
100 
248 
241 
132 
109 
2'8 
210 
155 
179 
810 
905 
Congestion of the Lungs. 
Ifi 
9 
38 
31 
53 
4u 
45 
50 
53 
49 
205 
179 
Consumption 
42 
72 
136 
106 
124 
169 
It 9 
132 
131 
175 
542 
714 
Inti tmmation of the Lungs 
50 
50 
202 
222 
241 
241 
231 
204 
282 
193 
1,075 
916 
Croup. 
94 
49 
153 
15J 
134 
119 
245 
198 
213 
285 
839 
751 
315 
304 
,879 
846 
721 
707 
869 
825 
884 
873 
3,668 
3,615 
*08 
Organs of Nutrition. 
Cholera Infantum 
241 
212 
316 
312 
321 
808 
456 
474 
331 
310 
1,668 
1,606 
Diarrhoea 
29 
31 
66 
48 
05 
52 
63 
65 
99 
04 
822 
26) 
Dysentery 
5) 
83 
51 
4) 
43 
31 
51 
42 
84 
56 
279 
207 
Inflammation of the Bowels 
51 
42 
62 
04 
72 
73 
67 
56 
73 
55 
325 
290 
374 
323 
495 
454 
501 
464 
637 
637 
587 
485 
2,591 
2,363 
*91 
Organs of Sensation. 
Diseases of the Brain 
2) 
16 
47 
34 
28 
35 
41 
27 
50 
28 
639 
Congestion of the Brain 
45 
43 
93 
79 
103 
H6 
1*6 
132 
143 
123 
Convulsions 
115 
108 
325 
281 
339 
324 
, 334 
294 
1 390 
336 
1 1,503 
1,813 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
33 
Dropsy of the Head ’ 
G8 
65 
132 
86 
98 
32 
99 
130 
92 
115 
98 | 
82 
264 
\ 677 
555 
Effusion of the Brain 
13 
70 
16 
42 
24 
24 
16 
171 
19 
31 
Inflammation of the Brain 
39 
158 
108 
180 
138 
149 
210 
789 
698 
Contagious Diseases. 
331 
287 
797 
612 
780 
736 
848 
713 
939 
857 
3,695 
3,205 
*87 
Scarlet Fever 
193 
192 
580 
604 
220 
236 
141 
180 
172 
172 
49 
l,3f6 
219 
1,334 
265 
Whooping-cough 
7 
11 
45 
48 
105 
103 
24 
54 
38 
Measles 
(j 
4 
81 
37 
f7 
48 
88 
41 
47 
38 
112 
182 
559 
168 
641 
Small-pox 
21 
23 
282 
333 
105 
108 
56 
55 
95 
Feeble Vitality. 
227 
230 
941 
1,022 
487 
495 
259 
290 
352 
371 
2,266 
2,408 
*106 
Still-born 
208 
139 
364 
414 
297 
432 
311 
462 
326 
1,880 
1,017 
57 
1,339 
835 
33 
Debility 
87 
85 
244 
181 
225 
181 
225 
203 
236 
185 
Malformation 
14 
3 
13 
7 
]K 
16 
12 
7 
Scrofula 
24 
12 
39 
20 
39 
27 
27 
18 
15 
23 
144 
1(0 
Marasmus 
176 
127 
267 
228 
328 
264 
274 
277 
289 
283 
1,325 
83 
1,179 
80 
Teething 
13 
11 
13 
17 
23 
18 
18 
19 
16 
15 
Cyanosis 
13 
12 
38 
25 
25 
15 
27 
19 
23 
24 
126 
95 
521 
386 
979 
740 i 
1,067 
809 
1,021 
863 
1,044 
863 
4,632 
3,661 
Deaths from all other Causes 
346 
250 
709 
543 
710 
501 
860 
628 
1,254 
879 
3,879 
2,801 
*72 
Totals 
2,114 
1,780 
*84 
4,800 
4.217 
4,266 
3,772 
4,494 
3,956 
*88 
5,060 
4,32S 
*86 
20,734 
18,053 
*87 
*88 
*88 
* The small figures under the footings of females show the proportion per 100 of males. 34 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
While it has been deemed desirable to include 
the foregoing table, it is available as evidence of 
the increased mortality of boys under two years 
of age only in the few diseases which are confined 
to the period of early infancy, as cholera infan- 
tum, marasmus, cyanosis, etc. Statistics show that 
after the second year up to the tenth the deaths 
of the two sexes are about equal in proportion. 
From the tenth to the twentieth years the excess 
of deaths is a trifle greater among females. This 
must not be forgotten in considering the preced- 
ing table. For instance, of the 207 deaths of in- 
fants by small-pox in 1864, only 68 were of those 
under two years of age. Of the 244 deaths by 
scarlet fever only 76 were of infants under two 
years. Of the 140 deaths from dysentery only 
78 were of children under two years, while of the 
641 deaths by cholera infantum 613 were of chil- 
dren under two years. 
But enough can readily be gathered from the 
table to confirm the conclusion that there is a 
much greater tendency to fatal diseases in the 
early period of existence of boys than of girls. 
Take first the still-born, in proportion to each 
100 boys only 71 girls, then those deficient in 
vital stamina (marasmus, debility, etc.), to each IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
35 
100 boys only 86 girls; followed by the brain 
diseases, to each 100 boys only 87 girls. Dis- 
eases of the respiratory organs and those of the 
contagious class seem by the record to be more 
fatal to girls than to boys, but it must not be 
forgotten that the table includes all under 20 
years of age, and the records showed that much 
the larger number of cases of these classes of 
disease were of infants over two years of age; 
particularly was this so of consumption, where 
much the largest number of deaths was of those 
between 15 and 20 years—a period of life known 
to be especially fruitful of deaths from this com- 
plaint among young women. Besides it must 
be remembered that the male children have al- 
ready been twice decimated by the other diseases 
mentioned ; that while at birth they exceed the 
girls by five to seven per cent., at ten years of 
age the positions are more than reversed, the 
girls exceeding them by 10 to 15 per cent., so 
that later when the proportions of deaths are 
equal, the deaths of girls are indicated by in- 
creased numbers. 
The tendency of whooping-cough to be more 
fatal to girls than to boys—as in New York City 
—is noteworthy ; also the tendency of jaundice 36 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
to being more fatal to boys, the cases reported 
being to each 100 boys only 66 girls. 
Incidentally, an inference may be drawn from 
the comparative tendencies of the different or- 
gans of the human body to disease, that the more 
highly organized matter of the brain—that which 
in its intensity and power makes the animal man 
a human being—is more liable to give way in 
disease than the more brute functions of respira- 
tion and nutrition, both of which hold out long- 
er. And that it is not probably true, as often 
held, that when disease fastens upon the over- 
excitable brain of a child, that it is because the 
brain is too powerful for the rest of the body, 
but rather that it is too impressible, and lacks 
consistence and strength to sustain its work in 
the economy of the whole body. 
The main purpose, however, in the presenta- 
tion of the vital and mortuary statistics in this 
chapter, is to give the cause for the larger num- 
ber of women in the communities ; to show that 
in certain conditions of life there is an increased 
proportion of girls born, and in the same condi- 
tions, and probably from the same originating 
cause, a marked increase in the proportion of 
boys dying in early infancy, both combining to 
produce the result. IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
3 7 
The first step toward overcoming any evil in the 
community, is to get a clear understanding of 
its cause. So long as we look to such secondary 
and transient influences as emigration to account 
for the deficient proportion of men, so long will 
we fail of attempting even to cure the evil. 
If the reader is not yet fully satisfied to accept 
my conclusions as above, I ask him to bear with a 
few more dry figures in summing up the case. 
For this I revert to the Massachusetts statistics, 
the only case where the classification of details 
is sufficient to make the calculations proposed. 
If we take the thirteen towns mentioned where 
the birth of girls was greatest in proportion to 
the boys, and deduct the numbers of both sexes 
that will have died by the end of two years, tak- 
ing only the general proportions of the State for 
this, there are left 1,045 girls to each 1,000 boys. 
If we take the six towns mentioned in the list 
where the proportion of births of girls was still 
greater, and make only the same rate of deduc- 
tions for deaths of each, there are left at the end 
of two years 1,140 girls to 1,000 boys. The real 
condition at the end of two years in such locali- 
ties is worse than this, inasmuch as where so 
large a proportion of girls is born the deaths of 38 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
boys in the two years are greater than the general 
average indicates, and really in these localities 
there would be 100 to 150 boys less than the fig- 
ures named. So that the condition may not be 
exaggerated, take, as the fair mean at the end of 
two years, 1,100 girls to each 1,000 boys. Now 
it is in accordance with our general observation 
and with statistics everywhere, that there is or- 
dinarily a difference in the ages of the husband 
and wife of at least five years. And Statistics 
further show that the natural increase of the 
population by births is about three per cent. 
The boys born in 1854 will be in 1879 twenty-five 
years of age, and marriageable with the girls 
born in 1859. But the number of these have in- 
creased in five years x three = 15 per cent., and 
will stand when twenty years old in 1879, rela- 
tively to the men of twenty-five years, as 1,265 
to each 1,000 men. Then we must consider the 
risks of deaths among the men for this extra 
five years, which at this period of life is about 
one per cent, per annum, so that 50 of the men 
will have died out of the 1,000, reducing their 
number to 950 ; making the relative proportions 
at the marriageable age, 1,000 men to 1,385 wom- 
en. This relative proportion will be reduced IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
39 
when the average difference in the ages of the 
husband and wife is less than five years, and of 
course increased when the difference in years is 
greater. It needs a very trifling allowance for 
the influences of emigration to warrant the con- 
clusion that, if not now, it will be true in a very 
few years, that one out of every three young 
women in these Eastern localities will have to 
remain unmarried because there is no man exist- 
ing, in her near neighborhood at least, to mate 
wdth her. A conclusion most melancholy and 
lamentable for the society in which this is, if not 
for the young women themselves. 
The estimate in the previous paragraph of the 
proportion between the men of twenty-five and 
the jvomen of twenty that would exist in 1879 
in these thirteen towns in the State of Massa- 
chusetts, was made over ten years ago. It is 
well supported by the U. S. Census of 1880, 
which gives the number of men in the whole 
State 25 to 80 years old as 75,212, and the num- 
ber of women 20 to 25 years old as 99,589, a pro- 
portion of 1,000 males to 1,324 females. The 
estimate for the thirteen towns started on the 
basis of 975 girls born to each 1,000 boys, while 
at the same time there were in the State at large 40 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
only 940 girls to each 1,000 boys. It is a fair 
presumption, therefore, that if a separate enrol- 
ment were had in the Census of 1880 of these 
thirteen towns, they would show at least this 
proportional difference, making the record for 
them alone 1,373 women of 20 to 25 years, to each 
1,000 men of 25 to 30 years. 
Emigration from these thirteen towns has not 
been taken into account as a factor in the prob- 
lem. There are no statistics of this obtainable, 
and the reader must make his own allowance. 
Observation, however, leads to the belief that in 
places where women are so greatly superabun- 
dant it is difficult for them to obtain remunera- 
tive employment, and they change to other locali- 
ties quite as freely as the men. 
The thoughtful reader will readily perceive 
that this condition of affairs is now compara- 
tively in its infancy. It does not require that 
the mothers of many families in a city or town 
are under the influences inducing especially the 
production of female offspring, to bring about 
all the disproportion that now exists. 
Owing to the very limited reports of births in 
New York City twenty years ago, it is not possi- 
ble to make any similar calculations from the 41 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
mortuary table for that city of the proportional 
numbers of each sex that would be living now. 
Personal observations and investigations, too 
vague and indefinite as yet to present here, 
induce the belief that among the native-born 
mothers, the results in this respect will approach 
very nearly to those found in the sixteen effemi- 
nate towns in Massachusetts. 
In Philadelphia, owing to the deficient classifi- 
cation before mentioned, classes of mothers can 
not be selected, nor can special localities in the 
city, to show and compare varied results in the 
proportions of the sexes dying in early infancy, 
if such variations exist. The mean as given in 
the table shows a larger proportion of male 
births than either Massachusetts or New York 
City, viz.: 1,000 boys to 911 girls. The deaths 
of all under 20 years for the four and a half 
years given are 20,374 boys, 18,053 girls. Of 
these 14,800 were over two years of age, and if 
these be taken equally from both sexes, which is 
about in accordance with the New York City 
and Massachusetts statistics, it leaves the death- 
roll of those under two years, 13,334 boys to 
10,653 girls. This would leave the proportion 
at the end of two years from birth of 1,000 boys 42 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
to 975 girls. Taking these, as on a previous 
page, marriageable—the men at 25, the women at 
20—and adding as before for the natural increase 
in five years of the women, say fifteen per cent., 
and deducting for the deaths among the men for 
the five years, say five per cent., as before, and 
at these marriageable ages of 25 and 20 years 
the proportion will be to each 1,000 men 1,180 
women. 
The statistics, therefore, tend to show that while 
Philadeljfiiia has reached a point in the enerva- 
tion of the mothers where the male children 
fall victims to disease as readily as in New York 
City, or in the Massachusetts towns, it has not 
yet reached the second stage, where the propor- 
tion of male births is reduced, as in the other 
places named. 
Tlie foregoing estimate of the proportion be- 
tween the women of 20 and the men of 25 that 
would be living in Philadelphia in 1879 was 
made, like that some four pages back for Massa- 
chusetts, over ten years ago. Its correctness can 
not be verified by the census of 1880 as was that, 
the published record not showing the numbers 
of these ages except for the whole State. For 
the city alone (Philadelphia County) that census IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
43 
gives of all ages 405,975 males to 441,195 females, 
a proportion of 1,086 females to each 1,000 males. 
A paragraph is going the rounds of the news- 
papers this summer (1884) stating that the last 
census shows there are 30,000 more marriageable 
women in that city than men. I am not able to 
verify this, but counting all persons over 17 as 
marriageable, it will give about 1,115 women to 
each 1,000 men. I incline, however, to believe 
that a separate classification of the ages named 
would show even a larger proportion of women 
than my estimate. CHAPTER III. 
THOUGHTS OH A COMMOH VIEW OF THE CAUSE 
OF SEX IJST OFFSPRING. 
Before fully developing the author’s theory 
on this subject, it may be well to give some con- 
sideration to the commonly received opinion that 
the decision of this matter of sex rests with that 
Divine Providence who first created and now gov- 
erns the universe, and who arbitrarily causes the 
embryo man to take on the male or female con- 
dition according to the dictates of His own sov- 
ereign will. As remarked in the introductory, 
to many this conclusion is the end of all investi- 
gation ; and if we could all accept the belief it 
should end further investigation for all of us. I 
will endeavor, however, reverently to show that 
this must be an erroneous conclusion, and wheth- 
er the theory presented in this book be the true 
one or not, feel well assured that the reader will 
not close it without at least coming to the belief 
that there is some natural law governing this THOUGHTS OH A COMMON VIEW OF THE CAUSE. 
phenomenon, as there seems to be in most others 
in nature. 
Too often this attribution of mysterious events 
in nature to a Divine Providence as the direct 
agent, is but the ignorant conclusion of a mind 
incapable of further research. In the effort 
to discover the occult law which governs some 
mysterious action in nature, he traces up the 
various steps of intermediate causes till he finds 
himself baffled, and then falls back on the direct 
intervention of a Divine Providence for what is 
yet wanting to explain the mystery. Now, such 
conclusions are often very depreciative of the 
power of the great Creator of the universe. This 
is evidently His Sabbath of rest. The whole crea- 
tion, so far as science has revealed it to us, moves 
on harmoniously by virtue of certain natural laws 
which its Creator has put in force ; under His su- 
pervision as the Great Engineer. And to con- 
clude, that He who created, the sun, stars, and 
revolving planets, and keeps them all moving 
harmoniously in space by the simple law of grav- 
ity ; who implanted in each animal and plant 
the ability to reproduce itself ad infinitum / 
who gave to man reason, and to brutes instinct 
by which they when once in existence continue 46 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
to appropriate from day to day the food they re- 
quire, which going through another wonderful 
process of digestion nourishes and keeps them 
in being year by year, and who had the wisdom 
to arrange for the continuance in being of His 
organic creation in a thousand separate and spe- 
cial ways for their comfort and happiness, had 
not the power or wisdom to create a general law 
by which the two sexes should be appropriately 
proportioned, but must perforce exert a special 
and direct act or energy at the conception of 
each of the myriads of new beings in man, beast, 
bird, reptile, and fish, to make it male or female, 
is surely very depreciating, to the Divine attri- 
butes of knowledge and power. It is as though 
the inventor of a clock striking the hours, had 
not intelligence enough to put a cam on the 
wheel carrying the minute-hand to set the strik- 
ing machinery in motion, but must stand by and 
pull a wire himself at the right moment to set 
these in operation. 
True, man is justified in thinking himself of 
more importance to his Creator than are the 
beasts of the field and the birds of the air, and 
hence in a measure excusable for the belief that 
iu the offspring of his own species, when an im- THOUGHTS ON A COMMON VIEW OF THE CAUSE. 
mortal soul is brought into existence, the condi- 
tion of sex may be a special intervening act of 
the Supreme Being. But though it may be 
humiliating to our pride, we can not be blind to 
the fact that we are subject to the same natural 
laws in our existence as govern the inferior or- 
ders. And it is more reasonable, more reverent 
to believe that there is some great general law 
which determines the sex, not only in the plant, 
the insect, the reptile, fish, bird, and beast, but 
in the human species also. Accepting this as 
so, and that it is a universal law throughout all 
organic nature, the subject is followed up by a 
reference to some of the limitations there must 
be to its action, and an endeavor to show how and 
when it acts, and when not. It is the theory of 
some that a female is simply an undeveloped 
male ; that the female organs are the same as 
the male, only reverted, or not fully developed ; 
and, influenced by this resemblance, are led to 
believe that there is something in the nourish- 
ment of the embryo which induces its retarda- 
tion into a female, or its fuller development into 
a male. This is simply a phase or part of the 
development theory, and finds some confirma- 
tion in a fact noticed by breeders of domestic 48 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
cattle, that the male frequently takes some days 
longer for its gestation than the female. 
But if we adopt one general law governing 
this, we see in the propagation by an egg, that 
the hypothesis of a special foetal nourishment as 
the cause for sex must be erroneous. The em- 
bryo having its supply of food bound up in the 
shell with itself, must be entirely independent of 
the mother’s condition. Even if in most of the 
species produced by the egg it may remain in the 
ovary of the mother long enough after impreg- 
nation to have some influence of this kind pro- 
duced on it, we can not disregard the condition 
of fishes, where the ova are entirely separated 
from the mother fish, and beyond her influence 
before they are impregnated. In this order, as 
is well known in the art of pisciculture, it is not 
necessary that the male and female parents of 
the young fry are even brought into contact. 
The eggs of the female being stripped from her 
into a tank of water, and the milt or semen of 
the male in like manner stripped from him and 
mixed in with the eggs they become impreg- 
nated, the result being the hatching-out subse- 
quently of both male and female fish. In like 
manner in the vegetable world, it needs only the THOUGHTS ON A COMMON VIEW OF THE CAUSE. 
49 
bringing together of the products of the male 
and female flowers to produce a new plant with 
all the characteristics of the parent plants. 
We must, therefore, look for the operation of 
this general law either before or at the moment 
of conception or impregnation, and not after- 
ward. 
This universal law must be something different 
and more potent than mere animal desire or lust, 
that thus brings together the two sexes of man, 
beast, bird, fish, and plant. For they presup- 
pose a brain and nervous organization, and we 
can scarcely conceive 'these to exist in the milt 
and ova of fish, and certainly they do not exist 
in the pollen and ovule of plants. 
What this energy probably is will be shown 
in a subsequent chapter. CHAPTER IV. 
STAGES OF THE INVESTIGATION. 
. That the reader may fully understand the 
various stages of the investigation that finally 
resulted in the discovery of the natural law in- 
fluencing the production of sex, and be able by 
making independent observations of his own to 
judge of the reasonableness of the conclusion, 
there will be given in this chapter a few of the 
observations noted by the writer, as the founda- 
tion or frame to the work. But few of the many 
noticed are given, enough only to show their 
scope and direction, and these will be followed 
with what may be called general conclusions, as 
founded on or deduced from the observations. 
As will be seen, the observations were specially 
directed to what seemed abnormal and irregular 
in the production from one pair of an unusual 
number of males, or an unusual number of 
females, and especially cases where the irregu- 51 
STAGES OF THE INVESTIGATION. 
larity was hereditary. These are numbered in 
order, so they may be readily referred to later. 
1. A married couple whose ancestry were of 
good healthy and robust stock, had children— 
first a son, then a daughter, then another son, 
followed by seven daughters in succession. The 
father was of a family of two sons and one daugh- 
ter, the mother from one with five sons and two 
daughters. The elder son of this pair married 
at 40 a woman of 19, and had four children—all 
daughters. The eldest daughter married at 24 
a man of her own age, had first one son, then 
five daughters. The second son married at 26 a 
woman of 23, had three sons and three daughters 
somewhat intermixed in the order of birth. The 
second daughter married at 20 a man of 28, 
had no children. The third daughter married 
at 24 a man of 26, had only two children, daugh- 
ters, she dying soon after the birth of the last. 
The fourth daughter married at 21 a man of 27, 
had in succession five daughters, then two sons, 
then another daughter, followed by another son, 
the eldest daughter and all three sons dying in 
early infancy. The fifth daughter married at 
20 a man of 24, had only two children, daugh- 
ters, both of which died at birth, or shortly after, 52 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
the mother also dying a few days after the last 
infant. The sixth daughter married at 20 a man 
of 25, had three sons, six daughters alternating 
somewhat in order. The seventh and eighth 
daughters died young unmarried, one by an ac- 
cident, the other by a contagious disease. Only 
a few of the third generation of this family are 
married, but there is quite an undue proportion 
of girls born from those that are. 
2. Another married couple of good healthy 
parentage had two sous and two daughters, al- 
ternating in the order of their birth. The two 
sons, marrying, had born to them eight daugh- 
ters and three sons. The two* daughters, mar- 
rying, had born to them seven sons and one 
daughter only. 
3. Another married couple had first born to 
them two daughters, then five sons in succession. 
The father had a severe sickness after the birth 
of the second daughter, from the more serious 
effects of which he recovered, but was somewhat 
of an invalid thereafter. 
4. Two sons, the only children of one family, 
married two sisters, the only children of another 
family. The antecedents of both families not 
known, but the several children born in both 
families were girls only. 53 
STAGES OF THE INVESTIGATION. 
5. An acquaintance in Pennsylvania, whose 
wife had borne him several children, mostly 
girls, was elected a member of the House of 
Representatives. He spent the winter in Har- 
risburg ; this being before the time when rail- 
roads ran to every section of the State, travel 
home was to him both tedious and expensive. 
In exactly nine months after his return home in 
the spring, his wife had a son. After spending 
the second winter in Harrisburg he was elected 
to Congress, and the third winter was spent in 
Washington. Again, promptly in nine months 
after his return home in the spring, his wife had 
another boy. The two events were thus so pecu- 
liarly marked that among his intimate friends 
the boys were dubbed the “ Representative ” and 
the “ Congressman.” 
6. A neighbor of the author, a milkman, had 
a herd of some twenty or more milch-cows, for 
whose service he kept a bull, and somewhat, 
also, to serve his neighbors’ cows. He said it 
was a very unusual thing for a heifer calf to be 
born among his herd, sometimes not one the 
whole season ; while among the cows of the 
neighbors served by the same bull, the calves 
were no more frequently male than female. 54 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
7. Two young sows of the same litter belong- 
ing to the author—as near alike as two peas— 
being in heat, were driven one morning about 
half a mile to a neighboring farm where a boar 
was kept. One of them was served and driven 
home. But as the boar showed no inclination 
for another immediate union, the other sow was 
left on the place with him to be served and sent 
home later. The litter of the first one served 
was, six female, two male; of the second one, 
seven male, two female. 
These show the character of the observations. 
It is not necessary to multiply them, for similar 
cases will, no doubt, come to the mind of the 
reader on reflection among his own experiences. 
After numerous observations of this kind had 
been made where opportunities were had to 
study the surroundings and influences that 
might have operated to produce these irregular- 
ities in the production of sex, it seemed possible 
with the aid of the statistics given herein in 
chapter first, to collate and condense them all 
into some general conclusions, as follows : 
a. Robust, healthy, and apparently lusty wives 
more frequently have male than female children, 
particularly so when their husbands are of me- 
dium or inferior vigor, and reversely : STAGES OF THE INVESTIGATION. 
55 
b. Delicate, weak women, who indicate from 
their appearance but little sexual ardor, more 
frequently have female children, especially when 
their husbands show indications of greater sex- 
ual vigor. 
c. Women who have these characteristics in a 
medium degree, which may fairly represent the 
great majority of wives, and whose husbands are 
also of fair average vigor, if they continue hav- 
ing children regularly about every two years, 
will have more girls than boys. 
d. Wives who have been brought up religious- 
ly, and when young girls become devoted church- 
members, have usually a larger proportion of 
girls than boys. This has. been as yet mainly 
noticed in village communities. 
e. The wives of the farming population have 
more boys than girls, and reversely: 
f. The wives of a city, town, or sometimes even 
a village population, give birth to more girls than 
boys. 
g. Illegitimate children born throughout the 
country are in very large proportion boys, as 
much, or more, than 3 to 1. 
Ji. Illegitimate children born in cities, though 
oftener boys than girls, are not so to near the ex- 
tent they are in the country. 56 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
i. The children of a woman 18 to 22, who is 
married to a man 35 to 40, are in larger propor- 
tion girls. 
j. The children of a woman of 25 to 35, whose 
husband is 5 to 10 years younger than she is, will 
have a larger proportion of boys. 
k. In a family of brothers and sisters, if the 
sisters when married have a preponderance of 
girls, the brothers when married will have a pre- 
ponderance of boys, and reversely: 
1. If the sisters when married have mostly 
boys, the brothers when married will have most- 
ly girls. 
m. Tlie begetting of girls requires so much of 
sexual vigor in the father, that a saying has be- 
come common among the rural population, “ that 
any boy can beget a boy, but it takes a man to 
beget a girl.” CHAPTER Y. 
THE PHYSICAL LAW AS PROVEN BY THE 
OBSERVATIONS. 
After much casting about to discover some 
physical law or laws that would, if applied, cover 
all the observations made and general conclu- 
sions drawn from them, the following was event- 
ually settled upon: That at the generation of 
male offspring the mother must be in a higher 
degree of sexual excitement than the father. 
And reversely, at the generation of female off- 
spring, the father must be in a higher state of 
such excitement than the mother. A remark 
made to the writer by a countryman of his ac- 
quaintance, with whom he was conversing on the 
subject, somewhat accidentally led to this: it was 
that he could always tell when his wife was con- 
ceiving a boy, for she did all the work ; while if 
it was a girl, he had to do all the work. While 
this may be regarded as an exaggerated remark, 
and such one-sided activity seldom required, it 58 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
does in a forcible way reveal the prominent idea, 
and worth remembering by those wishing to test 
the theory. 
I am fully aware that this is not the prevalent 
view, and the one which perhaps seems more 
natural, that each parent impresses his, or her, 
own sex on the offspring, the strongest one gov- 
erning the influence on the embryo. But this 
view has not been held as the result of any in- 
vestigation, or because it seems to meet the nec- 
essary requirements, especially of the abnormal 
or irregular cases, where there are many more of 
one sex than of the other from one pair. It 
passes simply because it seems natural and rea- 
sonable, and is supposed to account for the vary- 
ing sex in a family where the husband and wife 
are about on an equality of sexual vigor, and the 
children fairly divided between male and female. 
But even here it is not the true principle, for it 
does not cover the oft-repeated observations of 
particular instances of irregular proportions of 
the sexes from one pair, while the reverse does. 
This it is purposed now to show by taking up 
the specially observed cases mentioned in the 
preceding chapter, and the general conclusions 
seriatim, and indicating from the circumstances THE PHYSICAL LAW PKOVEN BY OBSEKVATIONS. 
59 
surrounding each, how the hypothesis fits them. 
Each observation and conclusion is referred to 
by its original number and letter, so they need 
not be repeated in detail. 
Observation 1. As mentioned, the husband and 
wife were both of good healthy stock. The hus- 
band had a brother and sister only, the wife four 
brothers and one sister, none of them showing 
any lack of physical vigor, and there was noth- 
ing to show any inherited tendency to such a 
large proportion of daughters as they had. The 
first four children born being alternately a son 
and a daughter repeated, indicated that the 
parents were well mated as regards sexual 
vigor. But about this period of her married 
life the wife became what may fairly be called 
by its common name, complaining, and from 
year to year grew worse, though having a girl 
about every two years. From and after the birth 
of her last daughter she was a helpless invalid, 
dying when her youngest child was about twelve 
years old. During all this time of invalidism 
she necessarily ranked much below her husband 
in sexual vigor, and, as we shall see, somewhat 
entailed upon her later offspring especially, a 
debility of organization that resulted in their 60 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
cases in the production of an excess of girls. 
The elder son, marrying at the mature age of 40, 
when in his full sexual vigor, a young and 
scarcely mature woman, was naturally much her 
superior in sexual vigor ; their four children suc- 
ceeded each other two years, or about that, 
apart, were girls, partly because of the superior 
strength of the father, and partly because the 
mother by her continuous child-bearing and lac- 
tation had no opportunity of fully recuperating 
her strength. 
The first daughter born before her mother had 
fallen into this “ complaining ” state, inherited a 
good degree of robust health, but being married 
to a man of remarkable vigor, had first a son, 
and later children so regularly every two years, 
that her strength was not re-established after 
lactation before she again conceived, so that her 
progeny were later all girls. The second son, a 
fairly vigorous man, married a woman fully as 
strong and vigorous as himself, resulting in off- 
spring equally divided as to sex. 
All the rest of the daughters who had children 
seemed to have inherited a weak sexual organi- 
zation from their mother, and produced almost 
altogether girls, except the youngest one. When 61 
THE PHYSICAL LAW PROVEN BY OBSERVATIONS. 
she was yet but a child, owing to the poor health 
of the mother, the family moved to the country, 
where she, as a growing girl, enjoyed unusual 
advantages of much outdoor life, while her old- 
er sisters were confined either at boarding-school, 
or in the care and attendance on the invalid 
mother. 
Obs. 2. This was a case where the vitality of the 
family was of the highest, and the husband and 
wife well balanced as to sexual vigor, as shown 
by an equal number of boys and girls. But the 
sons, in marrying, proved to be more vigorous 
than the average, and their wives only moder- 
ately so. The consequence was, the birth of 
daughters mainly to both of them ; while the 
daughters, on the other hand, possessing good 
vigorous constitutions beyond the average, found 
in their husbands men of less vigor, with the re- 
sult that their children were mainly sons. 
Ohs. 3. This was a case where naturally the 
husband was at first of more vigor than the wife, 
so they had first two daughters. After the hus- 
band’s sickness and invalidism his wife was the 
more vigorous of the two, and they then had 
only boys. 
Obs. 4. Here the two daughters had inherited a 62 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
delicacy of bodily organization which placed 
them below the average, and being married to 
two only sons who had inherited a good share 
of robustness from a mother strong enough to 
have sons only, the offspring on the hypothesis 
mentioned would likely be, as they were, girls 
only. 
Obs. 5. This case shows to the reader how a 
tendency to have girls born in a family may be 
overcome in a natural and proper way. That is 
by a total separation of the husband from the 
wife’s bed for a time, longer or shorter, to enable 
her to fully recuperate her strength, and to get 
up a strong, healthy, natural desire for a reunion 
with her husband. In this case not only was 
the separation a fitting one for this purpose, but 
the coming together was under favorable circum- 
stances for the wife’s conception of a son. The 
separation had been long enough to kindle in 
the wife a strong desire for the embrace of her 
husband. Ordinarily his would have been pro- 
portionally stronger, and the chance of a male 
conception less probable ; but this was away 
back, before the time when railroads ran to 
every little town, and the husband reached home 
after some three days’ travel by stage-coach and THE PHYSICAL LAW PROVEN BY OBSERVATIONS. 03 
■wagon. It is not necessary to suppose that he 
had during the separation from his wife illegiti- 
mately satisfied his desires, and was, therefore, 
less sexually excitable than his wife. Fatigued 
by his long ride, he would naturally feel more 
like resting and sleeping on his retirement to 
bed, than indulging very effectively his wife’s 
ardent desire,— a condition on both sides, ac- 
cording to the hypothesis, for the conception of 
male offspring. 
Obs. 6. These facts all accord with the hy- 
pothesis. The milkman was eminently shrewd 
and practical in the management of his herd. 
It was always composed of cows in their prime ; 
they were kept in the best possible condition of 
liesh, and with very little stall-feeding were 
always fit for the butcher. He did not think it 
profitable to raise the few heifer calves his herd 
produced, but as any of his cows got past their 
prime they were sold off to the butcher, and 
their place supplied with others younger but 
still at their maturity, these giving the best re- 
sults in the production of milk. Consequently 
his cows were always at the best and most vigor- 
ous period of their existence, neither very young 
nor very old. For the same economic reason CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
Tie raised every year or two a bull-calf, which, 
as soon as old enough, served his herd of cows, 
but which so soon as he had fairly his growth, 
and while still young, was castrated and sold to 
the butcher, his place being supplied by a grow- 
ing younger one from time to time. The bull 
did not run with the cows, but when one of them 
was in heat she was turned into the small en- 
closure where he pastured, and, as he had so 
many cows to serve, only a single intercourse 
was allowed between them. The conditions 
were such as to give each cow separately a much 
higher degree of sexual excitement at the inter- 
course than the bull possessed. In the first 
place, his ardor was often weak from having so 
large a herd to serve ; and in the second place, 
there was, so to say, no preparation or excitation 
of the bull prior to the connection with each 
cow, as there would have been had he run with 
the herd; while with each cow there was some- 
what of this excitation from other cows of the 
herd, before her state of heat would be noticed 
by the attendants. Add to this the condition of 
the bull’s youth and more tender muscle, as com- 
pared with the run of the cows, and the circum- 
stances all were favorable to the engendering of THE PHYSICAL LAW PROVEN BY OBSERVATIONS. 65 
male calves. When the neighbors’ cows were 
sent in to the bull the conditions were often 
quite different. These were often in a lower 
condition of keep, had been led or driven such 
distances and under such circumstances, as some- 
times to greatly fatigue them, and were often 
young heifers, so that at the connection of the 
bull with any one, he was likely to be in as high 
a state of sexual excitement as the cow was, and 
there was an equal chance of as many female as 
male calves resulting from the intercourse with 
these neighbors’ cows. 
Obs. 7. This case is explainable on the hy- 
pothesis as follows : The sows in being driven 
to the boar by a way somewhat tortuous, with 
branchings-off from the road, required some rac- 
ing to keep them in the right track, from the 
natural contrariness of the animal that always 
wants to go the way dilferent from that the 
driver wishes. So they arrived at the home of 
the boar somewhat tired out, and without oppor- 
tunity to rest an immediate union was had be- 
tween one of them and the boar while he was 
fresh and not fatigued. According to the hy- 
pothesis, under these conditions female pigs 
would be more likely conceived, all other things 66 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
being equal. The second sow being left on the 
premises till later, had ample time to rest and 
regain all her natural strength. The later union 
between her and the boar while he had yet 
scarcely recovered strength after his previous 
encounter, naturally gave this sow the chance to 
be in a higher degree of sexual excitement than 
he, resulting in the conception of a larger pro- 
portion of male pigs in the litter. CHAPTEK VI. 
THE GENERAL CONCLUSIONS IN CHAPTER FOUR 
REVIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF THE PHYSICAL 
LAW ENUNCIATED IN CHAPTER FIVE. 
a. Not alone the statistics given in chapter 
second, but observation shows that a larger pro- 
portion of boys are born in country places than 
in towns. Among the rural or farming population 
the labor of the wife is not so fatiguing as that 
of the husband. To a healthy woman it is not 
greater than is fairly needed for exercise to keep 
the body in good physical condition. And when 
the hour of rest comes at which the intercourse 
usually occurs resulting in a conception, the wife 
is more likely to be active and vigorous than the 
husband, who, from following the plow all day, 
or other arduous farm labor, is tired and ex- 
hausted. And naturally the wife takes on more 
readily the higher degree of sexual ardor, and 
most frequently has male offspring. 
b. A different condition exists in towns; the 68 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
wives lead less active lives, and do not have ex- 
ercise enough, nor fresh, wholesome air enough 
to give firmness and strength to their muscle; 
while the husbands in great measure have 
enough of these to give them a fair degree of 
muscular strength without so much as to pro- 
duce bodily exhaustion. Consequently on retire- 
ment. at night, as a general thing, they will be 
more vigorously excited sexually than the wives, 
resulting in a larger proportion of female con- 
ceptions. [See the statistics for the condition of 
towns in Massachusetts.] 
c. This condition is accounted for under the 
physical law as follows : Where wives have chil- 
dren in regular marital intercourse every two 
years or thereabout, the periodicity is usually 
from their nursing the previous child for a year 
or more after its birth, and not menstruating 
during that period. That this function ceases 
during lactation shows that they are not special- 
ly robust. Some fruit-trees, especially the apple, 
when in an impoverished soil can not nourish the 
fruit, and form new fruit-buds for the next year’s 
supply at the same time. Hence the tree bears 
a crop every other year only. The most of our 
fruits would come in this way, were it not that REVIEW OF GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
69 
in some the fruit matures and drops off so early 
in the year, that there is yet time afterward in 
the autumn for the growth of the fruit-buds. 
When at the end of a year’s nursing the wife 
finds the increased demands of the child for sus- 
tenance is taxing too greatly her strength it is 
weaned. Then menstruation soon commences, and 
she again becomes pregnant while her strength is 
not yet recovered. There is scarcely a chance that 
her sexual passion will be naturally aroused at 
the time of conception again, when it takes place 
thus promptly following the cessation of nurs- 
ing. Even in the case of stronger wives who 
while partly feeding their child artificially, yet 
continue also a partial nursing, during which 
menstruation commences, the existence of both 
functions reduces their sexual power to a feebler 
condition, so that they too will conceive girls 
where, freed for a time from the first of these 
drains on their physical powers, they would or- 
dinarily conceive only boys. 
The same train of circumstances follows year 
after year, or rather every two years, and wives 
otherwise robust enough to have only male off- 
spring have a succession of girls. This succession 
is sometimes broken by accidental circumstances, 70 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
that separate the husband from the marriage-bed 
for two or three months at about the time when 
conception would ordinarily occur, and this be- 
ing thus delayed, the wife has an opportunity to 
recover her full vigor. 
d. This will, no doubt, be regarded as a strange 
conclusion, but if any of my readers will take the 
trouble to investigate the subject they will find 
it a true one. The fact is explainable under 
the physical law as resulting from two primary 
causes. First, a girl trained up religiously is 
taught that even thoughts on the subject of pro- 
creation are wrong, and are to be suppressed. 
She grows up with an innate modesty and pudic- 
ity, often arriving at a state of puberty without 
a sensual thought or inclination toward the oppo- 
site sex. She even feels an inward shame when 
nature develops the sexual desire in her, lest 
some unconscious word or act should betray to 
others its existence. And when she is married 
this modesty has become so ingrained that it 
controls her actions in the conjugal embraces of 
her husband. She prefers to have him think 
that she submits to these to please him, and as a 
matter of duty, rather than from any special de- 
sire on her part. REVIEW OF GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
71 
So it happens that these embraces are rarely 
sought by her, or her desire for them indicated, 
and they occur only at the solicitation of the 
husband when his desires are ardent, and when 
often her own are not. At such connections the 
chances are very few in proportion that she will 
be in the higher condition of sexual excitement 
and conceive a son. 
If later on in the married life of such wives, 
they somewhat lose this prudery, they are likely 
to be found in the condition mentioned in con- 
clusion (c). 
But, secondly, there is another cause for the 
condition of such wives as leads to this conclu- 
sion (d) lying much deeper. Young women of 
poor health and feeble bodily frames more fre- 
quently and readily become church - members 
than do their more robust sisters. This weaker 
condition naturally leads to thoughts on the 
probability of an early death, and they hasten 
to make preparation for the life beyond the 
grave by joining the church ; while their sisters, 
with bounding, vigorous health and active de- 
sires, feel that death is yet a long way off. So 
the solemn exhortation of the preacher to pre- 
pare for it, which moves the feebler ones to re- CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
pentance, and to church-membership, passes by 
these stronger ones unheeded. The sunshine and 
glamor of life is yet all before them, and thoughts 
of the grave and the hereafter are for them at 
this period of their lives but the passing fleecy 
clouds in the sky of their bright June days, that 
shadow them but for the moment. 
Readers may regard this conclusion (d) as a 
sad one, but it is a true one, as any of them 
will find who may have access to the records 
of infant baptism in any of our village churches 
where our native-born women are largely mem- 
bers ; the female infants baptized will be two, or 
more even, to one male infant. Of course, this 
idea of the tendency of those in feeble health to 
more readily devote themselves to a religious 
life is not new. Holmes in his “Professor at 
the Breakfast Table ” discourses upon it, and 
upon the tendency, on the other hand, of the 
young in robust health to be mischievously 
wicked; closing his discourse with the remark 
that—“in the sensibility and sanctity which 
often accompany premature decay, I see one of 
the most beautiful instances of the principle of 
compensation that marks the Divine benevo- 
lence.” So Longfellow in one of the most beau- REVIEW OF GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
73 
tiful of his short poems, “ Footsteps of Angels,” 
connects delicacy of bodily frame with saintli- 
ness in— 
“ They the holy ones and weakly, 
Who the cross of suffering bore, 
Folded their pale hands so meekly, 
Spoke with us on earth no more.” 
There is a like conclusion in the old anecdote of 
the little boy wdio from reading his Sunday- 
school story books so coupled goodness with an 
early death, that when exhorted by his mother 
to be a good boy, replied that he “ did not want 
to be good, for the good little children all died 
and went to heaven.” 
Admitting this second view of the greater tend- 
ency of weak and feeble young women becom- 
ing church-members, we have the reason under 
the physical law stated, why, when they become 
wives to men of average physical stamina, there 
should be many more girls than boys born of 
them. 
e. f. Conclusions (e) and (/) are really included 
in those of (a) and (b)—the former being general 
and these special; consequently the explanatory 
remarks connected with (a) and (b) cover also (e) 
and (f) so far as showing how the general law of 74 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
the conception of sex is applicable. They are 
kept separated because the statistics more es- 
pecially and directly show the conclusions (e) 
and (/’) to be true, by the details of the towns 
given. 
Other general conclusions of similar character 
to (e) and (f ) were arrived at from neighborhood 
observations—as that a larger proportion of girls 
were born in well-to-do families where the wives 
being entirely freed from all active bodily labor 
devote their time to cpiiet sedentary occupa- 
tions, as embroidering, crocheting, and the like, 
and become weak and languid in muscular fibre, 
than there is among poorer families where the 
wives do their own household work, and by the 
exercise therein retain more physical strength; 
but all such conclusions were finally embraced 
in those given. 
g. Ji. These are general conclusions formed 
from personal observation as to (g), for no sta- 
tistics were found of illegitimate births in the 
country places. Necessarily the horizon of any 
one person’s observations of this kind is extreme- 
ly restricted. The few instances of such births 
occurring within the writer’s notice being at least 
three boys to one girl, justified the conclusion, 75 
REVIEW OF GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
though it was not justified of illegitimate births 
recorded in the cities. 
The reason for this doubtless is that illegiti- 
mate births throughout the country are more 
frequently the result of the seduction of the 
woman by her pseudo lover. Naturally a trans- 
gression of this character would not occur except 
when the woman was in so highly excited a state 
as to be largely regardless of the consequences. 
The opportunities would not be frequent be- 
tween the pair for their illicit intercourse, and 
whenever they did occur the chances would be 
in favor of the woman’s being in such condition 
that, under the physical law given, she would 
more readily conceive male children. 
In cities, while this condition exists, there are 
two other classes of women who have illegiti- 
mate children under different influences. One 
class, the prostitutes, whose frequent indulgence 
of the sexual passion naturally hinders it from 
ever rising to a great height; while their tem- 
porary paramour is likely to he more vigorous 
than the ordinary husband is in the marital in- 
tercourse. Conceptions occurring under these 
circumstances would not probably vary much in 
the proportions of the sex of the offspring from 76 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
those occurring among the married people of the 
same place. The other class having illegitimate 
children are the mistresses, who occupy a similar 
position to that a wife does in regard to their 
chance of the conception of either sex. The dis- 
position of men of mature age to select very 
youthful women for mistresses would indeed 
result in more frequent births of girls than of 
boys, as mentioned in general conclusion (i). 
An article in the New York Mail and Ex- 
press July 25, 1884, on “ Homeless Waifs,” says : 
“ Three-fourths of the abandoned babes that are 
picked up in the streets are boys. Of the eight- 
een foundlings brought to Matron Webb’s Nur- 
sery ” (Police Headquarters) “ in the first eight- 
een days of July fourteen were boys, and of the 
twenty-two in June, thirteen.” It is a fair pre- 
sumption that these abandoned babes are mostly 
illegitimate. 
i. It is a somewhat prevalent idea that the sex- 
ual ardor is much stronger in youth than in ma- 
ture age. This is, however, an error. That the 
passion is more excitable in the young and less 
under control, is no doubt true. In youth the 
tissues are softer and more sensitive to all im- 
pressions ; the sensation of pain is felt more REVIEW OF GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
acutely, so also the sensation of pleasure. But 
this sensibility to the impression is a different 
thing from the strength of the impression, and 
the power that gives it. The one presupposes 
softness of muscle and tenderness of nerve, pro- 
ducing an excitation at less force of power. The 
other hardness of muscle, slow to excitement, 
and, consequently, the exertion of more sexual 
force to arouse it. It is this last that gives the 
superior power in the sexual embrace. All other 
things being equal, therefore in the union of a 
husband of 35 or 40 years to a wife of 18 to 22 
years, it would be very seldom that the wife 
would be in such a superior sexual ardor to her 
husband, at the time of the conjugal embrace, as 
to conceive a male child. She might, and proba- 
bly would be, more frequently in the condition 
of amatory desire than he, but rarely rising to 
the same height; just as a child will be more 
frequently and more excitably hungry than a 
man, yet without the man’s ability to eat or 
digest the quantity of food. 
j. Marriages do not often occur in this, the 
reverse condition of the preceding ; but they oc- 
casionally do, especially among the Irish popula- 
tion, where the union of a man of 21 to 24 to a 78 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
woman of 30 to 32 is not uncommon. In the 
few cases I have noticed of this character, the 
children have been in large proportion boys. 
Jc. The fact that there is a fair proportion 
of brothers and sisters in a family, indicates a 
fair equality of sexual vigor in the parents, but 
is no proof that they in this vigor are above or 
below the average. To whatever degree it ex- 
isted it would be inherited by the children. If 
the daughters on being married, having no inher- 
ent defect of constitution, give birth to a larger 
proportion of girls, the inference under the natu- 
ral law given is, that as a family they are below 
the average of sexual vigor. The brothers, par- 
taking of the same inferior condition, wedded to 
wives possessing this vigor in the average, or to 
them superior, degree, would have by their wives 
a larger proportion of boys. 
l. In this, the reverse condition, if the daugh- 
ters give birth to a larger proportion of sons, the 
inference is the family vigor is above the average. 
And the sons inheriting this higher vigor when 
married to women of average vigor, will have 
more girls than boys. 
m. Of course this may be said at times as a 
sort of defence to the charge of weakness in the EEVIEW OF GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
79 
husband where his wife has many daughters, 
the popular belief being, as before mentioned, 
that it is the father that gives the paramount 
impression on the embryo when it is a son?” But 
the author has heard it quoted with pride on 
the birth of a girl, when a fair proportion of the 
children already born in the family were boys. 
It will be obvious to the reader that it falls 
in exactly with the physical law enunciated. 
Among a rugged population of farmers’ wives a 
husband had to be possessed of a higher degree 
of virility than the very young men, usually de- 
nominated boys, ordinarily possess, so as to over- 
balance the strong sexual vigor of the average 
wife, before he could beget a girl. If he was 
only a boy in this particular, the stronger sexual 
ardor of his wife would control the conception 
producing male offspring. 
In closing this chapter reviewing the general 
conclusions, it is proper to call the reader’s at- 
tention to the fact that the various influences 
mentioned in the conclusions often clash, pro- 
ducing exceptions. And these must specially 
be borne in mind in any efforts to account for 
the existing condition of disproportional num- 
bers of offspring of either sex in his own family, 80 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
or in those of his neighbors. For instance, a 
brother or sister, as mentioned in (7t) and (Z), may 
from special circumstances be found much above 
or ikuch below the average vigor of the rest. 
Or one of a vigorous family may have intermar- 
ried with a person of still more vigorous family. 
Or one of a weaker family with one still weaker. 
Or one of mature years married to a very young 
wife, or the reverse. All these have to be care- 
fully noted when making such observations, 
otherwise the conclusions would only lead the 
reader astray. CHAPTER VII. 
CONDITIONS AND PERIODS FAVORABLE TO THE 
CONCEPTION OF MALE OFFSPRING. 
In the application of the physical law control- 
ling sex, as presented in the previous chapters, 
to actual practice, some consideration of the con- 
ditions under which conception ordinarily takes 
place in the human race, and what more favor- 
able conditions can be obtained at this period, is 
very desirable. 
It may safely be asserted that not once in a 
hundred instances does it occur premeditatedly, 
or with this special end in view at the time of 
the marital embrace, but is a result, too often 
an undesired one, following an embrace sought 
simply for gratification. This being so, it is im- 
portant that these occasions should be so consid- 
ered and timed, that when a conception does fol- 
low, the offspring will be of the sex desired by 
the parents. This it will not be difficult to do 
by the adoption of a few simple rules not mate- 82 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
rially interfering with the reasonable enjoyment 
of this marital intercourse. 
Believing that by far the greater number of 
married people are desirous of having a larger 
proportion of sons born to them than is at pres - 
ent current, the rules inculcated are such as tend 
to the conception of male offspring. 
The first and great rule is never to allow of the 
sexual embrace except at the wife’s earnest and 
ardent desire. This must not be a desire merely 
to please her husband, which is too often the 
impulse, but one arising from a real craving for 
the gratification of her passion. Should there 
be a remaining feeling of unsatisfied desire on her 
part after the consummation of the act, it would 
be a favorable indication that it was a male con- 
ception, if any occurred at the time, and this re- 
maining desire should not be quenched by a 
repetition of the act. 
As such intercourse usually takes place at 
night, there should be also some consideration of 
the best time in the night for it. This must de- 
pend on the daily occupation of the wife. If 
this is such during the latter part of the day and 
evening as to weary her, as the care of a fretful 
child, and she retires to bed fatigued, nervous*, CONCEPTION OF MALE OFFSPRING. 
83 
and unstrung, the early night is unfavorable for 
the conception of male offspring, even though by 
thinking upon the subject she may stimulate 
her desires to such an extent as to wish their 
gratification. Especially will this early hour of 
the night be unfavorable for male conceptions 
if the husband, as often happens, has ceased 
his daily labors and cares at the close of day, 
and had time for rest and recuperation before 
bedtime. Under such circumstances the sexual 
connection should be postponed till toward the 
morning hour, when the wife has been strength- 
ened and ref resiled by sleep. The case is differ- 
ent when the wife’s employment late in the day 
and evening has been such that she retires to 
the marital couch not fatigued, while the hus- 
band’s labors at the same period have been such 
as to induce a sense of fatigue. Then the hour 
of retiring would be appropriate for the connec- 
tion, provided, of course, the wife first desired it. 
There is also a period in the month that the 
wife will do well to consider. As is known by 
most people, the monthly menstruation of wom- 
an is the same in general character and purpose 
as the period of heat in the females of the brutes. 
It is, however, so much more intense that the 84 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
discharge is sanguineous, and the desire created 
more lasting. In brutes the desire is very tran- 
sient, the female admitting the male, usually, 
only during the periodic flow or heat, while in 
the woman this desire often lasts the whole 
month through. There seems in this stronger 
passion of the woman a special providence to 
continue the existence of the race. Did she 
possess only the transitory desire of the brute 
female, her intelligence would induce her to 
calmly bear this fleeting demand of nature, 
knowing the consequences that follow its grati- 
fication, and the increase of the race would con- 
sequently languish. But as this passion in a 
healthy woman may last all the month through, 
there is a continuous demand, more or less great, 
for its gratification by marriage. Especially is 
this so in the young woman just come to matu- 
rity and at a marriageable age, when her desires, 
if not at their strongest, are at least more diffi- 
cult to repress. 
While the sexual desire incident to and fol- 
lowing menstruation is usually spoken of as con- 
tinuing through the month, it is not universally 
so. The writer has been told of wives who feel 
this passion only during the menstrual flow, and CONCEPTION OF MALE OFFSPRING. 
in whom it is difficult to excite it a week later. 
Of course with such passionless women it is diffi- 
cult to conceive male offspring. Their only 
chance would be with husbands whose desires 
are as feeble as their own ; and then the proba- 
bility of the production of strong, vigorous chil- 
dren of either sex would be very limited. 
It was one of the author’s secondary theories, 
founded on his own personal experience, that 
the nearer a conception occurred to the period 
of menstruation the greater would be the female’s 
sexual excitement, and, therefore, the greater 
probability of male offspring, and that if concep- 
tion was delayed a few days after menstruation 
the offspring would be female. But on fuller 
investigation this, as a universal law, had to be 
abandoned. There are well-authenticated cases in 
medical works where wives have conceived sons 
even twenty or more days after menstruation. 
There is, too, the case of the religious Jews, 
among whom a fair proportion of boys is born, 
whose sacerdotal laws forbid the intercourse of 
the husband and wife till full seven days have 
passed after menstruation. There is also the 
undoubted fact found in the management of 
bees, that if the queen is kept from the male for 86 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
some days after she is willing to accept him, her 
progeny will be largely males. 
As a fact, women vary in the continuance of 
this desire—some a few days only from and after 
menstruation, others two weeks, and still others 
through the full month. That a great many 
lose this ardency early in the month, is shown 
by the current belief that they will not become 
pregnant by an intercourse with their husbands 
after two full weeks from the menstrual period. 
The conclusion from all this is, that every wife 
desiring male offspring should carefully observe 
her disposition in this respect for a month or 
two, and notice at about what period after men- 
struation her desires are most intense, and thus 
be prepared to select that period only. 
Among the causes that tend to the conception 
of daughters none are more influential than too 
frequent sexual intercourse, particularly when 
the intercourse is at the solicitation of the hus- 
band, and the wife has no desire, except as mo- 
mentarily excited by the caresses of the hus- 
band. 
Many a wife’s health is ruined by the nightly, 
or even semi-weekly, embraces of a too vigorous 
husband ; who thinks because his wife does not 87 
CONCEPTION OF MALE OFFSPRING. 
object, fearing perhaps if she did he would seek 
the society of other women, that it is agreeable 
to her. Indeed, in a limited measure it may be, 
and yet be very injurious to her. A husband 
who thus sacrifices his wife’s health to indulge his 
own desires makes—I would say—a beast of him- 
self,—only that this would slander the beasts; 
for the males of these do not press their suit 
when the female is disinclined. 
Some may object that I name the morning 
hour as under some circumstances more favor- 
able for the marital intercourse that may lead to 
the conception of a son, because the act is one 
that often causes a desire for rest or repose after- 
ward. But there is no better or more sure rule to 
apply when male offspring are desired, than that 
the sexual intercourse of the husband and wife 
should have been so infrequent that fatigue does 
not follow the act. When this continence prevails 
the husband will see and understand clearly the 
beauty and propriety of the Psalmist’s compari- 
son of the rising sun, “ Like a bridegroom coming 
forth from his chamber and rejoicing as a strong 
man to run a race.” Too often now the pallid 
and limp husband coming forth from the mari- 
tal chamber after a night of exhaustive enjoy - 88 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
ment, is shorn of all his strength,.and bears no 
similitude to the rising sun, or to the strong 
man rejoicing to run a race. 
The husband should remember that his wife’s 
periods of high sexual desire are immutably 
fixed by her menstruation at a month or about 
that apart. While his are only about a week 
apart—that is, if his sexual desire is completely 
extinguished by a full gratification—a natural 
return of desire will occur inside of a week at 
furthest. It is true an artificial desire can be 
stimulated on both sides by the imagination at 
intermediate times. But it is this inferior con- 
dition of desire that is especially to be depre- 
cated by the wife as favoring the conception of 
girls. CHAPTER VIII. 
ON SOME OF THE CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPAC- 
ITATE WOMEN FOE THE CONCEPTION OF MALE 
OFFSPRING. 
When the husband possesses an ardor in the 
sexual embrace so much greater than the wife 
that female conceptions ordinarily ensue, it is, 
of course, not desirable that he should be shorn 
of somewhat of this ardor by fasting or other- 
wise, as this would tend to the general weaken- 
ing of the offspring; but rather measures should 
be taken to increase her general health and 
strength, and incidentally thereby her sexual 
vigor. 
It is not exactly the province of this work to 
say how this is to be done, that being rather for 
the family physician, who, knowing all the cir- 
cumstances of each individual case, can appro- 
priately prescribe. But it is fully within the 
scope of the treatise to mention the character 
of, and most ordinary causes for, any deteriorate 
condition of the wife. 90 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
There are, doubtless, some wives who are per- 
fectly healthy in all their bodily organization, 
who yet have but feebly developed maternal or- 
gans, and whose sexual power it would be diffi- 
cult to increase. But from some observation on 
that point, the belief is induced that the most of 
wives whose sexual ardor is feeble, have some 
inherent taint of disease inherited or personal, 
which, if cured, would greatly restore to them 
the vigor they lack. 
If a classification were made of the various de- 
grees in which this appetite exists in wives, it 
would run about as follows, viz.: 
1. The pristine, vigorous vitality, that will in- 
clude such wives as menstruate, in common with 
the females of the brute creation, shortly after 
parturition and during lactation, and who, 
therefore, have the ability to conceive and bear 
a child every year. Women of this class are 
rare in our towns, but not infrequent among the 
rural population. Unless mated to an exceed- 
ingly lusty husband their children are largely 
boys ; but when so mated and conception follows 
soon after childbirth, and before the debility 
usually attending this event is fully recovered 
from, they can have a succession of girls. CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
91 
2. Those who do not menstruate till after lacta- 
tion ceases, and yet are not specially enfeebled 
by nursing. This condition is the best now usu- 
ally found in towns. When, as is frequently the 
case, they nurse their offspring for a year from 
its birth, they will have children every two years. 
And if conception does not occur too promptly 
after weaning their child, they will oftener have 
boys than girls. 
3. Those who are much weakened by nursing 
their child, and recover strength but slowly 
afterward. Menstruation comes on after each 
period of nursing while they are still weak, re- 
sulting very commonly in a succession of girls. 
If an occasional boy is born, he will be of feeble 
vitality, with all the softness and effeminacy of 
his sisters, and very prone to succumb in the 
struggle of life at an early period. Too many of 
the wives in our towns are now in this reduced 
condition, giving birth to the numerous weakly 
girls that grow up to be mothers in their turn 
with much of inherited weakness of body. 
4. The lowest and most debilitated who re- 
quire all their feeble vitality to maintain their 
own hold on life. Some without the ability to 
bear children, or if they bring a few miserable CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
abortions of humanity into existence, they die 
off in childhood. The number of this class who 
are wives is not great. Many of them die off on 
reaching womanhood, others aware of their weak 
condition decline to enter the married state, or 
are passed by in that natural selection a marry- 
ing man often makes, because they are visibly 
unfitted to become wives and mothers. 
It will be understood that the classes above 
described are only types. There are always in- 
termediate shadings and gradations between the 
classes, so that any given wife may at one period 
of her life be fairly identified with one class, and 
at another period by an increase or decline of 
health be raised or lowered to the next class. 
Fortunately there is a recuperative vigor in 
the human body, especially in the first half of 
its existence, so that when we are weakened 
either by congenital or personal infirmities, care 
and attention bestowed to that end will bring an 
amelioration of the affliction. Even if a full 
restoration to the primitive health and vigor of 
the race is not obtained in one generation, a wife 
and mother may hope that by care her children, 
or children’s children at furthest, may be ex- 
empted from the ills she suffers. 93 
CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
A daughter will often inherit from her mother 
a tendency to female disorders, just as she will 
inherit weakness of the lungs, or of the digestive 
organs, and unless such tendencies are specially 
cared for, mere change of residence to a more 
healthful locality, and the ordinary hygienic 
regimen for increasing the general health will 
not of themselves avail,—though these are es- 
sential and necessary in connection with special 
means for remedying the sexual difficulties. 
It is natural to suppose that a woman weak in 
her maternal organism, is weak in all her bodily 
organs. But this is by no means always so, per- 
haps not even enough so to establish it as a rule. 
Weak lungs or a weak stomach are often found 
coupled with a large degree of muscular strength 
and health in the rest of the body. And a wife 
may have lungs actually diseased, yet possessed 
of so strong a sexual organization that she has 
more boys than girls. Still as the disease of the 
lungs progresses we should expect to find a grad- 
ual decline of vigor and strength in every other 
organ of her body. On the other hand, a wife 
may have a strong bodily frame, good lungs, 
good digestion, and yet an inherited debility— 
if nothing more—of the maternal organs, that 94 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
inclines to the conception of girls rather than 
boys. 
That these female complaints and weaknesses 
are very prevalent, especially among the well-to- 
do class, is now undisputed. Miss Harriet Beech- 
er, writing on the health of women in this par- 
ticular, says : “I do not know, among all my 
acquaintance, a woman who has a perfectly 
healthy maternal organization.” 
The most common and least noticed of these 
complaints, and no doubt the foundational cause 
of most of the others named, is immoderate or 
too profuse menstruation. And yet this is evi- 
dence of a weakness rather than a disease in 
itself. It is not too much to assert that this 
seriously impairs the health and strength of half 
the women of our country. While it is difficult 
to cure the complaint when once established, 
much can be done to alleviate it. The difficulty 
is that it rarely excites sufficient attention, as not 
one woman in ten probably knows whether in 
her individual case menstruation is too profuse 
or not. But until the wives and mothers of our 
land do learn something about this grave sub- 
ject, our country will continue to be filled with 
great numbers of sickly and debilitated women, CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 95 
who, when wives and mothers, will produce 
mainly daughters, inheriting in their turn the 
weaknesses and complaints of their mothers. 
There is a strong analogy between this function 
of menstruation, as exhibited in women and the 
females of the brute creation, and the blossoming 
of plants and trees in the vegetable world—a 
like preparatory step to fructification. Every 
pomologist knows that a superabundance of 
blossoms on his fruit trees is not only weaken- 
ing to the trees, but often the indication of an 
inferior crop of fruit. 
It may be rather fanciful to go so far for an 
illustration, when we really need no other than 
the subject herself. The remarkable change ex- 
erted in the person of a young woman when this 
function comes on in its regular normal manner 
is patent to all observers. The girl under its in- 
fluence is developed into a graceful, sensuous 
woman. The eyes take on a new lustre, the 
cheeks a livelier bloom, the lips a brighter red, 
the neck and bust a fuller development. “ Grace 
is in all her steps and beauty in her eye.” But 
when this flow is in excess, how different are the 
appearances: the whole person exhausted and 
languid, the eyes sunken and lustreless, often CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
with dark circles around them, the cheeks wan 
and wasted, lips thin and bloodless, the neck and 
bust spare and angular. A few years’ continu- 
ance of this excessive menstruation turns a young 
woman into an old one. 
As before remarked, probably not one woman 
in ten, if the question was asked her, could tell 
whether in her case this monthly flow was excess- 
ive or not. The other nine would suppose it 
was with them as with other women ; not know- 
ing whether the natural and healthy flow should 
be a tablespoonful or half a pint, they are at a 
loss to know when it is excessive. The proper 
quantity is not measurable, and depends entirely 
on the robustness of the woman. 
An unfailing rule, however, easily understood 
and remembered, is, that it is too much when it 
produces weakness and exhaustion. Every wom- 
an can by this know when to apply for medical 
advice, or take precautions to abate the flow. To 
understand how, in the absence of medical advice, 
these precautions can be taken, it is proper to 
explain that extravasation of blood from the 
mucous surfaces, as the interior of the nose, 
mouth, bowels, and womb, occurs from two causes. 
One when there is a congestion of blood in the 97 
CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
locality, so that the blood-vessels are distended 
by the inordinate supply. The blood will then, 
by force of pressure alone, ooze through the dis- 
tended coats of the minute veins, and continue to 
flow till the congestion is relieved and the pres- 
sure abated. The second cause comes on to act 
just at this time. The relaxed coats of the 
minute veins are often too weak to contract 
against the normal pressure of the blood, and 
this continues to flow on as before, not because 
there is any congestion, but because of the weak- 
ness of the tissue. This effect is often seen in 
simple bleeding at the nose. A discharge of 
blood begun by nature to relieve the congested 
parts, continues on, sometimes imperilling the 
life of the patient, and is only stayed by the 
use of strong styptics topically applied, causing 
the membranes to contract; or sometimes by 
fainting, when the heart partly abates its action, 
and the pressure of blood in the veins almost 
ceases. Among the causes tending to increase, 
and often to originate this really dangerous and 
foundational complaint, tiglit-lacing stands pre- 
eminent. By this is not meant simply that of 
the stays or corsets ordinarily worn by women, 
but any and all clothing that compresses the 98 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
body at the waist. All dress of this character 
acts as a ligament, preventing the blood forced 
by the heart’s action to the lower part of the 
body, through the arteries, from readily return- 
ing back through the veins. The effect is pre- 
cisely the same as when the ligature is applied 
to the arm by the surgeon preparatory to bleed- 
ing. So long as the ligature tightly compresses 
the arm, the blood will continue to flow from the 
opened vein. It is true that very rarely are the 
clothes drawn so tightly around the waist as the 
surgeon draws the ligature around the arm ; but 
an amount of pressure that the person would 
hardly be sensible of, or regard as injurious, will 
have a very evil effect if applied at the period of 
menstruation. By its specific gravity alone, the 
blood tends to remain in the lower part of the 
body, requiring all the powerful action of the 
heart to overcome this gravitating tendency ; so 
that under this condition any unnatural resist- 
ance, however small, is difficult to overcome. 
This blood that in tiglit-lacing gorges the lower 
part of the body, must either produce congestion 
in every susceptible organ, or find an outlet 
through a protracted hemorrhage at the men- 
strual period. CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
99 
Every one is familiar with the common practice 
of tying up the arm by a sling to keep it in a 
horizontal position, when there is a wound or 
sore on the hand or forearm, to prevent the blood 
from gravitating excessively to the wounded part, 
and by its abundance causing inflammation in 
the wound. The operation is purely a mechani- 
cal one, and is strictly analogous to the best 
means of relief in too profuse menstruation, i. <?., 
loosening the clothing, and reclining on a lounge 
orbed. There would be just as little sense in ap- 
plying styptics or other remedies to arrest this 
hemorrhage without abating first the principal 
cause, as there would be in applications to the 
opened vein to stay the blood while the ligature 
was still bound around the arm. 
Another frequent cause of profuse menstrua- 
tion among married women is the excessive 
sexual indulgence of their husbands. This is 
indeed often an originating cause rather than a 
continuing one, as profuse menstruation tends 
to weaken the sexual desire. An anxiety to 
gratify the husband, however, too often induces 
a submission to his embraces, when there is no 
desire on the part of the wife—a condition more 
injurious to her, so far as this complaint is con- 
cerned, than when the desire is mutual. 100 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
Thousands of wives, whom the world deems 
happy and comfortable in their marital relations, 
pass their lives in a state of misery and suffering 
from this cause. Their maternal organism, irrita- 
ted and inflamed by the too frequent caresses of 
their husbands, affects not only their bodies but 
their minds, and fretful and feeble, hysterical and 
peevish, they pass cheerlessly through life, not 
well enough to live, nor yet sick enough to die. 
A wife suffering from profuse menstruation, or, 
in truth, from any complaint of the maternal 
organs, can not expect relief till this disturbing 
cause is restrained. 
Another frequent cause of excessive, as also of 
painful menstruation among unmarried women, 
is solitary abuse of the maternal organs—a habit 
which is also the prolific parent of many other 
bodily complaints. A whole volume might be 
written on this subject—indeed, such are written, 
and it is not quite within the scope of this work 
to add to that literature. It needs only the re- 
mark to fathers and mothers, who may read this, 
that they should not remain ignorant of, or over- 
look the terrible blight, worse than death itself, 
that will surely overtake their daughters, and 
their sons too, who may contract this evil habit. CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
101 
Having been led to say so much on this sub- 
ject, the reader may naturally look for something 
in the way of cure, or at least alleviation of the 
complaint. This might appropriately be left to 
the family physician, but having known instances 
where mothers applied to these on behalf of their 
youthful daughters just entering womanhood, 
when he pooh-poohed the matter,—said “they 
will be all right when they get older,” or “ when 
they get married,” or “ when the function is once 
regularly established,” etc., a few words of ad- 
vice may not be amiss. These will be hygienic 
rather than medicinal. The main reason why 
physicians’ remedies so seldom cure this com- 
plaint is that the original exciting cause con- 
tinues. The first thing, therefore, recommended, 
is a careful study of the inducing causes for the 
complaint, and an abatement of these. If it be 
clothing worn too tightly around the waist, this 
must be made loose—very loose. Violent ex- 
ercise just before and at the period must be avoid- 
ed, as dancing, running, horseback-riding, etc. 
The bowels should be regulated, if necessary, be- 
tween the monthly periods, so that all purgatives 
may be avoided at the period. As much as pos- 
sible the patient should lie down at the time 102 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
completely in a horizontal position, and not 
merely recline in an easy-chair. Freedom from 
all excitements of every kind is enjoined. These, 
with the physicians’ ordinary remedies, will ma- 
terially help the sufferer. 
Above all, she should not conclude, because the 
alleviation seems slow, that there is no cure, and 
no use in trying. The complaint, like many 
other ills—corns for instance—is hard to erad- 
icate entirely, but it may be brought into such 
subjection as to be shorn of its principal evil 
effects. 
It is worthy of grave consideration whether 
much of the sexual disorder of the present gen- 
eration of young married women is not due, as 
an inheritance, to the use of the poisonous pills 
and drugs so openly and widely advertised thirty 
or forty years ago for preventing the too rapid 
increase of children in the family. That they 
were freely purchased is evident from the noted 
prosperity, financially, of the vile decoctors who 
compounded and sold them; one of whom, dying 
some years back, was reputed to have- counted 
her ill-gotten gains by the hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars ; each dollar of which probably 
indicated a customer and a victim. No mortal CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
103 
can conceive, only the power of Omniscience can 
estimate, the baleful consequences to the lives 
and health of the women of this country result- 
ing from this one woman’s nefarious business 
alone. 
The “ Society for the Suppression of Vice” is 
worthy of all praise for their successful efforts in 
stopping the open advertising and sale of these 
so-called remedies for female complaints ; whose 
real purpose was indicated in the appended cau- 
tion, that “ they must not be taken during preg- 
nancy as they would invariably produce miscar- 
riage, though no other ill result would follow if 
by accident they were taken at such time.” But 
there is a great work still to be done in this line 
by that Society or by other good people. It is 
quite notorious that large fortunes are made in 
the present day by as unscrupulous people who 
manufacture and sell these vile pills and potions, 
but who more shrewdly advertise them for curing 
“ suppressed menstruation,” “ expelling tumors 
from the womb,” and other as mythical female 
diseases, while the known real purpose in their 
use is to cause the abortion, at each recurring 
period of menstruation, of any conception that 
may have intermediately occurred. 104 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
No doubt these drugs are often used by wives 
in blind faith in their alleged freedom from 
everything prejudicial to general health, as al- 
ways claimed by those who sell them. But wom- 
en ought to know that any and all medicine 
used to bring on the function of menstruation 
when conception has once occurred, or, in plain 
words, to produce miscarriage, is necessarily 
deadly in its influence on the general health, 
no matter what may be advertised about its in- 
nocent character. 
The conception of a child is a natural obstruc- 
tion to menstruation—in fact, a stop to it; and 
this call not be removed or expelled (as some 
seem, by the use of these remedies, to think) in 
the same way that obstructions are removed 
from the bowels by a purgative,—only requiring 
stronger or special remedies. The womb is fur- 
ther removed from the direct action of medicines 
taken into the stomach and passing through the 
bowels, than any other organ in the body, and 
all such remedies have to act indirectly. Neces- 
sarily before a drug can have this indirect action 
with sufficient power to force the womb to open 
and yield up its treasure, it has its direct and 
more powerful action on the body, always poi- 105 
CAUSES TENDING TO INCAPACITATE WOMEN. 
soning the blood, and depressing the vital pow- 
ers to the endangering of the general health, 
frequently causing death itself before the con- 
templated action on the womb is reached. The 
conditions are like forcing a fruit-tree to untime- 
ly cast its fruit by shutting off all moisture from 
it, and laying its roots bare to the sun and wind. 
Possibly before the tree would actually die the 
fruit might drop off. But in vain would you 
then supply moisture and cover up the roots; 
the tree might languish out a few years of use- 
less existence, but its value would be gone. 
It is in no spirit of special animadversion that 
this subject is dilated on. The remarks must be 
general, as the extent of the evil can only be sur- 
mised or inferred. But in many families, par- 
ticularly among the educated and refined, only 
two or three children are found, sometimes years 
apart in their birth, where in the ordinary course 
of marital life there should have been a dozen. 
Of course it is possible that the limited number 
are due to a Shaker-like continence in the mar- 
ried pair, though our common experience will 
not readily believe this. It may also arise from 
the Oneida Community practice of an intercourse 
which avoids conception. But neither of these 106 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
would bring customers to the compounders of 
the abortive drugs in such great numbers as their 
prosperity shows do come. Hence by a process 
of reasoning we arrive at the conclusion, that the 
practice of avoiding maternity by the use of such 
drugs is still wide-spread, and it is therefore a 
fair surmise that this not only was, but still con- 
tinues to be, a prolific cause directly, or by in- 
heritance, of many of the deadlier forms of fem- 
inine disorders, which make their victims’ lives 
a burden to themselves and others ; fitting them 
for, and reconciling them to, an early death. 
In conclusion of tliis unpleasant subject it 
need only be said by way of advice, that the 
wife who thus keeps down the number of her 
children not only brings on herself disease and 
premature decay, but entails the sad consequences 
of her folly and crime on the innocent children 
she may later bring into existence. For it may 
truthfully be said, that a woman who once in- 
duces a miscarriage in this way, forever after in- 
capacitates herself to bear healthy oilspring. CHAPTER IX. 
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHYSICAL CONDI- 
TIONS REQUIRED IN WIVES TO ENABLE THEM 
TO CONCEIVE SONS. 
The editress of one of our popular periodicals 
in some criticisms on the management of infants 
very truthfully and forcibly remarks: “ But a 
great part of the children that are born now- 
adays are not good average healthy children. 
They are children of deficient brain power, of 
diseased nervous systems; children begotten of 
tobacco-smoke, late hours, tight-lacing, and dys- 
peptic stomachs. The father has put his son’s 
brains into his meershaum, and smoked it out; 
the mother has diddled and dribbled it away in 
balls and operas. Two young people come to- 
gether, both of them in a state of half nervous 
derangement. She can not live without strong 
coffee ; her hand trembles and she has a sinking 
at the stomach when she first rises in the morn- 
ing till she has taken her cup of coffee, when 108 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
she is primed for the day. He can not study or 
read, or perform any real mental labor without 
tobacco. Both are burning life’s candle at both 
ends ; both are wakeful and nervous, with weak 
muscles and vibrating nerves. Two such persons 
unite in giving existence to a poor helpless baby 
who is born in a state of such diseased nervous 
sensibility that all the forces of nature are a tor- 
ture to it What such children cry for is 
neither cold or hunger, but irrepressible nervous 
agony, sometimes from fear, sometimes because 
everything in life is too strong for them and 
jars on their poor weakened nerves, just as it 
does on those of an invalid in a low nervous 
fever.” 
The influences of tobacco, strong coffee, and 
late hours in enfeebling our race are not exagger- 
ated in the foregoing. Indeed, the writer might 
with propriety have largely extended the list, 
for unfortunately evil indulgences are not lim- 
ited to these few. And besides the committed 
evils there are many evils of omission which also 
lead to fragility and weakness. These last are 
indeed the most common among a large class 
who are carefully circumspect in avoiding the 
fashionable vices and follies of the day—the class THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
109 
known as the religious world, who are models of 
sobriety and refinement. In their desire “ to 
keep the body in subjection,” and to suppress 
the animal instincts as base and sinful, they are 
in danger of rooting them out altogether. They 
would be angels and “ freed from earth and earth- 
ly failings” before their time and while yet in 
the body, and so they but half do the work their 
Creator has given them to do in the world. 
What is needed with this large and deservedly 
influential class of women is that the desires con- 
nected with maternity shall receive a higher re- 
spect,—that there shall be accorded to the ful- 
filment of the maternal duty a holier and less 
sensual idea. So that its legitimate and reason- 
able gratification may be honored and ennobled; 
so, too, that its suppression or wicked perversion 
shall be regarded as a sacrilege as deserving the 
curse of God as was the crime of Onan. 
As in eating, there is a happy medium between 
fasting and gluttony which we readily recognize 
as the true rule; so there is a proper middle 
ground in the marital intercourse, between 
squeamishness on one side, and sensuality on 
the other, which should be our path, both in 
our own course and in the training of our chil- 110 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
dren. One great reason why wives are so often 
ashamed nowadays to have children is, because 
of the physical and mental disqualifications of 
the few they do bear. There is nothing in their 
infancy or maturity to be proud of, unless, as is 
too often the case, alas ! we are proud that they 
have inherited a concentration of our own infirm- 
ities. There was never yet a right-minded wife 
who would not be proud to be surrounded with 
a round dozen of stalwart, clear-headed sons, and 
rosy-cheeked daughters ; but when they come 
forth pale, stunted, scrofulous, and spine dis- 
torted, fit only for the physician’s hands, one or 
two quite suffices to satisfy the mother’s pride. 
It is said tliat a family living in Paris will die 
ont and cease to exist in about five generations, 
and from many observations of the writer, it may 
probably be truly said of families living in all 
large cities,—the tendency of such places being 
gradually to debilitate and impair the race. But 
this will be found true only where the sons con- 
tinue to intermarry with the daughters of contem- 
porary city families. The introduction from time 
to time of healthy, well-developed country girls 
as wives would retain the name and lineage in 
existence. THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
111 
Almost every person of mature years who is 
extensively acquainted among city families, can 
recall many instances among his acquaintance 
where the elder members of the family born and 
reared, perhaps somewhat roughly, in the fresh, 
healthful atmosphere of the country, and trans- 
ferred to the city at a mature age, continue hale 
and hearty at seventy or more years, with a nu- 
merous progeny, who reared in the city fall much 
below their parents in general health and strength, 
and in the third generation are so feeble and 
delicate that half of them die off before their 
grandparents. If such families be looked into 
closely, it will be found that there is a fair pro- 
portion of sons among the children of the first 
generation, fewer among the children of the sec- 
ond generation, and a large surplus of girls in 
the third generation ; so that in the fourth, or at 
most fifth generation, the males have all died 
out of the family, and the family name becomes 
extinct. The exceptions to this in the birth of 
an occasional son in the later generations may 
generally be traced to some specially advantage- 
ous condition of the mother, either herself fresh 
from country life, or if descended from a contem- 
porary city family, that she has enjoyed some 112 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
special opportunity for the restoration of her 
family health and strength. There is a consol- 
ing thought in the fact that if life in the city, 
with its impure air and excitements, can reduce 
the health and strength of the race, a return of 
even the weakened ones to a more favorable con- 
dition of existence can again in a generation or 
tw o restore the race to its pristine vigor, so that 
though the transgressions of the fathers and 
mothers may be visited on their children, the 
children may modify the infliction, and by a 
judicious regimen and training eradicate from 
their lineage the hereditary maladies, and need 
not, perforce, transmit to their offspring the phys- 
ical ills they themselves inherited—at least not 
to their full extent. 
We will now turn to the bearing these reflec- 
tions have on the main subject of the book. 
A wife whose children have been only or main- 
ly girls, and who is desirous of having boys, 
should carefully study the physical character of 
her ancestors as well as her own. If those on 
the mother’s side especially, have been feeble 
and prone to give birth to girls, she may regard 
herself as clearly under the same hereditary in- 
fluences, which only time and attention can hope 113 
THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
to eradicate. If, on the other hand, her ancestry 
have not been specially given to the production 
of daughters, she should look to herself and see 
whether by a too sedentary and idle life, she has 
not fallen away from the pristine strength and 
vigor of her ancestors. If this is the case, she 
may hope to recover the vigor necessary to the 
conception of boys, by a change of scene and 
habits ; getting away into the country, and tak- 
ing active outdoor exercise. By restraining at 
the same time all sexual and other indulgence 
which may have tended to her enfeeblement, she 
might hope in a twelvemonth or so to regain 
her strength and be capable of conceiving male 
children. Of course, while this disability exists, 
whether hereditary or personal, child-bearing 
must be postponed; by an entire avoidance of 
intercourse with her husband if necessary, and 
certainly not by the use of poisonous and life- 
destroying medicines, than which nothing can be 
more destructive to the strength of the female 
organs of generation. 
It may seem to some readers that there is an 
indelicacy in this sort of preparation for an act 
that is ordinarily unpremeditated, and not result- 
ing from forethought or intention. But if the 114 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
right view be taken a different conclusion will 
be reached. We have as a people grown exceed- 
ingly wise in the propagation of fruit, vegetables, 
and farm stock, and can discourse scientifically 
upon the various processes involved, and of the 
great benefit to the human race made by science 
and observation in these minor things. But 
when we come to speak of the improvement of 
our own race in the generation and conception 
of the embryo man, we are met with the idea 
that the subject is indelicate, and should not 
find advocacy among a cultivated and refined 
people. Now there is a phase of the subject 
which is indelicate,—that which brings it for- 
ward as the topic of social conversation and as 
promotive of erotic thoughts simply for their 
own sake ; but when it is confined to the sacred 
privacy of the marital chamber, the mind should 
rise above the thought of personal enjoyment, 
to the contemplation of the agencies that bring 
into being an immortal soul, and not only should 
we desire it, but should use all our reason and 
all our knowledge to have this immortal soul 
brought into the world under the most favorable 
circumstances. 
It is a somewhat prevalent belief that male 115 
THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
children are more liable to be aborted than fe- 
male, and the statistics show that this belief is 
founded in truth. A male child requires in the 
mother an amount of vigor and strength in its 
conception, and subsequent foetal growth, much 
beyond what a female requires. Hence there is a 
tendency to overtask the womb, which if not suf- 
ficiently strong, acts in the way nature ordinarily 
adopts in similar circumstances in an overloaded 
stomach, and throws off the burden. Nature 
only bears within limits. Up to a certain point 
the plant or animal may be taxed for the pro- 
duction of fruit or offspring. When we go be- 
yond this point without increasing the strength 
of the parent plant or animal, and fruit sets or 
conceptions take place, which too much exhaust 
the parent, such fruit drops off prematurely until 
the quantity is reduced to the limit that can be 
perfected, and with the animal abortion ensues— 
Nature in both cases intervening by the primal 
law of self-preservation to relieve the parent. 
Even when the fruit or offspring by much care 
and precaution sometimes reaches maturity, it 
seems to lack some essential element of life, and 
is evanescent—the fruit soon decays, the offspring 
rarely survives to propagate its race. 116 
CONTROLLING- SEX IN GENERATION. 
When, therefore, a wife miscarries with male 
children while she carries females the full period 
of gestation, the reason for it will be found in 
her sexual ardor being strong enough to con- 
ceive males, while physically she is not strong 
enough to perfect the conception into a living 
healthy child, and needs to adojit measures to 
increase her health and strength at such times, 
and especially must avoid everything tending to 
excite the reproductive organs; particularly must 
the cohabitation with her husband be avoided. 
In the previous chapter reference was made to 
the evil of excessive sexual indulgence, as caus- 
ing by its irritating effects a too profuse men- 
struation, but its evil effects do not end with 
this; these are wide-spread and ruinous on the 
wife’s health as well as often injurious to the 
husband himself. It is incumbent on every hus- 
band to see to it, at least, that he is not indulg- 
ing his desires at the expense of his wife’s health. 
The control of this matter lies with him, as the 
wife is accustomed to submit to his caresses even 
when they are not gratifying to her; the con- 
trary of which can not well occur. Doubtless, 
the most of husbands who are guilty of this in- 
jurious course toward tlieir wives, are guilty THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
117 
from ignorance. There is, in truth, too much 
ignorance among all the community of the evil 
effects of unrestrained indulgence of the sexual 
passion. It is too much taken for granted that 
so long as nature induces a desire of this kind, 
one can not be hurt by its indulgence. This is a 
great mistake. The seeming natural desire may 
become as vitiated as the thirst of the drunkard 
for spirituous liquors, and its gratification as 
dangerous and debasing. 
The writer frequently meets among his ac- 
quaintance married people who are visibly suf- 
ferers from this cause. They are always ailing; 
the husband can not half attend to his business, 
he has a headache, or a fever, or a cold, or sick- 
ness of the stomach, or bowel complaint, and his 
wife more or less in the same condition. The 
close observer sees in their lustreless eyes, their 
sodden and greasy faces, and their trembling 
hands, evidences that an almost nightly in- 
dulgence is kept up of the pleasures of the mar- 
riage-bed, which is the origin and cause of all 
their ailings,—sapping, as it does, the very 
foundations of their vitality. 
In this western continent this desire seems 
morbidly active, whether from the climate, or 118 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
habit of living, or both, is uncertain. It is no 
doubt largely the cause for the thinner and 
sparer forms in this country, as compared with 
the plumper and rosier-faced inhabitants of the 
Eastern hemisphere. Its effect is seen on our 
married immigrants, who, reaching our shores 
plump and rosy-cheeked, are found five or six 
years later with much of this plumpness lost. 
Acquaintances of this character have admitted 
to the writer, an increased desire for these 
marital pleasures, mainly attributed by them to 
“ higher living ” here than they were accustomed 
to in their earlier homes. It is said that there is 
a larger share of oxygen in our atmosphere than 
in the older and more populous countries of 
Europe. If so, this may be an exciting cause for 
the increased sexual desire. Whatever the cause, 
whether dietetic or climatic, it seems to need that 
especial restraint should be exercised, so that 
our bodies are not wasted, and our race enfeebled 
by excessive indulgence of this passion. 
Our physicians need to take this subject more 
into consideration than they seem to, in the in- 
vestigations of the causes of disease. It lies at 
the bottom of very many of the ailings that 
humanity groans under, especially those called TOE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
119 
chronic ; which are only so because the patient 
is chronically a transgressor in this particular, 
and by his unwise indulgence is continually 
undermining and breaking down, as fast as 
nature, aided by medicines, restores. 
Before closing this practical part of the sub- 
ject, relating to the application of the “ physical 
law,” I bethink me that some man seeking a wife, 
and desirous of a fair proportion of sons after 
his marriage, may ask, Is it not better to select 
for a wife a woman who has not these disabilities, 
rather than to try to cure them after marriage, in 
one who labors under some of them, and what 
are the characteristics by which such a selection 
can be made ? 
The answer is, There is no better way for the 
restoration of a family line, and of the race at 
large, than by the intelligent and judicious selec- 
tion of the fittest women for wives, and the 
future mothers. As there is a surplus of unmar- 
ried women in most of our towns, this is not 
difficult. It may be sad for those of the sex who, 
being feeble in frame and delicate in health, will 
be thus left to single-blessedness by this selec- 
tion. But it is more sad to think of these, as 
wives and mothers, continuing to entail all their 120 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
weaknesses on their offspring generation after 
generation. Indeed, the thinking young women 
of to-day, who know themselves to be in this 
debilitated condition, do not hesitate to prefer a 
single life, unless, by chance fortune, they find a 
congenial husband, who prefers that his wife 
shall not be the mother of any children. 
What the special qualities are to be selected in 
a woman for a wife, may be catalogued as fol- 
lows : 
She should, in the first place, be of good, sound 
health, and free from all bodily ailings, especially 
free from all complaints and irregularities of the 
maternal organs. 
She should be not more than fi ve years younger 
than her husband,—a desirable age is between 
20 and 25 years. 
She should be in height five feet to five feet six 
inches, and not more than four inches less in 
height than her husband. 
She should measure, over a single light under- 
garment, at least 36 inches bust measure under 
the arms, 26 inches waist measure, and 38 inches 
around the hips, and weigh not less than 140 
pounds. 
She should have a good, strong growth of hair, 121 
THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
and bright lustrous eyes, both of any color the 
husband likes, and a fresh, clear countenance. 
Dullness of the eyes, and a pale, sallow, or pimpled 
face frequently indicate something wrong in the 
sexual organs. 
She should have strength sufficient to readily 
put up a 25-pound dumb-bell in each hand, 
alternately, to arm’s length over her head a dozen 
times at least, and to take a five-mile walk, out 
and back, every day, without special fatigue. 
With a wife answering to this description, a 
husband will have to be endowed with more than 
ordinary virility to beget any daughters. And 
such a wife will leave to his children as great a 
fortune as he can possibly leave them, though 
his wealth be counted by the million, for she 
will endow them with good health and strong 
constitutions; provided, of course, that there 
are no serious defects in his own constitution for 
them to inherit. 
In conclusion of tliis subject, it is hoped that 
this “ physical law ” governing the conception of 
sex, and its method of operation, have been so 
clearly and fully described, that the reader under- 
stands them thoroughly. But general principles 
could be given at best. The subjects, in their 122 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
details, are profound studies, requiring volumes 
to fully compass them. The causes which tend 
to weaken the maternal organs of the woman be- 
fore and after marriage, considered alone, would 
be a life’s study, embracing as they do, not only 
the special maladies of the sex, but to a great 
extent the reflex action of most of the maladies 
to which the human frame is liable. The object 
in what has been written about these is to put 
the reader on the track for investigation of each 
individual case, and have it managed on the 
general principles laid down in medical books, or 
by the treatment of the family physician. It is 
unfortunate that too many of these estimable 
men pay so little attention to the origin and cause 
of disease, being generally content to treat the 
more prominent symptoms, and more distressing 
effects, without going back to get rid of the active 
cause of the malady. 
Possibly, where the originating cause of the 
ailing is an evil habit, it may not be strictly in 
the line of professional duty to revert to it. The 
uncovering and exposure of evil habits, which 
the patient preferred to have hidden from all the 
world, has so often been the cause for discharg- 
ing the physician from further attendance, that THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
123 
some allowance must be made for the indisposi- 
tion to search into the mysteries of the case, 
further than the patient chooses to reveal them. 
It is believed that, with the guidance herein 
given, no woman need be at fault in coming to 
the conclusion as to the cause of any sexual dis- 
ability she labors under, nor ignorant of the best 
methods to obtain relief. 
And should my investigations, and the publi- 
cation of this book, be found to practically in- 
fluence the production of the sexes in the human 
family, so that a much larger proportion of boys 
shall be born, as I believe there will be, if the 
teachings be faithfully followed, future genera- 
tions will not see, as in the present superabun- 
dance of unmarried women, so near a possible ful- 
filment of that prophetic period, mentioned in 
Holy Writ, when “ seven women shall take hold 
on one man, and say, We will wear our own ap- 
parel, and eat our own bread, only let us be called 
by thy name ” (Isaiah iv. 1). 
The greater tendency of boys to die oil at an 
early age than girls, has been frequently men- 
tioned in connection with the statistics and else- 
where in this book. The subject demands more 
than such indirect mention, and might have a 124 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
chapter to itself, only that it is not in the line of 
this treatise, as shown by the title, though it is 
fairly in the line of the author’s purpose, which 
may be broadly stated as an effort to secure, in 
coming years, a greater proportion of men in the 
population. What may be succinctly said on 
this subject seems to find its most appropriate 
place here. 
It was to the author not only a sad but a re- 
markable fact, that the three sons born to him, 
as mentioned in the introductory chapter, all died 
in early infancy, while the girls lived. Even the 
one born intermediate between the second and 
third son, peculiarly delicate and feeble, and with 
less promise of living to maturity than either of 
the sons, came safely through all the usual in- 
fantile complaints and grew up to be a fairly 
strong woman, while each of the sons in turn 
succumbed to what seemed at the time much less 
potent maladies ; neither one living till the next 
son in order was born. It was reflection on this 
fact, and the observance of similar instances of 
the death of sons among his acquaintance, that 
led to the investigation of this collateral subject. 
It is, therefore, not enough that by following 
the instructions in this treatise sons are born in 125 
THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
families where daughters in excess have been 
the hereditary or individual rule, but these sons 
must be specially cared for after birth. As a 
rule the mothers who have mainly daughters are 
not good wet-nurses for their children—at least 
not for their sons. There is a natural relation 
between the two organisms in the maternal body 
for child-bearing and child-nourishing that when 
the first is too weak to conceive male children 
the second is likely to be deficient also. And 
it is specially desirable that the sons born of 
such waves should have a better nourishment 
than the mother is able to supply. 
It is not always with such mothers that the 
supply of milk is limited in quantity, but it is 
often inferior in quality when it is abundant. 
Among the varied food a mother of this kind 
eats, there will be every few days something 
that she does not digest well—or as she may say, 
“ that disagrees with her.” This influences for 
the time the quality of the milk secreted, pro- 
ducing intestinal difficulty in a feeble child, and 
when repeated again and again eventually pro- 
duces an irritated condition of the child’s di- 
gestive organs, through which its vitality is in 
some degree exhausted, and it falls a ready prey 126 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
to disease. When had the mother been endowed 
with a better digestive apparatus her child 
would have continued strong enough to resist 
the attack. 
Tliis condition of the mother’s digestion should 
therefore have full consideration on the birth of 
a son among a family of daughters. If there is 
any defective nutrition the babe should have a 
healthy, robust wet-nurse at once. And even 
she should be cared for in regard to diet, as 
most women of this class are grossly ignorant as 
to what they should eat and what not for the 
best interests of the child. In her selection 
something more than merely a full supply of food 
for the infant should be looked after. It is quite 
important with her also, to see that its quality 
is good, and that she by her good digestion can 
maintain its good quality. To this end unless 
she is known to be a healthy woman this con- 
dition should be examined into by a competent 
physician. Any effort to supplement the moth- 
er’s limited flow of milk or its inferior quality 
by artificial food during at least the first year of 
the infant’s life is likely to be fatal to its exist- 
ence. 
The advantage of pure country air for all cliil- THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WIVES. 
127 
dren is widely recognized, but it is invaluable in 
rearing healthily these tender sons of feeble 
mothers. They should always have the benefit 
of this, at least in the warm months of the sum- 
mer, when outdoor exercise is specially de- 
manded. CHAPTER X. 
APPLICATION OF THE “ PHYSICAL LAW ” IN 
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
This law is as applicable to the animals of the 
farm as to the human race. Indeed there arc 
less difficulties in the way. The equality of con- 
dition and living with both sexes is the general 
rule, unlike that which exists among men and 
women, and there are not so many disturbing 
elements to ward off or subdue. 
If male offspring among these are desired, the 
female must be vigorous, in the best condition of 
health and strength, in the full prime of her life, 
and not exhausted at or just before the union 
with the male by overwork, or worried and fa- 
tigued by being driven. She should meet the 
male at the period of greatest heat, and only one 
connection should be allowed. More than that 
naturally weakens the female’s ardor, and if the 
conception occurs from the later connection, 
there will be a greater probability of its being a 
female. 129 
APPLICATION TO DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
When the females are young, they are often 
timid and frightened at the presence of a strange 
male, which tends somewhat to detract from the 
force of their passion ; and it is well’in such cir- 
cumstances to permit a social intercourse be- 
tween them apart from other animals for a few 
days prior to the period of heat, so that she may 
become accustomed to his presence, and be will- 
ing to accept him when the proper time comes 
without disturbing fears. The male ought to be 
in a condition of strength and lustiness inferior 
to the female, at least he should not be in a su- 
perior condition. By condition is not meant fat- 
ness, but bodily health and vigor. 
Experience lias taught the cattle-raiser that 
among farm-stock where the male and females 
range at large together, mature females coupled 
with very young males, are more likely to pro- 
duce male progeny, while young and immature 
females coupled with mature males, are more 
likely to have female progeny. This is in ac- 
cord with the physical law enunciated. The 
young and scarcely mature male does not in his 
ardor rise to as high a degree as the mature fe- 
male. Similarly the young female has not the 
intensity of ardor of the mature male; the re- 130 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
suit being that the mature female has male off- 
spring, and the immature female has female off- 
spring. Of course when female offspring are 
desired, the opposite course must be pursued. 
The female must be kept lower in condition, and 
the male so nourished as to be in a higher con- 
dition of lustiness. If as is usually the case one 
male serves a number of females, they should 
not be brought to him in too immediate succes- 
sion, while he is exhausted by his previous ser- 
vice. A day or more should be allowed to inter- 
vene. Even a longer period is desirable if the 
female is in especially good condition, as many of 
the finer blooded cows are kept. With these 
when a heifer calf is desired, as it usually is, it is 
well to secure in advance the services of a vigor- 
ous bull whose ardor will be strengthened by at 
least a week’s absence from a cow. This might 
be done by letting the cow pass her first period 
of heat, making such an arrangement for the 
bull’s services at the next period; keeping her 
during the intervening time on a spare diet. 
Driving her some distance, so as to exhaust her 
strength and thereby possibly some of her ardor, 
just before introducing her to the bull, would 
have a beneficial influence in inducing the con- 
ception of a female calf. 131 
APPLICATION TO DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
It must also be understood that low feeding 
and high feeding, to be of the use here described, 
ought to be of some continuance, and not merely 
a temporary expedient of two or three days’ dura- 
tion. It is more likely to be efficient for the 
purpose when it is the natural and ordinary con- 
dition of the animal year in and year out. The 
sexual desire of the female during lactation can 
hardly be sufficiently influenced by the best and 
most nourishing food if continued for only a 
short time, as its effect is mainly to increase the 
flow of milk: though when a male is in good 
condition, and only likely to be somewhat ex- 
hausted by too frequent service of the females, a 
stimulating food in the intervals of rest even for 
a day or two will greatly aid in restoring his 
ardor. 
The manuscript of this book was already in 
the hands of the publishers when they called 
my attention to an editorial article on “ Controll- 
ing Sex in Animals,” in the Rural New- Yorker 
of July 5, 1884, in answer to the inquiries of a 
correspondent. Among several theories or prac- 
tices said to be found more or less effective, the 
editor mentions “that a Texas gentleman, Mr. 
D. D. Fiquet, claims that he has repeatedly con- 132 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
trolled the sex of domestic animals by food 
alone. For instance: when he wished a heifer 
calf, he fed the cow light cooling food for some 
days before imtting her to the bull, and at the 
same time fed the latter with rich heat-produc- 
ing food; but when he wished to obtain a bull 
calf, he reversed the practice.” 
His practice carries out in an empirical way 
tlie theory of this treatise—that to produce fe- 
male offspring the male must be in a more vigor- 
ous sexual condition than the female; and re- 
versely, to produce male offspring the female 
must be in a more vigorous sexual condition 
than the male. But there are other ways than 
by this special feeding that these conditions can 
be brought about, as the reader will have seen. CHAPTER XI. 
THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY ON WHICH THE 
“PHYSICAL LAW” IS FOUNDED. 
It is scarcely to be expected that in this scien- 
tific age any mere empirical conclusion will be 
accepted as a natural “ physical law ” by intelli- 
gent thinkers unless somewhat supported by a 
reasonable scientific theory explaining the mo- 
dus operandi of the action that leads to the con- 
clusion. 
The physician may find from his many ex- 
periments that a certain drug is a specific in a 
given disease, bnt he always somewhat donbts 
its universal applicability to all ages and sexes 
and conditions of humanity, till he can fathom 
the method of action of the drug, and be able to 
tell how it produces the curative result. Now 
the writer is not a scientist, but having reflected 
considerably not only on the subject of the influ- 
ence that determines the sex of the embryo, bnt 
also on the wider field of the tendency or induce- 
ment or desire that brings together the two sex- 134 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
es, both of plants and animals, in the reproduc- 
tion of their varied kinds, presents the following 
as a theory to account for both phenomena. 
There seems good reason for concluding that 
this mysterious influence which brings together 
the two sexes in reproduction is one of the phe- 
nomena of electricity; known in some of its 
phases as “ animal electricity,” and that it is gov- 
erned by the somewhat mysterious laws of that 
fluid. 
If we accept the current theory that electricity 
is composed of two fluids or influences, which by 
heat, friction, or chemical action can be separated 
and which have such an affinity for each other 
as to readily unite again, we can find several 
analogies to this action in the process of genera- 
tion in both plants and animals. 
It would be out of place here to discuss at 
length the character of the electric fluid. It is 
itself a mystery quite as great as that of the 
cause of sex in offspring ; and it must suffice to 
say, simply, that while one theory of it is that 
the fluid is one simple element whose twofold 
manifestations indicate merely its presence in 
excess, or its absence in a measure, from which 
the well-known terms of positive and negative THEORY OF THE LAw’s ACTION. 
135 
electricity are derived; the generally accepted 
theory regards it as a compound of two elements 
to which the terms vitreous and resinous have 
been applied, because a vitreous substance, as a 
piece of glass on being rubbed with a silk or 
woolen cloth takes on uniformly one element— 
the positive or vitreous, while a resinous sub- 
stance, as a stick of sealing-wax, on being similar- 
ly rubbed takes on as uniformly the other ele- 
ment—the negative or resinous. 
Applying these elements to account for this 
universal desire between the two sexes for union 
in the act of reproduction, if when animals and 
plants arrive at their several periods of puberty 
or maturity, and are replete with vitality, the 
male organs secrete or eliminate positive, and 
the females negative electricity, we have a uni- 
versal affinity prevailing in all species influencing 
each sex at such times to fly to meet its comple- 
mentary or opposite sex with all the force of 
magnetic attraction. Among the lower organ- 
ized beings, as plants, fishes, etc., the mere con- 
tact of the products of the male and female or- 
gans, as the pollen and ovule of plants, the 
milt and ova of fishes, is sufficient to produce a 
mutual electric discharge, at which time impreg- 136 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
nation occurs. In the higher orders of animals 
this discharge does not take place until after a 
certain amount of excitation or friction together 
between the diverse organs of the sexes, wherein 
they exert somewhat the same influence on each 
other as the glass and pad of an electrical ma- 
chine, the testicles on the one side, and the ova- 
ries on the other, acting as temporary reservoirs 
of the accumulating electric fluids until so re- 
plete that they can no longer retain the accumu- 
lation, when a mutual electric discharge occurs, 
carrying with it on the part of the male the 
secretion or germ natural to his organs. This 
germ must not be confounded with the magnetic 
fluid itself, as the electric discharge can take 
place without any germ, and the germ exist 
without any electric discharge. 
It will be seen that this theory regards the 
difference in sex as founded on the different 
electric influence of each, the male being always 
positive, the female negative ; or using the other 
terms, the male developing vitreous, the female 
resinous electricity; different species having some- 
thing peculiar in the character of the electricity 
they generate, so that each species throughout 
all creation, has more inclination for the oppo- THEORY OF THE LAW’S ACTION. 
137 
site sex of its own species than for a different 
one: akin in this respect to the affinities found 
in many chemical substances. 
It is not meant that this sexual electric con- 
dition is found to such a great extent, in the 
muscular parts of the body generally when in 
repose, but that it exists mainly in the gen- 
erative organs at times of sexual excitement. 
Though circumstances induce the belief that it 
does often extend to all parts of the body, so 
that a man in the full vigor of his life can tell by 
certain sensations that a hand he clasps in the 
dark is that of a woman and not of a boy, par- 
ticularly if the woman is at the time possessed 
of some amorous desire. 
It is not very long since, in a divorce case in 
New York City, that the wife while admitting 
her guilt, her paramour being a young man liv- 
ing in the house, a near relative of her husband, 
pleaded in defence her husband’s condonation 
following on her confession to him and other 
near relatives. In this confession, she sought to 
extenuate her crime by asserting that it was not 
premeditated, but that being in the young man’s 
chamber early one morning on some household 
errand, he grasped her by the hand, and straight- 138 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
way such a thrill went through her whole body 
that she had no control over herself. Those 
who read the account, naturally smiled at the 
simplicity of the excuse; but it is not hard, if 
this theory be correct, to believe that what she 
confessed was actually the truth. 
The warm clasp of the hand between two 
lovers which thrills the hearts of both is made 
much of by the poet and novelist; but sagacious 
minds will strive to learn the physical cause for 
it, even though the knowledge may spoil the 
romance. 
In what is called chemical electricity there is 
another characteristic strongly supporting this 
theory. In most of the works on electricity a 
list is given of some fifty to sixty elementary 
substances, each of which is positive to its next 
neighbor above on the list, and negative to its 
next neighbor below. At the extreme positive 
end of the list is potassium, the most powerful 
alkali; at the other, or negative, extreme is oxy- 
gen, the most powerful acid. And so far as the 
substances have known alkaline or acid qualities 
they seem regularly graded along the list accord- 
ing to these chemical qualities. Thus sodium, 
a slightly less powerful alkaline than potassium, THEORY OF THE LAW’S ACTION. 
139 
is negative to it, but positive to lithium, the next 
on the list, seemingly because it is more alkaline 
than lithium. Chemical nomenclature of com- 
pound neutral substances is largely founded in 
this, and the proportions of the electro-negative 
element and the electro-positive element in the 
mixture fixes its distinctive name. 
Further investigation in this path will possi- 
bly show that chemical affinity is but another 
name for electrical affinity, or mayhap that all 
electric action is only the chemical action of al- 
kalines and acids. It is foreign to the subject of 
this work to inquire into that; the suggestion is 
only thrown out, that in following this clue it 
may be eventually revealed to us what electricity 
really is. 
It is a peculiar circumstance in support of tins 
theory tliat long ago the able chemist, Dr. Franz 
Simon, in investigations of the chemical qualities 
of the various secretions of the human body, 
found the menstrual discharge of woman to be 
quite acid in character, while the semen of man 
was as decidedly alkaline ; being the two chemi- 
cal conditions which, according to the list men- 
tioned above, would naturally generate in the 
woman’s sexual organs a negative electric con- 140 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
dition, and in the man’s a positive electric con- 
dition. And it is a fair inference that the secre- 
tion of the male and female organisms, both of 
animal and plant life, are alike alkaline or acid, 
and generate the positive or negative electric con- 
ditions according to the sex. There is another, 
perhaps trifling, analogy between the action of 
the electric fluids and of the sexes in reproduc- 
tion that corroborates this theory. Careful ex- 
periment has proven that when there is a mutual 
electric discharge between a j>ositively electrified 
body and one negatively electrified by means of 
a conductor, that the positive electricity travels 
along the conductor a much greater distance 
than does the negative, so that the point of 
junction of the two elements is comparatively 
near the negatively electrified body. Aow this 
peculiarity seems to be universal in the mascu- 
line character. The male goes further to meet 
the female, than does the female to meet the 
male. Shall we say this is simply because the 
desire of the male is greatest, and rest there % 
The diverse desires of the two sexes seem in 
fact to be quite influential in the earlier evolu- 
tion of organic existence. So far as the micro- 
scope reveals it, the first evidence of life is se- THEORY OF THE LAw’s ACTION. 
141 
jproduction. The minute cell or bubble which 
to all our scrutiny is but a film of dead matter 
enclosing a gas or invisible fluid is seen to repro- 
duce itself by the growth of a similar cell from 
out itself, indicating a bi-sexual existence and 
action prior to any evidence of the process of 
nutrition. From this the first and lowest con- 
dition of plant life where the sex organs are en- 
tirely hidden, they seemingly develop by innate 
power to the next or higher group—the so-called 
hermaphrodite, where the sexual organs are 
separately visible, as in the stamens and pistils 
of most flowers. Proceeding still further along 
in the innate development, we reach the monoeci- 
ous group, as the maize or Indian corn, where 
these organs through their varied aspirations or 
tendencies are become entirely separated, though 
both still on the same plant. Still further on 
we reach the dioecious group, as the ailantlms, 
where this mysterious influence of sex has pro- 
duced a total separation, the whole plant being 
either male or female, as exist in the higher ani- 
mal life. From observation of these tendencies 
it would almost seem as if reproduction was the 
primary purpose of creation, and that the useful- 
ness of the individual outside of this is second- 142 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
ary : even as the fruit and vegetable food gener- 
ally, that we cultivate and eat, is but a provision 
stored up by the parent plant to protect and aid 
the germination and growth of its offspring. 
To understand clearly how electric influences 
can determine sex, attention must be given to 
two well-known phenomena of electric action. 
(1.) That every electrified body induces an op- 
posite condition of electricity in every suscepti- 
ble non-electrified body with which it comes in 
immediate or close contact. This is known as 
induction, a common illustration of which is the 
taking up of needles or small pieces of steel or 
iron by a common bar magnet. The positive 
end of the bar being able to attract such an arti- 
cle only when it is in a negative state, produces 
when first applied to the end of a needle, by in- 
duction, a temporary negative condition in that 
end, after which the attraction between the two 
causes the needle to attach itself to the bar. The 
equilibrium of electricity being disturbed in the 
needle, the end remote from the bar becomes 
positively electric, and in its turn if presented to 
another needle induces a negative condition in 
the end it approaches, and the second needle 
then attaches itself to the first, so continuing THEORY OF THE LAw’s ACTION. 
143 
adding needle to needle, till the power of the 
magnetic bar is exhausted. This induction is 
also seen in charging a Leyden jar where the in- 
side being charged with positive electricity, an 
opposite or negative condition is induced and 
appears on the outside of the jar, the induction 
acting to produce this through the glass of the 
jar, though the glass being a non-conductor, the 
two opposite elements are retained separate 
until mutually discharged by a conducting wire. 
(2.) The phenomena known as the residuary 
charge. Thus, if after the Leyden jar be partial- 
ly charged, it be insulated so that the negative 
electricity can not be collected on the outside 
from adjacent objects, and the interior charge be 
continued, there will be a larger quantity of the 
positive electricity in the interior than there is 
of negative on the exterior. If now conduction 
be established between the outside and inside of 
the jar, a discharge will take place of all the 
negative electricity and an equivalent portion of 
the positive, leaving, however, a residuary charge 
of the positive, which if the jar be now uninsu- 
lated, will induce another flow of negative elec- 
tricity to the outside. So that if by any means 
two bodies dissimilarly charged with electricity 144 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
be brought into contact, that having the great- 
est charge will neutralize the other, and have a 
residuary charge left to influence by induction 
the opposite condition in another body brought 
into its near vicinity. 
It is important that these well-known phe- 
nomena of electricity be clearly understood now, 
to understand how they can act to influence the 
sex of offspring, especially the first one—the 
natural tendency being, with those not familiar 
with the subject, to suppose a positive condition 
of electricity will induce a positive in surround- 
ing objects, and a negative condition induce a 
negative. 
These being borne in mind, we can see there 
must be always in the male parent an influence 
tending to induce the negative or female form in 
the germ he produces ; it being to him when 
once formed and passing out an independent 
existence, or foreign object. While on the other 
side the opposite electric condition of the female 
parent would similarly induce a positive or mas- 
culine form in that part or portion she furnishes 
toward the making up of the embryo. But the 
• 
female parent may be so feeble in her sexual de- 
sire, or negative electric condition, that she has THEORY OF THE LAW’S ACTION. 
145 
been unable to exert much, electric influence on 
the part she furnishes, hence at the instant of 
the voluptuous paroxysm, when the two electric 
influences or forces unite, and conception ensues, 
she has been unable to give her share of the em- 
bryo, by the inductive influences of her sexual 
organs, a sufficient positive condition to over 
come the negative condition of the germ pre- 
sented by the male parent, so that as between 
the two electric influences commingling in the 
embryo, that furnished by the male, and by him 
negatively induced, is superiorly charged, and 
the residuary charge remains negative, the em- 
bryo continuing and developing as a negative 
body or female. Whereas had the female par- 
ent furnished a larger supply of her natural 
negative electric condition at the time, so as to 
have induced a larger supply of the positive 
electric condition to the embryo, than was fur- 
nished of the negative by the male, this positive 
condition would have overborne the negative, 
with the result that the residuary charge would 
have been positive and the embryo taken on at 
once the male form. That there is a continuous 
electric action of this character in the sexual 
organs, two circumstances somewhat indicate. 146 
CONTROLLING SEX IN GENERATION. 
One is, that wives who have had several children, 
boys and girls, can generally tell when pregnant 
with a boy, because during that time their sexual 
desires are excited to a much greater degree than 
when pregnant with a girl. The negative elec- 
tric condition of their maternal organs is prob- 
ably continually excited inductively by the 
nascent positive electric condition of the male 
foetus. The second is, it is noticeable that the 
males of animals whose young are nourished 
and developed by a foetal growth in the womb, 
have their sexual organs more or less drawn out 
of the body, while the females of these have 
theirs as deeply reverted. As if in the progress 
of development of these orders the organs of the 
males had been in the process of ages gradually 
drawn out by the mutual attraction of the differ- 
ent electric conditions of the mother and the 
male foetus ; and in the female foetus gradually 
reverted by the mutual repulsion incident to the 
same electric conditions. 
Tlie males of animals grown from the egg, and 
without the foetal growth under the influence of 
the mother’s sexual organs, are not drawn out, 
but remain in the body, nor are the female or- 
gans in these deeply reverted. THEORY OF THE LAW’S ACTION. 
147 
The views expressed in this chapter were at 
the outset denominated a theory; they might, 
perhaps, better have been called a hypothesis to 
account for the existence of the physical law 
governing the sex of offspring as presented in 
this treatise. Necessarily they are purely specu- 
lative, and if they can not stand the scrutiny of 
closer investigation, the physical law itself is 
not compromised thereby, any more than is the 
physician’s specific affected in its curative prop- 
erties when his theory of its action may be 
found erroneous. 
THE EHD. WORKS PUBLISHED BV 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., New York. 
PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY. 
American Phrenological Journal and 
Science of Health.—Devoted to Eth- 
nology, Physiology, Phrenology, Physiog- 
nomy, Psychology, Sociology, Biography, 
Education, Literature, etc., with Measures j 
to Reform, Elevate, and Improve Man- 
kind Physically, Mentally, and Spiritually. 
Monthly, $2 a year ; 20 cents a number. 
Bell (Sir Charles).—Expression : its 
Anatomy and Philosophy. With the 
original Notes and Illustrations by the 
author, and additional Notes and Illustra- 
tions by Samuel R. Wells. $1.25. 
Boardman (Andrew,M.D.)—Defence 
of Phrenology ; Containing an Essay 
on the Nature and Value of Phrenological 
Evidence; A Vindication of Phrenology 
against the Attack of its opponents. $1.25. 
Bray (Charles).—The Education of 
the Feelings and Affections. Edited, 
with Notes and Illustrations, by Nelson 
Sizer. Cloth, $1.50. 
This work gives ill and definite directions 
for the cultivation or restraining of all the 
faculties relating to the feelings or affections. 
Combe (George).—A System of 
Phrenology ; 'With One Hundred En- 
gravings. Cloth, $1.50. 
Constitution of Man ; Consider- 
ed in Relation to external objects. The 
only authorized American edition; with 
twenty engravings, and a portrait of the 
author. $1.50. 
The “ Constitution of Man ” is a work with 
which every teacher and every pupil should be 
icquainted. 
—Lectures on Phrenology; with 
Notes, an Essay on the Phrenological 
Mode of Investigation, and an Historical 
Sketch, by A. Boardman, M.D. $1.50. 
These are the lectures delivered by George 
Combe in America. 
Moral Philosophy ; or, the Duties 
of Man considered in his Individual, Do- 
mestic, and Social Capacities. $1.50. 
Uniform Edition, 4 *ols., extra cloth, $5.00. 
Library Edition, 4 vols., $10. 
On Education.—Papers on Edu- | 
cational Subjects. One vol. 8vo, Edin- 
burgh Edition. Cloth, $5.00. 
This volume consists of valuable Essays 
written by Mr. Combe, and should be found in 
the library of every teacher. 
——The Life of. By Charles Gib- 
bon. 2 volymes, Svo, with two portraits. 
London Edition. $5.00. 
These two works are not published in this 
country, but we can furnish from our stock, or 
import to order. 
Capen (Nahum, LL.D.)—Reminis- 
cencfs of Dr. Spurzheim and George 
Combe, and a Review of the Science of 
Phrenology from the period of its discov- 
ery by Dr. Gall to tiie time of the visit 
of George Combe to the United States, 
with a new portrait of Dr. Spurzheim. 
i2mo, extra cloth, $1.50. 
Drayton (H. S., A.M.), and McNeil 
(James, A.M.)—Brain and Mind; or, 
Mental Science Considered in Accordance 
with the Principles of Phrenology and in 
Relation to Modern Physiology. 111. $1.50. 
This is the latest and best woik published. 
It constitutes a complete text-book of Phrenol- 
ogy. is profusely illustrated, and well adapted 
to the use of students. 
Drayton (H. S., A.M.)—The Indi- 
cations of Character, as manifested 
in the general shape of the bead and the 
form of the face. Illustrated. 25 cents. 
How to Study Phrenology.— 
With Suggestions to Students, Lists of 
Best Works, Constitutions for Societies, 
etc. iemo, paper, 10 cents. 
Fowler (O. S.)—Education and Self- 
Improvement Complete ; Comprising 
“ Physiology, Animal ar. 1 Mental,” “Self- 
Culture and Perfection of Character,” 
“ Memory and Intellectual Improvement.” 
One large vol. Illustrated. $3.50. 
Self-Culture and Perfection of 
Character ; Including the Management 
of Children and Youth. $1.25. 
One of the best of the author’s works. 
Physiology, Animal and Mental: 
Applied to the Preservation and Restora- 
tion of Health of Body and Power of 
Mind. $1.25. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, N Y, WORKS ON PHRENOLOGY, 
Fowler (O. S.)—Memory and In- [ 
tellectual Improvement, applied to 
Self-Education and Juvenile Instruction. | 
$x.25. The best work on the subject j 
■ Maternity ; or, the Bearing ar.d 
Nursing of Children, including Female 
Education and Beauty. $1.25. 
Matrimony ; or, Phrenology and 
Physiology applied to the Selection of 
Congenial Companions for Life, includ- 
ing Directions to the Married for living 
together Affectionately and Happily. 50c. 
Love and Parentage. Applied to 
the Improvement of Offspring ; including 
Directions to Lovers and the Married, 
concerning the strongest ties and the most 
sacred relations of life. 50 cents. 
Hereditary Descent; Its Laws 
and Facts applied to Human Improve- 
ment. Illustrated. $1.25. 
Amativeness ; or, Evils and Rem- 
edies of Excessive and Perverted Sexual- 
ity ; including Warning and Advice to 
the Married and Single. 25 cents. 
Phrenology Proved, Illustrated, 
and Applied. Embracing an Analysis 
of the Primary Mental Powers in their 
Various Degrees of Development, and 
location of the Phrenological Organs. 
The Mental Phenomena produced by 
their combined action, and the location 
of the faculties amply illustrated. By the 
Fowler Brothers. $1.50. 
Self Instructor in Phrenology 
and Physiology. With over One 
Hundred Engravings and a Chart for 
Phrenologists, for the Recording of Phren- 
ological Development. By the Fowler 
Brothers. Paper, 50 cts.; cloth, 75 cts. 
Synopsis of Phrenology, and 
Charts for Describing the Phrenological \ 
Developments, for the use of Lecturersj 
and Examiners. Paper, 10 cents. 
Fowler (L.N.)—Marriage, its His- 
tory and Ceremonies, with a Phren- 
ological and Physiological Exposition of 
the Functions and Qualifications for 
Happy Marriages. Illustrated, $1.25. 
Redfield’s Comparative Physiogno- 
MY ; or, Resemblances Between Men and 
Animals. Illustrated. $3.00. 
j Sizer (Nelson).—Choice of Pursuits: 
or, What to Do and Why. Describing 
i Seventy-five Trades and Professions, and 
j the Temperaments and Talents required 
‘or each. With Portraits and Biographies 
of many successful Thinkers and Work- 
ers. $1.75. 
How to Teach According to 
Temperament and Mental Develop- 
ment ; or, Phrenology in the School-room 
and the Family. Illustrated. $1.50. 
Forty Years in Phrenology; em ■ 
bracing Recollections of History, Anec- 
dote and Experience. $1.50. 
Thoughts on Domestic Life ; or, 
Marriage Vindicated and Free Love Ex- 
posed. 25 cents. 
Catechism of Phrenology.—Il- 
lustrative of the Principles of the Science 
by means of Questions and A nswers. Re- 
vised and enlarged by Nelson Sizer. 53c. 
Spurzheim (J. G., M.D.) Education; 
its Elementary Principles Found- 
ed on the Nature of Man. $1.50. 
Natural Laws of Man.—A Phi- 
losophical Catechism. Sixth Edition. En- 
larged and improved. 50 cents. 
Weaver (Rev. G. S.)—Lectures on 
Mental Science. According 'o the 
Philosophy of Phrenology. Delivered be- 
fore the Anthropological Society. Illus- 
trated. $1.25. 
Wells (Samuel R.)—New Physiog- 
NOMY; or, Signs of Character, as mani- 
fested through Temperament and Exter- 
nal Forms, and especially in the “ Human 
Face Divine.” With more than One 
Thousand Illustrations. In one i2mo 
volume, 768 pages, muslin, $5.00; in 
heavy calf, marbled edges, $8.00; Turkey 
morocco, full gilt, $10. 
“The treatise of Mr. Wells, which is adinira- 
| bly printed and profusely illustrated, is probably 
| the most complete hand-book upon the subject 
| in the language.”—N. Y. Tribune. 
Phrenological Bust.—Showing the 
latest classification and exact location of 
the Organs of the Brain. It is divided so 
as to show each individual Organs on one 
side ; with all the groups—Social, Execu- 
tive, Intellectual, and Moral- properly clas- 
sified, on the other side. There are two 
sizes ; the largest, not mailable, price $1. 
The smaller, 50 cents. 
'Zenl by Mail, posi-pa.d. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, N. Y. 
2 PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY, 
Wells (S. R.y-How to Read Char- 
acter.—A New Illustrated Hand-book of 
Phrenology and Physiognomy, for Stu- 
dents and Examiners, with a Chart for re- 
cording the sizes of the different Organs 
of the Brain in the Delineation of Char- 
acter; with upwards of 170 Engravings. 
Paper, $1.00 ; Cloth, $1.25. 
Wedlock; or, The Right Relations 
of the Sexes. Disclosing the Laws of 
Conjugal Selections, and showing Who 
May Marry. $1.50 ; gilt, $2.00. 
New Descriptive Chart, for the 
Use of Examiners in the Delineation of 
Character. 25 cents ; cloth, 50 cents. 
Harmony of Phrenology and the 
Bible, including the Definitions. 10 cts. 
How to Study Character; or, the 
True Basis for the Science of 
Mind. Including a Review of Bain’s 
Criticism of Phrenology. By Thos. A. 
Hyde. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00. 
1 The Phrenological Miscellany; of, 
, Illustrated Annuals of Phrenology and 
Physiognomy, from 1865 to 1873 combin- 
ed in 1 volume, the nine containing over 
400 illustrations, many portraits and biog- 
raphies of distinguisned personages. 
Comparative Physiognomy; or, Re- 
semblances Between Men and Animals. 
ByJ. W. Redfield, M.D. Octavo vol- 
ume, illustrated. Price, $2.50. 
Phrenology and the Scriptures.— 
Showing the Harmony between Phre- 
nology and the Bible. 15 cents. 
The Annuals of Phrenology and 
Health Almanac for 1874 to ’83. $r. 
Phrenological Chart or Map. A 
Symbolical Head 12 inches across, Litho- 
graphed in Colors, on paper 19 x 24 
I inches, mounted for hanging on the wall, 
or suitable for framing. Price $i.oo. 
Phrenology, its History and Impor- 
1 tant Principles. By T. Turner, ioc. 
■w 0£T 
There is an increasing interest in the facts relating to Magnetism, etc., and we present 
below a list of Works on this subject. 
Practical Instructions in Animal 
Magnetism. ByJ. P. F. Deleuze. Trans- 
lated by Thomas C. Hartshorn. New and 
Revised edition, with an appendix of notes 
by the Translator, and Letters from Emi- 
nent Physicians, and others. $2.00. 
History of Salem Witchcraft.—A 
review of Charles W. Upham’s great 
Work from the Edinburgh Revierv, with 
Notes - by Samuel R. Wells, contain- 
ing, also, The Planchette Mystery, Spirit- 
ualism. by Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, and Dr. Doddridge’s Dream. $ r. 
Fascination; or, the Philosophy of 
Charming. Illustrating the Principles 
of Life in connection with Spirit and Mat- 
ter. ByJ. B. Newman, M.D. $1.00. 
Six Lectures on the Philosophy of 
Mesmerism, delivered in Marlboro’Chap- 
el, Boston. By Dr. John Bovee Dods. 
Paper, 50 cents. 
The Philosophy of Electrical Psy- 
CHOLOGY, in a course of Twelve Lectures. 
By the same author. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 
The Library of Mesmerism and 
Psychology.—Comprising the Philoso- 
phy of Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, Mental 
Electricity.—Fascination, or the Power of 
Charming. Illustrating the Principles 
of Life in connection with Spirit and 
Matter.—The Macrocosm, or the Universe 
Without: being an unfolding of the plan 
of Creation, and the Correspondence of 
Truths.—The Philosophy of Electrical 
Psychology ; the Doctrine of Impressions ; 
including the connection between Mind 
and Matter; also, the Treatment of Dis- 
eases. —Psychology ; or, the Science of the 
Soul, considered Physiologically and Philo- 
sophically ; with an Appendix containing 
Notes of Mesmeric and Psychical experi- 
ence, and illustrations of the Brain and 
Nervous System. 1 vol. $3.50. 
How to Magnetize ; or, Magnetism 
and Clairvoyance.—A Practical 1 reat- 
ise on the Choice, Management and 
Capabilities of Subjects, with Instructions 
on the Method of Procedure. By James 
Victor Wilson. iSmo, paper, 35 cts. 
The Key to Ghostism. By Rev, 
Thomas Mitchel. §1.30. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, Nm> YarK, HEALTH BOOKS. 
This List comprises the Best Works on Hygiene, Health, Etc. 
Combe (Andrew, M.D.)—Principles 
applied to the Preservation of Health and 
to the Improvement of Physical and 
Mental Education. Illustrated. Cloth. 
$1.50. 
Management of Infancy, Physi- 
ological and Moral Treatment. With 
Notes and a Supplementary Chapter, 
$1.25. 
Dodds (Susanna W., M.D.)—Health 
IN the Household ; or, Hygienic Cook- 
ery. nmo, extra cloth, $2.00. 
Fairchild(M. Augusta, M.D.)—How 
to be Well; or, Common-Sense Med- 
ical Hygiene. A book for the People, 
giving Directions for the Treatment and 
Cure of Acute Diseases without the use of' 
Drug Medicines; also, General Hints on 
Health. £1.00. 
Graham (Sylvester).— Science of 
Human Life, Lectures on the. With 
a copious Index and Biographical Sketch 
of the Author. Illustrated, $3.00. 
Chastity. — Lectures to Young 
Men. Intended also for the Serious Con- 
sideration of Parents and Guardians. 
i2mo. Paper, 50 cents. 
Gully (J. M., M.D.) —Water-Cure 
IN Chronic Diseases. An Exposition 
of the Causes, Progress, and Termination 
of various Chronic Diseases of the Di- 
gestive Organs, Lungs, Nerves, Limbs, 
and Skin, and of their Treatment by 
Water and other Hygienic means. $1.50. 
For Girls; A Special Physiology, or 
Supplement to the Study of General Phy- 
siology. By Mrs. E. R. Shepherd. $1.00. 
Page (C. E., M.D.)—How to Feed 
the Baby to make her Healthy and Hap- 
py. i2tno. Third edition, revised and 
enlarged. Paper, 50 cents; extra cloth, 
75 cents. 
This is the most important work ever publish- 
ed on the subject of infant dietetics. 
The Natural Cure of Consump- 
tion, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neu- 
ralgia, Rheumatism, “Colds” (Fevers), 
etc. How these Disorders Originate, and 
How to Prevent Them, iamo, doth, $1.00. 
Horses : their Feed and their Feet. 
—A Manual of Horse Hygiene. Invaluable 
to the veteran or the novice, pointing out 
the true sources of disease, and how to pre- 
vent and counteract them. By C. E. 
Page, M.D. Paper 50 cts., cloth 75 cts. 
The Diet Question.—Giving the 
Reason Why, from “ Health in the House- 
hold,” by Mrs. S. W. Dodds, M.D. 10c. 
The Health Miscellany. An impor- 
tant Collection of Health Papers. Nearly 
100 octavo pages. 25 cents. 
Gully (J. M., M.D.) and Wilson 
(James, M. D.)—Practice of the 
Water-Cure, with Authenticated Evi- 
dence of its Efficacy and Safety. Con- 
taining a Detailed Account of the various 
Processes used in the Water Treatment, 
a Sketch of the History and Progress ol 
the Water-Cure. 50 cents. 
Jacques (D. H., M.D.)—The Tem- 
PERAMENTs; or, Varieties of Physical 
Constitution in Man, considered in their 
relation to Mental Character and Practical 
Affairs of Life. With an Introduction 
by H. S. Drayton, A.M., Editor of the 
Phrenological Joui-nal. 150 Portraits 
and other Illustrations. $1.50. 
How to Grow Handsome, or 
Hints toward Physical Perfection, and 
the Philosophy of Human Reauty, show- 
ing How to Acquire and Retain Bodily 
Symmetry, Health, and Vigor, secure 
Long Life, and Avoid the Infirmities and 
Deformities of Age. New Edition. $1.00. 
Johnson (Edward, M.D.)—Doines- 
tic Practice of Hydropathy, with 
Fifteen Engraved Illustrations of impor- 
tant subjects, from Drawings by Dr. How- 
ard Johnson. $1.50. 
White (Wm., M.D.)—Medical Elec- 
TRICITY.—A Manual for Students, show- 
ing the most Scientific and Rational Ap- 
plication to all forms of Diseases, of the 
different Combinations of Electricity, 
Galvanism, Electro-Magnetism, Magneto- 
Electricity, and Human Magnetism. 
S2mo, $1.50. 
Transmission ; or, Variations of Char- 
acter Through the Mother. By Georg- 
iana B. Kirby. 25 cts., cloth, 50 cts. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wei.i • Co., 753 Broadway, N Y. WORKS ON HEALTH AND HYGIENE. 
Shew (Joel, M.D.)—Children, their 
Hydropathic Management in Health and 
Disease. A Descriptive and Practical 
Work, designed as a Guide for Families 
and Physicians. $1.50. 
Sober and Temperate Life.—The 
Discourses and Letters of Louis Cornaro 
on a Sober and Temperate Life. 50 cts. 
Taylor (G. H., M.D.)—The Move- 
MFNT Cure. The History and Philoso- 
phy of this System of Medical Treatment, 
with Examples of Single Movements, The 
Principles of Massage, and Directions for 
their Use in various Forms of Chronic 
Diseases. New and Enlarged Ed. $1.50. 
Massage. Giving the Principles 
and Directions for its Application in all 
Forms of Chronic Diseases. 121110, $1.50. 
The Science of a New Life. By 
John Cowan, M.D. Extra cloth, §3x0. 
Mothers and Daughters.—A Manual 
of Hygiene for Women. By Mrs. E. G. 
Cook, M.D. $1.50. 
Philosophy of the Water-Cure. By 
John Balbirnie, M.D. 50 cents. 
Chronic Diseases.—Especially the 
Nervous Diseases of Women. 25 cents. 
Consumption, its Prevention and 
Cure by the Movement Cure. 25 cents. 
Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and Devel- 
OPMENT ; or, How to Acquire Plumpness 
of Form, Strength of Limb, and Beauty 
ol Complexion. Illustrated. 10 rents. 
Tea and Coffee.—Their Physical, 
Intellectual, and Moral Effects on the 
Human System. By Dr. Alcott. New 
and revised edition, with notes and ad- 
ditions by Nelson Sizer. 25 cents. 
i Heredity.—Rrsponsibii itY and Par. 
ENT age. By Rev. S. II. Platt. 10 cts. 
Special List.—We have in addition 
to the above, Private Medical Works and 
| Treatises. This Special List will be sent 
i on receipt of stamp. 
The Man Wonderful in the House 
BkaUTIFUL. An Allegory. Teaching 
the Principles of Physiology and Hygi- 
ene, and the Effects of Stimulants and 
Narcotics. By Drs. C. B. and Mary A. 
Allen. $1.50. 
Smoking and Drinking. By James 
Parton. 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. 
The Diseases of Modern Life. By 
B. W. Richardson, M.D. Ex. clo., $1.50. 
The Parents’ Guide ; or, Human De- 
velopment through Pre-Natal Influences 
and Inherited Tendencies. $1.25. 
Pereira (J., M.D., F.R.S.)—Food 
and Diet. With observations on the Di- 
etetical Regimen, suited for Disordered 
States of the Digestive Organs. $1.50. 
Controlling Sex in Generation : A 
Treatise on the Laws Determining Sex, 
and their Government to Produce Male 
or Female Offspring at Will. By Sam- 
uel H. Terry. Cloth. $1.00. 
Shew (Joel, M.D.)—The Family 
Physician.—A Ready Prescriber and 
Hygienic Adviser. With Reference to 
the Nature, Causes, Prevention, and 
Treatment of Diseases, Accidents, and 
Casualties of every kind. With a Glossary 
and copious Index. Illustrated with nearly 
Three Hundred Engravings. 
Letters to Women on Midwifery 
and Diseases of Women.—A Descrip- 
tive and Practical Work, giving Treat- 
ment in Menstruation and its Disorders, 
Chlorosis, Leucorrhea, Fluor Albus, Pro- 
lapsus Uteri, Hysteria, Spinal Diseases, 
and other weaknesses of Females, Preg- 
nancy and its Diseases, Abortion, Uterine 
Hemorrhage, and the General Manage- 
ment of Childbirth, Nursing, etc. $1.50. 
Pregnancy and Childbirth, with 
Cases showing the remarkable Effects of 
Water Treatment in Mitigating the Pains 
and Perils of the Parturient State, so cts. 
Tobacco : its Physical, Intellectual, 
and Moral Effects on the Human System. 
By Dr. Alcott. New and revised ed., with 
notes and additions, by N. Sizer. 25 cts. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, New York. WORKS ON HYGIENE BY R T. TRA±X, M.D. 
Hydiopathic Encyclopedia.—A Sys- i 
tem of Hydropathy and Hygiene. Em- j 
bracing Outlines of Anatomy, Illus’ed ; 
Physiology of the Human Body ; Hygi- 
enic Agencies, and the Preservation of 
Health ; Dietetics and Hydropathic Cook- 
ery ; Theory and Practice of Water-Treat- 
ment ; Special Pathology and Hydro- 
Therapeutics, including the Nature, 
Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment of all 
known 1 )iseases ; Application of Hydrop- 
athy to Midwifery and the Nursery, with 
nearly One Thousand Pages, including a 
Glossary. Designed as a guide to Families 
and Students. With numerous Ulus. 2 
vols. in one. $4. 
Uterine Diseases & Displacements. 
A Practical Treatise on the Various Dis- 
eases, Malpositions, and Structural De-1 
rangements of the Uterus and its Append- 
ages. Fifty-three Colored Plates. $5. 
The Hygienic Hand-Book. —Intend- 
ed as a Practical Guide for the Sick- 
Room. Arranged alphabetically. $1.50. 
Illustrated Family Gymnasium — 
Containing the most improved methods 
of applying Gymnastic, Calisthenic, Kine- 
sipathic and Vocal Exercises to the Devel- 
opment of the Bodily Organs, the invigor- 
ation of their functions, the preservation 
of Health, and the Cure of Diseases and 
Deformities. With illustrations. $1.50. 
The Hydropathic Cook-Book, with 
Recipes for Cooking on Hygienic Princi- 
ples. Containing also, a Philosophical 
Exposition of the Relations of Food to 
Health; the Chemical Elements and; 
Proximate Constitut;on of Alimentary 
Principles; the Nutrit’ve Properties of 
all kinds of Aliments; the Relative Value 
of Vegetable and Animal Substances; 
the Selection and Preservation of Dietetic 
Material, etc. lot.25. 
Fruits and Faiinacea the Proper 
Food of Man.—Being an attempt to 
prove by History, Anatomy, Physiology, 
and Chemistry that the Original, Natural, > 
and Best Diet of Man is derived from the 
Vegetable Kingdom. By John Smith. 
With Notes by Tkall. $1.50. 
Digestion and Dyspepsia.—A Com- 
plete Explanation of the Physiology of 
the Digestive Processes', with the Symp- 
toms and Treatment of Dyspepsia and 
other Disorders. Illustrated. $1.00. j 
The Mother’s Hygienic Hand-Book 
for the Normal Development and Train- 
ing of Women and Children, and the 
Treatment of their Diseases. $ 1.00. 
Popular Physiology.—A Familiar 
Exposition of the Structures, Functions, 
and Relations of the Human System and 
the Preservation of Health. $1.25. 
The True Temperance Platform.— 
An Exposition of the Fallacy of Alcoholic 
Medication, being the substance of ad- 
dresses delivered in the Queen’s Concert 
Rooms, London. Paper, 50 cents. 
The Alcoholic Controversy.—A Re- 
view of the Westminster Review on the 
Physiological Errors of Teetotalism. 50c. 
The Human Voice.—Its Anatomy, 
Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, 
and Training, with Rules of Order for 
Lyceums. 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. 
The True Healing Art; or, Hygienic 
vs. Drug Medication. An Address 
delivered before the Smithsonian Institute, 
Washington, D. C. Paper, 25 cents; 
cloth, 50 cents. 
Water-Cure for the Million.—The 
processes of Water-Cure Explained, Pop- 
ular Errors Exposed, Hygienic and Drug 
Medication Contrasted. Rules for Rath' 
ing, Dieting, Exercising, Recipes for 
Cooking, etc., etc. Directions for Home 
Treatment. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 75 cts. 
Hygeian Home Cook-Book; or, 
Healthful and Palatable Food 
without Condiments. A Rook of 
Recipes. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 50 cts. 
Accidents and Emergencies, a guide 
containing Directions for the Treatment 
in Bleeding, Cuts, Sprains, Ruptures, 
Dislocations, Rurns and Scalds, Rites of 
Mad Dogs, Choking, Poisons, Fits, Sun- 
strokes, Drowning, etc. Py Alfred Smee, 
with Notes and additions by R. T. Trail, 
M.D. New and revised edition. 25 cts. 
Diseases of Throat and Lungs.— 
Including Diplitheria and Proper Treat- 
ment. 25 cents. 
The Bath.—Its History and Uses in 
Health and Disease. Paper 25c.; clo., 50c. 
A Health Catechism.—Questions 
and Answers. With Illustrations. 10 cts. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, N. Y. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
Hand-books for Home Improve- 
ment (Educational) ; comprising, 
“How to Write,” “H w to Talk,” 
“How to Behave,” and ■'~Tow to do 
Business.” One i2mo vol., ..00. 
How to Write : a Pocket Manual of 
Composition and Letter-Writing. 75 cts. 
How to Talk: a Pocket Manual of 
Conversation and Debate, with more than 
Five Hundred Common Mistakes in 
Speaking Corrected. 75 cents. 
How to Behave: a Pocket Manual 
of Republican Etiquette and Guide to 
Correct Personal Habits, with Rules for 
Debating Societies and Deliberative 
Assemblies. 75 cents. 
How to Do Business: a Pock .t 
Manual of Practical Affairs, and a Guide 
to Success in Life, with a Collection of 
Legal and Commercial f orms. 75c. 
How to Read.—What and Why ; or, 
Hints in Choosing the Best Books, with 
Classified List of Best Works in Biogra- 
phy, Criticism, Fine Arts, History, Nov- 
els, Poetry, Science, Religion, Foreign 
Languages, etc. By A. V. Petit. Clo., $1. 
How to Sing ; or, the Voice and How 
to Use it. By W. H. Daniell. 50c ; 75c. 
How to Conduct a Public Meeting ; 
or, The Chairman’s Guide for Conduct- 
ing Meetings, Public and Private. 15 ct" 
Hopes and Helps for the Young of 
Both Sexes.—Relating to the Forma- 
tion of Character, Choice of Avocation, 
Health, Amusement, Music, Conversa- 
tion, Social Affections, Courtship and 
Marriage. By Weaver. $1.25. 
Aims and Aids for Girls and Young 
Women, on the various Duties of Life. 
Including Physical, Intellectual, and Moral 
Development, Dress, Beauty, F'ashion, 
Employment, Education, the Home Re- 
lations, their Duties to Young Men, Mar- 
riage, Womanhood and Happiness. $1.25. 
Ways of Life, showing the Right 
Way and the Wrong Way. Contrasting 
the High Way and the Low Way; the 
True Way and the False Way ; the Up- 
ward Way and the Downward Way ; the 
Way of Honor and of Dishonor. 75 cts. 
The Christian Household. — Embrac- 
ing the Husband, Wife, Father, Mother, 
Child, Brother and Sister. $1.00. 
Weaver’s Works for the Young, 
Comprising ‘ Hopes and Helps for the 
Young of Both Sexes,” “Aims and Aids 
for Girls and Young Women,” “Ways 
of Life; or, the Right Way and the 
Wrong Way.” One vol. i2mo. $2.50. 
The Fallacies in "Progress and 
Poverty.” A Consideration of Henry 
George’s “ Progress and Poverty,” Henry 
Dunning Macleod's “ Economics,” and 
“The Ethics of Protection and Free 
Trade.” By William Hanson. Cloth, $1. 
How to Learn Short-Hand ; or, The 
Stenographic Instructor. An Improved 
System of Short-hand Writing arranged 
specially for the use of those desirous of 
acquiring the art without the aid of a 
teacher. By Arthur M. Baker. 25 cents. 
Phonographic Note - Book. — For 
Students and Reporters. Double or Sin- 
gle ruled. 15 cents. 
The Emphatic Diaglott, Containing 
the Original Greek Text of The New 
TESI ament, with an Interlineary Word- 
for-Word English Translation; a New 
Emphatic Version based on the Interline- 
ary Translation, on the Readings of the 
Vatican ManuscriDt (No. 1,200 in tire Vat- 
ican Library). By Benjamin Wilson. 
884 pp., $4.00 ; extra fine binding $5.00. 
\ Bachelor's Talks about Married 
Life and Things Adjacent. By Rev. 
William Aikman, D.D. i2tno, extra 
cloth, $ 1.50. Ready November j. 
History of Woman Suffrage.—Illus- 
trated with Steel Engravings. Edited by 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. An- 
thony, Matilda Joslyn Gage. Complete 
in Three Octavo Volumes. Price per Vol- 
ume, Cloth, $5.00. Sheep, $6.50. 
Life at Home ; or, The Family and 
its Members. Including Husbands and 
Wives, Parents, Children, Brothers, Sis- 
ters, Employers and Employed, The Altar 
in the House, etc. By Rev. William 
Aikn.an, D.D. ramo, $1.50; full gilt $2. 
A New Theory of the Origin, of 
Species. By Benj. G. Ferris. $1.50. 
Man in Genesis and in Geology . or, 
the Biblical Account of Man’s Creation 
tested by Scientific Theories of his Origin 
and Antiquity. By Joseph P. Thompson, 
D.D., LL.D. $1.00. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, N.Y. The Children of the Bible. By 
Fanny L. Armstrong, with an Intro- 
duction by Frances E. Willard, Pres. 
N. W. C. T. U. Extra cloth. Price, $1. 
A handsome gift for children. 
The Temperance Reformation.—Its 
History from the first Temperance Soci- 
ety in the United States to the Adoption 
of the Maine Liquor Law. $1.50. 
Man and Woman, Considered in 
their Relations to each other and to the 
World. By H. C. Pedder. Cloth, $1. 
./Esop’s Fables.—With Seventy Splen- 
did Illustrations. One vol. i2mo, fancy 
cloth, gilt edges, $1. People’s Edition, 
bound in boards, 25 cents. 
Pope’s Essay on Man, with Illustra 
tions and Notes by S. R. Wells. i2mo, 
tinted paper, fancy cloth, full gilt, price $r. 
People’s Edition, bound in boards, 25c. 
Gems of Goldsmith: “The Travel- 
er,” “ The Deserted Village," “ The Her- 
mit.” With notes and Original Illustra- 
tions, and Biographical Sketch of the 
great author. One vol., fancy cloth, full 
gilt, $1. People’s Ed., bound in boards, 25c. 
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 
In Seven Parts. By Samuel T. Coleridge. 
With new Illustrations by Chapman. One 
vol., fancy cloth, full gilt, $1. People’s 
Ed., bound in boards, 25 cents. 
Footprints of Life ; or, Faith and Na- 
ture Reconciled.—A Poem in Three 
Parts. The Body ; The Soul ; The Deity. 
Philip Harvey, M.D. $1.25. 
How to Paint.—A Complete Compen- 
dium of the Art. Designed for the use 
of Tradesmen, Mechanics, Merchants and 
Farmers, and a Guide to the Profession- 
al Painter, Containing a plain Common- 
sense statement of the Methods employed 
by Painters to produce satisfactory results 
in Plain and Fancy Painting of every De- 
scription, including Gilding, Bronzing, 
Staining, Graining, Marbling, Varnish- 
ing, Polishing, Kalsomining, Paper Hang- 
ing, Striping, Lettering, Copying and 
Ornamenting, with Formulas for Mixing 
Paint in Oil or Water. Description of 
Various Pigments used : tools required, 
etc. By F. B. Gardner. $1.00. 
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
The Carriage Painter’s Illustrated 
Manual, containing a Treatise on the 
Art, Science, and Mystery of Coach, Car- 
riage, and Car Painting. Including die 
Improvements in Fine Gilding, Bronzing; 
Staining, Varnishing, Polishing, Copying, 
Lettering, Scrolling, and Ornamenting. 
By F. B. Gardner. $1.00. 
How to Keep a Store, embodying 
the Experience of Thirty Years in Mer- 
chandizing. By Samuel H. Terry. $1.50. 
Howto Raise Fruits —A Hand-book. 
Being a Guide to the Cultivation and 
Management of Fruit Trees, and of 
Grapes and Small Fruits. With Descrip- 
tions of the Best and Most Popular Varie- 
ties. Illustrated. By Thomas Gregg. $1. 
How to be Weather-Wise.—A new 
View of our Weather System. By I. P. 
Noyes. 25 cents. 
How to Live.—Saving ancfWasting; 
or, Domestic Economy Illustrated by the 
Life of two Families of Opposite Charac- 
ter, Habits, and Practices, full of Useful 
Lessons in Housekeeping, and Hints How 
to Live, How to Have, and How to be 
Happy, including the Story of “A Dime 
a Day,” by Solon Robinson. $1.25, 
Oratory—Sacred and Secular, or the 
Extemporaneous Speaker. Including a 
Chairman’s Guide for conducting Public 
Meetings according to the best Parliamen- 
tary forms. By Wm. Pittenger. $1.25. 
Homes for All; or, the Gravel Wall. 
A New, Cheap, and Superior Mode of 
Building, adapted to Rich and Poor. 
Showing the Superiority of the Gravel 
Concrete over Brick, Stone and Frame 
Houses ; Manner of Making and Deposit- 
ing it. By O. S. Fowler. $1.25. 
The Model Potato.—Proper cultiva- 
tion and mode of cooking. 50 cents. 
Three Visits to America. By Emily 
Faithfull. 400 pages. $1.50. 
Capital Punishment ; or. the Proper 
Treatment of Criminals, 10 cents. 
“Father Matthew, the Temperance Apos- 
tle,” 10 cents. “Good Man’s Legacy,” 
10 cents. Alphabet for Deaf and Dumb, 
10 cents. 
Sent by Mail, post-paid. 
Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, N. Y. 
8 FOWLER & WELLS CO.’S 
NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
Three Visits to America. By Emily Faithfull. 
400 pages. 1 vol. i2mo, extra cloth, $1.50. 
One of the most interesting and attractive books ever written about America, 
our people, institutions, etc., and is a record of the author’s experience and ob- 
servations, with many personal reminiscences of persons, places, etc. 
The 3Ian Wonderful in the House Beautiful. An 
AUegory. Teaching the Principles of Physiology and Hygiene, and the 
effects of Stimulants and Narcotics. For Home Reading. Also adapted 
as a Reader for High Schools, and as a Text-book for Grammar, Inter- 
mediate, and District Schools. By Chiliov B. Allen, A.M., LL.B., 
M.D., and Mary A. Allen, A.B., M.D. 370 pp., ex. clo. $1.50. 
“ The book is more wonderful than a fairy tale, more intensely interesting 
than a romance, and more replete with valuable truths than any book of the 
present day ."—Indianapolis Times. 
The Children of the Bible. Bv Fanny L. Armstrong, 
with an Introduction by Frances E. Willard, Pres. N. W. C. T. U. 
Extra cloth. Price, $1.00. 
“ An elegantly written book, designed for young people, who will be charmed 
and benefited by its beautiful sketches and pure lifelike thoughts. The stories 
as tafid here seem entirely new, and none could he more interesting than they.” 
The Fallacies in “Progress and Poverty.” A Con- 
sideration of Henry George’s “ Progress and Poverty,” Henry Dunning 
Macleod’s “Economics,” also “The Ethics of Protection and Free 
Trade,” and “The Industrial Problem Considered a priori." By Will- 
iam Hanson, rnmo, cloth, $1.00. 
This is a bold attack by a clear headed observer and most candid writer on 
.eading points and arguments made by Mr. Henry George, in liis well-known 
“ Progress and Poverty ” and “ Social Problems” indicating clearly the errors 
of assumption and reasoning that mar those powerful books. 
Smoking and Drinking. By James Barton. 121110. 
paper, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. 
This work, when first written, attracted very wide-spread attention among in- 
telligent thinking people. This edition has a new Introduction by the author, 
and should be widely read by those interested in these subjects, and who is not, 
for all are affected by them ? 
Comparative Physiognomy; or, Resemblances Be- 
tween Men and Animals. By J. W. Redfield, M.D. Octavo 
volume, illustrated. Price, $2.50. 
A new edition of what may be deemed a standard work on the subject ot 
physiognomy, carrying it into the field of similarity between man and animals. 
One may read this book out of mere curiosity, or may look at it from a humor- 
ous point, of view—so be it ; but whether one reads humorously or seriously, he 
will find suggestions of value. 
How to Study Character; or, The True Basis of the 
Science of Mind, including a view of Alexander Bain’s Criticism of the 
Phrenological System. By Thomas A. Hyde. Paper, 50c. ; clo., 75c. 
Tine object of the is a comparison of the older metaphysical and the 
present psychological and experimental methods with the phrenological system. 
Seat by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. Address 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, X. Y, gjgl#I.§®Ef 
Or, The Right Relations of TnE Sexes—Disclosing the Laws of 
Conjugal Selection, and showing Who May and Who May Not Marry. 
A Scientific Treatise. By Samuel R. Wells. One vol., 12mo, 250 
pages; plain muslin, price, $1 50; in fancy gilt binding, $2. 
Among the subjects treated are the following: Marriage a Divine 
Institution; Qualifications for Matrimony; The Right Age to Marry; 
Motives for Marrying; Marriages of Consanguinity—of Cousins, when 
Justifiable; Conjugal Selection—Affinities; Courtship—Long or Short; 
Duty of Parents; Marriage Customs and Ceremonies of all Nations; 
Ethics of Marriage; Second Marriages, are they Admissible ; Jealousy— 
Its Cause and Cure ; Causes of Separation and Divorce ; Celibacy— 
Ancient and Modern; Polygamy and Pantagamy; Love Signs in the 
Features, and How to Read Them; Physiognomy; Sensible Love 
Letters—Examples; The Poet’s Wife; The Model Husband and the 
Moddl Wife—their Mutual Obligations, Privileges, and Duties; The 
Poetry of Love, Courtship, and Marriage—Being a Practical Guide to all 
the Relations of Happy Wedlock. 
Here are some of the contents, compiled from the Index, which give a 
more definite idea of the scope and objects of the work : 
Development and Kenewal of the Social 
Affections; Inordinate Affection ; Function 
of Adhesiveness and Amativeness ; Admi- 
ration not Love; Addresses Declined, 
How to Do It; The Bible on Marriage; 
Matrimonial Bargains ; True Beauty ; 
Celibacy and Health; Celibacy and Crime; 
Marrying for Money; Facts in Relation to 
Consanguineous Marriage—when Permis- 
sible; Law of Conjugal Selection; Conju- 
gal Harmony ; Conjugal Kesemblances of 
Husoands and Wives; Pleasure of Court- 
ship; Confidence in Love; Duty of Cheer- 
fulness; Woman’s Constancy; Laws and 
Remedy for Divorce; Drifting ; Economy; 
Etiquette of Long Engagements; Falling 
in Love; Forbearance; Whom Great Men 
Marry; Girls of the Period ; Housekeep- 
ing ; Good Habits Essential; How to Win 
Love; Honeymoon; The Model Husband: 
Home, How to Make it Happy; Mutual 
Help ; Conjugal Harmony ; Hotel and 
Club Life; Inhabitiveness ; Terrible Effects 
of Morbid Jealousy ; Juliet's Confession ; 
Kisses ; Kate’s Proposal ; Parental Love, 
How to Win it; Declarations of Love; Not 
to be Ashamed of it; Romantic Love; Sec- 
ond Love; Is Love Unchangeable ? Shoul l 
Parents Interfere ? Love-Letters ; Love 
Song; Congratulatory Letter; Little 
Things; Love’s Seasons; Its Philosophy 
Early Marriage among the Ancients ; Mo- 
tives for it; International Marriage; Mar- 
riage Customs; Marriage Defined; Its Le- 
gal Aspects; Marriage Ceremonies in the 
Episcopal, the Roman, and in the Greek 
Churches, Jewish and Quaker; Marriage 
Exhortation ; Prayer ; Hymns ; Ethics of 
Marriage: Health and Marriage; Hasty 
Marriages ; Marriage Maxims; Morganatic 
Marriages; Marrying for a Home, for 
Money, for Love, for Beauty; Bight Motive 
for Marrying; Advice to the Married ; Man 
and Woman Contrasted; Monogamy De- 
fined : Matrimonial Fidelity : Matrimonial 
Politeness; Legal Bights of Married Wom- 
en ; The Mormon System ; Man’s Require- 
ments; The Maiden’s Choice; Letters of 
Napoleon; When to Top the Question; 
Pantagamy at Or.eida Defined; Meddling 
Relatives; Ihysical and Mental Sound- 
ness ; Step-Mothers; The Shakers: Single- 
ness; Sealing; Something to Do ; Wedding 
in Sweden ; Temptations of the Unmarried; 
Hereditary Taints: Temperament; Tri- 
fling; Too Much to Do ; May "Women Make 
Love; Lesson for Wives; Wedding Gifts; 
Wife and I; Yes, How a Lady Said It ; 
Plain Talk with a Young Man: Soliloquy 
of a Young Lady, and much more, covering 
the whole ground of Marriage. A beautiful 
Gift-Book for all seasons. 
The book is handsomely printed and beautifully bound. It was in- 
tended more especially for young people, but may be read with interest 
and with profit by those of every age. Sent by post to any address on receipt 
of price. Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, New I ork. THE 
Science of a New Life. 
B3T TO BELT COWAU, 
A Handsome 8vo volume, containing over 400 pages 
and 300 illustrations. 
A BOOK WELL WORTH POSSESSING BY EVERY 
TIIOUGHTEUL MAN AND WOMAN. 
•‘This book is remarkable for the fund of physiological information contained be- 
tween its covers, nowhere else attainable in its entirety except by those familiar with 
the French books on physiology.”—The Christian at Work. 
“ It seems to us to be one of the wisest and purest and most helpful of those w>oks 
which have been written in recent years, with the intention of teaching men and 
women the truths about their bodies, which are of peculiar importance to the morals 
of society No one can begin to imagine the misery that has come upon the 
human family solely through ignorance upon this subject.”—The Christian Union. 
“The Science of a New Life” has received the highest testimonials and com- 
mendations from the leading medical and religious critics ; has been heartily endorsed 
by all the leading philanthropists, and recommended to every well-wisher of the hu- 
man race. 
To All Who Are Married 
or are contemplating marriage, it will give information worth hundreds of dol- 
lars, besides conferring a lasting benefit not only upon them, but upon their children. 
Every thinking man and woman should study this work. The following is from the 
TABLE OP CONTENTS. 
Marriage and its Advantages ; Age at which to Marry ; The Law of Choice ; Love 
Analyzed ; Qualities the Man Should Avoid in Choosing ; Qualities the Woman Should 
Avoid in Choosing; the Anatomy and Physiology of Generation in Woman; The 
Anatomy and Physiology of Generation in Man ; Amativeness—its Use and Abuse ; 
The Law of Continence; Children : their Desirability; The Law of Genius; The 
Conception of a New Life; The Physiology of Intra-Uterine Growth; Period of 
Gestative Influence ; Pregnancy : its Signs and Duration ; Disorders of Pregnancy; 
Confinement; Management of Mother and Child after Delivery ; Period of Nursing 
Influence ; Foeticide ; Diseases Peculiar to Women ; Diseases Peculiar to Men ; Mas- 
turbation; Sterility and Impotence ; Subjects of which More Might be Said ; A Happy 
Married Life ; How Secured. 
Price, bound in heavy extra English cloth, beveled boards, $3.00; sheep, $3.50; 
half morocco, $4.00. Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. Agents Wanted. 
\ large circular giving Table of Contents and full particulars sent free. Address 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, N. Y FOR GIRLS. A Special Physiology; or. Sup 
PLEMENT TO THE STUDY OF GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. By Mrs 
E. R. Shepherd. i2mo, extra cloth, price, $1.00. 
Yhi following notices of this work are from Representative people, end are c. 
sufficient guarantee as to its nature and value 
Gentlemen I have read “ For Girls” with care, and feel personally obliged tc 
the author for writing a book that is very much needed, and that mothers not only 
can, but ought to place in the hands of their daughters. Mrs. Shepherd has executed 
a difficult task with judgment and discretion. She has said many things which mothers 
find it difficult to say to their daughters, unless forced by some act or circumstances, 
which alas, may prove their warning comes too late. “ For Girls” is free from the 
vices of most works of its kind, it is neither preachy nor didactic. It talks freely and 
familiarly with those it is written to benefit, and some of its counsels would be as well 
teeded by our boys, as our girls. Respectfully yours, 
Mrs. J. C. Croly. 
“Jennie June” says: 
New York, August 8, 1882. 
Mrs. Caroline B. Winslow, M.D., of Washington, D. C., in an editorial in the 
Alpha. says : “ It is a book we most heartily and unreservedly recommend to parents, 
guardians, and friends of young girls to put in the hands of their daughters and their 
wards. It fully supplies a long existing need, and completes the instruction ordinarily 
given in physiology in our high-schools and seminaries. This book is rendered 
more valuable and important, as it treats with perfect freedom, and in a wise, 
chaste, and dignified manner, subjects that are entirely neglected by most teachers ol 
popular physiology None but a woman with a crystalline intellect, and a pure 
loving heart, could have written this clean, thoughtful, and simply scientific description 
of our sexual system, and our moral obligation to study it thoroughly, and guard it 
from any impurity of thought or act, from injury through ignorance, abuse, or misuse. 
It has won our entire and hearty approval, and enlists us as a champion and friend, 
to do all in our power for its sale, not for the pecuniary compensation of its author, but 
more for the lasting good of our girls, who are to be the teachers, wives, mothers, and 
leaders, after we have laid aside our armor and have entered into rest.” 
Drs. S. W. 8c Mary Dodds, physicians, with a large practice in St. Louis, Mo., say : 
“The book ‘ For Girls,’ which we have carefully examined, is a valuable work, much 
needed, and it is difficult to say whether the daughters or their mothers would be most 
benefited by a perusal of it. You will no doubt find ready sale for it, all the more, as 
there is hardly another book yet published that would take the place of it.” 
Mary JeweU Telford, of Denver, Colorado, says : “Mrs. Shepherd has earned the 
title of ‘apostle to the girls.’ No careful mother need hesitate to place this little book 
in her daughter’s hands, and the probabilities are that she will herself learn some help- 
ful lessons by reading it. While there is no attempt made to solve all the mysteries 
of being, what every girl ought to know of her own organism, and the care of what is 
so‘fearfully and wonderfully made,’is here treated in a manner at once practical, 
modest, sensible, and reverent.” 
The Phrenological Journal says : “ A book designed for girls should be written by 
a woman to be perfect; it being understood as a matter of course that she possesses =■ 
thorough familiarity with the subject she discusses. The author of this book indicate, 
an unusual acquaintance with the anatomy and physiology of the feminine organiza- 
tion, also a. ready acquaintance with the other phases of social relationship belonging 
►o woman in her every-day life ; with a more than common discrimination in gleaning 
just such material from general professional experience as is best adapted to tier pur 
poses. The style of the book is clear, simply colloquial, and has nothing garish 
prudish or morbid about it. It is bright without beinj* flippant in thought, agreeable 
reading without awakening anything of the sensual or exciting. It concerns the health 
fulness and the well-being of the girls who are scon to become wives and mother? of the 
world. There is no doubt but what many of the seeds of diseases in women are sowed 
in girlhood, and therefore this book should be placed in the hands of every you:eg 
man, and of every mother of a daughter in the land.” 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, a. I, “It is an Illustrated Cyclopedia.” 
MEW PHYSIOQMOHT; 
UK, 
81 SIS 0f SHAMSTIB, 
As manifested in Temperament and External Forms, and especially 
in the Human Face Divine. 
By fi. R. WELLS, Editor Phrenological Journal. 
Large 12mo, 768 pp. With more than 1,000 Engravings. 
Jliuatrating Physiognomy, Anatomy, Physiology, Ethnology, Phrenol- 
ogy, and Aatural History. 
A comprehensive, thorough, and practical Work, in which all that is 
Known on the subject treated is Systematized, Explained, Illustrated, and Applied. 
Physiognomy is here shown to be no mere fanciful speculation, but a consistent and well- 
considered system of Character-reading, based on the established truths of Physiology 
and Phrenology, and confirmed by Ethnology, a* well as by the peculiarities of individ- 
uals. It Is no abstraction, but something to be made useful; something to be practiced 
by everybody and in all places, and made an efficient help in that noblest of all studies— 
the Study of Man. It is readily understood aud as readily applied. The following are 
some of the leading topics discussed and expla’ned in this great illustrated work 
Prerictm Systems given, including 
those of all ancient and modern writers. 
General Principles of Physiognomy, 
jr the Physiological laws on which charac- 
ter-reading is and must Ik; based. 
Temperaments.—The Ancient Doc- 
trines — Spurzheim's Description — The 
New Classification now in use here. 
Practical Physiognomy. —Gene.r&\ 
Forms of Faces—The Eves, the Month, 
the Nose, the Chin, the Jaws and Teeth, 
the Cheeks, the Forehead, the Hair anc 
Beard, the Complexion, the Neck and 
Ears, the Hands and Feet, the Voice, the 
Walk, the Laugh, the Mode of Shaking 
Hands, Dress, etc., with illustrations. 
Ethnology.—The Races, including the 
Caucasian, the North American Indians, 
the Mongolian, the Malay, and tne African, 
with the:r numerous subdivisions: also 
Nations' Tvuss. each illustrated. 
Physiognomy Applied—'To Marriage, 
to the Training of Children, to Persona. 
Improvement, to Business, to Insanity and 
Idiocy, to Health and Distsase, to CiLsetjO 
and Professions. to Personal Improvement, 
and to Character-Heading generally. Util- 
ity o/ Physiognomy, &elfdmprovement. 
Animal Types. — Grades of Intelli- 
gence, Instinct and Reason — Animal 
Heads and Animal Types among Men 
Graphom ancy.—Character revealed In 
Hand writing, with Specimens—Palmistry. 
“ Line of Life” in the human hand 
Character-Reading. — More than a 
hundred noted Men and Women introduc- 
ed—What Physiognomy says of them. 
The Great Secret.—How to be Healthy 
and How to be Beautiful— Mental Cosmot- 
ics—very interesting, very useful. 
Aristotle and St. Paul.—\ Mode] 
Head— Views of Life — Illustrative Anec- 
dotes—Detecting a Hogue by hie Pace. 
No oi,e con read this Book without Interest, without real profit. " Knowledge Is 
power,” and this is emphatically true of a knowledge of men—of human character He 
who has it is “ matter of the situation and anybody may have it who will, and find in 
it the “ secret of snccees” and the road to the largest personal improvement 
Price, in one large Volume, of nearly 800 pages, and more than 1,000 engravings, oa 
toned paper, handsomely bound In embossed muslin, $6; in heavy calf, m&rblea edges, 
J8; Tin Kiy morocco, full gilt, $10. Agents may do well to canvass for this work. Free 
by poet '’lease addroee, Fowler & Wells Co., 753 Broadway, New York. I^PORT^klTT 
THEIR FEED AND THEIR FEET. 
A Manual of Horse Hygiene, invaluable for the Veteran or the 
Novice, pointing out the Causes of “Malaria,” “Glanders,” “ Pink 
Eye,” “ Distemper,” etc., and How to Prevent and Counteract 
Them. By C. E. Page, M.D., author of “ How to Feed the Baby,” 
“ Natural Cure,” etc., with a Treatise and Notes on Shoeing by Sir 
George Cox and Col. M. C. Weld. Illustrated with Pictures of 
many Famous and Thoroughbred Horses. Nearly 200 pages. 
121110, paper, 50 cents; extra cloth, 75 cents. 
The value of the most of horses to their owners is measured by the 
amount and length of service that can be secured, and therefore all 
nformation relative to his care is very important. This book gives 
m a condensed form much that is valuable on the care of horses, that 
has not before been published. The subject is considered from a 
new and original stand-point, and stated in a plain, practical, com- 
mon-sense manner, showing how by proper care we may add many 
valuable years of life and usefulness to our horses. Unlike many 
books issued on this subject, it does not advertise any medicines. 
Foul Air and Disease in Stable and Home ; j 
BlanketingaSteaming Horse ; How to Trans- 
form a “'eedy” Horse; “Condition” in 
Horses ; Why they go Lame Suddenly ; Flesh 
7/s. Fat; A Soft Horse ; Fatty Degeneration : j 
Hint to Would-be Race-Winners; Two-meal 
System ; Extra Feed ; When Injurious ; Dys- 
pepsia or Indigestion, Symptoms and Cause ; j 
Cause and Cure of “ Pulling ”• The Human ■ 
Puller; “Colds”; What this Disorder really ; 
Is, and How Caused; Prevention of the 
“ Distemper,” Its Cure ; Cold Air not Neces- 
sarily Pure; Hand - Rubbing ivs. Drugs; 
Danger of Medication; Concerning the Useof 
Blanket; Clipping; Eating and Digesting— 
the Difference; Kind of Treatment; Over- 
driving ; Over-work ; A Safe Remedy ; Chest 
Founder ; Chronic Disease, Cause ; Hints j 
relating to Food and Drink ; Sore Back ; j 
Scrofula; Glanders; Kidney Complaints;! 
Relation of “ Condition ” to Reserved Force j 
or Staying Power ; Quantity of Food ; The 
Best feed, Corn on the Cob ; Flatulence ; j 
Cribbing; “Grassing Out”; About the Ap- j 
petite ; Feeding of Road Horses ; What a ; 
PARTIAL LIST OF CONTENTS. 
Father-in-Law Learned ; How a Truckman 
Avoided Lost Time, and Improved the Con- 
dition of his Horse; Trying to “ Make a Horse 
Laugh”; First-class Stables; The Eternal 
“Mash”; Veterinary Practice; Founder; 
“Counter Irritation ” with a Vengeance ; Eat- 
ing the Bedding ; Rules that may be Safely 
Tried ; Check Rein ; Blinders. 
SHOEING.—Ignorance, not Cruelty, to 
Blame for the Horse’s Premature Decay; 
Value of Horse Property ; Normal Age of the 
Horse ; Chief Source of the Horse’s Suffer- 
ing; One Cause and Cure of Swelled Leg' ; 
Unnecessary Work ; Value of Brakes ; Effect 
of Shoe Nails ; “ Inconceivable Cruelty,” as 
defined by Mr. Mayhew ; Running Barefoot 
over Rocky Hills ; Direct and Indirect Bei e- 
fit of Reform ; Everybody but the Blat <- 
smith Benefited; Adequacy of the Natuial 
Foot for all Demands ; Independence of the 
Unshod Horse; French and English and 
Mexican Army Experiences; Col. Weld’s 
Experience; The Experience of Others; 
Speeding without Shoes ; The Training and 
Character of Horses. 
To a new edition just published has been added, as plates, a num- 
ber oi portraits of famous and thoroughbred horses, including ‘Jay- 
Eye-See,” “ Parole,” “ Alcantara,” “ Miss Woodford,” “ Estes,” etc. 
It is safe to say that to every owner of a horse this book would 
prove most valuable. Agents Wanted, to whom Special Terms 
will be given. The price is only 50 cents in paper covers, or hand- 
somely bound in extra cloth, 75 cents. By mail, post-paid. Address 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, N. Y —n NOW READY.«>“ 
FOR 
jmjm® m D^nepEi^. 
A Manual of Hygiene for Woman and the Household. By 
Mrs. E. G. Cook, M.D. i2mo, extra cloth. Price, $1 50. 
This work is written from an experience and large observation ex- 
tending over a quarter of a century. It will, to many who study its 
contents, lighten the hearts made heavy and sad by years of suller- 
ing which has come from ignorance of physical laws. The work 
opens with a chapter on the importance of physical culture, and 
graphic pictures are drawn of the girls of the old New England times 
and those of the fashionable society girls of to-day. The chapter on 
bones is full of suggestions in making a strong frame-work for the 
muscles to clothe, and the education of the muscles considered of 
greater importance (with aids to its accomplishment) than many of 
the so-called “ fine arts,” now held to be, by many of our schools, of 
more importance. Great stress is laid upon the need of selecting 
studies in educating girls as well as boys, with a view to their uses in 
after-life, remembering that wdiat is not put into daily practice is 
soon lost, and instead of perfecting the education in these directions, 
time and money, and shall we add health also, are sacrificed. The 
chapters on the brain and nervous system, the structure and care of 
the skin, hygiene and ventilation, are what every one in the house- 
hold should read, as they are made so plain in the simple style ol 
the author, that children can readily comprehend them. If the 
knowledge which the chapter on bread and butter sets forth was used, 
no one could have dyspepsia. 
The special knowledge which is given to women in order that they 
may understand the various displacements of the uterus and its dis- 
eases, will bring long-sought help to multitudes who shall study and 
practice the teachings given in the chapters devoted to them. The 
feeding of children ; the rights of children, and the evils of a forced 
education are all discussed; and the work is fully illustrated with 
tine engravings. It is safe to predict a great change in the physical 
well-being of all in the near future, if this book can be placed in the 
hands of the mothers and daughters in the land. The times are ripe 
and ready for the knowledge which it contains. It is handsomely 
bound, contains over 300 pages, and would be a richer gift to either 
wife or daughter than gold or diamonds. Sent by mail, on receipt 
of price, $1.50. Agents Wanted. Address 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 
753 Broadway, New York. NOW READY. FIFTH EDITION, REVISED. 
HOW TO FEED 
THE BABY, 
TO MAKE HER HEALTHY AND HAPPY. With Health 
Hints. By C. E. Page, M.D. i2mo, paper, 50cts.; ex., clo., 75 cts. 
Dr. Page has devoted much attention to the subject, both in this coun- 
try and in Europe, noting the condition of children, and then making care- 
ful inquiries as to the feeding, care, etc., and this work is a special record 
of experience with his own child. We know this manual will be welcomed 
by many mothers in all parts of the land, as one of the most vital ques- 
tions with parents is How to feed the baby, to promote its health, its 
growth, and its happiness. In addition to answering the question whal 
to feed the baby, this volume tells how to feed the baby, which is of equal 
importance. 
That the work may be considered worthy of a wide circulation may be 
seen from the fcllowing, selected from many 
notice;s of 
THE PRESS. 
“The book should be read by every 
person who has the care of children, 
especially of infants, and those who have 
the good sense to adopt it* suggestions 
will reap a rich reward, we believe, in peace 
for t hem-elves and comfort for the babies.” 
—Boston Journal of Commerce. 
“We wish every mother and father too 
could read it, as we believe it is founded 
on common-sense and the true rh -ory of 
infantile lifn."- Eve. Farmer, Bridgeport, 
Conn. 
“ ITis treatise ought to be in the hands of 
young mothers particularly, who might 
save themselves a deal of trouble by study- 
ing it ."—Brooklyn Eagle. 
‘Should interest mothers; for it is a 
real 1 j scientific and .sensible solution of 
the problem 01 health and happiness in the 
nursery.”—B ffalo Courier. 
“‘How to Feed the Baby’ought to do 
Soo I if widely read ; for there ca be no 
oubt that thousands of babies die from 
ignorance on this very subject.”—Amer- 
ican Bookseller. 
“It is as odd as its title, and is funny, 
interesting, entertaining, and instructive.” 
— Times, Biddeford, Me. 
“ We know this manual will be welcomed 
by many mother* in aU parts of the land, 
as one of the most important question* 
with parents is how to feed the baby, to 
promote its health, its growth, and its 
happiness.”—Christian Advocate, Buffalo, 
N. Y. 
“Our author makes plain how infantile 
diseases may, in great measure, be avoided, 
and infantile lite made as free and joyous 
as that of the most fortunate among the 
lower animals.”— Central Bap'il. 
“Dr. Page is a benefactor of this age, in 
having made it a special study—the care 
and feeding of the infant.”—People's Jour- 
nal. 
“ If mothers would read this book, we 
think fewer inl'auts would ' make night hid- 
eous’ with their cries.”—Homestead. 
“ • How to Feed the Baby ’ should be 
taken home by every father to the mother 
of his children, if lie values quiet frights, 
and is not inclined to pay he’avy doctors' 
bills, or bring up sickly children.”—Food 
and Health. 
“ It is safe to say that in proportion as 
this hook is circula'ed and its teachings 
fohowed, will the rate of infant mortality 
decrease.”— Christian Standard. 
Will be sent by mail, post-paid, to any address on receipt of price 50 cts 
Address 
lOWLER & WELLS CO., Publisher 
753 Broadway, Sfcw JUST UPTJBXjISIETEID. 
THE MAN WONDERFUL 
IN 
THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 
AN ALLEGORY. 
TEACHING THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE, AND THE EFFECTS 
OF STIMULANTS AND NARCOTICS. 
FOB FTOdVCE BEADING-. 
Also adapted as a Reader for High Schools, and as a Text-book 
lor Grammar, Intermediate, and District Schools. 
BY CHILION B. ALLEN, A.M., LL.B., M.D., AND MARY A. ALLEN, A.B., M.D. 
Fully Illustrated, Extra Cloth, 12mo, Price $1.50. 
A work almost as wonderful as the subject of which it treats. The motive is to teach 
thjit the most beautiful, and, at the same time, the most wonderful thing in nature 
is man ; and no one can read these chapters without feeling that the authors have ac- 
complished their task. 
The book is an allegory in which the body is the “ House Beautiful,” 
and its inhabitant the “Man Wonderful.” The building of the house is 
shown from foundation to roof, and then we are taken through the different rooms, 
and their wonders and beauties displayed to us, and all this time we are being taught 
—almost without knowing it—Anatomy, Physiology', and Hygiene, with practical ap- 
plications and suggestions. 
We are then introduced to the inhabitant of the house, “ The Man Wonderful,” 
and leam of his growth, development, and habits. We also become acquainted with 
the guests whom he entertains, and find that some of them are doubtful acquaint- 
ances, some bad, and some decidedly wicked, while others are very good company. 
Under this form we learn of food, drink, and the effects of narcotics and stimulants. 
The “ Foundations,” which are the bones. The “ Walls ” are the muscles, while the 
shin and hair are called the “ Siding and Shingles.” The head is an “ Observatory,” 
in which are found a pair of “ Telescopes,” and radiating from it are the nerves com- 
pared to a “ Telegraph ” and “ Phonograph.” The communications are kept up with 
the “Kitchen,” “Dining-Room,” “Butler’s Pantry,” “Laundry,” and “Engine.” 
The house is heated by a “ Furnace,” which is also a “ Sugar Manufactory.” Nor is 
the house without mystery, for it contains a number of “Mysterious Chambers.” It 
is protected by a wonderful “ Burglar Alarm,” and watched over by various “ Guard- 
ians.” A pair of charming “Windows” adorn the “Facade,” and a “Whispering 
Gallery” offers a delightful labyrinth for our wanderings. 
In fact, the book is more wonderful than a fairy tale, more intensely interesting 
a romance, and more replete with valuable truths than any book of the present 
day. 
The authors—husband and wife—are both regular physicians, and besides gradu- 
ating in the best schools of America, spent three years under the best instructors in 
Vienna, Paris, and London. 
They have been teachers and know what will aid both teacher and scholar, 
and have kept in mind the fact that many teachers will be called upon to teach 
these subjects who will feel the need of aids, which they will find in the questions, 
which are so arranged with exponents in the text that the lessons are easily compre- 
hended. 
The book will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price, $1.50. Agents wanted, 
to whom special terms will be given. Address 
The Table of Contents by Chapters has these striking subjects: 
FOWLER «fc WELLS CO., Publishers, 
753 Broadway, New York. -A- NEW BOOK. 
HEALTH IN THE HOUSEHOLD; 
OR, 
HYGIENIC COOKERY 
SUSANNA W. DODDS, M.D 
One large i2mo vol., 600 pp., extra cloth or oil-cloth. Price, $2.00. 
The author of this work is specially qualified for her task, as she is both 
a physician and a practical housekeeper. It is unquestionably the best 
work ever written on the healthful preparation of food, and should be in 
the hands of every housekeeper who wishes to prepare food healthfully and 
palatably. The best way and the reason why are given. It is complete in 
every department. To show something of what is thought of this work, we 
:opy a few brief extracts from the many 
“ This work contains a good deal of excellent advice about wholesome food, and 
fives directions for preparing many dishes in a way that will make luxuries for the 
palate out of many simple productions of Nature which are now lost by a vicious cook- 
ery.”— Home Journal. 
“ Another book on cookery, and one that appears to be fully the equal in all respects, 
and superior to many of its predecessors. Simplicity is sought to be blended with 
science, economy with all the enjoyments of the table, and health and happiness with an 
ample household liberality. Every purse and every taste will find in Mrs. Docds’ hook, 
material within its means of grasp for efficient kitchen administration.”—N. Y. Star. 
“ The book can not fail to be of great value in every household to those who will in- 
telligently appreciate the author’s stand-point. And there are hut few who will not con- 
cede that it would be a public benefit if our people generally would become better in- 
formed as to the better mode of living than the author intends.”—Scientific American. 
‘•She evidently knows what she is writing about, and her book is eminently practi- 
cal upon every page. It is more than a hook of recipes for making soups, and pies, and 
cake ; it is an educator of how to make the home the abode of healthful people.”—The 
Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago, III. 
“ The book is a good one, and should be given a place in every well-regulated cuisine." 
— Indianapolis Journal. 
Vs a comprehensive work on the subject of health'ul cookery, there is no other in 
print which is superior, and which brings the subject st clearly and squarely to the un- 
derstanding of an average housekeeper.”— Methodist Recorder. 
‘•In this book Dr. Dodds deals with the whole subject scientifically, and yet has 
made her instructions entirely practical. The book will certainly prove useful, and if 
its precepts could be universally followed, without doubt human life would be consider- 
ably lengthened.”—Springfield Union. 
“Here is a cook-book prepared by an educated lady physician. It seems to be a 
very sensible addition to the voluminous literature on this subject, which ordinarily has 
Iktle reference to the hygienic character of the preparations which are described.”— 
Zion's Herald. 
“ This one seems to us to be most sensible and practical, while yet based upon scien 
tific principles—in short, the best. If it were in every household, there would be far less 
misery in the world.”—South and West. 
“There is much good sense in the book, and there is plenty of occasion for attacking 
the ordinary methods of cooking, as well as the common style of diet.”—Morning Star. 
“ She sets forth the why and wherefore of c okery, and devotes the larger poition of 
the work to those articles essential to good blood, strong bodies, and vigorous minds.”— 
New Haven Register. 
The work will be sent to any address, by mail, post-paid, on receipt of 
price, $2.00. Agents Wanted, to whom special terms will be given. Send 
for terms. Address 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, New York. BRAIN and KZmSTO; 
OR, 
MENTAL SCIENCE CONSIDERED IN ACCORDANCE 
WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF PHRENOLOGY, 
AKD 
IN RELATION TO MODERN PHYSIOLOGY. 
Bj Henry S. Drayton, A.M.,M.D., and James McNeill, A.B. Illustra- 
ted with over 100 Portraits and Diagrams. i2mo, extra cloth, $1.50. 
This contribution to the science of mind has been made in response to the demand 
of the time for a work embodying the grand principles of Phrenology, as they are 
understood and applied to-day by the advanced exponents of mental philosophy, who 
accept the doctrine taught by Gall, Spurzheim, and Combe. 
The following, from the Table of Contents, shows the scope of the work: 
General Principles; Of the Temperaments ; Structure of the Brain and Skull; 
Classification of the Faculties ; The Selfish Organs ; The Intellect; The 
Semi-Intellectual Faculties ; The Organs of the Social Functions; The 
Selfish Sentiments ; The Moral and Religious Sentiments ; How to Ex- 
amine Heads ; How Character is Manifested ; The Action of the Facul- 
ties ; The Relation of Phrenology to Metaphysics and Education ; Value 
of Phrenology as an Art; Phrenology and Physiology ; Objections and 
Confirmations by the Physiologists; Phrenology in General Literature. 
NOTICES OE 
T3E3E3E 3?BLESS. 
“ Phrenology is no longer a thing laugh- 
ed at. The scientific researches of the 
last twenty years have demonstrated the 
fearful and wonderful complication of 
matter, not only with mind, but with 
what we call moral qualities. Thereby, 
we believe, the divine origin of ‘ our 
frame’ has been newly illustrated, and 
the Scriptural psychology confirmed ; and 
in the Phrenological Chart we are dispos- 
ed to find a species of ‘urim and thum- 
mim,’ revealing, if not the Creator’s will 
concerning us, at least His revelation of 
essential character. The above work is, 
without douDt, the best popular presenta- 
tion of the science which has yet been 
made. It confines itself strictly to facts, 
and is not written in the interest of any 
pet 1 theory.’ It is made very interesting 
by its copious illustrations, pictorial and 
narrative, and the whole is brought down 
to the latest information on this curious 
and suggestive department of knowl- 
edge.”—Christian Intelligencer, N. Y. 
“Whether a reader be inclined to be- 
lieve Phrenology or not, he must find the 
volume a mine of interest, gather many 
suggestions of the highest value, and rise 
from its perusal with clearer viewW of the 
nature of mind and the responsibilities of 
human life. The work constitutes a com- 
plete text-book on the subject.”—Presby- 
terian Journal, Philadelphia. 
“ In ‘ Brain and Mind ’ the reader will 
find the fundamental ideas on which Phre- 
nology rests fully set forth and analyzed, 
and the science clearly and practically 
treated. It is not at all necessary for the 
reader to be a believer in the science to 
enjoy the study of the latest exposition of 
its methods. The literature of the science 
is extensive, but so far as we know there 
is no one book which so comprehensively 
as ‘.Brain and Mmd ’ defines its limits and 
treats of its principles so thoroughly, not 
alone philosophically, but also in their 
practical relation to the everyday life of 
man.”—Cal. Advertiser. 
In style and treatment it is adapted to the general reader, abounds with valuable in- 
struction expressed in clear, practical terms, and the work constitutes by far the test 
Text-book on Phrenology published, and is adapted to both private and class study. 
The illustrations of the Special Organs and Faculties are for the most part from 
portraits of men and women whose characters are known, and great pains have been 
.aken to exemplify with accuracy the significance of the text in each case. For the 
student of mind and character the work is of the highest value. By mail, post- 
paid, on receipt of price, $1.50. Address, 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, N. Y. THE OH1 UELSOIT SIZES. 
A Great Book for Young People] 
* CHOICE OP PURSUITS; or, What to Do and Wliy,” describing 
Seventy-five Trades and Professions, and the Temperaments and Talents required 
foi each ; with Portraits and Biographies of many successful Thinkers and Workers. 
By Nelson Sizek, Associate Editor of the “ Phrenological Journal,” Vice Presi- 
dent of, and Teacher in, the “American Institute of Phrenology,” etc. lime, extra 
cloth, 508 pp. Price, $1.75. 
This work till? a place attempted by no other. Whoever has to earn a living bv 
labor of head or hand, can not afford to do without it 
“ 'Choice or Pursuits ; or, What to do 
and Why ' is a remarkable book. The author 
has attained a deserved eminence as a de- 
lineator ol character. We have given it a 
careful reading and fee] warranted in say- 
ing that it is a book calculated to do a vast 
deal of good."—Boston Commonwealth. 
“The title is startling, but it is indie itive 
of the contents of the book itself ; the work 
is a desideratum.”—Inter-Ocean (Chicago.) 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
‘‘It presents many judicious counsels. 
The main purpose of the writer is to prevent 
Piistakes in the choice of a profession. His 
remarks on the different trades are oiten 
highly original. The tendency of this vol- 
ume is to increase the reader's respect for 
human nature.”—New York Tribune. 
“ The design of this hook is to indicate 
to every man his proper work, and to edu- 
cate him for it.”—Albany Evening Journal. 
A New Book for Parents and Teachers. 
“HOW TO TEIOH ACCORDING TO TEMPERAMENT AND 
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT,” or, Phrenology in the School-room and the Family 
With many Illustrations. lStno, extra cloth, 351 pasres. Price, $1.50. 
Oue of the greatest difficulties in the training of children arises from not understand- 
ing their temperament and disposition. This work points out clearly the constitutional 
differences, and how to make the most of each. 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
‘‘The purpose of this work is to aid par- 
ents and teachers to understand the talents 
dispositions, and temperaments of those un- 
dur their guidance. This opens a new field 
to the consideration of the teacher. The text 
is attractive and a valuable contribution to 
educational literature. It should be in 
the library of every parent and teacher.”— 
New England Journal of Eduoatlm 
“This is an entirely new feature _n a 
book intended for the use of teachers, and 
must prove of great advantage to them. 
The text is written in a manner which 
must attract every reader.”— 'The Methodist. 
‘•No teacher should neglect to read this 
well-written contribution to the cause of 
education.”—Christian }n*truct>>r. 
" It abounds in valuable suggestions and 
counsels derived from many years experi- 
ence, which can not fail to be of service to 
all who are engaged in the business of edu- 
cation. The subject is treated in a plain, 
familiar manner, and adapted to reading in 
the family as well as in the study of the 
teacher.”—New Ywk Tribune. 
“ There is a great deal of good sense in 
the work, and all teachers wdl be glad to 
welcome it.”—The Commonwealth, Boston. 
.A. WEW book: bob. EVERYBODY I 
FORTY YKAIiS IN PHRENOLOGY: Embracing Recollections of History, 
Anecdote, and Experience. 12mo, extra cloth, 413 pages. Price, $1.50. 
In this work we have a most interesting record of the author’s recollections and ex- 
periences during more than forty years as a Practical Phrenologist. The volume is 
filled with history, anecdotes, aud incidents, pathetic, witty, droll, and startling. Every 
page sparkles with reality, and is packed with fads too good to be lost. This book will be 
warmly welcomed by every reader, from the boy ot twelve to the sage of eighty years. 
THOIILIITS ON DOMESTIC LIFE) or, Marriage Vindicated and 
Free Love Excused. 12ino. Paper, 25 cents. 
This work contains a sharp analysis of the sociul nature, in some respects qat*.« 
original. Sent by mail, post paid, to any address. Agents wanted. Address 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 7o3 Broadway, New York. A Clioice of Premiums. 
The Phrenological Chart. 
A handsome symbolical Head, made from new 
and special drawings designed for the purpose. 
The pictorial illustrations show the location of 
each of the phrenological organs, and th ir natural 
language. The Head is about twelve ins. wide, 
handsomely lithographed in colors and on heavy 
plate paper 19 x 24 ins., properly mounted, with 
rings for hanging, or may be framed, and will be 
very attractive wherever it is seen. Price, $1.00. 
Is given to each subscriber, or the Bust Premium. 
The I*liren©logical itust. 
This Bust is made of Plaster of Paris, and so 
lettered as to show the exact location of each of 
the Phrenological Organs. The head is nearly 
life-size, and very ornamental, deserving a place 
on the centre-table or mantel, in parlor, office, or 
study. This, with the illustrated key which ac- 
companies each Bust, should be in the hands of 
all who would know “Howto Read Character.” 
Price, $1.00, or given as a Premium to each yearly 
subscriber to the Journal, or we will send the 
Chart Premium. 
THE 
Is widely known in America and Europe, having been before the reading world fifty years, 
and occupying a place in literature exclusively its own, viz., the study of Human Nature 
in all its phases, including Phrenology, Physiognomy, Ethnology, Physiology, etc., to- 
gether with the “Science of Health,” and no expense will be spared to make it the 
best publication for general circulation, tending always to make men better physically, 
mentally, and morally. Parents and teachers should read the Journal, that they may bet- 
ter know how to govern and train their children. Young people should read the Journal, 
that they may make the most of themselves. It has long met with the hearty approval 
of the press and the people. 
IV. Y. Times says: “The Phrenological 
Journal proves that the increasing years of a 
periodical is no reason for its lessening its en- 
terprise or for diminishing its abundance of in- 
teresting matter. If all magazines increased in 
merit as steadily as The Phrenological Jour- 
nal, they would deserve in time to show equal 
evidences of popularity.” 
Christian Union says : “ It is well known as 
a popular storehouse for useful thought. It 
teaches men to know themselves, and coi - 
stantly presents matters of the highest interest 
to intelligent readers, and has the advantage of 
having always been not only 1 up with the 
times." but a little in atinance. Its opularity 
shows the result of enterprise and brains.” 
TERMS.—The Journal is published monthly at $2.co a year, or 20 cents a 
Number. To each yearly subscriber is given either the Bust or Chart Premium described 
above. When the Premiums are sent, 15 cents extra must be received with each sub- 
scription to pay postage on the JOURNAL and the expense of boxing and packing the 
Bust, which will be sent by express, or No. 2, a smaller size, or the Chart Premium, will 
be sent by mail, post-paid. 
Send amount in P. O. Orders, P. N., Draits on New York, or in Registered Letters. 
Postage-stamps will be received. Agents Wanted. Send 10 cents for specimen Num- 
ber, Premium List, Posters, etc. Address 
FOWLER & WELLS CO., Publishers, 753 Broadway, New York