KZSw 7884 :s£aasas?.j i^9.T?.5£'. .^KSRSBSZSBPSSEfi i I @ > ^/^ :"y'-;rir.-B3BsSa E.*ii££i'i4'iii5f'KSSJS&SBfec! NLM 00561072 5 SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE LIBRARY. r£* Section.....—----------- NO.JJJJM-. uiiiP' No. 113, W. D.S.G.O. 3—513 NLM005810725 WHY WOMEN DIE IN CHILDBIRTH. A TREATISE UPON THE PROPER CARE OF THE MOTHER AFTER CHILDBIRTH, AND OF THE NEW BORN CHILD. BY MELVILLE C. KEITH, M. D. Honorary Member of the Indiana State Physio-Medical Association. Member of the American Association of Physio-Medical Physicians and Surgeons. W4- Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, By Melville C. Keith, M. D., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. CONTENTS. PAGE. PAGE. 22 After-pains, Remedies for 161 Average Weight of Child, 14 A Neees-ary Supply,. 169 A Whiskey Nurse, . 106 Advice About Teeth, . 167 A Clean, Healthy Child, . 102 Best Uterine Stimulant, . 124 A Meddlesome Midwife, 72 Blundell on Violence, 132 A New Point, 79 Bedside of Woman, . 19 A Fatal Mistake, 68 Bearing Down, . 32 A Tribute of Praise, . 71 Births, Quick, 30 Advice, Concluding . . 176 Breech Presentation, 39 A question for Church People, 47 Blood of Mother, 65 Absorbing the Moisture, 41 Boivin, Madam's Two Cases, 92 Anxious First Stage, . 36 Boy's Weight, 14 African Childbirth, . 18 Born Dead, .... 35 American Childbirth, 18 Capillaries..... 62 A Lady to be Confined, 23 Changes of Blood, 65 Child's Cry, .... 67 Amnion Amnii, . . 146 Cephalic End of Embryo, 64 A Belie of Barbarism, . 129 Choleric Hog Soap, . 102 Adhesion of Placenta, . 150 Cause of Sore Eyes, . 102 After-treatment, . . 157 Cord, How to Wrap, . 101 4 CONTENTS. PAGE. Causes of Dizziness,. . 109 Cause of Sore Breasts, . 175 Causes of Decayed Teeth, 167 Cause of Ovarian Tumors, 161 Cause of Adhered Placenta, 154 Cause of Woman's Decay, 174 Cause of Life, . . .143 Case of Twins, . Crede's Method of Detaching Placenta, Chapman on Placenta, Conception, Child Viable, Childbirth, . Change in Child, Change of Liver, Color of Child, . Consumption of N. E., its Cause, . Chorion, Case of Inexperience, Child's Body, Care of Child when born, Cruel Methods, . Consideration of Pain, Completion of First Stage, Case for Patience, Child's Clothes, . Child's Food, choice of, Child, Nourishment of, Child, Quick Nursing of, Child's Crying, Why, Child's Crying, Remedies for,173 Child's Colic, Remedies for, 173 Curtis on Afterbirth, . 125 Celsus on Dead Children, 128 Denman on Placenta, . 132 Detachment of Placenta, 131 24 120 130 11 12 16 67 77 146 52 58 60 44 47 30 35 20 27 147 162 172 PAGE. Dunglison's Stages of Labor, 16 Diaper Pins, . . 21-105 Detrimental Food . . 27 Drugs, their Results, . 49 Drunken Doctor, . . 50 Deformed Pelvis, . . 12 Dizziness, Causes of . . 109 Dizziness, Remedy for* . 170 Dewees on Separation of Cord.....104 Dewees on Meddling, . 60 Disease of Heart. Why, 83 Errors of All Schools, . 139 Eclectics, . . . 40-140 Experience of Author, . 23 Expulsion of Child, . . 55 Ears and Eyes of Child, . 75 Ezekiel, .... 84 Eustachian Valve, . . 66 Erroneous Teachings, . 69 Effect of Long Nursing, . 174 Flooding, Remedies for . 158 Fatal Mistake, . . .113 Foramen Ovale, ... 66 Finger Nails, ... 89 First Drink, ... 100 Four Plain Rules, . . 97 Forty-seven Pains, . . 47 Foolish Child from Ergot, 33 Flow of Waters, . . 33 First Stage of Labor, . 35 Facts not Known, . 125-127 First Idea of this Book, . 137 Golden Words, ... 27 Habits of Nations, . . 83 History.....128 Hunter, Dr. . . .130 How to Freserve Teeth, . 169 CONTENTS. 5 PAGE. How to Bandage, . . 157 How to Stop Flooding, . 100 How to Wash Child, . . 102 How to Dress Child, . . 103 How to Wrap Navel Cord, 104 Ho v to Treat Placenta, . Ill How to Compute Time, . 13 How to Produce Boy, . 15 How to Produce Girl, . 15 How to Lay New Born Child, 60 How to Tie Navel Cord, . 90 How to tell a good Surgeon, 91 How to have Baby Strong, 49 How to Act at Birth, 52-59 How not to Act at Birth, . 38 How to Fix a Bed, . . 20 Hebrew Women, . . 19 Hunchbacks, Why, . . 4 s Homoeopathy, ... 50 Hippocrates' Rule, . 80 Hydroperione, ... 39 Holoblastic Ovum, . 163 Ignorance of Doctors, . 18 Ingleby on Hemorrhage, . 136 Improper Treatment, . 117 Insurance, None on Woman, 121 Importance of First Breath, 63 Injections to Bowels, Indian Women, . J. W. Draper, Kneeling Down, Killing Women, . Keeping Mouth Free, Lady to be Confined, Little Gushes of Water, Lincoln Lady's Boast, Laws of the Sexes, . Last Objection, . 30-170 19 71 43 32 59 23 40 45 PAGE. Long Nursing, . . .174 My Custom, . . . 22 Meigs on Vomiting, . . 29 Meigs on First Stage, . 35 Meigs on Pain, ... 48 Meigs on Cord around Neck, 55 Meigs on Chloroform, . 45 Meigs on Cutting Cord, . 58 My Own School, . . 138 Meddlesome Midwifery, . 38 Marshall on Circulation, . 147 Mammalia Placentas, . 148 Muscular Fibres, . . 64 Nausea, .... 30 Necessity for being Right, 82 New England Consumption, 84 Nursing Child, . . 101-112 Nourishment of Child, . 147 Nuts for Teeth, . Old and New Mistakes, Opium Syrups, . Our Sisters, One Hundred Placentas, Objection the Last, Placental Attachments, Physio-Medical School, Protecting Bed, . Physician's Refuge, . Permanent Stimulant, Pains Natural, . Proof of our Propositions Preparation for Navel Premature Birth, Parturition, Prout, Lee & Co., Poorer Classes, . Quickening, Ruysch, Dr. 169 41 173 166 148 152 122 40-141 20 26 31 45 82 91 69 16 121 151 13 130 6 CONTENTS. PAGE. PAGE. Ramsbotham on Placenta, 135 Sore Breasts, . . 164-175 Ramsbotham on Pain, 131 Sitting Up, . 164 Ramsbotham on Labor, . 37 Speculation, 14 Ramsbotham on Delivery, 52 Seven Months Child, . 13 Ramsbotham's Mistakes, 81 Tremors, 28 Ramsbotham's Stages of Two Pounds of Blood, Y2 Labor..... 17 The Doctor's Whims, 83 Robbing a Child, 72 The other Children, . 85 Rule for Sound Child, 80 The Good Sign, . 88 Rule for Correct Tying, 92 Tying Navel Cord, 90 Reflections upon Midwives, 98 The First Breath, 62 Roberts' Midwifery, . 119 True Way, 68 Rash or Heat, 173 Third Stage of Labor, 107 Regular Pains, . 31 The Danger Note, 114 Remedy for Constipation, 170 Time of Waiting, 155 Remedy for Red Urine, 170 Unfortunate Victims, 142 Remedy for Scalding Urine, 171 Unlucky Women, 60 Remedy for Children's Chaf esl72 Why Children Die, . 80 Remedy for Sore Breasts, 175 Washing the Child, . 99 Remedy for Rash or Heat 172 Why not Use Soap, 100 Remedy for Sleeplessness 170 What Mother Needs, 60 Remedy for Flooding, 160 What the Doctor Does, 109 Remedy for After-pains, 161 Why Women Die in Child Second Knot, 95 birth, 156 Some History, 128 Why Women Lose Teeth, 166 Second Stage, 28 Why Child's Nose One Sid e, 173 Spasms, 28 Why Pains are Prolonged , 19 Serious Mistakes, 39 Young Merchant's Wife, 137 Separation of Cord, . 104 PREFACE. Thousands of women die annually in child- birth. Thousands of families are left desolate and heartbroken by the sudden death of the young mother, who leaves an infant a few days old to the care and solicitude of relatives or strangers. So uncertain is the tenure of existence in a woman that the great Life In- surance Companies of America state publicly that: ' lJVb risks zuill be taken on the life of a female" In the meanwhile scores of colleges are turning out graduates in medicine to practice upon unprotected families the false teachings and errors of their schools. These errors are many and fatal. How fatal these errors are maybe seen by attention to the "fortune," "luck," or skill of young professionals in their first cases of childbirth. How these false teachings of medical schools affect the welfare 8 PREFACE. of the community may be inferred by the mul- titudes of weakly women after childbearing ; by the complaints of the patients visiting every medical practitioner's office. Complaints of every description and in the very large major- ity of cases arising from improper treatment in childbed. These errors I shall allude to in a future chapter. But, if the errors of the schools are in a de- gree fatal, stupidity or ignorance, and the as- sumption of a knowledge of medical and sur- gical science by a set of men, who never saw the inside of a college, who never had a mo- ment's experience, until they assumed the name of "Doctor"; men who to-day practice under the thin guise of "homoeopathy" or spir- itualism, ignorant of the human body, igno- rant of chemistry, ignorant of the therapeutic, medical, chemical or physiological effects which are produced by the poisons they are habitually dealing out; I say, that if the errors of the schools are fatal, then the errors of stupid ignorance under the thin veil of homoe- opathic quackery is the more to be deplored, avoided and shunned. The writer asserts, that there should be no more danger in child-bearing than during the menstrual period. Childbirth is as much a process of natural law as menstruation. It is PREFACE. 9 true that a deformed pelvis, a monster at par- turition, or an unnatural birth demands surgi- cal skill of the highest order; but in ordinary cases there is no more need of manual inter- ference in childbirth than there is of interfer- ence in any other mammalian parturition. The great fault lies in the gross and deplora- ble ignorance of the women themselves. If they knew of the natural laws, no meddlesome midwife, no fond and foolish mother would cry out for something to help her dear daughter during the necessary pains of childbirth. This ignorance of young mothers is from two causes: First. Because it is not fashionable to learn of the body. Second. Because of the high price of standard works on midwifery and child-bearing. To the first objection there is really no answer. Fashion is a despot whose slaves obey with- out reason or thought. The writer is not wasting time for slaves or fools. The second cause of ignorance is endea- vored to be overcome by the low price of this work and by a succinct, plain statement of what not to do, as well as of how to proceed during the birth of a child, so as to have both mother and child in good health. The writer believes such a book is needed in the west. He has performed the task to the best of his 10 PREFACE. ability in the midst of a busy practice demand- ing every energy, mental and physical. Fi- nally, to those who are desirous of knowing more fully of childbirth or human parturition the writer advises a perusal of Ramsbotham, Playfair, and Meigs on midwifery. These books are published by Henry C. Lea, of Philadelphia, and are standard works and au- thorities of the world upon this subject. THE AUTHOR. Lincoln, Neb., September 16th, 1880. WHY WOMEN DIE IN CHILDBIRTH, CHAPTER I. PREGNANCY. Childbirth is the result of pregnane}'. Preg- nancy, or gestation, or being with child, is the result of conception. Conception is the result of a sexual congress between male and female in which the spermatozoon of the male finds a lodgment in the ovum of the female, and the ovum becomes attached to the uterus or its ap- pendages. There are two kinds of pregnancy. Normal or natural pregnancy in which the ovum is attached to the uterus and grows in the uterus. 12 PREGNANCY. Abnormal, or unnatural pregnancy, in which the ovum is attached, to ovary (ovarian preg- nancy) , or where the ovum is attached to the Fallopian tube (tubular pregnancy). Natural childbirth occurs where the . child has been carried in the uterus until the full time of gestation has passed, (two hundred and eigh- ty days), and the female is of natural form and has a well formed child. Unnatural births are those in which the pel- vis is deformed ; or where the child is a mon- ster (as a child with two heads, extra arms or legs, etc). There is no childbirth with tubular pregnan- cy, nor with ovarian pregnancy. The pains of labor ( ?) come on prematurely and the child invariably dies. If the ovum is ruptured the mother will die. If the child dies in its sac the dead body of the child may remain in the liv- ing body of its mother for twenty years.— Ramsbotham, London. From conception until birth there will prob- ably elapse two hundred and eighty days, or nine months. A child is said to be "viable," or able to live, at seven months. Instances have occurred where children have lived after being carried only six months. That is where the child is born six months, or one hundred and eighty days after PREGNANCY. 13 conception. Only a few cases are on record, and a child born at the sixth month is unlike- ly to live. Children can live any time after the sev- enth month of pregnancy. An eight months' child is as liable to live as a seven months' child. There is no reason for the popular superstition that an eight months' child cannot live. " Quickening,"' or " feeling life " and " mo- tion," is the time that the child is in the uterus, and the uterus rises in the abdomen. " Life is felt" much earlier in some women than others. Usually it takes place at the fourth month, and the time of childbirth is reckoned from this time. It is not an accurate data, for, as be- fore stated, it occurs at different periods in differ- ent women. The time elapsing from conception to birth is more accurately reckoned as follows : Add six davs to the date of last menstrual period and count nine calendar months thus : Date of men- strual period July i. Add six days, makes Ju- ly 7. Count nine months, August, Septem- ber, October, November, December, January, February, March, April 7, the day the child will probably be born. Much speculation has been indulged in as to the cause of the variations in times of pregnan- cy as many women carry their children longer 14 PREGNANCY. than the two hundred and eighty days. The national laws of France and England recog- nize the fact that a woman may carry her child three hundred days from the period of concep- tion. The probable reason of the difference be- tween the number of days in which one wom- an may carry her child is this: At first both spermatozoon and ovum are very small, but the ovum is comparatively larger. On or about the ninth month, the child having grown so as to be relatively the largest, takes up into its gen- eral circulation more blood than is held by the placenta, and this forms a cause of contraction of the uterus, resulting in labor. In other words, when the child grows large enough to hold more blood than the placenta can furnish to it, the blood is drawn downwards to the child and emptying the placenta causes the womb to commence its contractions, which are the beginning of labor. This is of course a speculative reason, but one which will account for many hitherto unexplained phenomena of the parturient woman. That an intimate re- lation must existbetween the size of the healthy placenta and a child supported by and grow- ing from that placenta, will not be denied. When a child is born it weighs from five to nine pounds. A boy will average eight pounds, PREGNANCY. 15 a girl seven pounds. The weight of a child is less a few days after birth than directly at birth. Then it commences to gain in weight and so continues until teething; thence until twenty years of age, provided no untoward accident occurs to prevent. Differences of sexes can be produced by un- derstanding the natural laws. If sexual intercourse produces conception di- rectly after the time of the cessation of the menses, or within fve days after the menses haze ceased, a girl will be the result. If six days have elapsed between the period and sexual congress the result of the concep- tion will be a boy. In other words. Sexual congress directly after the menses have ceased, and up to the fifth day produces a female. After the sixth day a male. This rule with some modifica- tions of time holds good in all the mammalia. CHAPTER II. PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. Parturition (from Parere, to bring forth), childbirth, lying-in, delivery, and "being put to bed," are terms used to indicate the last part of gestation, or child-bearing, and de- scribe that period of time when the child leaves the mother's womb for the air. It is also described as labor, and divided -by some authors into six stages, by others into four, and by those of later date into three or two. Dunglison makes four stages. The first when the "show" approaches and the labia enlarge, with trifling, grinding pains in the loins or abdomen. The second stage is peculiar pains from lumbar regions towards the uterus, and break- ing of the bag of water. PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 17 Third stage the head settles into the pelvis, and is presented at the vulva. At the fourth stage the child is expelled. Delivery is completed oy the exphiision of the secundines (afterbirth and membranes). Ramsbotham, an eminent medical authority of England, divides labor into three stages. First — When the pains come on and the uterus commences to contract with the regular pains of labor. Second—When the head settles into the pelvis, and third, when the secundines are ex- pelled. This division is also followed by many authors at the present writing. Properly speaking, childbirth is an effort of nature to expel a child and its dependencies. It is acknowledged, in civilized society, to be the most trying ordeal of a woman's life. "Pangs of childbed," "women in labor," "the sorrows of travailing women," are familiar ex- pressions, and are popularly supposed to be entailed upon all women because Eve ate the apple, and was told "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth thy children." And it would be difficult to find a place where an equal amount of superstition and ignorance gather than at the bed of childbirth. Even the most fastidious and intellectual ladies of 18 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. the coritinent of America are content to remain in ignorance of themselves, and the coming child. We smile at the barbarism of the Afri- can who attaches a human skull above her ly- ing-in couch of skins, or hires the fetiche man to drive away the evil spirits. But the differ- ence between the refined lady who takes chlo- roform or ether and goes through the process of parturition dead drunk, and "permanently injures the mentality of her child," and the un- tutored African is not so wide as it would seem to be at the first thought. The difficulty in overcoming this culpable ignorance lies in the lack of education among the females themselves. Here and there may be found a husband who is really innately careless of the well being of his wrife; but in general, in the struggle for existence and the fierce competition in all business circles, the husband thinks he does well if he can provide for the house, and this matter of childbearing is left with the women "who in their turn leave it to the "doctor," who in too many cases is entirely ignorant of the subject from experi- ence and trusts to what he may glean from his "hand-book for physicians," cheap, useless and often replete with theories rather than facts; and what he may chance to remember of his course of lectures while at college. Too often PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 19 the regular Doctor is a regular drunkard, and his brain under the influence of alcohol com- mits the most cruel and fatal mistakes. When women learn the facts for themselves and learn also that at the bedside of childbirth is the place for an educated woman and not the place for a man midwife we shall hear of fewer casualites and heartrending '• accidents."' But until the women learn personally, and un- til the young lady is as desirous of being taught as is the voung man, we shall have man midwives. Xor can it be asserted that childbirth is al- ways dangerous or painful. The Hebrew women "were livelv" (Exodus I—19), "and were delivered ere the midwives came in to them."' The Indians of the American conti- nent are rarely an hour in labor; and they us- ually wash and dress their children the same hour. This is quite different from the usual routine of child-bearing. "Two days," "a week," "twenty-four hours" are commonly the times stated by women who have suffered the unnecessary protraction of these "labor pains." This is wrong. As previously stated, prepa- ration for the coming childbirth should be taken during the preceding nine months, and with this preparation we may confidently be- lieve that by far the greater number of labors 20 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. will be shortened, the pains comparatively re- moved, and the chances for the life of the child and mother increased. In the time of parturition the bed should not be composed of feathers, hair or moss. A well stuffed straw bed is best. This should be covered by some thicknesses of quilts or blan- kets and again protected by a rubber at least a yard square, and better if two yards by one and a quarter yards wide. Over this a sheet may be placed if the weather is warm, or a blanket if the weather is cool. If the bedstead is a modern slat, or framed with iron sockets, it should be looked at previous to confinement to secure it against letting the young mother suddenly upon the floor. In America the doc- tor or midwife expects to be seated so that the right hand can be used. Warm water, soap, towels, napkins, sweet oil, and soft cloths (to absorb the "waters"), should be ready for use. If it is cool weather the child's clothes should be well aired, and hung on the back of a chair. It is best, also, to have a skein of surgeon's silk, white, ready to tie the cord, and to pro- vide a pair of blunt pointed scissors. There should be a soft, clean and dry piece of linen ready for the surgeon's or midwife's hand, to wipe the child's mouth the moment, aye the second, that the mouth is in the world. Call PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 21 this the mouth cloth and keep it dry, separate and clean, away from everything else. Or, if this is not convenient, have an old, soft, linen handkerchief and keep it for this purpose. Know where it is and be ready to hand it to the midwife or doctor upon the instant. Diaper pins should be guarded. So also the belly-band pins. Do not allow any pins about the child but what are guarded at the points. A case is on record where "A pin in a child's cap had penetrated the anterior font- anelle (the open place that apparently pulsates on the top of the head, between the skull bones) and although they had a distinguished medical adviser present they did not know what distressed the child until it died." I have several times seen sleepy headed nurses stick a pin through the skin of the belly, and pin the skin to the belly-band during the first few days of life. It seems almost incredible, and I could not have realized the fact unless I had seen it and relieved the child myself out o«f its horrible torture. Have all the pins guarded. See to this before the child is born. It is also well for the expectant mother to have a number of old pieces of cloth near the bed so that the moisture ca"n be taken up im- mediately when the waters break or to be used in case of flooding. 22 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. It is also my custom to have an old flannel skirt or a yard square of clean, dry, well \vashed fannel to lay the child on as it is born. I do this because in my practice the child has to lay some moments, and it is best to have the child on something which can be a cover to the child, and is at the same time clean, soft and dry. I prefer an old clean woollen skirt or one of the father's woollen shirts, although any piece of woollen that is clean, well washed and dry answers the purpose as well. It is much better to think of these things and pre- pare for them before birth than be unable to find them afterwards, and in this matter there is quite a time ahead, but all is hurry during the expulsion of the child. During the first stage of labor the appetite is usually deficient, or entirely lost. Food should not be crammed down the throat "to keep the strength up" as some assert. A cup of tea, a bowl of light soup, or a slice of toast is sufficient. Meats, eggs, cheese, potatoes, are better out of the stomach. JVature will need all her energies to expel the child, and not spare any time or blood to digest and assimilate loads of food. As for the absurd statement of "keeping up the strength" it should be abolished. The strength is already in the system, and Nature will use it as she PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 23 sees fitting and proper. If nature does not demand food, it is evident that the body does not need it, and therefore it should not be forced down to gratify a bystander's whim. The lady who is about to be confined should have one confidential friend in whom she can confide. One who is not a gossip, nor a croaker. A lean woman dressed in black is always an object of suspicion. A fat fool is to be shunned. Don't have any one whose breath smells badly, nor one who does not brush her teeth and keep her finger nails clean. Get a lady ; if possible, one who has some little knowledge and courage for you and the child to come. Better be without any one than have a pug-nosed cry baby, a drinking brute, a woman with a mouthful oi tombstones, a snuff dipper or a black robed mourner ready to cry or scold on the first prov- ocation. This world is too fast and too hard for that breed to do any good for you or the child. • I am led to make these remarks from a some- what bitter experience with the classes named. For example : I was sitting in my office when Mr. — rushed in excitedly and exclaimed, " For God's sake come down to my house !" On reaching the room I found Mrs. — in the first stage of labor induced by falling from a 24 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. chair on a bed where she had been trying to nail a piece of board over an aperture in the ceiling. She was a few days over eight months in her pregnancy. A lean croaker sat by and frequently made the cheering remark that "it was such a pity, as eight-month's children never lived." I had a nurse obtained, but when the nurse came it seemed that I had changed the witch for a devil, as she added the " experience and authority" as to the inability of eight- month children to ever live and become any- thing. The pains kept on, however, and the child was born alive. I paid extra attention to the prolongation of the time the child should lay on the right side, but the cord was very short and it ceased beating almost as soon as respiration was established. Placing my hand upon the abdomen I discovered another child in the womb. I tied the cord securely, wrapped it up in flannel and handed it to the croaker with the voluntary remark that it would seem to be in no wise different from a nine- month's child, rather small perhaps, but that I would insure the life if well nursed. The nurse whom I will call Mrs. Croaker, because that was not her name, took the child to the kitchen, and the pains coming on immediately the feet of the twin presented. I told the father, who was standing on the opposite side of the PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 25 bed, that he might expect another child. It was bitter cold. I had him rub the abdomen lightly. Pains came on again, and the thighs of the child came down. I used no violence whatever,— did not dare to administer any parturient, and perhaps three minutes elapsed with the child in this manner, protecting the pulsations of the umbilical cord with my two fingers (as advised by Ramsbotham Play- fair, et al.). The child was born apparently dead, limp as a rag, and of a purplish color from cold*and compression. I used cold water sprinkling, rubbing the abdomen until the pul- iation grew stronger in the navel siring, and the child cried well. Then as soon as the pul- sation at the placental end of the umbilical ceased, I cut the cord and the placenta was al- most immediately expelled. I wrrappedup the child and gave it to Mrs. Croaker, who volun- teered the remark that it was a " poor weakly little thing." For a few minutes I was intense- ly busy with the young mother. When I vis- ited the kitchen, Xurse Croaker was about to strip the twins and wash them. Of course I stopped that. Directing her to hold the young- est I warmed sweet oil and rubbed the warm oil over the body of the child, wrapped it up well in flannel, and proceeded to oil the second one who was making the piti- 2G PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. ful moan so common to prematurely born animals. " Poor thing," said Mrs. Croaker, " It can't live. It is better off dead! It will be a little angel. It is a pity it couldn't be baptised for it can't stay here," and a series of pious ejacu- lations indicative of resignation and piety. Meanwhile I opened the oven door of the stove, bared my arm, oiled the little moaner with warm oil. Allowed it to rest on my warm arm with its feet to the fire, until it stopped its moaning, and I knew by its breathing that the foreman ovale between the two auricles had closed, when I laid it on its right side and cov- ered it warm. In the morning bright and soon I obtained an English nurse. Mrs. P. and those twins are both alive and well to-day, (1880). I do not hesitate to say that Mrs. Croaker would have had one if not both those children little angels, especially as she has since lost a grandchild, and her own daugh- ter's twins died a few hours after birth. Don't get a croaker wrhen you are going to have your child. In my practice I avoid the presence of gossipy or immoral women. It is true one can- not always choose, but a severe silence is the physician's refuge, while the lady being con- fined can usually choose her special compan- ions quite a time in advance of her confinement. parturition, or childbirth. 27 An attendant should not giggle on the one hand nor tell stories on the other. Rest bc- tzvee'n the pains are golden words, and an ab- solute quiet is a much safer condition during childbirth than any other. Neither should the husband be allowed every few minutes to prophesy that "in a few minutes it would all be over."' Usually this is a lie, which the young mother gets dreadfully tired of hearing before it is over. It is far better to understand that at first the pains are trifling and grinding; next the pains settle in the back and loins, next in the sides (hollow of the thighs), or over the pelvic bone (front bone), and lastly on or about thg coccyx and perineum, etc. It is well to mark successively the steps of child- birth, and encouragingly tell the woman in labor precisely what to expect, and note the steps already passed than to encourage her with false hopes. All classes of heavy, indigestible food should be avoided during the latter months of gesta- tion. By heavv food I mean sausage, Irish potatoes, tomatoes, blood pudding, liver, brains, pigs feet, oysters, salt fish, cheese, pas- try generally, and sauer kraut. Rich and in- digestible food deranges the stomach, renders the blood impure and the coming child weak- ly. During any stage of parturition vomiting 28 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. may come on and continue only present during the first and second stages. It is a good sympton during the first and second stage, but is indicative of mischief during the last stage. During the second stage vomiting is usually followed by a momentary cessation of the pains, but they return with more force and effect, and the child is soon after born. The reason of vomiting is, that there are ob- noxious materials in the system which nature throws off previous to the final effort to expel the child. It should not usually be stopped. Es- pecially chould the so-called Homeopathic narcotic poisonous remedies, Aconite, Bella- donna, Nux Vomica and Arsenic be stoutly avoided. If given in the high potencies which the Homeopathic quacks pretend to use, they are valueless and inert; and if in alcoholic tinctures they are absolutely poisonous to mother and child. Should there appear to be spasms or trem- ors with the vomiting, an injection to the bowels should be used; and this, if it comes immedi- ately away should be repeated until there is an action of the bowels. Should some one urge the administration of medicine let it be of a harmless nature, as a spoonful of peppermint tea or a strong infusion of sage tea. But there is nothing to be alarmed at when the patient PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 29 vomits. Vomiting in the commencement of the second stage of labor is a good symptom and does not need any medicine. Meigs says (page 237, on obstetrics) : "Nasuea and vomiting are frequently met with in the lying-in room, as symptoms of ap- proaching labor; though it is true they mostly present themselves when the Os Uteri (mouth of the womb) is almost one-third dilated." Dr. Meigs offers no remedy, and as before stated none is necessary, as the symptom is favorable. Sometimes tremors, tremblings or shaking spells, as if the lady had the ague, will come on after the vomiting has subsided. This is usually the symptom for which some meddling nurse advises a "warmin' tea." But it is perfectly safe not to take anything. The pains will return shortly, and the attendants will have enough to do to take care of the child. Large beads of perspiration, some- times over the entire body, follow these trem- ors, and to the inexperienced seem alarming. There is really no danger unless with the chills flooding should commence. This, how- ever, does not occur once in thirty thousand cases. Should the pains continue without- regular- ity and apparently without intermission, it is advisable to learn what causes the continuance 30 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. of the pains. For instance, if the bowels ar-e constipated the female attendant should pre- pare an injection of warm wrater, which mav be used to the bowels by means of a rubber svr- inge (being careful not to inject any air), and this repeated until the bowels move freely. If, however, the water of the injection comes away without inducing a motion, a pint of water (warm), in which an even teaspoonful of salt has been dissolved, or one-fourth teaspoonful of the tincture of ginger dissolved in one and one-half pints of water, may be used until the motion is free. After the operation of the bow- els the pains may cease for a time. No medi- cine is to be allowed, as sleep and rest are bet- ter restoratives when naturally induced than all other medication. At length there is a movement of the child, and its head is "turned down." It can be felt directly over the public bone. When this occurs with the first child it may be some days before the child is born ; but with the second, third or fifth child, this turning down usually precedes the completion of the first stage of labor by not longer than two hours. I have known mothers who felt as well as possible at seven o'clock in the morn- ing and the head of the child " turned down,"' and the child was born in one hour from that time, viz : at 8 o'clock, A. M. The moment PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 31 a pain comes on when the head of the child is turned down, all motion is stopped in the child, because the pressure of the uterus against the child's head renders it insensible and motion- less. Heretofore, the embryo child has floated in a bag of water, but now the uterus appears to press the bag of waters out of the mouth of the uterus into the vagina, and to keep the child's head down towards, or on, the brim of the pelvis. In this condition the pains com- mence to have regularitv and are harder. The woman should not repress any natural desire to pass urine or fceces, as it is best that she should have the bladder and rectum as empty as possible, as this is the most favorable condi- tion for the head of the child to pass into the pelvic strait; or, as it is called, into the second stage of labor. Should the pains cease or appear very irreg- ular, and above all seem to be slight and " not doing any good,"' as the nurse will say, and the attendant is satisfied that the bladder and the rectum are empty and the person is weak and faint, mix ten to twenty grains pure pulver- ized capsicum in a glass of cold water, and give a teaspoonful every ten minutes. I believe this to be the best permanent stimulant on the face of the earth. This brings on regular labor pains. 32 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. The pains are now to be more severe. At every pain there will be an intense desire to pull "down, or to grasp and hold on to the' hand of the husband or friend. This is to be en- couraged. Advice is sometimes given to '' hold the breath." Some instances of "swelled neck" have come under my observation, which were said to have resulted in holding the breath. It is my practice to advise them not to let the voice go out too soon, as I believe the abdomi- nal muscles aid very materially in the expul- sion of the foetus, but not to strain or overdo in any manner. Especially is this " holding the breath," straining or pulling down to be dep- recated if the mouth of the uterus is not fully, dilated. It is this condition — this travailing condition that requires so much patience and courage. An acquaintance of mine of the reg- ular medical school has just lost three women in childbirth within a few weeks of each other, each of whom left a child, by the incautious use of spurred rye or ergot. The os uteri prob- ably was not sufficiently dilated; the doctor thought he could not wait, "had not time." He gave a dose of Ergotwhich Ruptured the Womb, while the child was being expelled alive, and in one case the woman died in one day, another in a week subsequent to the birth of her baby. In the last case the woman lived PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 33 four days and died from the effects of' * has- tening" medicine. Another case where a verv busy doctor could not wait the operations of nature and gave a very large dose of Ergot (spurred rye ), and the child was born very shortly. This child is now seven years of age and cannot talk, and has no control over its bowels. I saw this victim to Ergot only a short time since. Other children had been born all well, for the unfortunate mother after the first child had a superstition against doctors and against medi- cine. Yet this poisonous Ergot and spurred Rye is what the old regular school of Mineral Poison Doctors depend upon to hasten labors. They would not dare to ever give another dose of poison medicine, but they depend upon the ig- norance of thepeople. Is n't it time the people learned something for themselves? What are commonly laid down as "puerpural convul- sions" are brought on by the use of this Ergot before the child is born. An old regular has just wasted some paper and ink in trying to prove that Corn Smut, Ustilago Mad is, is a good thing for a woman in labor. How would it do for a well woman to take? There is no stage so intensely wearing as the first stage. Nothing can be hastened with 34 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. any degree of safety. Especially is this to be borne in mind with a living first child. What has been said about "meddling," "touching," and all the teas, ergot or spurred rye, and other remedies, applies with renewed force here. Haste is waste. Have patience. Have courage. At each pain the uterus does a little towards the expulsion of the child. Sometimes even in the midst of the hardest pains in the first stage of labor the pains will cease, and the lady fall asleep, awaken with- out pain, and have the birth prolonged for a week. Such an occurrence happened under the care of the writer very recently. Mrs. E. had one living child by her first husband, and after that lost in succession eight children, all born dead or only living a few days. She married the second time and became pregnant. At the sixth month her husband placed her under my care. Rest, moderate but not laborious exercise, and strict attention to the evacuation of the bowels, brought her to within a few days of her full time. She had severe pains ; the os uteri was dilated to the size of a twenty-five cent piece, but the head of the child remained above the brim, and the bag of water did not protrude to any extent. At night her pain subsided, she slept soundly until the next forenoon, when PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. 35 the pains were repeated. These pains again subsided, and arose again on the morrow. This occurred for several days. The uterus and its contents apparently settling lower into the pelvic cavity each day. The neighbors, those dear good souls who drink tea, carry on gossip and love their neighbor's business better than they do their own, together with tonguey women who attended her thought "a great shame and a great pity, so it was, that the Doctor would not give the lady something to cut her pains and bring the child into the world."' I was satisfied, however, that the uterus was not ready to expel its contents, and also believed that when Nature—our great master,—was ready, that the child would be born. I explained the matter to the lady, and as she was desirous of having a living child, she waited patiently. The child, a healthy boy, was born quickly a week afterwards, the lady had an excellent delivery and a rapid recovery. The child is alive and well at this writing. I am satisfied that had a dose of Ergot been administered the child would have been as the previous children, "Born Dead." Patience saved the child. Dr. Meigs says: (page 254), "The effects produced by the pains and efforts by labor up- on the constitution are very striking. The 36 PARTURITION, OR CHILDBIRTH. mind in the beginning is anxious, irritable, fearful, and full of the most gloomy anticipa- tions ; but as the process goes on, and the ex- pulsive efforts become more violent, it acquires courage and firmness, and the most dogged resolution. The patient seems like one who has a task set for her, which she is resolved to execute as rapidly as possible; and she there- fore bears the pains of expulsion far more submissively, or rather courageously, than the small or dilating pains." That is, she will en- dure the second and third stages of labor bet- ter and with less anxiety than she bears the first, CHAPTER III. THE SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. Usually the waters break just before the labor passes into the second" stage, but this is not always the case. The head of the child settles into pelvic cavity; the mouth of the uterus dilates or enlarges, and the bag of waters may even protrude out from the vagina like a finger of water, or a-small sack, push- Note.—It will be seen that the writer has paid no atten- tion to the Presentations of the child, which he has left unmentioned for the following reasons : i. That every work on midwifery has the names of the different positions, with a very full text of explanations. 2. Some of the authors on midwifery have very many, as for instance Bandelocque had one hundred and tzvo dis- tinct positions. * 3. It is most natural and frequent in all animals for the Head to present. Ordinarily, and to one who may chance to be called upon to attend a delivery, the presentation of a child does not 38 RUPTURING THE SACK. ing out visibly, and receding until almost the last pains in the second stage. Here some of the wiseacres propose to rup- ture the sack. I do not believe in doing this as I conceive the bag of waters helps to easilv dilate the mouth of the uterus and render the descent of the child easier. I knew of a Homceopathist in Lincoln, Nebraska, who was trying to rupture the sack of waters with a hairpin, and accidentally tore off the scalp of the infant. This was also a "dispensation.'" Sometimes a "flow of waters" appears, and the lady, especially if it be the first child, is "sure the waters have broken." But flow of water in some cases results from the outer sack not being in contact with the inner sack and the cavity between the two sacks contain- ing a small quantity of water (called hydro- matter, provided the -pelvis is large enough. Besides, it is not safe or always wise to try to change a presentation, even if it appear to be wrong. "Nor can it always be accom- plished. Moreover, if one desires to know about these matters, Meigs, Cazeaux, Hodge, Ramsbotham and Plav- fair are to be purchased at the bookstores. But the facts are that in any position '"a meddlesome midwifery is bad." The writer is of the opinion that in far too many instances where nature has been -'assisted," the child or the mother or both have been killed. Some years since the writer was called to a case which the midwife declared was "progressing too long; but as SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 39 perione), which gushes out during the first or premonitory labor pains. I believe serious mistakes are often made by the physician who depends upon the statement of the woman who is excited, nervous and unduly anxious, or an ignorant, inexperienced nurse. The Hydro-pe- rionemay appear during the first stage, or dur- ing the commencing of the labor pains, and should not be confounded with the liquor amnii, which almost invariably precedes the second stage by a short period of time. This Hydro- perione is also the cause of "little gushes of water"' from the uterus and vagina, which sometimes occur several weeks previous to childbirth. I remember a case where there were two very old physicians in attendance and the lady was "perfectly certain" the waters had passed. Eighteen hours of watching, ergot and opium she "had done all she could" she sent for a physi- cian. The "doing all she could" consisted in anoint- ing her hand with lard, and trying to grease the mouth of the vjotnb. It was a breech presentation, slow and tedious enough, any way, but rendered yet slower and more tedious by the rude efforts of the nurse to forcibly dilate the womb. After a time the child was born dead. The lady slowly recov- ered, but her urine incontinently dribbled away for many months. The nurse's hand and her dreadful greasings had lacerated the structures of the vagina. "A meddle- some midwifery is bad." 40 SECRET OF SUCCESS. convinced the patient that she had not passed the liquor amnii, but only the hydro-perione had passed. The doctors killed her baby and came near killing her, but as they were regu- lars nothing must be said. When the waters break there is usually a decided amount of water discharged at once and the person of the lady is flooded. This is not always the case as sometimes the liquor amnii is very much reduced in quantity. When little gushes of water come, and an examination shows that the bag has not brok- en, quiet and rest, not medicines, are needed. Here is the great secret of the success of the Phvsio Medical School. They do not give poisonous opiates, and when the child is born it is healthy. The Allopaths give opium and when the child is born it is unhealthy. In the second Not very long since a medical man of the Eclectic stripe, being called to a case of Primipara, decided he could Assist Nature, and proceeded to turn. He crowded his arm into the womb, and after fishing awhile brought out the child in pieces. The mother died shortly afterwards. When the body was opened it was found that the womb was rup- tured, and a portion of the rim of the pelvis hud been scraped off, leaving the bone entirely denuded. " A med- dlesome midwifery is bad." And the writer believes that child-bearing is only dan- gerous where it is meddled with. And the more it is meddled with the more dangerous it becomes. The time SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 41 stage, when the waters break, the moisture should be immediatelv absorbed by means of dry cloths, and a dry cloth spread underneath the hips of the woman ; also a dry bunch of cotton or linen placed near the vulva and anus to absorb the moisture. The second stage of labor is distinguished from the first stage, by the fact that during the first stage the woman walks about, or can sit up. During the second stage she can nei- ther walk, sit nor stand with any ease. Playfair (midwifery, page 256), says of the first stage: "The position of the patient is a matter of some moment in the first stage. It is a de- cided advantage that she should not then be in a recumbent position on her side, (on the side is the English method), as is usual in the second stage ; for it is of importance that the expulsive force should act in such a way as to was when the members of the Eclectic School were thought to be very good accoucheurs. But at the present writing the Eclectics, with their Ergot, their Belladonna, their "Specific" and " Direct" medication, have become nearly as proficient in Child Killing as the Little Pill Poiscn dosing Homoeopathists. A meddlesome midwifery rs bad, and the animal, whether be of Old School or New School, who cannot keep his fingers from dosing down poisons to the mother and child, nor his hands from the delicate structures of a woman, should spend the balance of his natural life in a solitary stone cell, with a bread and water diet. 42 SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. favor the descent of the head into the pelvis, i. e., perpendicularly into the plane of its brim, and also that the weight of the child should operate in the same way. Therefore the ordinary method of allowing the patient to walk about, or to recline in a chair is decidedly ad- vantageous ; and it will often be observed the pains are more lingering and ineffective if she lie in bed. If the patient be a multipara (signifying a woman with any child after her first), or if the abdomen be somewrhat pendulous, an ab- dominal bandage, (not too tight), by support- ing the uterus will greatly favor the progress of this (the first), stage. Keeping the patient out of bed has the farther advantage of pre- venting her from being unduly anxious for the termination of the labor." In the second stage this is changed. " The waters broken, the pains may for a time seem to have left. They will return more severe, and with greater effect. The proper and true bearing down pains come on with regular in- termissions of rest. The pains change their positions from the back to the sides; some- times directly upon the pubes, at others in one or both hips, and finally lower down, changing until the few indescribable "terrible pains "that precede the expulsion of the head of the child. TRUST TO NATURE. 43 But if these pains are severe and no prog- ress seems to be made, a very good plan is to allow the ladv to kneel down beside a chair during two or a dozen hard pains as this changes the position of the child and favors its expulsion from the uterus. It is in the second stage of labor that so many cruel mistakes are made because of ig- norance. If the voung mother knew her own being and knew the mechanism of labor, no person could startle her with the absurd stories so commonly retailed by the gossips. It is true some women have a very hard time, but they live and do well, if properly treated and Nature is given a chance. Very recently a lady weigh- ing ninctx-t-wo pounds when she was married, was delivered of a child weighing twelve and one half pounds, yet in a few days she was at- tending to her household duties. The old idea was to exhaust a woman by bleeding her un- til she fainted. This, I say, was the "• old school" or " regular'' way before the practice of the reformed medical school of America. Indeed the mothers of America owe a debt of gratitude to the advance system of medication since, if it were not for their persistent fighting against the errors of the old allopathic mineral poison school, who so conceitedly assume the name of "regular" we should now be daily 44 DIFFERENT HABITS. witnessing the bloody and cruel methods which they have been forced out of by enlightened pub- lic opinion. And it is the idea of the writer that as soon as the women are educated to under- stand themselves the man midwife and the '' reg- ular" poison allopathic bigot will be among the things of the past. Between nations and individuals the habits of childbearing are widely different. Some have children upon their knees. Others on the side. Others alone by the brook, washing and dressing their child without aid or compan- ionship. A shortly built person may find re- lief in the kneeling posture. Thin and fragile females prefer to recline on a rocker to the last moment. The Europeans bear children lying on the left side. The Jewish women seem to have a predeliction for a chair or a stool. The writer believes the second stage is usually eas- ier and safer in a reclining position and that one most comfortable for the patient at the time. If proper care has been taken of the body no fears are to be apprehended either of the birth of the child, or lingering labor. Many physi- cians are in the habit of administering anaes- thetics to deaden the labor pains, as choral, chloroform or ether. These drugs are perni- cious poison and should not be used if the health of the mother or child is to be regarded. I be- A DEADLY MISTAKE. 45 lieve that chloroform injures the mentality and stature of the child, and produces an irrepara- ble injury upon the mother. The most emi- nent authorities in the world advise against its administration. I may mention Chas. D. Meigs, M. D., of Philadelphia, (Obstetrics, pub- lished by Henry C. Lea, of Philadelphia), as perhaps the most eminent and successful ob- stetrician who ever lived in America, as an earnest and cultured opponent of chloroform and ether. He says, (page 325, op. cit.) : " To be in natural labor is the culminating point of the female somatic forces. There is, in natural labor, no element of disease — and, therefore, the good old writers have said noth- ing truer, nor wiser, than their old saying, that b meddlesome midwifery is bad.' Is chloro- formization meddlesome?" But chloroform in reality does not remove the pains. It may deaden for a time, but the absolute amount of pain, both on account of lingering labors and after pains, is not less- ened. A still weightier reason is because all narcotics lower the mental energy of the child. Of this there is not the least doubt, as it is susceptible of proof of the strongest kind. I remember a lady in Lincoln, Nebraska, who boasted quite emphatically before her first childbirth that she would never suffer the 46 DURATION OF PAINS. pangs of childbirth. She had a lady midwife during labor, and chloroform and ether were freely administered. The baby was born dead. During her next confinement she changed physicians and did not take chloro- form. The baby lived. I advise every one who is fearful of the ap- proaching pains of labor, and is premeditating the inhalation of chloroform to obtain and read carefully Dr. Meig's views as well as the let- ters urging its use from the eminent Dr. Simp- son, of Scotland. Dr. Meigs computes the mean duration of labor pains at fifteen minutes as follows : (page 252 op cit.) "If this computation be a correct one, then it may be said that in the first hour the woman shall have a pain every twelve minutes, which would give five pains for the first hour. If she should in the second hour have a pain every six minutes, she would have ten pains in the second hour; pains every five minutes of the third hour would amount to twelve pains ; and if she should be affected with them every three minutes during the fourth and last hour she would suffer the pains twenty times during that period. So that twenty, twelve, ten and five pains would make up the sum of forty-seven pains for the labor. The whole duration of the DURATION OF PAINS. 47 labor pains, supposing each one to last only twenty seconds, under this computation, would be about fifteen minutes; so that, in a labor of four hours the woman would be fifteen minutes under the labor throes, and three and three- quarters without them. It is to be understood, however, that much pain and distress may be present, notwithstanding the womb is not ac- tually contracting." With this calculation, which may be relied upon as correct for an average labor, any lady can see whether, for the purpose of relieving herself of fifteen min- utes pain she would run the risk of losing her child, and ruining her health. A remark made some years since by a very high church dignitary to the effect that he "knew of no reason why one should suffer the agonizing pains so common as long as there were such agents as chloral and chloroform," led the writer to ask himself why pains were neces- sary at all. Why did our Blessed Saviour allow himself to suffer pain ? Why do we not have a constant life of en- joyment and pleasure? All obstetric writers consider pain as a symptom and ordained for a wise and benefi- cent purpose. In the case of childbirth all the writers of note agree in declaring that a labor pain is for some purpose. They do not differ 48 CAUSES OF DISEASE. as to the cause of the pain which is in the con- traction of the uterus against or on its contents and the resistance to .that contraction, but they differ as to what the benefit may be. "I have been accustomed to look upon the sensation of a pain in labor as a physiological relative of the power, or force ; and notwith- standing I have seen so many women in the throes of labor, I have always regarded a labor pain as a most desirable, salutary and conservative manifestation of life force."' (Meigs, page 323.) As I have previously stated I do not believe that labor pains need to be prolonged as they usually are. And I may say emphatically, that having at my period of life devoted some attention to childbirth and the care of preg- nant and parturient women, I am of the opin- ion that ignorance kills half the women who die during childbirth and mal-advised medi- cine that kills four-fifths of the other one- half. The lady wrho has taken good care of her body during the period of gestation need not fear the result of child bearing if she will shun drugs and ignorance. In the countries where drug stores abound as in London, Manchester and other parts of England, there is relatively a larger population of hunchbacks, rickety CAUSES OF DISEASE. 49 and deformed children than in America. I attribute this to the fact that the mothers, dur- ing gestation, have habituated themselves to narcotic drugs, and these drugs had a direct and far reaching effect upon the body of the child. Weak lungs, asthma, and spinal dis- ease are flippantly accounted for as "visita- tions of Divine Providence," when in fact they are the direct result of drugs taken during the intra-uterine life, or taken at the moment of child-birth, and thus depressed the vital pow- ers of the child so that it cannot grow up in its natural perfect form. In this place it is no more than justice to pay a tribute to the industry of those ignorant thieves who style themselves "Homceopath- ists." These people believe in Aconite, Bella- donna, Veratrum and Nux Vomica, which remedies being acro-narcotic poisons have a direct and an appreciable effect upon the nervous system of the mother and child. The "nervous fluid" or the atoms which compose the nerves, are undoubtedly decomposed or disintegrated by these acro-narcotic poisons. The result is seen in the weakened, small statured, nervous children. The Homceopath- ists claim that "like cures like." But the saying is untrue and should be changed to *'poisons produce death." But the industrious 50 BITTER PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. liars of the Homoeopathic persuasion catering to the taste if an ignorant public, will have run their course just as soon as the people wake up long enough to see the result in the nervous systems of those victims who constantly are dosing with the "delicate potencies" or acro- narcotic poisons. Indeed, if it be faith- fully looked at in any community it will be seen that there are no more unfortunate obstetricians than the Homceopathists, espec- ially when one examines the record and life of the children that are ushered into existence under the professors of that diluted school. More especially is it a fact that: the system which has previously been treated by homoe- opathy shows its inherent weakness during the second stage of labor. In making these statements I speak from a very bitter personal experience with the hypo- critical untruthful and ignorant men, who claim to be Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons. At the same time were the choice to be made be- tween a drunken "regular" Mineral and Potash, Calomel and bleeding, blistering drug store pre- scribing Allopathic Gentleman ( ?) and a sober man avowing himself a homceopathist, the wri- . ter would choose the sober homceopathist. The safe way is to avoid all medicines, unless given under the administration of an SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 51 educated and sober physician. And it is safe to assert that no experienced, sober well ed- ucated physician will give drugs for the dead- ening of a pain, or for the reduction of the pulse, when the pain is beneficial, and that pulsation is aiding to usher a new life into the world. The authorities of the world, as Hodge, Meigs, Ramsbotham, Playfair, and others will sustain this assertion. If the head is presented all right, as may be known by the touch, we shall see a gradual descent of the head and a corresponding dilata- tion or softness of the parts. In some cases it apparently comes down and recedes nearly as much. But it is safer to wait during this time than to do any meddling. Some obstetricians support the perineum. Some do not. Assis- tance can be given at this point, but what that assistance may be is determined by the patient and condition of the child. If no doctor or mid- wife is there when the head comes down, press as lightly as possible with a napkin over the hand against the membrane between the vulva and the anus. Have your piece of flannel ready to lay the child on ; have a soft cloth to wipe its mouth at your hand. The head at this stage may go back ten or more times, but it comes out at last and then is the moment when the child may absorb some moisture to its 52 THE NECESSITY FOR PATIENCE. imminent danger of being strangled. Of this period the eminent English obstetrician (Rams- botham), speaks, in the following eloquent manner : "At that period of labor (Second stage), it (the head), may be almost entirely expelled by the urgency of a pain ; and when remission (of pain), occurs, it will recede, and be again perfectly buried within the genital fissure, so that the labia close around it. To such an ex- tent is this sometimes carried, that it may give those not well acquainted with the process an idea that the uterus has ruptured, and that the child's body has past partly into the abdominal cavity. And here again we cannot help re- marking the beauty of Nature's ordiances ; it is impossible indeed to contemplate a single provi- sion, even of the minutest character, adapted to the exigencies of gestation and labor, with- out being fervidly and awfully impressed with the extent of that wisdom, power, and benefi- cence which established the laws and controls their operations. (Human parturition, p. 104.) It would seem that advice to have patience until the child's head had emerged would be superfluous. Waiting patiently at this stage is of the utmost importance. The writer knew of an inexperienced physician, who, in his desire to assist the parturient woman, dug his fin- SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 53 gets into the scalp of the child and hastened its exit. The mark of the physician's nails, and the flabby bunch of scalp, were evidence as to the causes immediately producing the death which followed. Neither should the forefinger be placed between the head of the child and the perineum, as too many midwives are apt to do for the purpose of " Lightening the child's head." A napkin between the hand and the perineum may assist in supporting the perineum, and thus relieve some of the distressing pains as that membrane is being placed on its tension. But no pulling,, hauling nor punching should be allowed. The moment the head passes out it should be instantly supported by the palm of the hand, right or left. A soft piece of cloth removes all the moisture from the child's mouth, eyes and nostrils. You will see also that the head at the mo- ment of its emergence appears and docs turn from you, or towards you. Tou must not try to stop this turning, as this turning is necessary to allow the shoulders of the child to pass. Be ready to follow this turning, so as to be certain to keep the child's mouth and nostrils clean and free from all fluids. At the same time observe carefully whether the cord is 54 SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. around the child's neck. If it is, slip your fin- ger under it and pull on the loose end, and slip it over the head, one end of the cord is loose and the other tight, you can tell which end you can pull on gently by its ready yielding being a free end. (In reality neither end is free, but is looser than the other.) You must not endeavor in any manner to make any traction, nor must you pull in the slightest degree on the child. The pain will cease, probably, upon the emergence of the head, hut you must not pull it unless you wish to pull its head off or break its neck. In short, leave the child to be expelled naturally. Have all your patience and your mind perfect- ly under control. All is well if there be no haste. I am aware that this advice is opposite to the practice of some eminently unsuccessful obstetricians. And I am also aware that the father, and other lookers on, are in the greatest excitement when the head seems to stop. The mother should be quiet; or, better, she should be informed before hand of the steps that Nature makes in childbirth. Let the head be in an easy manner, supported by the hand. Keep the mouth of the child free from the fluids, and Nature will not require much time to complete her labor. Playfair (midwifery, page 261,) says : SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 55 " The expulsion of the body should be left to uterine contractions. If we display undue haste in withdrawing the body, we run the risk of emptying the uterus while its tissues are relaxed, and so favor hemorrhage and per- haps death." In a moment the pains will return. Mean- time we have examined the neck to see wheth- er the cord is around or not. If it is, place the finger underneath it quickly and gently, and pull on the free end until there is enough loop to pass over the head of the child. Do not pull hard, and do not crush, or jam, or pinch the cord, because it is through this cord that the child receives its life. Only by practice and observation can one learn this step, yet it is necessary, and is really not dan- gerous, unless the midwife or nurse is too hasty, ignorant, or drunk. The free end of the cord can be known by the slightest pull. It is always the end that yields, and a loop is easily pulled down. It is important to know this, since in cases of severe uterine contrac- tion from stopping the circulation in the cord and thus producing death. Meigs (obstetrics, page 295 ), writes of the cord around the neck : "The head is born; perhaps the cord is turned once, or even more than once around the child's neck, which it encircles so closely 56 SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. as to strangulate it. Let the loop be loosened by pulling the yielding end sufficiently to ena- ble it to be cast off over the head. This cannot al- ways be done ; if so, in any case, let the child pass through it by slipping it along its body, over the shoulders. If it seems impossible to slip the cord over the head or shoulders either, it should be let alone ; and in a great majority of cases it will not prevent the birth from taking place, after the occurrence of which the cord can be cast off. Should the child seem to be detained by the tightness of the cord, as does rarely happen, or in danger of compression of its jugular vessels, the funis may be cut with the scissors and tied after delivery." I have never seen a case of this kind, and while it is undoubtedly possible it is one of the most uncommon occufrences in the course of a lifetime. If the cord is cut at this time the child is as good as dead, sooner or later, and I introduced this passage to show that the habit, or even the allowance of a thought as to the premature cutting of the cord, is in direct violence to Nature's laws. Even Dr. Meigs acknowledges this, as he further says : "Un- der such a necessity as this, a due respect for one's own reputation should induce him to explain to the bystanders the reason which rendered so considerable a departure from SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 57 the ordinary practice indispensable. I have known an accoucher's ability called harshly into question, upon this very point in practice. I have never felt it necessary to do it but once." It may be doubted whether any American obstetricans had greater practice or more uni- form success than Dr. Meigs. And it may be added that the child so prematurely separated would not be likely to live to maturity. In case of such an accident so remote and so un- likely, I should advise rubbing across the lower part of the abdomen gently and rapidly for the purpose of promoting uterine contrac- tions, and more quickly expelling the child. The great difficulty in such moments is to learn net to lose one's head. In short, not to get excited nor lose precious time by trusting or running for some one else. Try again. Pull gently, and if this does not yet answer, and the pains do not return by rubbing, insert two fingers in the vagina so as to protect the cord. That is one finger one side of the cord and one on the other, thus preventing the pressure upon the cord that causes cessation of life. It is proper to state that these cases are unusual, for usually a moment only elapses, at most not over three moments elapse, when the child is expelled by the returning contrac- tion of the uterus. 58 SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. After the head is born and supported, the mouth wiped, we shall see the face turn slowly to the left or right (toward you or from you), and immediately the shoulders will appear. Here again it is usually the fact that all the body follows without stopping. But not in- variably. The shoulders as well as the head should be supported, but no pulling should be allowed on the body of the child. I know of one child whose back was absolutely broken by this pulling at a child half born where the mother was on her knees at the time. The child died as a matter of course, but as the obstetrician was a Homcepathist it was also as a matter of course a dispensation of Divine Providence ! Not always does the body follow the shoul- ders. In some cases the child or the pain, or both of them, stop after the child's shoulders and arms are out, and here patience is neces- sary. It will seem to an inexperienced person as if the walls of the vagina or uterus would crush the child's abdomen into a pulp, but there is not a particle of danger to the child as it will have commenced squalling by this time. Watch the umbilical cord, however, and pro- tect it, if it is liable to become jammed, squeez- ed or compressed between the walls of the vagina and the child's body. Only a short SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 59 period can elapse before the pain will return and the child will be born. The important point is to prevent every undue compression of the cord, and also to keep the mouth of the child free from any of the fluids which are usually abundant. Meigs (page 275) says: 'k If the shoulders should not rotate so as to bring one of them under the arch, that motion may be given by one or two fingers introduced and made to act upon the shoulder nearest the pubis, so as to draw it into the proper place." In other words, if the face does not turn of itself one or two fingers may give gentle mo- tion to the shoulders. But you must on no account try to turn the head yourself unless you desire to kill the in- fant by wringing' its little tender neck, an experiment which is tried daily by too many of the fool'midwives. As previously stated, it is not often with a healthy woman that any aids are necessary. In most instances, a series of severe pains expel the head; this cessation al- lows ample time for wiping the mouth and sup- porting the head, when the next long pain ex- pels the shoulders and body of the child. Dur- ing this period all haste, alarm, fears, idle stor- ies, and especially the presence of hypocritical gossiping women and the mourning jezebles is to be avoided and shunned. Never have, in 60 SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. the critical stage of labor, a female attendant whose mind has been warped against human- ity. Don't have an unlucky woman in your house. One of the wisest of America's sur- geons wrote (Dewee's Midwifery, page 181) : '' 111 directed measures will always have pen- alties attached to them; and it is only by a proper view of the nature of labor, that it can be conducted to a happy issue. There is no one circumstance that so largely and certainly contributes to divert Nature from her proper course as the persuasion that art can always benefit her, hence the constant employment of ill directed manoeuvres by an accoucher or midwife. And unfortunately for the in- terest of humanity, it requires more knowledge not to be qficious than falls to the share of many of those who pretend to practice midwifery." As soon as the whole of the body of the child has emerged, the child should be laid within a foot of its mother's vagina, face to the left knee, on a piece of warm, clean, dry flannel, and laid upon its right side. The cord should be lifted up out of the fluids, the mother covered as much as possible, the cord should be free and not pulled at in any manner, but held careful- ly on a level with the navel of the child. Keep the hands of the child out of its mouth. Be SECOND STAGE OF LABOR. 61 certain that any fluids are not being soaked up by the flannel on which the child is lying. There wrill be a cry for the scissors ; some black robed mourner will hand you a cord. The child will be exercising in a splendid effort at elocution, and, whatyou need is patience, cool- ness, grit and a pair of good eyes. Get the black robed mourner to sit down in a rocking chair; take the thread, put it in your pocket; assure the mother that everything is lovely. Tell her the sex of the child. Assure the father that you know what you are about, or if you are the father of the child do not be the least par- ticle excited. In short, if the child is born alive, as it will be in ninety-seven cases out of every one hundred, you have nothing to do, except to watch the child as it is drawing in its first breath, and watch the changes as they are occurring in the body of the child now lying before you. CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST BREATH. When it comes to be soberly considered that the child just born has for nine months pre- vious been growing /';/ water, sustained by blood from the mother through the umbilical cord and through the placenta; that it has undergone all the varied changes from a worm (spermatozoon microscopic) to a human being ; that the lungs have never been tilled, previous to its exit from the uterus ; that it was alwavs in the dark, alwaysfloating on or under liquid, and that the heart in a manner totally changes its circulation; that the capillaries (the fine arteries of the skin where the blood atoms have to go in elongated rows because of the fineness of the capillary tubes) have never before been exposed to the action of the air or the oxy- THE FIRST BREATH. 63 gen; I say, when it is considered that an en- tire change is made from an animal living in water without breath, to an animal living out of the water and breathing many times in a moment, it must be conceded that the First Breath assumes a wonderful importance, not only to the child but to the parents owning, and to the State of which it is about to become a number. It is indeed lamentable that so many pre- tended doctors are apparently ignorant of these facts, but they are. It is less surprising that many midwives are grossly ignorant, since in many instances they are a lot of ignorant women who have "taken up" obstetrics as a means of "getting a living," and hence have never had an opportunity of reading, or of be- ing taught. The parents, however, have no excuse. If it is urged that the doctor should know of the facts, we can, yes the doctor should know, but he doesn't know, and the billiard playing, cigar holder of a doctor, who is a regular doesn't care to know. The " Regular"" licensed animal thinks he is perfect. He sticks to the Code of Ethics, why should he ever learn any more ? The past changes going on in a woman's body during the period of gestation (or preg- nancy) should be a powerful incentive to the 64 THE FIRST BREATH. study of the laws appertaining to her own body, and also to the being she is about to bring into the world. A part of herself and a part of the one she loves. The lungs of an embryo at fifteen days are not yet formed. The Cephalio and the caudal extremities are to be distinguished. At about the end of the sixth week of pregnancy the lungs can be discerned. From this period until birth the lungs constantly in- crease in size, in capacity for holding air, and the power to expel or inhale air is constantly augmenting until birth or death. In a well- formed child the lungs are in a manner like upturned trees, the trunks of which are in the bronchial tubes, and the branches go to every portion of the prescribed space. The branches divide until the finest are about one fiftieth of an inch, and upon these fine branches or upon their sides the air cells are placed. Some of these cells open into one another. They are composed of membrane very elastic, and also muscular fibres, which are inter- spersed in the membrane. There are various dimensions of the air cells, some larger, some smaller. The more the lungs are used in a healthy or pure atmosphere the larger the cells become, the more elastic the membrane and the stronger the muscular fibres which are THE FIRST BREATH. 65 interspersed in this elastic membrane ; and this is an important fact to be remembered. The functions of the lungs are principally two- fold,—i, to change the impure venous blood to pure arterial blood, and, 2, to carry off a por- tion of the effete and worn out material which is in the system. The rudiment of a heart is found in the very earliest formation of the child. It is, during the intra uterine period of the life of the em- bryo, in a constantly changing and advancing state. At first, the rudimentary heart is a sim- ple tube. At birth, it is an organ consisting of four cavities, viz : two auricles and two ven- tricles. In the foetal child there is no breath- ing, no active opening into the cells of the lungs, and no changing in the body of the color or constituents of the blood from blue to red as a means of purification except through the pla- cinta of the mother, which process is carried on through, or by means of, the umbilical cord. Hence, the blood from the mother is carried di- rect to the heart of the child, and returns to the placenta of the mother by means of the cord. The cord and the placenta are before birth there- fore acting as the lungs, pulmonary veins and arteries act alter birth. The heart therefore is not yet perfected as an established organ acting directly with the lungs, but it acts, and is 66 THE FIRST BREATH. dependant upon the placenta in the womb of the mother, and the purification of blood in the mother's placenta sustains and enables the child to grow. To enable the reader to more distinctly un- derstand this, which we consider the most im- portant of all knowledge in a case of childbirth, we make the following statements: Before birth, the blood from the placenta is carried from the placenta of the mother direct- ly through the right auricle, to the left auricle of the child's heart, through the middle parti- tion between the auricles, through what is termed the foramen ovale. Of all points most necessary to be thorough- ly understood this is the pre-eminent, namely : that before birth, there is a distinct opening, aperture or foramen through the partition which divides the two auricles of the child's heart. And the blood from the mother, from the placenta, flows through the umbilical vein into the inferior vena cava and empties into the right auricle, and is directed by the Eustachian valve towards and into the foramen ovale, through the partition of the auricles into the left auricle; from there into the left ven- tricle, and thence into the aorta, the larger pro- portion of the blood passing to the head and upper extremities. THE FIRST BREATH. 67 The first breath changes all of this. The opening of the mouth, the filling of the air cells in the lungs makes a large space in the blood cells of the lungs, now opened for the first time. These open spaces, cells or cavities are now filled with blood for the first time. And the venous blood enters the lungs for the first time. Let the reader here stop and contemplate this change; this tre- mendous change, from an imbibing animal to a breathing animal. Think of the vast change from a worm to a child ; a swimming inanimate to a sensate be- ing ; a life under water to a life in the air. Heretofore the lungs have been idle, inert bunches of cellular tissue, but upon the first breath the air rushes into the air cells of the lungs, and at once, or simultaneously, the blood rushes into the blood cells of the lungs, and the expiration of the first breath is the feeble cry of the child. To two par- ties, the agonized mother who has passed safely through the first and second stage of labor, and to the. anxious and self repressed responsible obstetrician who has seen the labor gradually progressing, there is no sweeter cry of relief in the wide world than the feeble first cry of the new born child, the rich promise of life to come, of life arrived, of the fulfilment 68 the first breath. of that "Breathing into the nostrils when man became a living soul." Not yet however has the child become an independent life, mark this point well. Not yet have the air cells fully expanded, nor have the blood cells yet become filled with blood. The blood is yet rapidly filling the hitherto unused cells of the lungs. Each successive breath expands, dilates and enlarges the cells which contain air at the same time that each pulsation of the placenta is sending fresh blood to fill up the heretofore cells of the lungs now containing blood. Before the first breath there was practi- cally but one cavity in the auricular portion of the heart. Now the foramen ovale is about to be closed, and closed forever. The usual way as soon as the child is born is to consider the child as an independent being, and cut the navel cord. Everything, with some pretended physicians, and more especially with the med- dlesome midwives, is in a hurry. The too common method is to cut the cord too soon. The true way is to wait until all the blood is in the body that the body can hold, and this blood is constantly being driven by con- tractions of the mother's womb from the pla- centa directly into the child. the first breath. 69 Heretofore the true venous blood has been carried back to the placenta through the um- bilical cord, but now thefirst breath opens the pulmonary arteries and the venous blood goes to the lungs, the air strikes it, oxygen is taken and the venous blood is changed to arterial blood in the lungs of the child, instead of hav- ing to go back to the placenta to be renewed. The rash and inexperienced physician, who cuts the placental cord previous to its having stopped beating, robs the child of the blood that belongs to it. If the cord should have been compressed or tied in the womb, there would have been a premature birth, or a quite certain death. Indeed, one cause of premature birth or miscarriage is the en- tanglement of the placental cord or its degen- eration. The premature tying and cutting of the cord has caused more early deaths of chil- dren than every other disease known to child- hood. The reason why so many children die young is because of maltreatment at this point of life, nor is this statement new. The old or regular school, I mean the allopathic mineral association which assumes the title of regular, are a band of child killers in as much as their text books advocate the soon and prema- ture tying of the navel cord. 70 the first breath. It seems incredible that with three thousand years of medical knowledge, and of the knowl- edge of different tribes and habits of men, and especially of child life, the habits of empirical midwifes remain so mischievous, and I am forced to believe that the justly distinguished teacher of midwifery, Ramsbotham, has unin- tentionally assisted a great mistake in saying that " as soon as the child has cried the navel string may be cut." It should not, and the weight of all great national medical authorities are outspoken in stating that the navel string (or funis) should not be cut until it has ceased pulsation (or beating) near its placental ex- tremity. But unfortunately since the introduction of the Code of Ethics, the old school has become infallible and perfect and do not need any more knowledge. Childkillers and infant murder- ers that they are, how the people should despise the name of " Regular" mineral doctor. No child has the power to abstract the oxy- gen from the atmosphere until the lungs are well expanded, and it is this power gained from the blood from the mother's placenta, which en- able the life and breath as an independent being. Itrequires all the space of both blood cells and air cells of the lungs to place or bring the venous blood in contact with the air, so that the particles the first breath. 71 of oxygen may be applied to the venous blood, and effect a change from blue to red, or from venous to arterial. Hence, when the child is cut off from the supply of blood before its blood and air cells of the lungs are expanded or dilated, it never gets the opportunity to di- late them until it has a sufficient quantity of blood. It is to this imperfect oxygenation of blood in the lungs that we may look as the cause of many children turning blue, or having what is termed cyanosis or blue disease. And this is the reason of some children being small and pinched up. They were tied before the blood had filled the blood cells of the lungs, — tied and the blood shut off from the lungs and the heart. And because of the insufficiency of blood to fill out the arteries and capillaries the infant's fingers wrinkle up, look small and weak, while the toe nails and finger nails have a blue, cold, venous appearance. I cannot here forbear the just tribute of praise to that great physiologist and scholar, John W. Draper, M. D., whose work on physiology is so explicit and clear, and whose deductions and conclusions on the circulation of the blood are so logical and just, that it does not seem pos- sible for ignorance to stay where Draper's works 72 the first breath. are in sight. If these parties who style them- selves obstetricians and midwives would ex- amine Professor Draper on the circulation of the blood, they would soon find that an un- closed foramen ovale, that the aperture being open between the auricles of the heart, and the imperfect organization of the heart are the causes which create a large filled out stomach or abdomen, and the little lank spindling legs seem on children who die young. But the great Architect himself would not move a meddlesome midwife out of her way. Her way is to be in a hurry and fret, the cord and the scissors, hurry up is her word, and she advises the father to look at the "splendid baby" while she hurries the death cord on the nave, land advises the mother to be perfectly easy while she robs the child of two pounds of blood, by prematurely tying and cutting the navel cord. Nor is this an exaggeration. Let any child weighing seven pounds be placed im- mediately upon a scale upon its being born and weighed at once, and then wait there until the cord has ceased pulsating, anditwill be seen that the child hasincreasedinweightnearly two pounds ; and this weight comes directly from the moth- er's placenta,from which the blood has been con- stantly flowing in and crowding every artery, vein, capillary full, while the child is exercising the first breath. 73 its lungs and commenced to have every muscle of legs, arms and body. It will seem strange to many readers to hear this for the first time. It has been written for over two thousand years. It was never cus- tomary to tie the cord before it ceased to beat among the Spartans, Greeks, Romans or Per- sians. In many tribes or nations the cord is not cut at the present time until pulsation has ceased, but it remains for the poisoners of the nineteenth century to find out new devices to rob and mur- der a child legitimately, and they do this very robbing and murdering in hundreds and hun- dreds of children by tying and cutting the cord too soon. The cause produces an effect. The child wastes away, it is blue, wrinkled, puny, has a feeble cry, it is delicate, and the owls wonder why it should be delicate with such a father and mother. Dispensation of Divine Providence ! A fool and the meddlesome mid- wife go unwhipped. But, dear reader, that is not the way he will treat our precious baby. It is lying on its right side, and its mouth wiped clean, and his fingers kept out of his mouth ; and if it is cool we have it wrapped up in soft flannel, while we have previously had the room warmed up to 78" and plenty of fresh air ad- mitted, for the mother must have good air, and 74 the first breath. we are going to have our baby a sound pair of lungs and a heart as solid as a granite rock. We intend to obey the laws of Nature. Those Wise and Beneficient Laws, which, if properly obeyed, will give to our child a long life in the enjoyment of health, intelligence, and freedom from doctors, medicines and leeches. CHAPTER V. WHY CHILDREN DIE. With a child just born lying before you, as you place it on its right side, you can feel the thrill of blood as it pours through the umbilical vein into the child but another proof yet more startling is the changes instantly occurring in your sight. Watch the child's ears which were white, ly- ing close to the head and see them fill out with blood, see them turn red and stand out from the head, looking as if they were being filled with blood, which they are, from the heart. Look again at the eyes of the child as it is lying before your vision. Don't be uneasy. Look straight at the wrinkled fingers of the child and see the'm fill while waiting patiently for that pulsation to cease in the umbilical vein. 76 why children die. Examine the toes, and see the change from the white condition of the heretofore swimming or non-breathing animal to the red condition de- noting an arterial supply to the capillary tubes hitherto not used. It would take a volume to enumerate the changes taking place in the child's entire phy- siological system. The condition of the baby is now that of a steamship about hoisting on board her boilers. She is lying at the dock. Preparations are made to place these important factors in their position. Every man on the dock or on board knows the value of their ac- curateness in position and soundness in their composition, their capability and endurance, and is personally interested in the success of the event, but in the case of the steamer their knowledge, accuracy and science. In the case of the baby, unfortunately, ignorance, conceit and superstition stand sponsors, while black coated medicine, which is not a science, stands ready to choke the life out of it. The baby lying before you is receiving its supply of blood (we don't intend for you to forget it). The foramen ovale between the auricles of the heart is being drawn together and closing up to form an entire wall be- tween the two auricles. The heart receives its fresh and increased supply of blood and WHY CHILDREN DIE. 77 grows larger. The liver commences to change its comparative dimensions. For the first time, pure arterial blood is sent directly to the child's feet. For the first time commences the peristaltic motion of the bowels. For the first time the kidneys com- mence to secrete the urine that is to pass through the bladder. All this and scores more of facts are transpiring under your eyes in the child's body, while it is lying on its right side, if you will keep the murderous cord and the blood robbing scissors held in the hands of a blind code obeying " Regular" poisoner away from you ; or drive the infant murdering midwife out of the room. Language fails us to denounce these child killers. Can it be possible that a pretended doctor, an officious midwife, or a meddlesome robber would dare to disturb this great provision of all wise Nature. It has shaken my belief in a God of the Universe when contemplating the destruction of human life by a fiend in hu- man shape. Oh ! the innumerable company of angels that have been sent on to the throne of God before their time, because of this robbery of blood, of oxygen, of vitality, of life itself. For seventeen years in different places the writer has been desirous of learning why peo- 78 WHY CHILDREN DIE. pie could be so ignorant of natural laws, while such authors as Baudelocque, Churchill, Ramsbotham, Meigs, Dewees, Hodge, White, Denman, are before ihe people and before the physicians. But the only solution which can be suggested is that the American regular physician, the allopathic poisoning hound, in his anxiety to keep the people in ignorance and put dowm all that will not obey the Molochian Code, has forgotten the secret of life and the teachings of his own school centuries gone by. But the entire question is too deep. The origin of evil, and the reason of the permission of li- censed childkillers are too unfathomable for me. The facts remain. Thousands of chil- dren are annually slaughtered because of this ignorance, and thousands of others drag out a miserable existence with a diseased or im- perfect heart, because the doctor cut the cord before the foramen had closed. Is it a dispen- sation of an overruling Providence, or a dis- pensation of unmitigated stupidity and igno- rance? The question of capillary circulation is also entirely ignored by the parties who cut the navel cord so quickly as to prevent the cap- illaries from filling with blood. Note this fact. These fine tubes through which is con- veyed the arterial blood from the larger arte- WHY CHILDREN DIE. 79 ries to the veins are never dilated, nor filled, nor used as they should be when an infant is too soon separated from placental circulation. Professor Draper calls this capil- lary circulation the aeration of the blood and says,(page 148, Human Physiology) : "Among the striking proofs of this doc- trine, that the primary cause of the circulation is the aeration of the blood. I would particu- larly direct attention to the effects which ensue in the moment of birth at the first breath." Now it is certain that a child which is sepa- rated from the mother (navel cord tied), pre- vious to its getting its supply of blood, is always a bloodless or a very white, pale, deli- cate child. The coating of "tenacious, unctuous sub- stance," which covers the child's body when it is born, is almost impossible to remove except by the free use of soap and water, when the child is quickly separated from its mother; but if the child is allowed to lie quietly until filled with blood, and the capillary tubes be- come full, there is no trouble in removing this coating by the use of a small quantity of sweet oil. Here is a point never yet allu- ded to. The difference in the color of the child is wonderful. The child which is properly 80 WHY CHILDREN DIE. attended at birth is red, filled with blood, pre- senting that rich arterial color so much to be prized as indication of a long life; while the quickly separated child is a sickly, white, and the capillary circulation is very feeble. The stomach or liver is large, the lips blue, the legs puny and weak, etc. The upper part of the head is large and the lower part of the face small. The rule of Hippocrates was " not to cut the navel string until the child had cried aloud, sneezed or passed urine, or otherwise shown unequivocal signs of circulation as a breathing animal, having been fully estab- lished." The rule of the childkillers of America is to cut as soon as possible,—"Tie and cut in a hurry " say the old school regulars, the Hom- cepathist and the Eclectic infant murderers. This is why children die. Ramsbotham says, "when the child has cried strongly the funis (navel cord) may be divided." But he wants an "unequivocal EVIDENCE OF THE PROPER CHANGE HAVING TAKEN PLACE IN THE FUNCTIONS OF THE lungs," and thus is authority for waiting un- til the proper time. But he errs egregiously as we should wait until all the pulsation is stopped. WHY CHILDREN DIE. 81 In Doctor White's treatise on lying in women he recommends not to tie the cord until it has ceased to beat. He wrote in 1785. Denman, Pare, and nearly every writer of note counsel the postponement of tying and cutting the cord until it has ceased to beat near its placental extremity. Mr. Ramsbotham thinks it would generally be much longer than " ten or twenty minutes," and that it would be keeping the child in an awkward situation." But Mr. Ramsbotham could not have become familiar with the in- terstitial movement of gases, nor did he con- template the primary cause of the circulation of the blood, as arising from the aeration of the blood when he penned that sentence. Hence, the older authorities were safe in their proceedings with children (that is in the par- ticulars of not cutting the navel cord until it had ceased to beat), because, first, they were sure that the Foramen Ovale was in a condition to be closed permanently; and secondly, because when they had tied and cut the cord the aeration of the blood had already taken place fully and completely; and third, be- cause the entire body of the child was filled with blood coming from the mother's placenta, so that it would hold no more. They builded better than they knew. 82 WHY CHILDREN DIE. In all reason these causes should be sufficient to allow the child time to establish itself before hurrying it through this momentous crisis. But the Medical Man who believes in a Code of Ethics, and can dose the most virulent poisons down the throat of his best friend, and the ig- norant midwife are a pair that care nothing for a reason however good and weighty that reason may be. I say enough reasons have already been given to convince one of the necessity for the postponement of the separa- tion of the navel cord ; but I have not finished. It is necessary to know that you and I are right in this matter, and we will settle this question so that the ignorance of pretenders and the meddling of officious midwives shall not dis- turb our belief. Find any child healthy, strong, broad-shoul- dered, rugged, stout lunged, red in the face, with a clear eye, and inquire whether at birth the child was allowed to remain a few moments after birth before being separated from its mother, and you will find the tying was al- ways delayed. That proves one side of our • proposition. Find a puny, weak, sickly-white, narrow- chested, large-stomached, blue-lipped, spindly- legs, dwarfed child, and you may ask the question whether the navel cord was not tied WHY CHILDREN DIE. 83 immediately upon being born, and you will find, if the truth can be learned, that it was quickly tied. "■ They did not wait very long." The answer, if they are honest and know the facts, will be yes, and that will prove the other side of the same proposition. It will be said that this is the observance of an old superstition, or as some of the Mounte- banks have already said of the first edition, " That is one of the doctor's whims.'' But it is more than a whim. It is a fact. And it was the universal and apparently total ignorance of this fact that suggested the pro- priety of this book, not alone to enlighten the murderous meddlesome midwives who do not wish to know more, but to teach the parent of a fact, the non-observance of which causes death to the children. I say this law of develop- ment is at once arrested when the child is cut too soon and development ceases. Hence, death. Why children die is therefore at this moment partially answered in the state- ment that many children die because some officious, meddling pretender tied the navel cord before the breathing circulation had been fully and properly established. That many children die because the heart is not properly developed from its intra uterine life, that is, the foramen ovale is not yet closed and 84 WHY CHILDREN DIE. the child has a disease of the heart. Children die, because the aeration is not possible in the child who has not been allowed time to pass the momentous developing crisis between a non- breathing and a breathing animal. Nor is this a superstition. " Navel cutters," as they are called by Hippocrates, are as old as the prophet Ezekiel wrho likened Jerusalem to an infant born of woman. In the 16th chapter, he says : " In the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut." This was about A. M. 3350, or near- ly twenty-five hundred years ago. Hippocrates states that the custom was to leave the child until the placenta was expelled. Nor do we read of many cases of heart disease about that time, nor early deaths from con- sumption in Greece, about twenty-two or twenty-three hundred years ago. But we will ask whether the consumption of New England might not be at present ac- counted for if one could account for the absence of muscular fibres, which should be (and are) interspersed in the elastic membrane forming the cells of the lungs. The habit of cutting the navel cord previous to the filling of the cells of the lungs with air (and of filling the blood cells with blood), prevents the distention or dilation of those cells. Hence, we assert most positively that no child can have a healthy WHY CHILDREN DIE. 85 pair of lungs unless at birth the lungs are fully distended. So that the consumption of the New England States may be in a great part owing to the functions of the lungs not assum- ing their proper change at time of birth. And the reason why they did not assume their pro- per functions at birth, was because the navel cord was tied previous to the spaces of the body (i. e. the blood cells and air cells of the lungs, and the capillary tubes), being filled with blood from the mother. Above all reason yet assigned as a cause of New England con- sumption, I assert that premature tying the iiavel cord is the most feasible, while the cells are not distended they do not need muscular fibres. The New England consumptives are not overburdened with muscular fibre any- where, and the muscular fibres in the cellular tissue of the lungs is not needed, because there is no use for it, and Nature does not provide anything not needed. The fact that the State of Maine, of all the New England States, is the most free of this so called hereditary malady would lead one to suppose that possibly the bracing air had somewhat to do with this exemption, but it is not so much the air as the midwife. The writer knew of one very respectable physician, now deceased, who in a large 86 WHY CHILDREN DIE. practice attended many hundred cases of childbirth. After the lapse of some years, and while yet in practice, it was asserted that al- though many of the children lived until nine, twelve or eighteen years of age, they were more predisposed to consumption than other children attended by different physicians. Such a rumor in a country gossiping town could not remain quiet or be crushed out bv assertion. The elderly ladies counted up the children born in twenty years, and, although the assertion is apparently absurd, the very respectable physician of twenty-five years practice was discarded and condemed by the rising generation. Of course he ascribed the rumor, which he called a "shameful scandal" to the envy of other physicians, but the other physicians, of whom there were three (two since deceased), pointed to the children atten- ded during birth, the answer was undeniable, and the death of this very respectable physi- cian soon after was attributed to a broken heart and chagrin. This circumstance was a fact, and the writer is one of the other children, with not a trace of consumption about him. But the death of a brother, who deceased at a very tender age, has upon ma- ture reflection left no doubt but what death was hastened by prematurely cutting the navel WHY CHILDREN DIE. 87 cord, as the mother during that confinement was attended by the very respectable physi- cian who was in a great hurry with his scis- sors and never forgot his bottle of ergot. Regular! Of course. The regular physician led the way in this habit of child killing, and the Homoeopathists and eclectic,quacks followed. On the contrary, the children attended by a certain class of good, sensible, respectable phy- sicians, medical men taught under the tuition of Churchill, Dewees, White, Denman, and that Grand American Obstetrician Meigs, are to-day alive, sound in lungs, heart and muscles, broad-shouldered living witnesses of that Na- ture which inexorably demands that her laws shall be obeyed, if long life is to be obtained. Nor is the writer the only believer in this mode of reasoning. Professor Draper (in the work previously cited, Human Physiology, page 148) says: "The blood is not driven from the heart to the lungs, but drained from the lungs from the heart" Now if the cord is cut before the placental circulation through the cord has ceased, or before the foramen ovale is closed, or before the capillary circula- tion has been established, it follows that the lungs must be lacking in the amount of blood necessary to dilate the cells, to give muscular 88 WHY CHILDREN DIE. fibres to the elastic membrane composing the cells of the lungs, and at once from the very beginning of life leaves the entire lungs in a weakened condition. Let these facts be known once, and no one will permit a meddlesome midwife or a pre- tended physician to cut or tie the cord suddenly, and thus leave the child in a weakened condition for life. It is too serious an experience for any parent to allow a meddlesome midwife to try upon a healthy infant; that is, if one looks at this matter in the light of an experiment. There is, however, no experiment about the fact. It is an absolute inexorable law of nature, the wisdom of which is unquestioned. And hundreds of children are now dead, dying and being killed because this law of life is not followed or obeyed. While we have been waiting this time the blood has been filling our baby. Look at the ears, and observe the redness and the firm man- ner of their standing out from the head. See the redness of the skin, one of the most cer- tain of signs that the functional action of the lungs is perfected, and THE certain sign of a proper aeration of the blood in the capillaries. You can feel the little arms grow firmer and more full to the touch ; while you see the wrin- kles that were upon the fingers leave slowly and WHY CHILDREN DIE. 89 the little fingers fill out chubby and round. Even the eyes open wider, and a few moments only are necessary to show that the child can look about as well as a grown person, and although it may be as yet unable to see, it will turn its head towards the light and fix its eyes upon the lamp or candle. We feel the cord carefully. The beating or pulsating is stopped. The cord has grown cool, perhaps flabby. The placenta of the mother has poured out its treasure of blood into the baby's heart. Let us thank God and His Blessed Son Jesus Christ that our eyes are opened and we can see. For all knowledge comes of God. They are His laws that-we follow. The child's little struggles are strong. Occasionally he shuts the mouth and breathes through the nostrils ; then, asif pentup, he opens his mouth and gives the strong cry of a healthy child. It is a full, clear cry, a cry only checked by the inspiration, deep, full and perhaps audi- ble. The nails are red underneath. The toes and feet' look well filled. We observe the breadth of lung or breasts as compared to a few minutes past. We feel that our waiting is justified. Another examination of the cord con- vinces us that the pulsation is entirely ceased, and we prepare for the next step of importance. CHAPTER VI. TYING THE NAVEL CORD. i. A pair of blunt pointed scissors. 2. Some threads (six) of coarse surgeon's silk. In all ordinary cases of childbirth where the child is in sight after being born and properly laid upon its side, there is no probable danger in using any kind of scissors. Instan- ces have occurred, however, where the joints of the fingers have been cut off, and in one instance where they cut off the child's penis, instead of dividing the umbilical cord. In an- other case the operator, a distinguished medical man (Smellie) cut the cord between the knot and the child's belly nearly causing death. But this was enacted where they endeavored to carry a false modesty to an extreme, and per- form all operations under cover or in the dark. As that eminent master of obstetrics, TYING THE NAVEL CORD. 91 Ramsbotham, says: "It could scarcely have happened had the scissors been guided by the eye." In relation to the kind of thread to be used in tying the navel cord, it may not be inappro- priate to state that many good obstetricians use common twine. Sometimes the patient will have previously prepared or braided a three ply plait of three or six threads. When this is already provided the operator should see that the string or plait is ten or twelve inches in length, as, if it is too short it is apt to slip, or be jerked out of the fingers. Others advise a very fine flat tape. This should also be tried between the hands to make sure that it is strong enough to compress the umbilical cord, so that when tied no blood can ooze from it, or not more than the few drops which always issue directly after the separation. A good surgeon will always have his scissors and silk cord ready either in his obstetric bag or his pocket case. The man going to a case of parturition and having to bawl for these necessary articles after the child is born, is not a surgeon but a pretender, a mountebank, a fraud. However, if the parent is alone, or the silk thread is not at hand, cotton or linen thread may be used. All cord should be un- 92 TYING THE NAVEL CORD. colored. Nothing colored should be used about a child. The '' How to tie the navel cord" consists of two important acts. First. See that there are none of the in- testines in cord near the belly. This may be known, when there is, by the "bunchiness" of the cord close to the belly of the child. By an enlargement of the cord an inch or two from the belly. If there is anything which indicates that the cord is bunchy, enlarged, or puffed out do not tie the cord, but send for a good sur- geon to decide for you, because if the intestine is in the cord and is cut the child will certainly die in great misery. The intestine, however, is not often in the cord, perhaps not once in fifteen hundred cases. That once will be once too often if it happens tohe your child. Madam Boivin relates two cases, both of which died. In one the small piece of intestine was in the cord and in the other a piece of the lobe of the liver. Having satisfied yourself that the cord is all right; that the beating at the end towards the mother is stopped and cool; that absolutely you cannot feel a particle of pulsation, you now se- lect a place three full inches from the body of the child, and pass a stout silken thread around, and if you are not accustomed to it, allowing an TVING THE NAVEL CORD. 93 assistant to raise the umbilical cord off the bed, and also keeping the child's hands and feet away from you, as it will now have probably com- menced kicking and crying. My advice is to take three full inches from the child's navel. Because. First, you are sure not to enclose a portion of the intestines. Second, because you have room to again tie it if bleeding should commence. Third, because of the change in the internal viscera of the child a long cord allows the navel to settle in as it should settle in in a healthy state. Finally because it is the safe way. Having both ends of the silk together you make a half knot, then pass around again nearly in the same place and make another half knot. In drawing the silk tight, the umbilical cord can be felt to yield under the pressure of the cord ; but that pressure (that is the tying of the knot) should be evenly done. There should not be any jerking, and the cord should be firmly tied around until the midwife is certain that no blood can pass out from the child. This may be known by a hardfeelingunder the string, a feeling of solidity. When this is felt the silk should not be pulled harder lest the thread cut the cord, and 94 TYING TH£ NAVEL CORD. the child commences to bleed from the navel cord. Having made not less than three nor more than six turns of a stout silk cord, with a half knot in each turn, then finish by making a square knot. This square knot is important because it is the only knot that will not untie. This knot is made by making a half knot and then placing the two ends so that both ends on both sides come out of their respective loops together. It should be understood before the child is born and the young mother should see to it that her attendant knows enough to tie a square knot provided the doctor is too drunk to do it. It may seem as if the writer dwelt unneces- sarily upon drunken doctors, but there cannot be a greater misfortune in a community than a drunken medical man. He is unsafe. And where an ordinary physician can be trusted upon his honor a drunken or a drinking doc- tor has no honor. Therefore let the attendant and the mother both see that they know how to tie a square knot. Having made a good knot with three to six turns around the cord, cut off the ends of the silk so that they may be an inch long. Take another cord and tie it in the same careful manner one inch nearer the mother and full four inches away from the belly of the child. TYING THE NAVEL CORD. 95 This second cord is to prevent flooding. If there be a pair of twins with a single placenta tying the second knot may insure the second child from a dangerous flooding. Meigs says : "Tie the second knot." The best obstetricians of the world agree that the second knot is absolutely a safeguard. Those who consider that the second knot is only a whim, are entitled to a consideration from the fact that they are among the eminent authori- ties of the world and have so asserted, prac- ticed and are successful. Among the most revered name is Dewee's (page 193, mid- wifery) says: "An experience of nearly forty years had not furnished him with an in- stance where two ligatures were necessary." Ramsbotham says : "Tie two cords." Play- fair, does not think it important to have two. But the reader of this book will find two liga- tures the more satisfactory and he will not regret it. The fact about the second cord is as follows : When the child has laid long enough to have allowed all the blood that is in the placenta to have escaped from the placenta into the child, which of course is the only proper way to treat a new born child, (and is really the only sen- sible, reasonable and safe way), then the pla- centa will not discharge any more blood, (the 96 TYING THE NAVEL CORD. cord having ceased to beat before the tying of the navel cord) and of course there is no need of a second cord to prevent that which can not take place, viz: flooding from the pla- centa. Some authorities prefer tying the second knot near the body of the mother. This is not necessary ; tying an inch from the first or four inches from the belly of the child is a safe rule. If there is a little more space from the child, and the cord is a little longer it does not matter, but it should not be any shorter than four inches from the belly of the child. Having tied the second knot properly, cut off the ends of the silk and then with a pair of blunt scissors divide the navel between the two knots, taking care not to cut either turn of the silk twine. Take plenty of time to do this prop- erly . Wrap the child up in its flannel and hand it to the nurse with the instruction to " give a half or a whole teaspoonful of cool water, and after that let it lie on its right side until the time comes to dress it." Some time may have elapsed between the time the child was born, and the time of severing the cord, but this time has been well spent. Let us look at the victory we have gained by our superior mode of treatment. Where the ordi- TYING THE NAVEL CORD. 97 nary midwife has cut the navel, and gone on about her washing, dressing, castor oil or pare- goric we have waited for : i. The child to have received two pounds of blood from the mother's placenta. Blood that the mother will never miss, and which will give the child a noble start in life. 2. Where the ordinary midwife cuts the cord, and left the foramen ovale between the two auri- cles of the heart open, we have waited until we are sure that the foramen ovale is closed and the child has a perfect heart. 3. We have waited until the blood from the mother's placenta has forced the fine fresh ar- terial blood into all the capillaires of the body, and thus started all the wheels of an aerial life into active, healthy motion. 4. We have waited till every cell of the lungs has been filled with blood and air. We have waited until the heart and the lungs are counterpoised equal and working symetrically together. Bless your dear souls, you young mothers and fathers, if you have lived aright— if you have lived without debauchery, abortions, and without the syphilis, and your child has been treated in this manner, that is—properly— according to the natural laws, there is no more danger of its dying than there is danger of a mule kicking it, or the lightning striking it. It 98 TYING THE NEVEL CORD. is insured against all the sickness so common to the lot of infants in America. In concluding this chapter the writer cannot but reflect upon the gross and most unpardon- able ignorance that exists among doctors and midwives of all schools and all professions upon this important subject. They neither study or think. If they studied they would learn that the navel cord should never be tied until the cord has ceased to beat. Pulsation should wholly cease near its placental extremity. And this waiting, this patient allowance of nature, is the great secret of healthy children. Oh that I might impress upon every reader the fact that this important step is really the safeguard against the multitude of ills which surround an infant. Let me again emphasize this truth. Never allozu the navel cord to be tied un- til it has ceased to beat at the end near the mother. And it is better and safer to wait until all pulsation has ceased throughout the length of the cord. CHAPTER VII. WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. A careful nurse should take the child upon its being separated and with a little warm sweet oil rub every portion of the body. It should not be unnecessarily exposed to cold air. Dewees (page 209) says: "The child's body when first born is almost always covered with a tenacious unctuous substance which is rather troublesome to remove," He recom- mends the use of " hogs lard" because it an- swers better than anything else that we know of to detach this substance from the skin." This tenacious substance is called the vernix CAS EOS A. Sweet oil is better. Have the oil warm, un- cover a portion of the body of the child in a warm room or before the fire and rub the oil over every part and let it lie down on its right 100 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. side. It is to lie on its right side, because this position favors the closure of the foramen ovals. The doctor or midwife will do well to see that the child's mouth is not smothered by some thick wrap, and that its head is not placed within range of a roaring fire. Every part should be well oiled because the tenacious sub- stance is said to excoriate the skin, but I have never seen a case of excoriation where the child was not washed with soap. As soon as may be convenient after oiling, my practice is to give a small teaspoonful of pure soft water, give it cool, a little at a time, until the whole spoonful is given. This is all the physic, and all the medicine the child needs ; and if the mother is young, well, has an abundance of milk, is not exhausted, it may be safely omitted. The reason of cool water in a small dose being given is for the purpose of clearing the throat, the oesophagus and stomach. Cool water acts as a purgative and is safer than any other ar- ticle which may be hatched up this side of eternity. Nurses too frequently have a dose of soothing syrup or other compound to in- veigle a young couple with, especially on the birth of the first baby, and the first baby is too often killed by this well meant kindness. Castor oil should never be given to a new born child. WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 101 After the water is swallowed let the child lay quiet an hour, looking at it occasionally to see whether the cord has shrunk oris bleeding, and also to notice whether the child has its hand in its mouth, if so, or if it is apparently nursing its finger or thumb, proceed to wash it. Or if the mother is able put it directly to the breast, and allow it to lie after it has nursed. As I have elsewhere stated nursing should not be delayed lest the power of sucking is lost. Many writers advise the use of warm soap suds to take off the coating of the unctuous substance. Soap suds should not be used. A soft water is best, or if soft water cannot be obtained, a little common soda may be dis- solved in the washing water, not too much, an even teaspoonful to every two quarts of water is sufficient. With this water and the previous oiling all the coating will come off readily. It may take a little more rubbing than with a great lather of soap suds, but cleanliness and health will be more surely gained by letting soap en- tirely alone. Soap is composed of some kind of a fat and an alkali, generally a potash. Oftentimes hogs, dead with cholera, are used as soap grease. I knew of a place in Nebraska where the enterprising miller sold two hundred hogs 102 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. dead from hog cholera to a soap dealer. One can imagine how nicely distributed that bunch of soap grease was by the time the consumers used it. Dogs and offal of various kinds are also tried out for their grease. The potash is added, some oil of cinnamon or other essential oil is mixed in as it cools, and the soap is ready. Then the child is lathered,washed and scrubbed with this vile soap. Is it a marvel that the childs eyes are sore? Or, that it should have scald head, sore lips, and that it "breaks out," communicates this soreness to the nipples of the mother and in turn has a sore mouth? The hog that furnished the grease from which the soap was made died possibly of worms, or of cholera or of hog disease. The fat has not; been purified by being tried out. It is filthy, poisonous and is the cause of more sores on children than all other causes combined. Avoid soap and you avoid these troubles. Of course you can purchase a nice scented soap for 25 cents a cake. It is no better than common soap, only an added perfume not nec- essary or healthy for the child. The fat from the hog is still diseased. Nor need you be uneasy that the child will not be clean. It will be cleaner than if washed with soap, and it will be free from sores. Another important consideration will be realized by avoiding WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 103 washing with soap. The child who is not washed with soap will avoid taking cold and keep clear of the "snuffles" as they are called by the common people. That is, a stopping up of the nostrils, caused by a clogging up of the pores of the skin. I consider soft water the very best thing that can be used for wash- ing a child. After washing and wiping the child perfect- ly dry, the nurse, husband, the surgeon or midwife should personally attend to the dress- ing of the cord. It should be again examined carefully to ascertain whether there may not be umbilical hernia, that is, a portion of the intestine yet in the umbilical cord. This very seldom occurs, but when it does occur unless attended properly will cause death. As before directed the cord should have been cut three inches at the very least from the belly of the child, and if upon examination the intestine is not protruding the navel may now be dressed. First, have a piece of old soft linen, which when folded four thicknesses will be two inches square. In the centre of this square burn a hole (by means of a candle) sufficiently large to admit the cord through. Second, have a strip of old soft linen torn three fourths of an inch wide and a foot long. 104 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. Place the cord through the burned hole in the square piece which has been previously oiled with sweet oil; fold the end of the linen strip over the end of the navel, so that there is an inch on one side and eleven inches on the other, commencing from the end, wind the narrow strip quite tightly around the cord until it reaches near the flesh- or to the square and then turn it back upon itself. After it is wound up tie the end with a cord of silk quite tight; this wrapping is an insurance against its stick- ing or bleeding or chafing the skin. Then place the cut end of the umbilical cord so that it points towards the face of the child. Place another piece of linen over the wrapped cord and apply the band over the last piece. It should be attended daily and oiled. Some- times it separates the third day and at others it remains on for seven days without detriment. It must be borne in mind that the process of the navel cord separating from the child is one which is called a vital process. It does not putrify if it is a healthy child, but it separates because it dries, shrivels up and is thrown off from the living tissues of the body. Dewees says page 210, par. 595, "All that is necessary, is to pass the remaining por- tion of the cord through a hole in the centre of a piece of a linen rag seven or eight inches WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 105 in length, and about two and a half broad. After the cord has been passed through, it must be enveloped entirely by a bandage ten inches long, and rather less than an inch broad, by passing it round its whole length. The pierced piece of rag is placed lengthwise as regards the childs body ; on this the wrapped up cord is laid with its extremity towards the breast of the child ; the inferior portion of the first rag is then folded over it, and the whole secured by the belly band ; after this the child may be dressed as fancy directs, or as circum- stances may force." The belly band of a child may be made of old linen three or four inches wide and pinned on carefully and tightly enough to secure the cord in its place, but not so tightly as to im- pede the circulation. It may not be amiss to again caution the nurse against sticking pins into the flesh of the child. Similar cases of carelessness have occurred and the deficiency of phosphorus in the brains of some nurses is at times made painfully apparent by their acts. The diaper should be of new cloth, linen if possible, and well washed and dried soft pre- vious to use. No article of dress should be starched that is to be placed on the new born child. The pin should always be a guarded pin, and in placing it care should be taken not 106 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. to fasten it to the belly band. Nor should any diaper be pinned too tight. I have not mentioned a thousand and one methods of washing the child, as for instance that of using spirits, or whiskey, &c., &c., for I am satisfied that no person of any intelligence will use them. It is an English fashion, more honored in the breach than in the observance ; and when a nurse wants whiskey to wash the child she also wants a portion to wash down her own throat. A whiskey nurse bears watching. Using soap suds is the most common error and is to be avoided in all bathings and washings of babyhood. The use of soap is a source of dis- ease, of positive injury to the skin. It is also a frequent cause of sore mouth, scald head, pim- ples, "breakingout," and a hundred unknown infantile annoyances. In many respects the use of spirits, &c, as washing material is very much worse. It de- stroys the texture of'the skin, and renders it harsh, dry, liable to chafing and excoriation. The changing of the diaper, observation of belly band, so as to detect the very first appearance of bleeding from the navel, the entire charge of a child, should be left to a competent nurse. Is is much safer and better to have both parents understand the laws of nature so that any superstitious or ignorant body set- WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 107 ting up as a nurse cannot impose upon ones credulity. With directions already given bleeding from the navel is almost impossible. If a child has received proper attention there is no fear of its being sick or needing any constant attention. As far as its health is concerned it is insured by the care we have already taken. Each hour sees it grow larger, stronger, more robust and intelligent. The third stage of labor is until the placenta or afterbirth and the membranes are expelled. Consequently as early as possible after the conclusion of the second stage or when the child is separated, then the pretender, or the meddlesome midwife commences to pull at the navel cord, one end of which is fast to the placenta, which is yet attached to the inner and upper part of the uterus, (almost invaria- bly attached to the upper part of the womb), and striving to hurry the placenta into the world by means of traction or pulling on the umbili- cal cord. The best authorities of the present day, men renowned as obstetricians, depricate the forcible removal of the placenta or afterbirth. The habit of a meddlesome midwife is to pull away at the navel cord until something gives away. 108 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. She "gets something" perhaps a portion of the placenta, and maybe only a portion of the cord. As it may be that some fool pretender declares with all the gravity of ahorned toad that "the afterbirth has grown fast,"or "the after- birth IS FAST TO THE SIDE OF THE WOMAN." The afterbirth never growls fast to the womb. It never grows fast to the side. It is not a growing substance to fasten to anything per- manently. It should not be torn off. If let alone it will either come off and be expelled or it will be absorbed. In one case out of twenty thousand it might stay three or four days. In one case in a hundred thousand it might be absorbed. In general it comes away by and from the action of the uterus. The hurry of the meddlesome midwife or pretended doctor in forcibly detaching the afterbirth is the cause of innumerable sufferings and sick- ness of the young mother. The tearing oft' the afterbirth removes a por- tion of the mucus lining of the uterus. The forcible pulling at the umbilical cord sometimes causes the womb or uterus to turn wrong side out to the horror of the patient and eternal shame of the operator. The pulling away of the placenta or after- birth pulls down the uterus or womb and causes falling of the womb. WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 109 Ramsbotham, Playfair and other eminent obstetricians have remarked that nowhere is there a greater demand for knowledge and skill than during the third stage of labor. It is at this period that many women are ruined for life. The pretended doctor places his hand in the uterus and scrapes off with his fingers and finger nails the afterbirth and takes off in addition the internal coating of the womb. The meddler has no time to await the operations of beneficient nature. He lies for an excuse. "The afterbirth is grown fast." The hand is inserted into the uterus and the placenta is dragged down. The fallopian tubes, the ovaries, the bowels and bladder are all implicated by this dragging down of the uterus in the hunt for the afterbirth. 'Never again after this dragging down process does the woman enjoy good health. Never again does the buoyant elasticity of girlhood come back. As a pleasant, joyous woman, she is dead. As a wife, she lives a miserable routine. She is sick, while the husband is well. Through the hips she feels a constant bearing down. The kidneys become irregu- lar. Dizziness is present because the kidneys do not eliminate that which should pass away as urine. One physician after another is tried, of the different schools, until faith is lost in all. 110 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. Discouraged with life, the victim of a meddle- some midwife or an ignorant obstetrician, sinks into an early grave, while a white robed or black coated hypocrite looks at a hole in the sky and mutters the formula of "mysterious providence." What a fearful lie. If death does not come then the uterus re- mains weak, tries to heal up its scars and fails daily. The food may not be suitable and the whites or leucorrhcea is a source of annoyance or misery. Perhaps the meddler may scrape off (and I use the word scrape advisedly—it is an oper- ation of scraping off that I am talking of.) the afterbirth or pull the uterus down from one especial side, right or left. Afterwards, when the ligament of the womb is weak- ened down, when some muscle is irrecov- erably strained, a pain in the side becomes a permament trouble, while all the physicians can only suppose that somehow it came in childbirth. The proper way to avoid all these troubles is to never allow the afterbirth to be pulled away. Never allow the meddling man or woman to insert the hand in the uterus upon any pretext. Let nature have her way. You will learn that in general, there is no cause whatever for interference. WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. Ill At the risk of repetition I shall make a short chapter on this subject which will do good if heeded. (See the Danger Note.) The second pains come On and the placenta is expelled entire. Even the membrane will not be broken. When the afterbirth is expelled it should be examined to see whether it is whole. If it is, there will be no more clots pass. If it is broken, there will come away for a few days clots and membranes in shreds until all has passed. Many persons burn the afterbirth, others will bury it beneath a tree. It may not make any difference where or how it is disposed of. I confess that I like to see it buried beneath some pleasant shade tree. It has been a faithful servant, treat it handsomely. It may not be a portion of the essential Ego, but it deserves a better fate than being thrown to the hogs. As it putrefies quickly, it should never be thrown in a vault. The most severe case of malarial fever without apparent cause occurred where this article was allowed to decay in a vault. Let the father see to these little things. There will always be a number of fool advisers to give good advice, but the father can act with prompt decision and allow these brainless ones to act for themselves when their time comes. 112 WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. When the afterbirth has passed and the child has been dressed, put it to the breast. As a rule the child will be better to be nursed dur- ing the first hour, certainly within the first two hours. One of the reasons for this early nurs- ing is because there is a natural motion to the mouth of an infant which it loses after a few hours. Another reason is because a child soon nursed never has that fearful looking upper lip and detestable mouth seen on some children who cried and sucked their thumb. Indeed much of the facial ex- pression which we call beauty is obtained by plenty of nurse and care, keeping the child free from pain. A pretty child can be made as ugly as desired by treating it badly, refusing it nurse and allowing it to remain crying for hours. It may happen that a child may be found to be tongue-tied. This is known by the child failing to get the milk from the breast. In nursing the tongue plays an important part. When the lips of the infant close tightly around the nipple the child draws the tongue back- wards. This drawing backwards creates a void or empty space, or a vacuum, and the milk from the mother's breast or from the milk glands rushes into the mouth through the orifices on the nipple. WASHING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 113 The remedy for tongue-tie is cutting care- fully a portion of the membrane that is in the under portion of the middle line of the tongue, and which is easily seen on the raising the tongue. Any one can do it by having a sharp pair of blunt pointed scissors, and just snipping or cutting the membrane. It rarely bleeds but a few drops. It is best however to have a com- petent medical man to perform this little oper- ation as I have seen some very bungling gashes left by officious meddlers who are only too ready to undertake that of which they know practically nothing. But I have seen the young regular fool, just out of college, who did not know where to look for tongue-tie and did not know how to cut it when he found it. 8 CHAPTER VIII. THE DANGER NOTE. When the child is born, properly attended, the navel cord tied, separated, the child wrapped up and carried from the room, the officious, meddling midwife sounds the Dan- ger Note. She "hopes," that is, she says she hopes, but as a matter of fact, she doesn't care a rush, she "hopes the afterbirth hasn't growcd fast." The young mother's heart beats quick at the new and unexpected peril, and the doctor, if he be young, inexperienced or a stupid old brute, looks as wise as an owl. They mean business, these officious midwives. Nature hasn't a ghost of a chance with them. The doctor pulls off his coat, greases his arm and fist perhaps, and crowding it into the relaxed THE DANGER NOTE. 115 vagina and uterus tears off the afterbirth with his nails, pulling away what he can get. Ac- cording to these meddlesome midwives, Nature is asleep, or gone visiting, and they, the offi- cious meddlers, are to do the work of absent Nature. They are in a hurry. Their actions are hurried. They are excited at the "grow- ing fast" of the afterbirth, and pull the after- birth away, piecemeal if necessary, tearing down as they go the other vital structures of the unfortunate woman. For, they not only pull away the afterbirth, but they scrape off the mucous membrane, which is the lining of the zi'omb. They pull the uterus out of its place. They drag the Fallopian tubes from their proper attachments. The forcible and violent pulling and scraping off the afterbirth* wrenches and strains the ovaries. They in- jure the ureters, the little pipes conveying urine from the kidneys to the bladder. They sometimes pull forcibly upon the bladder, in their endeavor to grasp the afterbirth and pull it down, thus rendering the victim incapable of retaining urine for a moment. But, these are only a part of the dangers awaiting the young mother who is the subject of ignorant or unprincipled midwives. Unfor- tunate humanity ! Pitiable woman ! whose life blood given for her child, is now herself ren- 116 THE DANGER NOTE. dered a crippie by the most barbarous igno- rance and stupidity ! But the end is not yet! A flooding com- mences, because the ends of the arteries and capillaries are violently torn off before nature has time to separate the ends properly. The lunatic midwife, or the crazy, ignorant quack, tries to stop this flooding with pounded ice or cloths wrung out in ice cold water. The vital force is expended, the life power does not react, and the young mother dies amidst the lamentations of friends and relations. And this, this murder, this most abominable butchery, is laid upon the divine author of the tuniverse as a ""dispensation of God!" What a blasphemous libel on Divinity. Or, the doctor uses a powerful styptic, as Monsel's salt internally, which coagulates the blood. This styptic, in fine particles, enters into the general circulation and is carried to the' heart. Coagulations are formed in the heart and death claims another victim. Or, the doctor, believing that "Opium will stop the flooding" gives a hundred drops of lauda- num or "full doses of Dover's Powders" until the poor sufferer goes into an opium sleep, never to awaken on this green earth. This, too, is a providential act! An inscrutable THE DANGER NOTE. 117 decree of a most high God ! These are not fancy sketches. The horrid mutilating work goes on to-day all over America. The '' afterbirth grew fast" is a common ex- pression. It is made the scapegoat of ignorant meddling midwives. It is a false statement. A glaring, unblushing falsehood, patent to ev- ery thinking, educated man or woman. The afterbirth never grows fast. It is attached to the mucous membrane of the womb and peels off as readily as the skin peels off an orange. Give it time. As soon as the child is born and the arterial blood has been sent to the born child, the uterus commences to contract and keeps up its contractions until the afterbirth is expelled, and expelled wholly and together. The best physicians in the world decide against this barbarity. The eminent obstetrician, Playfair, says: "There is no place where there is so much mal-practice as at the bed of labor and in the detachment of the afterbirth." The most experienced and wasest of Ameri- can surgeons and obstetricians oppose this bar- barous habit of pulling away the afterbirth; and there is no successful obstetrician nor a midwife who believes it is natural or right. Under whatever lady's eyes this book may fall let her be cautioned not to allow this 118 THE DANGER NOTE. destructive and fatal error. This error of having an arm or a hand thrust into one of the most delicate structures of the human body, this organ of generation scooped, torn and lacer- ated with the finger nails of another party. And I have known of the entire mucous lining of the womb torn off, the womb itself turned inside out, (inverted) immediately flooding and death resulting from this unfortunate and bar- barous error. There is every reason to believe that a great majority of diseases classed as " female dis- eases," "falling of the womb," which diseases were not near as common during the time of the colonial settlement of America as now, have been brought about and are caused almost wholly, by the malpractice of the man mid- * wives who hasten to " remove the placenta" in a " scientific manner" at the present time, while formerly this detachment was left to the un- aided effort of nature. And physicians of today have been taught that, "it (the afterbirth), must be removed in an hour." Nor does one special school of medicine claim any superiority in this respect. A drunken doctor is the worst and an ignorant Homceopathist the next most unfortunate in childbirth. The regular school of the present day is in a most deplorable condition. Regu- THE DANGER NOTE. 119 lar graduates are regular scientific women and children slayers. Their college books inculcate murder; and, unless the women study for themselves, and fight for their own lives the next generation will be yet weaker than at present. It must not be understood that I am declaring all regulars murderers, because I believe there are very many good men who understand the laws of nature and try to do right; but the great, the very great, majority are dishonorable, ignorant, drunken and un- trustworthy. Homoeopathy today stands and succeeds in America solely because of the vices, the ignorance and the misfortunes of the old or regular schools. Let me make one quotation from Roberts' guide to the practice of midwifery published in 1876, page 153, he states : " During the expulsion of the child the nurse should make firm pressure on the maternal abdomen and follow down the uterus in its final contraction." Any one who could advise such a proceed- ing is ignorant of the first principles of child- birth. Suppose some one should apply this principle of "pushing against the abdomen" to a cow or a mare. How absurd ! Yet this is "regular" and Roberts is an " authority." 120 THE DANGER NOTE. Recently Crede's method of delivering the placenta has found favor with many of the more enlightened obstetricians. This method is to "seize the uterus, with the fundus in the hollow of the hand; the fore fingers being applied to the posterior and the thumb to the anterior sur- face of the organ. The relaxation of the ab- dominal walls enables the physician to do this readily, so that he has the organ thoroughly under control. The uterus is then firmly com- pressed when the placenta is expelled, some- times with a gurgling noise." But it is not always that one can depend up- on outside pressure. The regular school have been taught to "remove the placenta;" and the red-faced regular graduates obey these deadly instructions. John Bell, M. D., who edited Lee's theory and practice of midwifery, 1844,says : page 222 : " On whatever cause it depends there are no cases in which the placenta ought to be per- mitted to remain in the uterus beyond an hour after the birth of the child." And he proceeds to advise the introduction " of the right hand in a conical form, through the vagina into the uterus, to spread out the fingers to the circum- ference of the placenta, and to press the mass slowly from the uterus if it still adheres, and to extract it." THE DANGER NOTE. 121 And that advice has been followed too liter- ally in America and hundreds of women have left their little ones to the mercy of strangers and gone over to the silent shore in consequence of this blind murderous obedience. "No insur- ance on the life of a female." The most startling comment of these lectures on theory and practice of midwifery would be to quote his cases followed by this sudden re- moval of the placenta. It would occupy too much space. They died, or many of them did, and Mr. Lee and Mr. Prout cut them open to find only " Effusions of Lymph !" Of course this is a " regular" proceeding. These " reg- ulars " of today are the creatures who assume to call every one who does not believe in their Mercury, Arsenic and Opium "quacks." But if one might judge from the present condition of the regular school which is engaged in get- ting laws made to protect them and their school of medicine we should say the regulars were quacks and the American medical association a band of murderers. I say this : The error of supposing that the afterbirth must be torn away is in itself the be- ginning of the cause of the death of women in childbirth. It should not be allowed, except under circumstances which renders it im- perative, circumstances which rarely occur, 122 "THE DANGER NOTE. and in no instance does the afterbirth grow fast. The next abominable method of removing the afterbirth is by pulling on the navel cord. The meddlesome midwife twists her hand around the navel cord and pulls until some- thing gives away. I know that many ladies „ and not a few midwives and every old fogy of a doctor will say, that this pulling at the nave] cord is all right and safe, but the cord should not be dragged at nor pulled down upon for the following reasons : First. Because the dragging on the cord brings the middle of the placenta to present at the vulva instead of the side. Second. Because in the now relaxed condi- tion of the womb, pulling at it drags it out of place, leaves it flabby, and leaves subsequent weakness, leucorrhcea and falling of the womb. Third. That there is no necessity for hur- rying, as the placenta will come away of itself in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred. That the contractions of the womb will event- ually bring or force away the placenta, is not denied by anyone; furthermore, if the contractions of the uterus are sufficient to expel the child it is safe to say that the con- tractions are certain to be able to expel the afterbirth. THE DANGER NOTE. 123 It is true that under severe operations in mid- wifery, as, for instance, the Caesarean opera- tion (cutting the womb open in front and ex- tracting the child from the front part of wom- an), foetal death, Placenta Procvia and mon- strous births, a placenta may be forced to be hurriedly taken away. But I am not now al- luding to these rare and truly exceptional cases. I am discussing natural births. Births, that would have had a happy termination, save for ■the meddlesome ignorant midwife and preten- ded obstetrician. I allude to natural births which are in too many instances transformed into severe protracted and fatal cases of child- birth. I will also allow that cases occur in extreme flooding, abortions and miscarriages when an immediate removal of the afterbirth is impera- tive and justifiable ; but these are not natural cases of parturition. "What then shall we do if we do not trust the doctor?" I reply you think the doctor knows, but he does not know. Three-fourths of the old school physicians and nine-tenths of all the midwives do not know what to do in case of retained placenta. This then is my directions. Wait for nature. Wash and dress the child and apply it to the breast, if pains come on then see if the after- 124 THE DANGER NOTE. birth can be reached with the finger, if so, it is detached and a few pains will expel it. The side of the placenta may be taken hold of by two fingers following the cord with the finger and waiting for a pain, can be assisted, if loose, out of the uterus and vagina. But if the placenta has not been detached and there is no flooding, and it cannot be reached by the finger, I say wait. Make the mother comfortably dry and wait. In case there is flooding give a little tea or cayenne pepper, and use an injection to the uterus of a decoction of raspberry leaves, (boil a double handful of raspberry leaves in a quart of soft water twenty minutes, strain and have them cooled to the warmth of milk and use in two injections half an hour apart). Mix as much good cayenne pepper as will lie on the point of a knife, in a tumbler of cold water, and give internally, one teaspoonful every fif- teen or every ten minutes. This is a better uterine stimulant than all the medicines in the old school. Their uterine stimulant is a Secale cornutum, Ergot, spurred rye, a dangerous poison if it were good, but inert, if used as it is commonly in fluid extract form and a dangerous remedy at best. Finally as she lies down let the woman be well steamed. If she is able to sit up and THE DANGER NOTE. 125 does not flood, the little alcohol vapor bath is one of the most certain relaxants known in the world. Of course if the patient is too weak this cannot be done. In that case having waited twelve hours use an injection to the bowels of a weak ginger tea, until there is a good motion, and then practice a gentle rubbing over the abdomen or Crede's method, you may rest assured that the afterbirth will not do any material damage if it should stay in the uterus ten days, and you can believe this in the face of all the lying, regular poisoners on the continent of America. Alva Curtis, who was long the foremost practitioner in the Reform School of Medicine, savs in his book on Midwifery, page 117 : "Never fear to wait for the efforts of nature aided only by innocent means and processes to disengage the placenta. Many instances have occurred in which it (the afterbirth) has remained not only for hours, but for many days, even fifteen or twenty, and then came away without either danger or inconvenience to the patient." The general fact about the afterbirth grow- ing fast is probably because ignorant men tie the navel cord too quickly, thus leaving an amount of blood in the afterbirth that should have gone to the child through the navel cord. 126 THE DANGER NOTE. Now this blood in the afterbirth prevents the rapid and natural detachment of the placenta, and those who tie the cord loo soon are the ones who always have these very bad cases. I know these "regulars" have the good peo- ple under their thumbs, and there are hun- dreds of men who, looking upon their wives as they would upon a female slave, leave her in the hands of these ignorant butchers called doctors. They do not know, and they do not want to know. I am striving to help the in- telligent laboring man, and desirous of doing my duty toward God and man. I am anxious to prevent the midwife butchers and ignorant quacks from murdering any more women un- der the shallow pretense that the aiterbirth "growed fast." I expose the ignorant homoe- opathists who scrape off the afterbirth with their finger nails, souse the unfortunate woman in ice water, and appear to be surprised that the victim dies. I am endeavoring to expose the robbers of humanity, who, under the guise of teachers, practice their cruel barbarous methods of delivery upon unfortunate, helpless women, leaving their victims wrecks of hu- manity, living a burden themselves, their lives lingering torments, a source of the most unut- terable care, solicitude and anxiety to others. I endeavor to teach husbands, how to take THE DANGER NOTE. 127 care and properly protect their wives from ma- rauders, pretenders, quacks and officious med- dlers, and how to have them recover certainly and speedily from the dangers of child-bear- ing. To warn unlearned youug mothers against the brutality of uneducated assump- tions. To do this, I shall introduce some history. CHAPTER IX. SOME HISTORY. In the history of the Jews, of Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome there is nothing to prove that there was the danger in childbirth that now exists. On the contrary there is proof from the writings of Hippocrates, that only the most gentle means were used to detach or re- move the placenta. There is nothing, I say, to prove that the afterbirth was ever pulled away, unless, perhaps, when the child was dead in the womb. In the chapter on dead chil- dren, Celsus advises to introduce the right hand and remove the secundines ; but this al- ludes only to when the child is dead and the labors are protracted. " £>uoties infans pro- tractus est." SOME HISTORY. 129 We may suppose that the Sacerdotal supre- macy of the sixth century, and the assumption of the name and title of vice-gerent of God on earth, as well as of "universal bishop" of all men and controller of souls and bodies, both in this world, purgatory, and the world to come, would not have neglected the auspicious mo- ment of birth to dictate their terms for admis- sion into the future state by one who held the keys of St. Peter, death and hell. According, while priesthood and medicine went hand in hand, the ceremonies at the birth came, naturally to include the immediate de- tachment of the placenta, and the baptism of the child ; an act which was doubly beneficial — to the church — saved the infant soul from the fires of hell, and bound the mother eter- nally in debt to the priesthood. This practice of immediately pulling away the alterbirth is, therefore, a relic of the dark and superstitious ages, and is based on the as- sumption of infallibility by the assumed head of the christian church. The habit cannot be traced further back than the sixth century, and received a check when the dawn of letters gave the opportunity for the people to rebel against the tyrannies of despots. The habit of immediately plucking away the afterbirth was always followed by the most 9 130 SOME HISTORY. disastrous and fatal results, but as all good catholics submitted to the orders from the suc- cessor of the apostle, St. Peter, " the hand was rudely thrust into the uterus on all occasions and the alterbirth pulled instantly away." This barbarous habit was inculcated in the year r733 by Chapman, and his advice was "that the placenta was to be taken or pulled imme- diately out of the uterus ;" again, in 1739 Man- ningham, an eminent medical authority of Eu- ropean fame, sanctioned this inhuman and murderous proceeding. To Dr. Hunter, of London, England, the present generation is indebted, as being thefirst English authority as against the pulling away the afterbirth upon the moment the child was born. Dr. Hunter had witnessed the calam- ities of women, and in the Middlesex Hospital of London, Dr. Hunter's associate, Dr. Sandys, agreed to see what would result if the after- birth was not pulled immediately away. At the "first experience" the woman was left twenty-four hours and at the expiration of that time the placenta was expelled by the natural contractions of the uterus ; the woman had a good rapid recovery. After that time it became the rule in Middlesex Hospital to leave the afterbirth to be expelled by nature. SOME HISTORY. 131 Some years previous to this date, Dr. Ruysch, an eminent anatomist of Amsterdam, was ap- pointed president of Obstetric college of that city and also given the power to regulate the practice of midwives and surgeons practicing midwifery in that city. And Dr. Ruysch_/»r- bade the pulling away of the placenta in any case. We may date the opposition to the for- cible pulling away the afterbirth, to these two highly eminent medical authorities; Dr. Ruvsch, in Amsterdam, and Dr. Hunter of England. But errors and superstition die hard. Writers on obstetrics, recognizing that, in some extreme cases, the placenta must be taken out of the uterus to save life, have laid down rules as to the time which should elapse previous to pull- ing the mass away. These errors of judge- ment in the immediate extraction of the placenta, or of waiting a specified time, are not based upon the circumstances laid down by obstetric writers, but are fol- lowed and are premised without the due cautions laid down by every writer. Thus, Ramsbotham, speaking of Pare says : "his cautions were neglected, but his rules fol- lowed " (to pull away the afterbirth at once,) " and hence the most disastrous effects resulted." 132 SOME HISTORY. Blundell, who is acknowledged one of the greatest authorities, in his work published 1834, makes the following remarks : " Where the placenta is rudely and injudi- ciously torn away by the hand of the accouch- eur, the worst consequences may be expected to ensue. Floodings, tremendous lacerations, inversion of the uterus—such are the eftects of obstetric violence—ferocious and atrocious ob- stetric violence ; that insatiate and gory Moloch before whose bloody shrines so many thousands have been sacrificed, to be succeeded in future years, by still more numerous victims. Observing the awful consequences, resulting from the artificial separation of the placenta, Ruysch first, and afterwards Denman and Hunter, recommended that in all cases after the birth of the child, the expulsion of the placenta, like that of the foetus, should be committed to the natural powers, for they added " the same natural powers which are adequate to expel the child, are surely adequate to expel the placenta also." "I hope," (page 171) "that no one will needlessly thrust his hand into the uterus, yet SOME HISTORY. 133 I have my misgivings------some of my ob- stetric friends whose talents I esteem, fall into this error; they grate my ears by boasting how frequently they have carried the hand into the uterus and with what facility the placenta has been removed." Do not needlessly thrust the hand into the genital fissures; it is the voice that issues from this preparation (this was said while showing preparations of wombs and placentas exhibiting the effect of violence),—he that hath ears to hear let him hear it. Ah, that violence of an ignorant and savage hand ! Is it too much to assert that in obstetrics, a thrust of the hand is more dreadful than a thrust of the bayonet? Could the field of Waterloo exhibit injuries more dreadful than "these?" Page 172 Blundell's obstetrics. Now let the reader read the above selections from an old school writer and then contemplate that in the states of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, the women are constantly attended by the very men so strongly deplored by that christian physician James Blundell of London. Well might the insurance companies print in the boldest characters :—" NO RISKS ON THE LIFE OF A FEMALE." 134 SOME HISTORY. It would seem superfluous and altogether unnecessary to further caution any one against a habit so unfortunate in its general effects up- on one-half the human family, if we clid not know, from constantly recurring deaths, that such cautions and warnings are at the present writing an absolute necessity. In order, how- ever, to show that this fact of pulling away the placenta is the direct cause of death, I shall quote from two authorities of England. I am aware that this may be superfluous to those, who already hold similar views, in regard to the rapid placental detachment, but for the pur- pose of verifying my statements, and also for the benefit of the unlearned, who may be temp- ted to believe the statement of some butcher of a charlatan, I submit the following. The emphasizing the text is due to the copyist: "I was called, some years ago, by one of the midwives of the Royal Maternity Charity, to the assistance of a woman under puerperal convulsions. When I arrived, I found she had been bled largely by a medical friend living in the neighborhood, who had been sent for on the instant of the attack. The bleeding had relieved her partially, but it was thought right to repeat it. A third quantity of blood was taken some time after, with such a beneficial SOME HISTORY. 135 effect, that the convulsions entirely ceased, and, in a few hours, perfect consciousness had grad- ually returned. About fifty hours after the at- tack active labor came on, and in less than five hours the child was born dead. The placenta did not descend, and two hours subsequent to the expulsion of the child I was summoned. I found her perfectly sensible, in good spirits, and she made no complaint. There had been no hemorrhage, the uterus was not strongly contracted, and the placenta was entirely within it. Under no greater anxiety than I usually feel, when the placenta is retained, I proceeded in the ordinary way to remove it. The mo- ment I passed mp hand completely into the uterine cavity the paticvl turned upon her ab- domen , and, without uttering any expression of pain, -went into a convulsion, though not of a violent kind ; intense coma supervened, which yielded to no treatment I could devise, and terminated fatally in about two hours from the removal oi the placenta. (Ramsbotham, page 344, edition 1851. I presume there is no fair minded intelli- gent person with a forehead a quarter of an inch high or with an ounce of brains, who may chance to read this confession of that eminent obstetrician, but what will at once ad- mit that removal of that placenta was the last 136 SOME HISTORY. blow upon the already depleted and exhausted woman. And who, after perusing this recital of a forcible plucking away the afterbirth, but what will acquiesce in the financial shrewd- ness of the Mammoth Life Insurance Company which says : "No risks taken on the life of a woman." I now quote from another English author, a learned man, an eminent authority of the old school: "A highly esteemed friend of mine once found it necessary to pass his hand into the uterus for the purpose of removing an adhe- rent placenta. The introduction was carefully performed. The straining and opposition to his efforts, on the part of the woman, were ex- ceedingly great, and at the moment when the operator's hand had reached the organ, my own hand .making counter-pressure on the ab- domen, the patient became violently convulsed, and died in less than a minute." From Ingle- by upon Uterine Hemorrhage, page 186 (English edition.) Having satisfied the reader that a death or two can take place in old England from rude- ly or suddenly pulling at the placenta, it may be stated that no less than thirty women in two years have been killed within fifty miles of the capital of the State of Nebraska from SOME HISTORY. 137 this hurtful and stupid practice of pulling away the placenta soon after the birth of the child. In fact it wras from seeing and person- ally knowing the ill success of an old school or regular poisoner in Lincoln, Nebraska, that first incited the idea of writing this work for the common people, in the belief that when their attention is once called to this monstrous evil, this murderous habit, they will forbid the butchers of man midwives from destroying their women. But the Western States are filled with ig- norant men, who because they have attended a couple of courses of lectures, pretend that they are qualified as obstetricians ; and thus assume a knowledge they never had and will not learn. I remember a young merchant coming to Lincoln about the year 1879, ano^ embarking in business. His wife was confined under the care of an ignorant Homceopathist. The child born and this Homoeopathic chap pulled the afterbirth away. The lady's father living in Iowa was a physician and was telegraphed for. He came and at first found no fault. In eight days the mother died leaving the child alive. There was quite a controversy in the papers, but the murderer went unpunished. He was a Homoeopathic doctor! I believe my own, the Physio-Medical school, to be more successful 138 SOME HISTORY. than any, or the regular school, yet, there is great room for present improvement, but we do not use the deadly hypodermic injections of all kinds of poisons as the old school do, and in that we are immeasureably their superiors. The regular school have killed women enough during childbirth, in Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois to have formed ten regiments, and it is no wonder they need a medical law to prevent the dear people from finding these facts out for themselves. If any one needs a medical prac- tice act it is the miserable butchers among the old " regular" poison giving doctors. It may be urged that in many of these sud- den deaths of women in childbirth, spurred rye or ergot had been injudiciously administer- ed by the attending physician. I admit it. Spurred rye or ergot has sent many a child to the graveyard and ruined many a young mother's constitution for life. It causes severe and prolonged contractions of the uterus and something must give way. But ergot is fatal "especially to the child, and only occasionally to the mother. Hence, I do not class ergot as only occasionally being the cause of death to the mother, while one of every five women, that die in the West, die in childbed from the direct effect of a forcibly detached placenta. In other words, the introduction of the hand 0f SOME HISTORY. 139 the ?nidwife into the cavity of the womb for the purpose of pulling away the afterbirth is the cause of one woman in five dying in childbed. Perhaps stronger language would be justifi- able. The reader can supply it. It is easily shown, by reference to any of the historians, who treat upon the subject that none of the older nations knew of the mortality in child- birth that we have witnessed in this, and the preceding generation. History records the errors of the past and if Persian, Egyptian, Grecian or Roman mothers had succumbed to the perils of childbed, as . the American women are now subject, there would have been need of a foreign immigra- tion to have kept up the population. We are - not condemning or apologizing for the assump- tion of Sacerdotal government. The fight is against the errors of the priest craft; errors continued, in the light of the civilized nine- teenth century. Continued in the face of the experience and education of one hundred years. Errors as murderous, cruel, barbarous and shameful as those of the inquisition. If the old or regular school in America were sober, honest, Christian or human, we might look for some sort ofreformation in that school which assumes the name of "regular." But the so called old school are drunkards. They 140 SOME HISTORY. have no honesty as a set of medical men. The people are justly afraid of their drug store prescriptions and try patent medicines, mineral waters and homoeopathy, anything to keep out of their deceitful, poisonous, drugging hand ; and to the rising physio-medical non-poi- sonous school must the people look for relief and education to rid them of these regular murderous monsters. The so called eclectics are merely an offshoot of the old school, an un- acknowledged progeny of assumption and igno- rance fostered and nursed into life by the mis- • takes and persistent stupid errors of members of the regular medical profession. The " physio-medical" school has the prom- inent feature, which must eventually advance its members to the front rank of the medical profession ; viz : its opposition to the adminis- tration of poisonous chemical agents, as adapted to restore the human body to health. This school is indebted to its industry and honest perseverance for its knowledge of the thera- peutic properties and the value of indigenous remedies. The Physio-Medical School has the best record to-day of any school in the system of obstetrics. It is enough to say that the educa- ted physio-medicalist stands in the front rank of reform, and stays there because he is an SOME HISTORY. 141 HONEST SOBER WORKER FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HUMAN RACE. The homoeopathic school has no record save as a system of assumption, fraud, theft, poison, and failure. The acro-narcotic poisons of the world are its medical agents. Homoeopathy has no physiology, no chemistry, no brains. It is a theory based upon a lie. Like cures like should be translated "we poison to kill." Never existed a more unfortunate class of ob- stetricians than those who profess to follow the teachings of homoeopathy. So long, however, as the people are ignorant, so long as they do not think or study for themselves, so long as the most ignorant man or woman can assume to "practice medicine" and dose out the most baneful of poisons, under the shallow pretense that he or she is a "homoeopathic doctor," so long we shall witness the inevitable calamities which are always befalling ignorant assump- tion. There is not a city or hamlet in Amer- ica where this unfortunate profession of homoe- opathy has not slain its victims in childbed. I class homoeopathists as among the most ig- norant, meddlesome, and, therefore, the most unfortunate of midwives. History does not produce a parallel of gauzy tricks to catch the public eye as are daily set forth by the little pill poisoners of this century. The children 142 SOME HISTORY. and women killed by their minute doses of poisons, would form a terrible army if they could arise from their graves. Some may ask, "why does not some one expose them." I answer, that the eclectics are in the same boat as the homoeopathists, all alike dosing down poisons to fit the patient for the grave yard; while the old school has a standing col- lar around its neck preventing its members from turning around to see what is being done. The National school of sanative medication today is the Physio-Medical school. The people have too long been under the dominion of the conceited and stupid poisonous, mur- deres who assume "regular" as their shibo- leth, and cloak their deeds of blood, their im- morality, their drunkenness and abortions un- der a Code of Ethics and a vile attempt to monopolize the medical knowledge of the con- tinent by banding themselves in an American medical association. The people should un- derstand them in their true character. The American Medical Association of Poisoners alias the regular Allopathists and child-killers. CHAPTER X. FINALLY. There is always a cause. Reproduction is performed by various modes. In the vegetable kingdom non-sexual and sex- ual, with their varieties, present themselves for our study. Propagating by buds or cuttings, or by sub-division and fission are familiar ex- amples of non-sexual reproduction. Alternate generation may be sexual or non-sexual. In the animal kingdom reproduction is also non-sexual or sexual. Non-sexual generation occurs only in the lower classes of animals, as in the infusorial animalcules and worms or Annelida. Gemmation consists in a budding out from the body of the parent, which budding reproduces itself again, oris detached and forms an independent organism. 144 FINALLY. Sexual reproduction is always performed by a male and female. The females produce the eggs; the male the fertilizing product called the sperm. There is no living being without a pre- existing parent. There cannot be anything come out of nothing. There is no spontaneous generation. Nothing lives without a pre- existing cause. When the female deposits the egg outside of the body before the egg hatches, the female is called oviparous. The classes of animals, who have the germs developed in themselves, are called viviparous. Both oviparous and viviparous animals have eggs or ova. The eggs of the oviparous are called meroblastic ova, and the eggs of the viviparous are holoblastic ova. The holoblastic ova are found in insects, the simplest Crustacea ; the cyclostomatous fishes, and the mammalia. The mammalia includes nearly all the quad- rupeds that suckle their young, some species of whales, all domestic animals, and includes the human family. All eggs, to reproduce young, require the contact of the male fertilizing germ, which, in the mammalia, are called sperma- tozoa. FINALLY. Uh In the oviparous animals these male germs enter the egg previous to the egg receiving its covering, or shell, as for instance in the hen or other fowl. In the mammalia the male sperm enters the uterus and enters the ovum at that point, or, at the point of contact in the Fallopian tube in or upon the ovary. If the young is to live, this egg is attached to, or is drawn towards and adheres, by attraction or other- wise, to the mucous lining or membrane of the uterus. This egg, the holoblastic ovum, contains the material for nourishment for the young, only for a short period of time ; hence, it forms a nucleus from which to draw from the uterus and the female body nourishment for the young germ during its intra-uterine life. This nucleus or ovum, at an early beginning has two mem- branes : the Amnion and the Chorion. The Amnion contains a water or a liquor, called the liquor amnii, an alkaline fluid, contain- ing from i to 3 per cent, of solid mate- rial, and is said to be composed of a lactate of soda, a trifle of albumen, sulphates and phos- phates of lime, sebaceous matter, and toward the close of gestation it also contains very minute hairs, which have been thrown off by the embryo. The liquor amnii is, probably, 146 FINALLY. as varied in its composition as are the varied conditions of the mother. The chorion is a membrane outside of the amnion and close to it, forming a safety cover- ing to the amnion and therefore to the young germ. It is rather tough, very thin, trans- parent, and glistening. It encloses all the child and is so close to the placenta that there is no possibility of the leakage of the waters. These waters in the human female vary in different individuals in amount from a few ounces to two or three quarts. Towards the close of gestation these membranes are close together. The holoblastic egg, therefore, furnishes the placenta and all the membranes. Keep this in mind. The male furnishes only the living germ. The placenta or afterbirth, is therefore not part of the womb, but is attached to the uterus solel}', on account of, and during the life of the child. When the young is expelled the placenta, or afterbirth, is usually cast off in a few moments. Meigs says : "The same pain that chases the buttock of the child out of the vagina, usually'drives out the placenta within ten minutes." The child is, therefore, from the male. The placenta or afterbirth, is from the FINALLY. 147 egg or ovum of the female. The amnion, chorion, liquor amnii, the nourishment, are the outgrowth of the ovum of the female. Not of the uterus, but in and attached to the uterus. Hence the placenta, derived or growing out from the holoblastic ovum, is attached to the place zi'here the spermatozoa or child is. For instance, in tubal pregnancy, the amnion, chorion, placenta, are with the child in the Fallopian tube. In uterine pregnancy, the egg is attached to the walls of the uterus. The placenta is attached to the walls of the uterus. It cannot grozo here. It never be- comes a part of the uterus. It is a part of the original egg of the zuoman. The child is nourished through the umbili- cal cord which connects the placenta with the abdomen or navel of the child. This placenta grows with the growth of the child. It attaches itself, or is attached to the uterus, by means of indentations and projec- tions which fit each other exactly. These projections are called villi. The blood in the child is constantly purified hi the placenta, but the blood of the child does not intermingle with the blood of the mother. Prof. John Marshall's Physiology, page 958, says: "The blood of the mammalian embryo, pass- ing along the umbilical arteries, upon the al- 148 FINALLY. lantois, circulates through these foetal villi, which are themselves bathed with maternal blood. The two bloods come into close rela- tion, being separated only by the most delicate tissues, but they do not intermingle." At the fortieth week or thereabouts the foetus and its membranes, the placenta, the amnion and the chorion, are contracted upon by the uterus and all discharged, if the labor be natural. It is possible, that the child may be born, the placenta come away with all the mem- branes, without the loss of a drop of blood. Marshall says, page 959 : "The foetus and its membranes are detached from the inner sur- face of the uterus.'" Meigs says ; "In deliverance the whole of the placenta and membranes come awav" The holoblastic ovum is, in itself, a structure. The afterbirth is the outgrowth of that structure, at the time when or after the woman becomes impregnated. The mammalia, as of the cow, sheep, cat, dog, horse, have placentas. A whale, at full term, is said to have a placenta twenty feet long. The cow may have one hundred pla- centas. The placentas of all classes of mam- malians are similar in their structure, in the offices they perform and in their peeling off, FINALLY. 149 after the expulsion of the embryo. No one will pretend that the whale, whose afterbirth is twenty feet in length, is subject to hemor- rhage, oris subject to an afterbirth grown fast. No one supposes that any other animal of the mammalia, other than the human female, hav- ing a holoblastic ovum, has a necessity for a rapid detachment of the afterbirth. The do- mestic animals are insurable of either sex. The human female, with the same class of ho- loblastic ova, same manner of embryonic cir- culation, same structure, built upon the same general plan, is liable to have an afterbirth on the same plan as any other holoblastic ova bearing female. The Woman, the Mother, the Sister, the AVife, alone is not insurable ! ! One rarely hears of a cow in convulsions at the time of labor. The domestic animals are deliv- ered generally without accident. Only woman, of all the holoblastic ova bearing, placental females, is liable to the dangers of childbirth. And these dangers may be said to be in a direct ratio to their civilization and their de- pendence upon midwives and charlatans, who derive their superstitions and cruel practices from the dark ages of priestcraft. But these assertions may be met with objec- tions, that many eminent writers on midwifery have expressly stated that they have known of 150 FINALLY. "morbid adherence of the placenta." Nor will there be any lack of midwives to assert that such and such a case had an afterbirth "grown fast." I dissent. It is not so, as we have already seen the holoblastic ovum furnishes all the membranes and placenta, and these depend- encies are attached to the mucous surfaces of the uterus by villi or projections. Now to allow that a placenta is morbidly adherent to the uterus, is to allow that there is an unnatural growth between the placenta and the mucous membrane. Ramsbotham, indeed, makes this assertion (page 321) "in which morbid adhe- sion takes place — agglutination between the two surfaces of the uterus and placenta, in consequence most probably of a disposition of coagulable lymph, the produce of a peculiar kind of inflammation, which the lining mem- brane of the uterus has taken upon itself during pregnane}." But Ramsbotham has to say " most probably," and allow that it is a " pecu- liar kind " of inflammation. I say most certainly the holoblastic ovum can never in itself produce any morbid adhesion, since it never under any other circumstances than in the human female becomes suspected of being adherent. Imagine a placenta twenty feet long of the whale and never hemorrhage, and never mor- FINALLY. 151 bidly adherent. Examine the cow with one hundred and twenty placentas, and none of them morbidly adherent; or the sheep, the sow and rabbit, all with placentas formed of a holoblastic ovum and never retained, never hemorrhagic. The eminent writer, Rams- botham, devotes an entire page of note to his explanation of the agglutination theory, and asserts that it is more common in the lower than in the higher classes. But this poverty and liability of the poorer classes to " accidents during pregnancy, as are likely to induce in- flammation to uterine structure, and which may terminate in the agglutination of the two surfaces together." will not stand criticism in America. It is the better classes that suffer most in this country. The poorer classes have a dread, a wholesome and salutary fear of a doctor, and hence are less liable to have the afterbirth torn rudely away than the better classes who depend upon a doctor or a mid- wife ; a fact, which will be readily concurred in by every busy practitioner of medicine in this country. Indeed, if it were not a stigma upon the noble profession of medicine, I would respect- fully suggest that perhaps the poverty-stricken classes do not so readily dispense their quid pro quo, and hence the man midwife cannot 152 FINALLY. afford to wait the expulsive and natural efforts or contractions of the uterus. Under such cir- cumstances an "adherent placenta" forms a ready excuse to go to the next patient, by scraping off the present patient's placenta with the finger nails. Of course I am very sorry to suspect that such might be the case, but having lived in dear, delightful old England, and familiar with the respect paid and due to the lower and working classes, I cannot help surmising that poverty would not pay any practitioner to wait three hours at a bedside when he could scrape off that afterbirth in three minutes. "'Tis true, 'tis pity! pity 'tis, 'tis true!" And if one thinks it not pitiable let him examine the women of his acquaintance and contemplate how they have grown old since childbearing; grown weak, helpless, chron- ically indisposed; invalids, with hollowed, blanched cheeks, tottering walk, the joy gone out of their life, dating from the time of their confinement when the doctor pulled away the afterbirth. I have now to submit the last objection against this practice of rapidly detaching the placenta, an objection which, however novel it may seem, is, I am satisfied, one that will commend itself to every student of nature and FINALLY. 153 to every one having the welfare of the human family at heart. First. When the spermatozoon enters the holoblastic ovum of the mammalia that ovum commences to have a circulation from the ovum to the spermatozoon. This circulation, if the child is to live, increases with the growrth of the child, never stops, the outgrowths of the ovum still continuing to grow and enlarge until the child dies or is born. Second. Upon this circulation in the pla- centa does the growth of the child, its life, depend. If the placenta is ruptured the child is born or dies. As the mother is nourished, so also is the placenta nourished. Third. When the placenta ceases to nourish the child, the child dies. When the child is dead from any cause, the circulation in the placenta ceases. Fourth. As we have already seen that the circulation in the placenta depends upon some cause connected with the child (that is, I assert that the germ from the male causes the com- mencement of the circulation, and that this reciprocal circulation ceases with the death or the birth of the child), so we may assert that upon the birth of the child the circulation in the placenta ceases, and the placenta becomes an inert, non-circulating mass outside of the 154 FINALLY. general circulation of the female. And here I would say that in many, too many instances, the premature tying of the navel cord, retain- ing the blood in the placenta, prevents the natural detachment of the afterbirth; in other words, the afterbirth being full of blood does not cease to have a circulation, and it is when that circulation has ceased that the placenta peels off naturally and quickly. If these propositions are true, then as soon as the circulation of the placenta ceases nature prepares to expel it; this, in the great majority of cases, is precisely what occurs. In those cases where it does not occur at once, may be : i. Where the placental circulation may have been obstructed by the too rapid tying of the navel cord. 2. By premature birth. 3. By the improper administration of chlo- ral, chloroform, ether or narcotics. The facts are, that after the birth of the child the placenta is ready to peel off itself, and does peel oft', does come away, is naturally expelled by the contractions of the uterus. It cannot have grown fast; cannot have become adherent; cannot become "agglutinated," be- cause it is a foreign body, an inert mass, an article outside the general circulation of the female body. In this condition patience is FINALLY. 155 necessary. Here is the point, and this is the place where so many midwives and inexperi- enced practitioners lose their heads and their patients. Ramsbotham indicates two hours as a proper time to wait. Dewees says, page 422 : " No point of practice is more unsettled than the time that should elapse between the attempt to deliver the placenta and the delivery of the child. I am averse from making time the criterion. It is always safe to act when the uterus is well contracted, and never until then" Meigs, page 299, only waited one hour and a half. He says, however, in the next para- graph : "I cheerfully admit, however, that cases mav and do occur in which a longer delay may be advisable." I shall not introduce other testimony into this work farther than again to admit that, under some circumstances, the placenta should bo rapidly delivered. These circumstances have already been mentioned in previous pages. But, provided there is no flooding, not much pain and no faintness, it is safe and best to wait twenty-four hours before " insert- ing the hand briskly into the uterus," and hurrying that which Nature is capable and certain to do, if time is allowed. Two cases may illustrate : 156 FINALLY. Mrs. W. was confined with a boy at eleven in the forenoon; the attendant did not see proper to detach the afterbirth for thirty-six hours; she was out of doors on the tenth day. Mrs. G. was confined one day later; the med- ical attendant, an eclectic, detached the pla- centa manually in one hour. The first lady is in perfect health ; the second "has falling of the womb, leucorrhea, and such a " dreadful weak back." In the first case Nature detached the placenta, and did so without any laceration of the mucous membrane, which lines the uterus; in the second, the eclectic medical gentleman dug the finger nails into the mu- cous lining, and possibly made a partial inver- sion of the uterus. Why do women die in childbirth? Because of the mal-administration of ergot, opium, chloral, chloroform in some instances, but largely, mainly, and principally because the afterbirth is pulled away before it is time — pulled away with no regard to anything save brute force and superstition. CHAPTER XI. THE AFTER-TREATMENT. Very little time should elapse between the expulsion of the placenta and the application of the bandage. Many obstetricians affect to despise this useful article, and a certain class of homoeopathic gentlemen deride the habit of applying any band or support to the abdomen of the recently delivered woman. It will be seen, however, that the practitioner who neg- lects this precautionary measure will occasion- ally lose his patient from the want of this simple safeguard. The bandage removes the danger of extreme flooding, favoring contrac- tion of the womb. It supports the abdomen and benefits the reparative processes, because it keeps the uterus, bladder, intestines, and peritoneum in a quiet, apposite state. I believe 158 THE AFFER-TREATMENT. no experienced midwife or obstetrician will take the chances of doing without the bandage after labor. The usual method of preparing the band is to have it double with a gusset or gore for the hips. An improptu bandage can be made of an ordinary roller towel, or of a pillow slip. The length should be three and one-half feet, and ten or twelve inches the width. The nurse or attendant usually sees to this, but it will repay any one interested in the welfare of the patient to have a personal supervision of its appliance. It should be placed next the skin, drawn moderately tight and pinned over the hip. All stained, wet, or damp cloths should have been changed. This may be accomplished by making up one side of the bed anew, changing cloths, and gently lifting the patient into the dry place. If flood- ing commences no moving or changing should be allowed. Flooding is, in my estimation, the most dangerous symptom in childbirth. A quiet position is an absolute necessity. If one reads the account of Rachel when she was confined with Benoni or Benjamin, and the verses that precede the one where her breath was just "going," it cannot fail to have been suggested to the mind that it would have been well for Rachel if there had not been so much journeying previous to confinement. It THE AFTER-TREATMENT. 159 may also be possible that the fool midwife pulled away the afterbirth in the case of Rachel. At any rate the midwife was a false prophet. For flooding I have four remedies, which are named in the order of their increasing strength: i. An infusion of raspberry leaves. 2. A decoction of blackberry root. 3. The fluid extract of witch hazel (Hammamelis Virginica). 4. The tincture of myrrh. In ordinary cases a cup of the infusion of raspberry leaves is a safe and mild drink. It is far safer and fully as effectual as ergot. When the hemorrhage is exhausting and severe, the tincture of myrrh may be given in teaspoonful doses every ten minutes. Let the patient lie perfectly still, the head not raised much above the body, and the myrrh will control the flooding almost instantly. A tea of Blackberry Root bark, with a very little capsicum, is almost a specific for ordinary cases of flooding. Make quite a strong decoc- tion, and give a tablespoonful every five or ten minutes. Beth Root (Trillium Pendulatum) is also an excellent astringent. Put two ounces into one and one-half pints of water, boil twenty min- utes, strain and cool, and give a spoonful every five minutes until the flooding ceases. I advise 160 THE AFTER-TREATMENT. you to gather these articles, and not to pat- ronize a tobacco and whiskey drug store. The druggist does not know, and does not care whether his herbs are pure or not. He sells drugs to make money, and the cheaper he gets them the more he can make. Prob- ably, also, he will pass some sneering remark after you are out. If you have to buy, send a letter to II. M. Merrell& Son of Cincinnati, or to B. O. & G. C. Wilson of Boston, and enclose a draft for what you want. They are the only two firms in the United States where you are sure of getting a pure herb, and you can get them safely by mail. Raspberry leaves, blackberry root bark, and tincture of myrrh can and should be in the house previous to confinement. They cost little, and are above price if needed. My idea is, that if a woman is properly treated she does not need medicine. The condition of the urine should be inquired after the use of any astringent, because after they have been given the urine is apt to be scanty and burning. This can be remedied by an infusion of peppermint, or a glass of weak lemonade, and, if palatable, is to be allowed as soon as the flooding is controlled. I strenuously object to the use of spurred rye or ergot, as this agent poisons the milk in the mother's breast, and THE AFTER-TREATMENT. 161 thus destroys the child. The use of Ergot also explains one of the reasons why the old mineral poison doctor has so many cases of milk sickness and puerperal convulsions. Ergot makes a fool of the child and leaves the mother liable to ovarian tumors. The use of per- chloride of iron as an injection to the uterus in cases of flooding has been advised. It is a dangerous remedial agent. I believe this-salt may be absorbed, or if not absorbed, it may extend its power of coagulation over other bodies of blood and thus may cause a coagula in the heart; an effect as fatal as if the heart were cut out. For after pains, the regular school depend upon the internal administration of camphor and opium. I use the decoction (or fluid extract) of blue cohosh, or of motherwort (Leonorus cardiaca,) half teaspoonful of the fluid extract or a tablespoon of the decoction after every pain. It is not a good idea to rub the bowels with any kind of spirit, but a gentle rubbing over the abdomen, with the hand possibly moistened in wrarm water, will in many cases allay the severity of these pains. A tea of the leonorus maybe relied upon in afterpains, but I shun the use of opium or laudanum because they are poisons and destructive to the body. n 162 THE AFTER-TREATMENT. An injection to the vagina and uterus in cases of flooding of the decoction of black- berry root would not be so objectional. I have never found it necessary to use it. I believe that if the woman is treated rightly in the delivery of the afterbirth there is usually no danger of flooding. And I have so much con- fidence in the remedies already named that I should not hesitate to administer them in the most extreme cases. As for the great number of fluid extracts, Saccharated extracts, and all the so called new remedies put up by drug houses, and eleixirs and all their patent preparations, you can be assured, as a fact, that they are in too many instances unreliable, untrustworthy, and worse than useless. If you depend upon a herb tea properly made, and strained, and settled, you cannot get disappointed in the effect you desire to produce. The child should be put to the breast as soon as it is dressed. The sooner the better. Nursing favors the contraction of the womb, and uterine contraction stops flooding. It is better for the child to nurse within one hour, and the sooner the better, as it then is able to suck. Nor should the nursing be delayed because the placenta does not come away. Sometimes the act of nursing favors the con- THE AFTER-TREATMENT. 163 traction of the womb, which is indicated by pain, and the placental mass is forced out dur- ing the contraction. Upon this point all the schools of medicine are very deficient in knowledge, and very contradictory in their statements. One of the most reliable of writers on child- birth (Rigby, page 189,) says : "a child is capable of sucking the moment it is born; indeed we would say better at this moment than later, for the power of instinct in it is fully as great as in other animals ; whereas, if not put to the breast soon after birth, but fed in- stead, it quickly loses it. A vigorous, healthy child seeks its mother's breast, and if it does not find it sucks at everything which touches its mouth, even its own little hand or finger when presented to it." White, another good old sensible English authority (on " Lying-in-Women ") says : the child should be put to the breast " whether there be milk or not."' And these authorities are correct. The young mother's breasts are in the most possible perfect condition for nursing directly after the child is born. The nipple projects and is not ten- der. While the milk has entered the breasts the nipple seems to be buried beneath the breast, and the baby cannot get a good hold of it. 164 THE AFTER-TREATMENT. In relation to sore and inflamed breasts (which is caused by the skin covering the nipple and the breast being extremely thin), I believe the very best preventive is to expose the breasts daily, or twice a day, to the sun- light, during the last three months of preg- nancy, and washing them with softwrater, and daily giving them a good rubbing. This ex- ercise renders the skin tough, elastic and firm, so that the nursing child cannot chafe them by nursing. The best remedies for sore breasts are a strong decoction of Raspberry leaves, which may be used warm or cold, and a fre- quent bathing in warm, soft water, in which a little common soda has been dissolved to ren- der the water alkaline. No soap should be used. Ladies who are habitual tea drinkers are more liable to sore breasts than those who use water or milk. Nine days is said to be the period which a woman must lie after being put to bed. The period differs in different females. If there has been a rapid delivery, not much flooding, it is well for one to sit up a little on the third day, and gradually increase the time. As society is now constituted the woman will not get up before the third week ; no young mother should permit herself to run a sewing machine, play upon an organ, or lift until THE AFTER-TREATMENT. 1G5 after the fortieth day after birth. Let her con- sider that if the youthful appearance is to be kept, she is to take care of the body. Accor- ding to the Mosaic law this period of forty days must elapse before she is cleaned. This statement demands the most careful considera- tion and investigation, both on the part of the husband and father, and also the wife and mother. The intelligent being should be able to control the body and his passion. Although many of the assertions contained in this little work may appear arbitrary, yet, in the experience of the writer, nothing written is untrue or deceitful. If the reflections of schools of medicine are harsh let it be imputed to the most bitter tyrannical conduct of the members of those schools, and to the fact that they are now engaged in keeping the people in ignorance. The classes of doctors who are neither generous, educated, liberal or sober cannot be depended upon for help or infor- mation. If new ideas have been brought out for the benefit of the suffering women, if these pages learn the voung husband how to care for his life partner, in her sorrows and travail, if it saves one woman from the pangs and lamen- tations of death, its aim will be accomplished. CHAPTER XII. WHY WOMEN LOSE THEIR TEETH, AND HOW TO AVOID THAT CALAMITY. These are the days of sham, pretense, hurry, envy, malice, cruelty, smiles and treachery. We live among electricity. We have no time for meditation ; no time to pray; no time for other aspirations than society, money, fame and power to amass money. We have hard work to be honest to ourselves. No time to be honest for others. Our mothers drank tea and our fathers drank rum and chewed tobacco. We, the men, are only half made. Our sisters and wives, a class, part of ourselves, are with WHY WOMEN LOSE THEIR TEETH. 167 us, crushed to the ground; burned out, wasted, hopeless, helpless, yet in their very weakness rising in their last earthly looks to agonize what little soul there is in us into unspeakable tortures until we turn choking away to again take up the filthy, soul sickening search after a dollar, shut our eyes and hold our breath while we struggle with the other leprous ani- mals for the possession of more money. Why do our women lose their teeth in child- bearing? Because the child demands enough bony material to form a skeleton, a bony frame, and these women, (as they do not get that bony material in fine flour, in potato, in the pies, cakes, goodies, pastry, ice creams, sugars of the day, composed of sulphuric acid and glu- cose), give their teeth to supply the Baby's demands, while the baby is growing in the uterus. Stop, you fool-man, and study this out. Stop, you simple-minded, trusting woman. Stop, sit down, or kneel down and ask God to give you brains enough and five minutes of time to understand His Great, Unchangeable Laws, so that you may do good to others and gain happiness in serving God. When the spermatozoon of the male enters the ovum of the woman, pregnancy follows. 168 WHY WOMEN LOSE THEIR TEETH. From this time all the growing child is sup- plied from the mother's body. If the food the mother eats does not contain bone material to supply the growing child, then the mother's bones and teeth are drawn upon to supply the skeleton of the child, and this is the reason of the young mother losing her teeth. Nor does it stop with childbirth. All through nursing the milk drains off the best of her body. If that body is not supplied through the moth- er's food with bony material enough to supply the demands of the growing child, the mother turns her bones and teeth into blood and milk to supply the child's demands for bones. What is to be done ? Stop eating Irish pota- toes, because the starch does not supply any bony material. Stop sugar, (unless you know the sugar to be pure, either from your own knowledge, as of maple sugar, or from a reli- able man, but not the grocer, as he is usually ignorant and careless), as it is composed of materials deadly to your teeth. Replace your potatoes with oat-meal mush, gruel or cakes. Have a broth made by boiling a good piece of bone, well cracked, four hours or more, and having salted and seasoned it, drink this bone broth three to five times a week. Make and eat your own graham bread, and shun and avoid the nasty, poison, bone de- HOW TO PRESERVE THE TEETH. 169 stroying Baking Pozudcrs of all kinds. Throw your soda into the wash tub. Keep the destructive, cell bursting, amoeba killing alkali soda out of your stomach. Eat a few nuts, almonds, walnuts, hickories, pecans, filberts, or chestnuts every day and don't forget a few good sound raisins, after dinner. Stop your coffee and tea and replace them with warm water and milk. If oatmeal cannot be eaten with milk, or butter, or honey, or pure maple syrup, then try cracked wheat, hulled corn, corn bread, or hominy, samp or grits. Avoid the fine four biscuit, and especially the tooth rotting alum and tartaric acid baking pow- ders. Lastly, keep your teeth clean daily by means of a soft brush and soapsuds at least once a day and brush your teeth three times a day at the least. Use a silk thread between the teeth. While you are nursing have your bone soup cold or warm and supply your system with it three or five times a week. Wean your child when it is nine months old. If you are constipated " throw physic to the dogs," and drink a half or a whole cup of warm water the first thing in the morning. 170 HINTS AFTER CONFINEMENT. This warm water cleanses the bowels and the liver, kidneys and spleen better than all the senna, manna, magnesia, salts, and seidlitz powders in the world. If the urine is painful or scalding, your hands or feet feel numb or sleepy, or if you are dizzy make a tea of one heaping table- spoonful of clean whole flax seed in one pint of boiling water; let it stand thirty minutes; add enough lemon juice to make it palatable and pure sugar to suit if your tooth is exces- sively sweet and drink it freely, a pint every two hours, until you are all right, or in case of palsy drink this dose every night before going to bed, and keep the bowels free by the warm water in the morning. If your urine is red, or settles like brick dust make a tea of Peppermint and drink a cupful each day, say a wineglass full cold or warm an hour before eating. The nurse or doctor frequently suggests a *' cup of tea" to bring on the milk or for other purposes. Tea is a detriment to the nerves and brain. It is not a benefit for a nursing woman and should not be used. A very much better drink is crust-coffee, or a thin oatmeal gruel; or warm water and milk. Avoid sugar, as sugar assists in destroying the teeth. If faint and without appetite drink a HINTS FOR THE MOTHER. 171 cup of weak sage-leaf tea. China Tea is a beverage that causes the child to urinate fre- quently and also causes that dribbling of urine, so sure to chafe the child. It also causes the child to be wetting the bed. I mean to say that when the mother drinks the tea the child is troubled with a weakness of the bladder, and this weakness sometimes lasts through life. Coffee is a slow liver destroyer. It is a nerve excitant unfit for a pregnant woman or a woman just confined. It is apt to constipate the bowels, and is provocative of much mental misery. Instead of coffee and tea drink warm water and a little milk, avoiding these terrible mind destroying agents. A woman should nurse her own child, as this is the proper condi- tion for a mother ; and she is unnatural who can, but will not, nurse her own child. There are, however, many women who allow the milk to fill out the breast until the nipple is buried and they cannot nurse. In such cases a child should receive the utmost attention as to its food. Goat's milk is best. Next best is one cow's milk from a fresh cow, and a young one if possible. Every care should be used to have all the nursing bottles and everything connected with the milk in a state of scrupu- lous cleanliness. 172 HINTS for the mother. The child may cry steadily or spasmodically. If so, examine the pins; see that it is not chafed ; or if it is, oil it; do not allow it to re- main wet; see to its navel; have it nursed regular; and change it from side to side. If it breaks out with heat on the back or neck, use a clean warm water in which you dissolve enough soda to make the water a little slippery, then bathe quickly and wipe dry. Let the baby have soft linen or clean old cotton to sleep in. Pulverized starch is good to dust on afterwards. This is sold in the drug stores under various names. A good remedy is to pound dry rice very fine and dust the fine pow- der over the places broken out writh heat, after it has been washed in a weak soda bath. Lycopodium is also used. Do not use soap as a general thing. But if it gets scurvy head or is full of boils use a weak suds of carbolic acid soap. But soap is a dangerous thing to use on a young child. Letting a child nurse while asleep on one side and falling asleep on the breast is, if con- tinued long, liable to make the childs nose one- sided. Do not let your child bury its nose in the breast but hold it so that it can nurse and breathe through its nose at the same time. Nose to one side is not the prettiest sight on this earth. hints for the mother. 173 If the child has the colic, give a clean, well- strained, not too much sweetened catnip tea. If two to six teaspoonfuls does not allay the colic give in the tea one or two drops essence peppermint or a little anise-seed tea. If the bowels are cold, warm them by rubbing and warm flannel. If the bowels have not been moved, use a warm injection to its little bowrels of a sage or catnip tea sweetened with syrup. Catnip tea makes a safe injection for a child's colic. No child should, under any circumstances, nurse longer than nine months. It ruins a woman's constitution and predisposes the nurs- ing woman to a zcas/ing consumption to allow the child to nurse after that time. To explain this would occupy a volume. Some women nurse so as not to again become pregnant, be- cause, while nursing, the ovulation is held in abeyance. But from whatever cause the Note.—Do not give, under any circumstances, Mother Winslow's Syrup, Castoria, Paregoric, Laudanum, Bate- man's Drops,Jaynes Carminative Balsam, and ten thousand other poisonous compounds used to deaden the child's sensibility and destroy its brain. These remedies have some dangerous narcotic in them and are the beginnings of death. If you must dose, get a doctor to assist you to dose it and you can lay a part of the blame of the child's Seath on the doctor. But to kill it yourself because a lying newspaper puffs up a patent poison will always be an un- utterable regret. 174 REMEDIES for various ailments. woman may have, the effect of long nursing is the same, a wasting away of the woman, wrinkles and a certain decay of the physical and mental powers. Long nursing renders the mother's bones and teeth soft. If the breasts become cracked it is best to use a rubber nipple shield. I think one of the main reasons of cracked and bleeding nip- ples is because after the child nurses, the mother frequently places her breasts back in her dress and they have a sudden change from the temperature of the child's warm mouth to the cold clothing. Besides this, the childs saliva is acid and the acid quickly turns the portions of milk sour and a fungi com- mences to grow upon the breasts. To prevent sore breasts wash the breasts with a little alkaline wash, the moment the child is done nursing, wipe them dry and rub them well. This is the best preventive. After the breasts are sore use a strong tea of raspberry leaves, after they have been washed with a weak wash of soda. A heaping teaspoonful of bi-car- bonate of soda to a quart of warm rain water. The London remedy for excoriated breasts is as follows : Dissolve four drachms pure gum tragacanth in three ounces of distilled rose water; when thoroughly dissolved add four ounces of lime AN UNBROKEN SLEEP. 175 water and one ounce purified glycerine. Mix and apply to the excoriated parts. It should be a soft jelly when done. I do not think a child should nurse oftener than once in two hours, and as it gets older the intervals should be longer apart. Some- thing depends on the mother and the child about this matter. No child should be allowed to sleep with the nipple in its mouth. It is a wretched habit and one that brings sorrow with it. The child, unless it is very cold, should sleep alone, away from the mother, so that the mother can get an unbroken sleep. If the bowels of the recently confined woman do not move by the second or third day use an injection of clear warm water to the bowels. Physic is better avoided as it deranges the milk of the mother and the digestive functions Note.—The mother should sleep alone, head of the bed to the north, if possible, and the nurse or husband on a couch. Oh, the blessed repair that comes of sweet un- broken rest. But the sleep that comes of Opium, Chloral, or Bromide of Potassium is a fraud before Heaven. Shun the poisons and the poison givers. If nervous, have the hands, arms, face, and feet washed in a warm alkaline water and wiped dry so as not to take cold. The mother just confined should not eat meat for eleven days after confinement. She will look better and feel better to have a purely vegetable diet for that lapse of time. Butter, syrup, honey, jelly, if they set well, are to be allowed. Oatmeal is the finest food for a Northern woman, and rice for the Southern mother. 176 AFTER CONFINEMENT. of the child. The injection may be repeated every three hours until it induces a good motion. All water drank by the mother should be pure soft water or else should be boiled, strained, set aside to settle and cool. Ice water should be used with much caution. It is apt to produce colic in the nursing child; so also are cherries, cucumbers and any under- done vegetable. I cannot close without expressing my heart- iest contempt for the medical profession who are wickedly and stupidly ignorant. All the medical schools hurrying along in their race for a dollar, trampling over their sisters and wives, grinning, bowing, smirking, yet grind- ing them out of existence because of their stupid, selfish, sensual ignorance. As for the lying dentists who poison the woman with amalgam, mercurial amalgam, or after they pulled the teeth out have placed a plate in the mouth composed in part of Bi-Sulphuret of Mercury to make the woman demented, they ought to be hissed on every corner. Oh, that I could burn a sentence on the young woman's mind ! It should be this:—Study', investigate, reason, and thinx for yourself. Keep YOUR BODY PURE AND STRONG, as a TEMPLE for the Holy Ghost. NATIONAL IBRARV OF MFD: NLM 00561072 5 NLM005810725