Femina, a Work for Every Woman

CHAPTER I.. The Reason Why.

THE REASON WHY.

I see a large field of usefulness which has not been covered by competent authorities. I propose, therefore, to offer a plain, simple statement of the most common causes of physical suffering in women, and a simple and reliable method of home or domestic treatment, to be carried out by the patients themselves, which, in the great majority of cases, is easily applied.

The first nine years of my professional life was an untiring and incessant devotion to the arduous demands of a large family practice, after which I decided to go to Europe, and there prosecute such studies in two German universities as my experience as a practitioner had fully convinced me to be of the greatest practical and scientific importance; hence, I offer no excuse or apology for aught I may say on a subject with which I have taken especial pains to familiarize myself. Having in a measure established my identity, I am more fully prepared to proceed in a more congenial way.

In the realm of thought there is no monopoly, and it is, after all, at the bar of public opinion that a final judgment must decide the merits of my course.

The question is not what to teach, but whom to teach. This may seem, at first sight, an easy matter to determine, but a more careful inquiry will show the complexity.

The platform of a medical college is considered by some the only legitimate place from which a medical man may impart his knowledge, but here the opportunity is limited, notwithstanding the abnormally great number of these institutions. This, however, is not the only reason. Medical colleges are becoming so numerous, that they should be discouraged by all honest and high-minded medical men, because in this country they are private institutions, with very few exceptions, and subserve sinister purposes, in furthering the interests of their promoters either as advertising schemes or money-making institutions, or both.

Of course they are incorporated under State laws, which make them quasi-public institutions, but the State exercises no authority over them, and their self-constituted professors conduct them to suit their own private ends. They are not limited by law, nor is a required course for their students imperative, so that the public have no guarantee of the fitness or competency of their graduates. There is, also, an unhealthy rivalry among our colleges for students, improper material is taken in, and correspondingly poor material is turned out; this in turn causes a rivalry among their graduates in making spoil of the sick.

Every self-respecting and competent medical man has an utter contempt for these doctor mills. This will never be different in this country until we follow the plan of European governments, and make medical colleges State institutions, and their professors officers of the State, with liberal salaries.

The medical press has a comparatively limited opportunity for imparting information to the public, unless the editor of the secular press happens to make a quotation.

The exclusiveness that has characterized the learned professions generally, and the medical profession particularly, is rapidly passing away. Only half a century ago, the medical lectures in Germany were mostly delivered in the Latin language, and, while we now often suffer, in listening to medical lectures in bad English, the latter may still be the lesser evil. In fact, so great is the deference to public opinion in favor of diffusing knowledge that medical faculties court popular favor by delivering a course of lectures on medical subjects, and consider these the best-drawing card of the institution.

Information that is not sensational nor untruthful cannot fail to do incalculable good to the class for whom it is intended, namely, our wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, so that they may avoid errors, that entail suffering and disease; information that will teach them how to cure themselves of the commoner and simpler ailments, and thus avoid running to the doctor, who cannot always afford to tell them the truth. Some would not if they could.

The Darwinian theory is of wider application than to mere animal or plant life; it extends itself to the overcrowded professions, and the increasing “struggle for existence” in the ranks of the profession makes men dishonest and greedy for any opportunity to raise a fee, so that patients are being treated for diseases which are created for them by the cunning and dishonesty of their doctors.

A little common sense and a knowledge of the elementary principles of disease would be the best protection against these deceptions; but, as a rule, sick persons are inclined to throw aside all good sense, and give themselves up entirely to their feelings or to their doctor. This is a very wrong thing to do, and opens the door for all manner of impositions.

The general practitioner of thoughtful and studious habits finds that, in the course of years, a diversified reading on the different diseases which in the routine of his work he is called upon to treat makes him a generally well-informed man, but not a thoroughly exact man, either in theory or in the details of his treatment.

Fifty to sixty years ago the entire field of medicine was comparatively so small that it was easier for a brilliant mind then, to comprehend all that was believed to be known, than it is for the same quality of mind to understand any of the subdivisions of medicine to-day.

Those were the days of doctrines and rules. Little that was absolutely correct or true was then known about disease, otherwise such absurd theories as the “dynamization or spirit-like” influence, causing disease on the one hand, or that the “great source” of chronic diseases was psora, or itch, on the other, as Hahnemann would have them believe, could never have gotten a foothold.

These are the days of scientific deductions from microscopical and physiological research, in laboratories connected with great universities, and the result is, that any of the specialties or subdivisions of medicine is as large and interesting a field as the entire area was some time ago. It thus happens, that some thoughtful persons, after years of general practice, drift almost involuntarily into some one department of medical art and science. To this they become gradually wedded, and in it they grow in knowledge and experience far beyond their previous anticipations. What they read on the subject is better understood, and new ideas are constantly formed, which enlarge the scope of their knowledge. In this manner the writer drifted into the domain of diseases peculiar to women, which was as unhappy on the one hand, as it is interesting on the other, for the phrase “diseases of women” has fallen into disrepute because every superficial practitioner professes to know all about them, and it often is but another name for criminal abortion.

But for all that, there is a legitimate and scientific specialty of women’s diseases. The time-serving specialist must be exposed in every department of medical science. Whether the pretender is labeled, a professor in a college, or labels himself through glaring newspaper advertisements, one is just as much a catch-penny as the other.

The object of educating the laity cannot be reasonably confined to a few medical truths, but the perversion of the truth must also be understood, so that the false can be detected. It is necessary to point out the dangers and frauds which are the unhealthy outgrowths or excrescences of established truths, and there must be no veneering of the wicked and sinful with ambiguous phrases to shield the guilty; the truthful and innocent require no apologist.

The honest observer can pursue no middle way in a work to which he has devoted the best years of a studious life, and hence he may seem radical in his opinions. While policy often dictates a conservative course, that which conscience and reason dictate to be true is prompted by loftier motives, namely, to subserve the highest purpose of moral integrity.

It has often been said that this is a mechanical age. How true is this even in the furtherance of science! How true is this of the science of astronomy, which was revolutionized by the construction of good telescopes! Mechanical genius has perfected a lens for Mount Hamilton thirty-six inches in diameter, and one is now in course of construction for Mount Wilson, in Southern California, which is to measure forty inches. Through these means scientists hope to decipher the complexion of remote planets.

Microscopic lenses have been equally perfected, and, by means of achromatic condensers and immersion lenses, great magnifying power can be obtained with perfect distinctness. That this mechanical spirit of the age should also have obtained a foothold in medical art and science, is but natural. Surgical and other mechanical methods have entered so boldly into the field of diseases of women that the writer feels constrained to sound a note of alarm. Great strides have been made in a more perfected technique in abdominal operations, and, by favorable recoveries from grave and severe operations, the field of surgical usefulness became enlarged, but this has degenerated into a license for notoriety and personal aggrandizement of not over-scrupulous and selfish surgeons who are over-anxious to operate so as to be able to boast of the great number of their capital operations, or laparotomies.

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