Part 12

Generally speaking, just as a tendency to constipation bespeaks in any given person better health than proneness to diarrhœa, so the longer “blank” week and the “later” period prove more strength in a woman than the “early” and profuse menstruation. The latter trouble needs drastic treatment; the former responds to gentle coaxing and modifying.

Having thus shown the existence of a “blank” week, which provides immunity from conception to every female enjoying normal health and regular menstruation, we now arrive at the twenty-first day of a woman’s lunar month. Adhering to my programme, let us proceed to examine what occurs, in every normal woman, after the completion of the third week of this fruitful month.

I hope my readers will be clear in their minds, in so far as we have arrived at the point already demonstrated.

(1) When male children are safely and easily begotten.

(2) When the blank week affords nature’s means of repose to the organs of procreation.

FOR A GIRL

“And binding nature fast in fate Left free the human will.”—POPE.

On the twenty-first day of a woman’s lunar month a change occurs in the uterus. Activity commencing in the left ovary affects the whole being in a greater or lesser degree. Slight pains are experienced in the back, and the sensitive and highly strung feel a tenderness in the left breast and left thigh, as in the same way during the next month such pains may be felt on the right side. The left ovary has become restive, and, already seven days, and sometimes nine, before her “flow” is due, has ruptured the Graafian follicle, setting free the female ovum. This premature rupture of the vesicle, with the bursting of the Graafian follicle, is brought about by the actual formation of the “female” ovary, and, its development being less than and its retentive qualities inferior to those of the right side, the female ovum is often launched as much as nine days before its menstrual flow is due. The life of this ovum, like that of all ova, is from eight to fifteen days, and, in a normal woman, it is receptive to fertilisation from the twenty-first to the twenty-eight day of the lunar month which terminates with the next period.

Thus in all normal cases, the twenty-first day of the lunar month, or the seventh day before the next period is the most likely day for conception of the female offspring. Healthy and regular cases are in a large majority; indeed, among native women, untouched by modern civilisation, they are probably the general rule.

A lady writes:

I have three little girls ... and they were all started before the period.... I seem never to be able to conceive at any other time.

Another says:

I was told that boys were conceived seven days before the period. I tried this method, but it was a girl.

Herein lies the true explanation of the fact that nearly all first children, who are not “prematures,” and born within the first nine and a half months of marriage, are girls. The bride generally arranges that her wedding shall take place the second week, after the period is safely over. She thus carefully selects for her marriage a date, at least ten days after the expiration of menstruation; which, if it happens to be the fruitful month, will fall in with the girl-conception time. And, if she conceives, her first child is bound to be a girl.

In order to make sure of my ground, and in deference to the expressed wishes of many gynæcologists, I have taken statistics relating to this over a number of years, running into a thousand cases, with the result that 80 per cent. confirm my dicta—than which there could hardly be better proof. If to these statistics is added the fact of the greater activity of the left ovary in young womanhood, I submit that the combination of conditions renders my statement of the facts almost irrefutable.

There are many women who can only conceive a girl on the last three days before the period is due, showing that in their case the ovum is discharged shortly before the flow starts. Other women again are unable to conceive at any time except on the very day the period is actually due—I know of many such; they all had girls and never a son. But in all these cases I have found a certain morbidity of the uterine condition, combined with a tendency to hysteria and nervous disorders.

The closely impending flow, though not yet present, must render the existence of the germ precarious, and is usually conducive to bearing-down sensations at the menstrual times. This is often accompanied by a slight “show,” which may cause alarm, though not necessarily in any way a serious matter.

Here let me state most definitely for the benefit of those mothers who desire female issue, that the great majority of girl-infants are conceived on the seventh or eighth day before the period is due, those being by far the most actively receptive days for female pregnancies. It is the seventh day that I have always advocated in my formula, and on that day, in all normal cases, the strongest girl-babies are conceived.

It must be remembered by those wishing to profit by my formula that a girl can be conceived only every alternate month, one month being fruitful and one fruitless.

It is not difficult to find out which month is fruitful, but it is perhaps wiser to avoid confusing the issue by making calculations with regard to this contingency.

In order to avoid male issue relations must not take place for ten days after each period.

XII

THE FREAK OVARY

Those readers who have followed the argument so far will have gathered from the last chapter the nature of my claim that every normal and healthy woman is able to conceive a girl according to the method indicated. But it is now necessary to touch on the small percentage of women coming under a different category.

It must be repeated that the normal state of every woman is to have one fruitful month followed by one fruitless. The fruitless month affords occasion for conception of both sexes, whereas I am satisfied from the investigation of a very large number of cases that complete immunity from pregnancy exists every other month. These quiescent weeks can easily be discerned by any normal woman, who experiences during that period a sense of partial lack of sexual activity. Thus, out of every eight weeks, the functions have five week’s respite, which affords the recuperative advantages demanded by nature. And so just as there is a blank or fruitless week in the fruitful month, so there is also a fruitless month in alternation with the fruitful one.

And now we have to discuss a condition of the left ovary which may result in conception taking place during the earlier days of the fruitless month. I refer to the freak action of the “left” ovary. Much confusion of thought and biological error have been caused by this condition, the result of an over-strained civilisation and the increasing artificiality of our mode of life.

In some women, and for some unexplained reason, the left ovary takes upon itself an added activity equal to that of the right ovary, while at the same time the functions of the latter decline until finally it ceases to contribute anything to the reproduction-life of the woman. The left ovary, having acquired so much importance, becomes, as it were, unbalanced with the weight of its responsibilities and runs amok. The ovum is discharged about the twenty-first day, as we have explained before, but instead of dying as the result of non-impregnation, it actually remains in the womb and lives during the whole time of the succeeding period and may even live for several days after this is over. Thus there is now the risk of the ovum becoming fertilised during the early days of a fruitless month, and this state of affairs is entirely due to the condition I have called a “freak” ovary.

Such an activity, foreign to its natural state, may be temporary or lasting according to its subsequent functional history. The result of such investigations as have been made appear to show that among natives of comparatively uncivilised lands, this action of the so-called “freak” ovary is practically non-existent—all the evidence obtainable points to their immunity from the effects of such ovarian breaches of the usual procedure have come to my notice.