Part 1

THE MARRIED WOMAN’S PRIVATE MEDICAL COMPANION, EMBRACING THE TREATMENT OF MENSTRUATION, OR MONTHLY TURNS, DURING THEIR STOPPAGE, IRREGULARITY, OR ENTIRE SUPPRESSION. PREGNANCY, AND HOW IT MAY BE DETERMINED; WITH THE TREATMENT OF ITS VARIOUS DISEASES. DISCOVERY TO PREVENT PREGNANCY; ITS GREAT AND IMPORTANT NECESSITY WHERE MALFORMATION OR INABILITY EXISTS TO GIVE BIRTH. TO PREVENT MISCARRIAGE OR ABORTION. WHEN PROPER AND NECESSARY TO EFFECT MISCARRIAGE. WHEN ATTENDED WITH ENTIRE SAFETY. CAUSES AND MODE OF CURE OF BARRENNESS, OR STERILITY.

BY DR. A. M. MAURICEAU, Professor of Diseases of Women.

Office, 129 Liberty street.

NEW YORK.

1847.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by JOSEPH TROW, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District New York.

PREFACE.

The “Introduction” in the succeeding pages, being amply explanatory, but few prefatory words will suffice. The object and intention of the work is manifest and self-evident.

It is to extend to every female, whether wife, mother or daughter, such information as will best qualify her to judge of her own maladies, and, having ascertained their existence, apply the proper remedies.

From these pages she will learn the causes, the symptoms and the remedies, for such complaints to which she may be liable, the nature of which she may not desire to impart to another.

Whether married or unmarried, she can, from these pages, compare her own symptoms with those described, and act in accordance with the mode of treatment prescribed. She will thereby be exempt from those doubts, perplexities and anxieties, which arise from ignorance of her situation, or the causes which produce it.

In short, the author sincerely believes that to the female budding into womanhood,—to one about to become a wife, or to the wife about becoming a mother, as well as to every one already a wife and a mother, as also to the female in the decline of years, in whom nature contemplates an important change, the “Married Woman’s Private Medical Companion” contains instructions of such paramount importance, as to embrace the present happiness and future welfare of each.

One word in conclusion. It is not pretended that the concentration of the results of medical research emanates from one author, for be he ever so versed in medical science, he would come far, far short of so herculean a task. It is, therefore, necessarily derived from authors on medical and physiological sciences, of great acquirements and distinguished celebrity.

It hardly need be added that great labour has been encountered in the preparation of a work of this nature, as the most reliable and correct sources have been availed of.

THE AUTHOR.

INDEX

PAGE. ABORTION— „ Symptoms of, 169 „ Causes of, 171 „ Treatment of, 171 „ Prevention of, 175 „ When dangerous, 168 „ When necessary to effect, 177 „ When attended with no danger, 169 AFTER-PAINS— „ Causes of, 203 „ Treatment of, 204 AFTER-BIRTH— „ Caution respecting, 199 „ Mode of extracting, 199 ARTIFICIAL DELIVERY, 180 BARRENNESS, OR STERILITY—, 223 „ Causes of, 225 „ Treatment of, 230 „ Remedy for, 232 CONCEPTION—(See Pregnancy), 36 „ Signs of, 37 „ Prevention of (See Pregnancy), 104 CHILDREN—Management of, 210 CONCLUDING REMARKS, 237 DELIVERY—Artificial, 180 DISEASES OF PREGNANCY, 61 Desomeaux’s Prevention to Pregnancy, 142 FALSE PAINS IN PREGNANCY, 187 FALSE Conception, 30 FAINTING, during Pregnancy, 87 „ Treatment of, 87 FLOODING, 174 „ Causes of, 23 „ Treatment of, 174 FRENCH SECRET, 144 „ For what purpose used, 144 „ Its use in France, 144 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, ix INFANTS, still-born, 202 „ Treatment of, 203 INFLAMMATION OF THE BREASTS, 205 „ To prevent inflamed or broken Breasts, 208 Index, v LABOUR—Signs of, 182 „ Management of, 185 „ Ordinary or natural, 186 „ Preternatural or Cross-Births, 201 „ Laborious, or difficult, 202 „ Directions during, 198 „ Directions after, 99, 203 MALFORMATION of the Pelvis, 180 MENSTRUATION, or Monthly Turns, 1 „ RETENTION OF, 8 „ Description, 8 „ Causes, 8 „ Symptoms, 9 „ Treatment, 10 „ SUPPRESSION OF, 11 „ Description of, 11 „ Causes, 12 „ Symptoms, 12 „ Treatment of, 13 „ Specific certain to effect a cure, 16 „ PAINFUL AND IMPERFECT, 18 „ Symptoms, 19 „ Causes, 19 „ Treatment, 20 MENSES— „ IMMODERATE FLOW OF, 22 „ Symptoms, 22 „ Causes, 23 „ Treatment, 23 „ Prevention, 27 „ DECLINE OF THE, 28 „ Symptoms, 30 „ Causes, 30 „ Treatment, 33 MISCARRIAGE—See Abortion. MORAND’S “ELIXIR,” 232 „ Its success in effecting Cures, 233 NAVEL CORD— „ Manner of tying, 198 NURSING, 204 PORTUGUESE FEMALE PILLS, 16 PREFACE, iii PREGNANCY, Signs of, 36 „ How it may be determined, 37 „ Ceasing to be unwell, 38 „ Morning Sickness, 49, 62 „ Shooting Pains through, Enlargement of and other Changes of the Breasts, 50 „ Changes of the Nipple, 51 „ Presence of Milk, 54 „ Quickening, 57 PREGNANCY,—DISEASES OF, 61 „ Being unwell during, 96 „ Costiveness, 72 „ Diarrhœa, 76 „ Enlargement of the Veins of the Legs, 82 „ Fainting Fits, 87 „ Heart-Burn, 70 „ Headache, 98 „ Inconvenience from size, 95 „ Painful and distended condition of th Breasts, 90 „ Pains in the Legs, &c., 92 „ Palpitation of the Heart, 85 „ Piles, 78 „ Salivation, or Discharge of Saliva, 89 „ Swelling of the Feet and Legs, 84 „ Soreness and Cracking of the Skin of the Abdomen, 94 „ Toothache, 88 „ Violent movement of the Child, 93 PREGNANCY—PREVENTION OF, 104 „ When unnecessary, 110 „ When indispensable, 107 „ Practicability of, 141 „ Morality of, 146 „ Social importance of, 114 „ Mode of prevention, 142, 143, 144 „ Healthiness of, 145 „ Reasons for prevention, 144 „ Objections answered, 146 „ Proofs of success, 150, 152, 154 „ Use of in France and other parts of Europe, 149 SEXUAL WEAKNESS, „ Symptoms, 157 „ Causes, 158 „ Treatment, 158 „ Regimen, 163 WOMB, falling down of the, 163

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

In introducing a subject of the nature treated of in this volume we are perhaps treading upon interdicted if not dangerous ground, for the world is not free from those pseudo-moralists, who would check, and, if possible, arrest the onward progress of medical and physiological science, and compel all to trudge on in the old beaten path, neither turning to the left nor the right, much less to look forward, but cast their glance backward. And although they behold every other science marching with rapid strides to comparative perfection:—what through the agency of steam and iron rails, space as it were, annihilated; what but yesterday, comparatively speaking, required weeks to perform, a few hours now suffice; nay the lightning fluid itself is made subservient to man’s powers of discovery and ingenuity, transmitting intelligence from distant points with the speed of thought:—yet, in physiological and medical science, we are required to be as an immovable rock, upon which the overwhelming billows of physiological science and discovery are to wash fruitlessly and in vain, to recede back into the dark sea of ignorance.

Truly, is it that in all that concerns man’s welfare and woman’s happiness, we are to stand still, while improvements and discoveries, in arts and sciences connected with agricultural and mechanical pursuits, are rushing by with the impetus of a torrent? Is it that physiological and medical science has long since reached that state of perfection that improvement and discovery are impossible? Is it that preceding generations had engrossed, in physiology, all the knowledge that could be attained, and left nothing for succeeding generations to attain? Is it that disease, decrepitude, bodily suffering and stinted and imperfect physical development among mankind has no longer an existence? Is it that every woman enjoys the full bloom, virgin freshness and beauty belonging to the enjoyment of a perfect condition of health? Is it that we no longer behold the deathly pale, sallow, sickly female of sixteen or eighteen, in the last stage of some chronic disease, prepared for the cold embrace of death? Is it that for the married woman six of the nine months of pregnancy is often a state of suffering and anguish destructive to her health and cutting off her days? Is it too, that it never happens that she often has children only at the hazard of her own life, and that of her offspring? Is it that children are invariably born healthy and rugged, capable of enduring the ordinary maladies to which infancy may be subject, to be reared into robust and virtuous sons and daughters? Is it that by far the greatest proportion of those born, survive, instead of, at the least, two-thirds being cut off in infancy? No, indeed, it is not because of all this. It is because prejudice or ignorance thinks that if men and women acquired the knowledge whereby to improve their condition as social moral beings, guard against disease, and preserve their health, that perhaps, it might lead to immorality and vice. This is ever the pretext to arrest the progress of physiological discovery.

Discoveries, then, so directly and intimately connected with the personal individual happiness of every man, woman, and child, are alone to see no progress; without being met at the threshold with the senseless and idle cry of “vice and immorality.” Thus then, the sufferings, the pains, the anguish, which have existed five hundred years ago, are to be irremediable and endured in despite of any discoveries by which they can be prevented. We must do nothing to alleviate, or better still, to prevent, the sufferings of the wife, daughter, or mother, because it was not done five hundred years ago! Monstrously absurd as is this reasoning, yet it is of this kind which the discoveries introduced before the public in this work will be met.

But the subject is one which embraces our social joys and comforts, the endearments of home and the family fire-side, the health and well-being of wives, mothers, and daughters, and cannot be retarded by the cobwebs in its way, to stem its onward course. No female, either married, or about to be married—no wife about becoming a mother—no mother having a daughter—no father who desires to prolong the health, beauty, and vigor of his offspring—no husband who has his own happiness, or the happiness of the companion of his bosom at heart—no young man, even, having a regard to his future welfare, should be without this important little work. Here the wife, mother or daughter, can detect her own complaints, trace them to their causes, and apply the remedy. This is all important. For, how often does the young female (because of a supposed delicacy), suffer in health rather than impart her malady to another, and especially to a medical man; and thus, many diseases, which though trifling in their origin, and at first easily removed, become seated and confirmed in her constitution. How deplorable are the consequences arising either from neglect or ignorance in the treatment of females who are afflicted with a stoppage, irregularity, or entire suppression of the menses or monthly turns, from which spring a train of diseases, which it would, in this place, be useless to enumerate, but which make our wives and daughters sickly, and our offspring short-lived.

It is also important that the female should understand the cause which might occasion a stoppage of the menses to possess the information contained in this work, by which it can be ascertained whether it may not arise from pregnancy and thereby avoid that anxiety of mind arising from an uncertainty as to her real situation, alternately imagining the one or the other, as her inclinations or fears may tend.

During pregnancy, many a wife lives in almost perpetual bodily ailment and suffering, which ought and should be prevented, and would not in most cases exist if this work is perused. Here important truths and discoveries are revealed, which may be the means of saving many an affectionate wife and fond mother from a premature grave. How many females marry, who, in becoming pregnant, jeopardize their life, would learn, if they perused these pages, of the discovery by which pregnancy can be prevented, by means at once safe, simple, certain, and healthy, and thus many a victim would not fall a sacrifice to the Cæsarean operation.

In respect, too, when a woman is threatened with miscarriage or abortion it is important that the treatment, either to prevent it, or, when that is impracticable, to assist and expedite it, should be thoroughly understood, and its treatment made clear and simple, that no unnecessary alarm need be occasioned when it occurs.

So, too, in regard to the various diseases accompanying and belonging to pregnancy, every woman should know how to prevent the one and ameliorate the other.

And finally, the subject of unfruitfulness, sterility, or barrenness, is here presented in a manner, which, to some extent, demonstrates that in most cases it can be cured, yet how many are pining in childless loneliness, in utter despair of cure.

Such are some of the important topics treated of in these pages, so intimately connected with every woman’s peace and happiness, with which every woman should be conversant, and yet how little informed are most females with what concerns themselves, their children, and their husbands so much.