It is a well-known fact that frigidity is a frequent cause of barrenness, as well as a barrier to matrimonial happiness. Its removal, so desirable, is in many cases possible by detecting and doing away with the cause. The causes are so various, that their enumeration here would be tedious and unprofitable, for most of them can only be discovered and remedied by a practical physician who has studied the particular case under consideration. So also in regard to the various displacements and diseases of the womb preventing conception. Proper medical treatment is usually followed by the best results.

While the fact that pleasure is found in the marital relation is a favourable augury for impregnation, it has been long noticed that Messalinas are sterile. It was observed in Paris, that out of one thousand only six bore children in the course of a year, whereas the ordinary proportion in that city for that time is three and a half births for every one hundred of the population.

In some women, nothing seems amiss but too intense passion. Such cases are much more rare than instances of the opposite extreme producing the same effect.

A condition of debility, or the presence of certain special poisons in the blood, may prevent conception, or, what is to all intents the same thing, cause miscarriage. Many apparently feeble women have large families. But in numerous instances a tonic and sometimes an alternative constitutional treatment is required before pregnancy will take place. On the contrary, there are well-authenticated cases of women who were stout and barren in opulence becoming thin and prolific in poverty.

The stimulus of novelty to matrimonial intercourse imparted by a short separation of husband and wife, is often salutary in its influence upon fertility.

To show upon what slight constitutional differences infertility often depends, it is merely necessary to allude to the fact, known to every one, that women who have not had children with one husband often have them with another. This condition of physiological incompatibility is evidently not altogether one of the emotional nature, for it is observed in animals, among whom it is by no means rare to find certain males and females who will not breed together, although both are known to be perfectly fruitful with other females and males. The ancients, believing that sterility was more common with couples of the same temperament and condition, advised, with Hippocrates, that blonde women should unite with dark men, thin women with stout men, and vice versa.

Barren women should not despair. They sometimes become fecund after a long lapse of years. In other words, they are sterile only during a certain period of their lives, and then, a change occurring in their temperament with age, they become fruitful. History affords a striking example of this eccentricity of generation, in the birth of Louis XIV., whom Anne of Austria, Queen of France brought into the world after a sterility of twenty-two years. Catherine de Medicis, wife of Henry II., became the mother of ten children after a sterility of ten years. Dr. Tilt, of London, mentions the case of a woman who was married at eighteen, but although both herself and her husband enjoyed habitual good health, conception did not take place until she was forty-eight, when she bore a child. Another case is reported where a well-formed female married at nineteen, and did not bear a child until she had reached her fiftieth year.

Families often suffer from the effects of sterility. Civilised nations never do. Recent researches have been carefully instituted in several countries to determine the exact power of the human race to preserve its numbers against the ravages of death. It has been ascertained that during periods of peace the population can be maintained to the same point by the additions made to it through the procreating capacity of only one-half of the women in the community. Nature, therefore, has made ample provision for preventing a decrease of population through failure of reproduction.

She has also instituted laws to prevent its undue increase. It would seem as if the extension of material mental and social comfort and culture has a tendency to render marriage less prolific, and population stationary or nearly so. So evident is this tendency, that it has been laid down as a maxim in sociology by Sismondi, that 'where the number of marriages is proportionally the greatest, where the greatest number of persons participate in the duties and the virtues and the happiness of marriage, the smaller number of children does each marriage produce.' Thus, to a certain extent, does nature endorse the opinions of those political economists who assert that increase of population beyond certain limits is an evil happily averted by wars, famines, and pestilences, which hence become national blessings in disguise. She, however, points to the extension of mental and moral education and refinement as gentler and surer means of reducing plethoric population than those suggested by Malthus and Mill.

Many causes of sterility, it will therefore be seen, are beyond the power of man to control. They operate on a large scale for the good of the whole. With these we have little concern. But there are others which may be influenced by intelligent endeavor. Some have been already alluded to, and the remedy suggested; but we will proceed to give more specific

ADVICE TO WIVES WHO DESIRE TO HAVE CHILDREN.

It has long been known that menstruation presents a group of phenomena closely allied to fecundity. The first eruption of the menses is an unequivocal sign of the awakening of the faculty of reproduction. The cessation of the menstrual epochs is a sign equally certain of the loss of the faculty of reproduction. When conception has taken place, the periodical flow is interrupted. Labor occurs at about the time in which the menses would have appeared. In short, it is a fact, now completely established, that the time immediately before, and particularly that after the monthly sickness, is the period the most favorable to fecundation. It is said that, by following the counsel to this effect given him by the celebrated Fernel, Henry II., the King of France, secured to himself offspring after the long sterility of his wife before referred to. Professor Bedford, of New York, says that he can point to more than one instance in which, by this advice, he has succeeded in adding to the happiness of parties who for years had been vainly hoping for the accomplishment of their wishes.

Repose of the woman, and, above all, sojourn on the bed after the act of generation, also facilitates conception. Hippocrates, the great father of medicine, was aware of this, and laid stress upon it in his advice to sterile wives.

The womb and the breasts are bound together by very strong sympathies: that which excites the one will stimulate the other. Dr. Charles Loudon mentions that four out of seven patients, by acting on this hint, became mothers. A similar idea occurred to the illustrious Marshall Hall, who advised the application of a strong infant to the breast. Fomentations of warm milk to the breasts and the corresponding portion of the spinal column, and the use of the breast-pump two or three times a day, just before the menstrual period, have also been recommended by good medical authorities. Horseback exercise, carried to fatigue, seems occasionally to have conduced to pregnancy.

The greatest hope of success against sterility is to change the dominant state of the constitution. But this can only be effected under suitable medical advice. The treatment of sterility—thanks to the recent researches of Dr. Marion Sims—is much more certain than formerly; and the intelligent physician is now able to ascertain the cause, and point out the remedy, where before all was conjecture and experiment. The sterile wife should, herefore, be slow in abandoning all hope of ever becoming a mother.

ON THE LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING.

No part of our subject is more delicate than this. Very few people are willing to listen to a dispassionate discussion of the propriety or impropriety of limiting within certain bounds the number of children in a family. On the one side are many worthy physicians and pious clergymen, who, without listening to any arguments, condemn every effort to avoid large families; on the other, are numberless wives and husbands, who turn a deaf ear to the warnings of doctors and the thunders of divines, and, eager to escape a responsibility they have assumed, hesitate not to resort to the most dangerous and immoral means to accomplish this end.

We ask both parties to lay aside prejudice and prepossession, and examine with us this most important social question in all its bearings.

Let us first inquire whether there is such a thing as over-production—having too many children. Unquestionably there is. Its disastrous effects on both mother and children are known to every intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr. Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. Hardly a day passes that a physician in large practice does not see instances of debility and disease resulting from over-much child-bearing. Even the lower animals illustrate this. Every farmer is aware of the necessity of limiting the offspring of his mares and cows. How much more severe are the injuries inflicted on the delicate organization of woman! A very great mortality, says Dr. Duncan of Edinburgh, attends upon confinements when they become too frequent.

The evils of a too rapid succession of pregnancies are likewise conspicuous in the children. There is no more frequent cause, says Dr. Hillier,—whose authority in such matters none will dispute,—of rickets than this. Puny, sickly, short-lived offspring follows over-production. Worse than this, the carefully compiled statistics of Scotland show that such children are peculiarly liable to idiocy. Adding to an already excessive number, they come to over-burden a mother already overwhelmed with progeny. They cannot receive at her hands the attention they require. Weakly herself, she brings forth weakly infants. 'Thus,' concludes Dr. Duncan, 'are the accumulated evils of an excessive family manifest.'

Apart from these considerations, there are certain social relations which have been thought by some to advise small families. When either parent suffers from a disease which is transmissible, and wishes to avoid inflicting misery on an unborn generation, it has been urged that they should avoid children. Such diseases not unfrequently manifest themselves after marriage, which is answer enough to the objection that if they did not wish children they should not marry. There are also women to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it is nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered before marriage, and therefore cannot be provided against by a single life. Can such women be asked to immolate themselves?

It is strange, says that distinguished writer, John Stuart Mill, that intemperance in drink, or in any other appetite, should be condemned so readily, but that incontinence in this respect should always meet not only with indulgence but praise. 'Little improvement' he adds, 'can be expected in morality until the producing too large families is regarded with the same feeling as drunkenness, or any other physical excess.' A well-known medical writer, Dr. Drysdale, in commenting on these words, adds: 'In this error, if error it be, I also humbly share.'

'When dangerous prejudices,' says Sismondi, the learned historian of southern Europe, 'have not become accredited, when our true duties towards those to whom we give life are not obscured in the name of a sacred authority, no married man will have more children than he can bring up properly.'

Such is the language of physicians and statesmen; but a stronger appeal has been made for the sake of morality itself. The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day; it is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome. Testimony from all quarters, especially from New England, has accumulated within the past few years to sap our faith in the morality and religion of American women. This wholesale, fashionable murder, how are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist by this slaughter of the innocents, and flaunt their ill-gotten gains—the price of blood—in our public thoroughfares. Their advertisements are seen in the newspapers; their soul and body destroying means are hawked in every town. With such temptation strewn in her path, what will the woman threatened with an excessive family do? Will she not yield to evil, and sear her conscience with the repetition of her wickedness? Alas! daily experience in the heart of a great city discloses to us only too frequently the fatal ease of such a course.

In view of the injuries of excessive child-bearing on the one hand, and of this prevalent crime on the other, a man of genius and sympathy, Dr. Raciborski of Paris, took the position that the avoidance of offspring to a certain extent is not only legitimate, but should be recommended as a measure of public good. 'We know how bitterly we shall be attacked,' he says, 'for promulgating this doctrine; but if our ideas only render to society the services we expect of them, we shall have effaced from the list of crimes the one most atrocious without exception, that of child-murder, before or after birth, and we shall have poured a little happiness into the bosoms of despairing families, where poverty is allied to the knowledge that offspring can be born only to prostitution or mendicity. The realization of such hopes will console us under the attacks upon our doctrines.'

It has been eagerly repeated by some, that the wish to limit offspring arises most frequently from an inordinate desire of indulgence. We reply to such, that they do not know the human heart, and that they do it discredit. More frequently the wish springs from a love of children. The parents seek to avoid having more than they can properly nourish and educate. They do not wish to leave their sons and daughters in want. 'This,' says a writer in The Nation (of New York), in an article on this interesting subject,—'this is not the noblest motive of action, of course, but there is something finely human about it.'

'Very much indeed is it to be wished,' says Dr. Edward Reich, after reviewing the multitudinous evils which result to individuals and society from a too rapid increase in families, 'that the function of reproduction be placed under the dominion of the will.'

Men are very ready to find an excuse for self-indulgence; and if they cannot get one anywhere else, they seek it in religion. They tell the woman it is her duty to bear all the children she can. They refer her to the sturdy, strong-limbed women of early times, to the peasant women of northern Europe, who emigrate to America, and ask and expect their wives to rival them in fecundity. Such do not reflect that they have been brought up to light indoor employment, that their organization is more nervous and frail, that they absolutely have not the stamina required for many confinements.

Moreover, they presume too much in asking her to bear them. 'If a woman has a right to decide on any question,' said a genial physician in the Massachusetts Medical Society a few years since, 'it certainly is as to how many children she shall bear.' 'Certainly,' say the editors of a prominent medical journal, 'wives have a right to demand of their husbands at least the same consideration which a breeder extends to his stock.' 'Whenever it becomes unwise that the family should be increased,' says Sismondi again, 'justice and humanity require that the husband should impose on himself the same restraint which is submitted to by the unmarried.'

An eminent writer on medical statistics, Dr. Henry MacCormac, says: 'The brute yields to the generative impulse when it is experienced. He is troubled by no compunction about the matter. Now, a man ought not to act like a brute. He has reason to guide and control his appetites. Too many, however, forget, and act like brutes instead of as men. It would, in effect, prove very greatly conducive to man's interests were the generative impulses placed absolutely under the sway of right reason, chastity, forecast, and justice.'

There is no lack of authorities, medical and non-medical, on this point. Few who weigh them well will deny that there is such a thing as too large a family; that there does come a time when a mother can rightfully demand rest from her labours, in the interest of herself, her children, and society. When is this time? Here again the impossibility meets us of stating a definite number of children, and saying, 'This many and no more.' As in every other department of medicine, averages are of no avail in guiding individuals. There are women who require no limitation whatever. They can bear healthy children with rapidity, and suffer no ill results. There are others—and they are the majority—who should use temperance in this as in every other function; and there are a few who should bear no children at all. It is absurd for physicians or theologians to insist that it is either the physical or moral duty of the female to have as many children as she possibly can have. It is time that such an injurious prejudice was discarded, and the truth recognised, that while marriage looks to offspring as its natural sequence, there should be inculcated such a thing as marital continence, and that excess here as elsewhere is repugnant to morality, and is visited by the laws of physiology with certain and severe punishment on parent and child.

Continence, self-control, a willingness to deny himself,—that is what is required from the husband. But a thousand voices reach us from suffering women in all parts of our land that this will not suffice; that men refuse thus to restrain themselves; that it leads to a loss of domestic happiness and to illegal amours, or that it is injurious physically and mentally,—that, in short, such advice is useless, because impracticable.

To such sufferers we reply that Nature herself has provided to some extent against over-production, and that it is well to avail ourselves of her provisions. It is well known that women when nursing rarely become pregnant, and for this reason, if for no other, women should nurse their own children, and continue the period until the child is at least a year old. Be it remembered, however, that nursing, continued too long, weakens both mother and child, and, moreover, ceases to accomplish the end for which we now recommend it.

Another provision of nature is, that for a certain period between her monthly illnesses every woman is sterile. The vesicle which matures in her ovaries, and is discharged from them by menstruation, remains some days in the womb before it is passed forth and lost. How long its stay is we do not definitely know, and probably it differs in individuals. From ten to twelve days at most are supposed to elapse after the cessation of the flow before the final ejection of the vesicle. For some days after this the female is incapable of reproduction. But for some days before her monthly illness she is liable to conception, as for that length of time the male element can survive. This period, therefore, becomes a variable and an undetermined one, and even when known, its observation demands a large amount of self-control.

There is one method widely in use in this country for the limitation of offspring which deserves only the most unqualified condemnation, which is certain to bring upon the perpetrators swift and terrible retribution, and which is opposed to every sentiment of nature and morality. We mean

THE CRIME OF ABORTION.

From the moment of conception a new life commences; a new individual exists; another child is added to the family. The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments, commits as great a crime, is just as guilty, as if she strangled her new-born infant, or as if she snatched from her own breast her six-months' darling and dashed out its brains against the wall. Its blood is upon her head, and as sure as there is a God and a judgment, that blood will be required of her. The crime she commits is murder, child-murder,—the slaughter of a speechless, helpless being, whom it is her duty, beyond all things else, to cherish and preserve.

This crime is common; it is fearfully prevalent. Hundreds of persons are devoted to its perpetration. It is their trade. In nearly every village its ministers stretch out their bloody hands to lead the weak woman to suffering, remorse, and death. Those who submit to their treatment are not generally unmarried women who have lost their virtue, but the mothers of families, respectable Christian matrons, members of churches, and walking in the better classes of society.

We appeal to all such with earnest and with threatening words. If they have no feeling for the fruit of their womb, if maternal sentiment is so callous in their breasts, let them know that such produced abortions are the constant cause of violent and dangerous womb diseases, and frequently of early death; that they bring on mental weakness, and often insanity; that they are the most certain means to destroy domestic happiness which can be adopted. Better, far better, to bear a child every year for twenty years than to resort to such a wicked and injurious step; better to die, if needs be, in the pangs of childbirth, than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.

There is no need of either. By the moderation we have mentioned, it is in the power of any woman to avoid the evils of an excessive family, without injury and without criminality.

We feel obliged to speak in plain language of this hidden sin, because so many are ignorant that it is a sin. Only within a few years have those who take in charge the public morals spoken of it in such terms that this excuse of ignorance is no longer admissible.

Bishop Coxe, of New York, in a pastoral letter, the late Archbishop Spaulding, Catholic Primate of the United States, in an address at the close of a recent Provincial Council at Baltimore, the Old and New School Presbyterian Churches, at a meeting in Philadelphia, have all pronounced the severest judgments against those guilty of antenatal infanticide. Appeals through the press have been made by physicians of high standing, and by eminent divines, which should be in the hands of every one.

The chiefest difficulty hitherto has been, that while women were warned against the evils of abortion, they were offered no escape from the exhaustion and dangers of excessive child-bearing. This difficulty we have fully recognised and fairly met, and, we believe, in such a manner that neither the accuracy of our statements nor the purity of our motives can be doubted. Should our position be attacked, however, the medical man must know that in opposing our views, he opposes those of the most distinguished physicians in Europe and in America; and the theologian should be warned that, when a neglect of physical laws leads to moral evil, the only way to correct this evil is to remedy the neglect. In this case the neglect is over-production; the evil is abortion.

NATURE OF CONCEPTION.

The theories which have been advanced to explain the manner in which the human species is continued and reproduced are very numerous. Including the hypotheses of the ancient philosophers, some two hundred and fifty have been promulgated by the greatest thinkers of all times. The older ones do not deserve mention, as they are replete with absurdities. Such, for instance, is that of Pythagoras, which supposed that a vapor descended from the brain and formed the embryo. The Scythians therefore took blood from the veins behind the ears to produce impotence and sterility. Modern science has shown the total error of this and many other views formerly entertained on this subject. Has galvanism or electricity any share in the mysterious function? Some among the modern physiologists have supposed that there is an electrical or magnetic influence which effects generation. Even within a few months, Dr. Harvey L. Byrd, Professor of Obstetrics in the Medical Department of Washington University of Baltimore, has asserted that he has 'every reason for believing that fecundation or impregnation is always an electrical phenomenon; ... it results from the completion of an electric circle,—the union of positive and negative electricities.' This, however, is not accepted by all as the dictum of modern science. Physiology has clearly established that the new being is the result of contact between the male element, an independent, living animal, on the one part, and the female element, a matured egg, on the other, involving the union of the contents of two peculiar cells. Without such contact, fecundation cannot take place.

The only matter of practical moment in connection with this most interesting function which we have to announce, is the influence of the mind on the offspring at the time of generation. This influence has long been remarked in regard to animals as well as men. Jacob was aware of it when he made his shrewd bargain with Laban for 'all the speckled and spotted cattle' as his hire. For we are told that then 'Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks towards the ringstraked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whenever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.'

The impressions conveyed to the brain through the sense of sight are here asserted by the writer of Genesis to have influenced the system of the ewes so that they brought forth young marked in the same manner as the rods placed before their eyes. It is not said that there was any miraculous interposition; but the whole account is given as if it were an everyday, natural, and well-known occurrence.

The Greeks, a people renowned for their physical beauty, seemed to be aware of the value of mental impressions; for in their apartments they were lavish of statues and paintings representing the gods and goddesses, delineated in accordance with the best models of art.

Dionysus, tyrant of Syracuse, caused the portrait of the beautiful Jason to be suspended before the nuptial bed, in order to obtain a handsome child.

The following is related of the celebrated Galen:—A Roman magistrate, little, ugly, and hunch-backed, had by his wife a child exactly resembling the statue of AEsop. Frightened at the sight of this little monster, and fearful of becoming the father of a posterity so deformed, he went to consult Galen, the most distinguished physician of his time, who counseled him to place three statues of love around the conjugal bed, one at the foot, the others, one on each side, in order that the eyes of his young spouse might be constantly feasted on these charming figures. The magistrate followed strictly the advice of the physician, and it is recorded that his wife bore him a child surpassing in beauty all his hopes.

The fact that the attributes of the child are determined to an important extent by the bodily and mental condition of the parents at the time of conception, explains the marked difference almost constantly observed between children born to the same parents, however strong the family likeness may be among them. The changes constantly going on in the physical, intellectual, and emotional states of the parents, produce a corresponding alteration in offspring conceived at successive intervals. Twins generally resemble each other very closely in every respect.

Inasmuch, therefore, as the moment of generation is of much more importance than is commonly believed in its effect upon the moral and physical life of the future being, it is to be wished that parents would pay some attention to this subject. It is the moment of creation,—that in which the first vital power is communicated to the new creature. Not without reason has nature associated with it the highest sensual exaltation of our existence. Dr. Hufeland, the author of The Art of Prolonging Life, has said, 'In my opinion it is of the utmost importance that this moment should be confined to a period when the sensation of collected powers, ardent passion, and a mind cheerful and free from care, invite to it on both sides.'

SIGNS OF FRUITFUL CONJUNCTION.

There are some women in whom the act of conception is attended with certain sympathetic affections, such as faintness, vertigo, etc., by which they know that it has taken place.

Swelling of the neck was regarded in ancient times as a sign of conception. Its truthfulness has been reaffirmed by modern authorities.

It has also been asserted that impregnation generally excites a universal tremor in all parts of the body, and that it is associated with more than an ordinary degree of pleasure.

It must not be supposed, however, that enjoyment and impregnation bear necessarily to each other the relation of cause and effect, although this is the popular opinion. From too implicit a reliance upon this current belief, wives are often incredulous as to their true condition.

It is a fact that in some cases sickness at the stomach manifests itself almost simultaneously with the act of fecundation. Authentic instances are on record of wives reckoning their confinement nine months from the first feeling of nausea, without ever making a mistake.

In conclusion, it may be said that peculiar sensations are often experienced, frequently of a character difficult to explain; and many modern authors attach to them a marked value. In this manner it is possible for a woman to be satisfied at the moment as to the change which has taken place; yet the evidence is often deceptive, and sometimes nothing peculiar is noticed.

From the period of conception the mother has no direct knowledge of the process that is going on within, excepting by the effects of the increasing pressure upon other parts, until 'quickening' takes place, which belongs to another part of our subject.

The signs and symptoms of pregnancy will be explained in full when we come to treat of the pregnant condition in a future chapter.

HOW TO RETAIN THE AFFECTIONS OF A HUSBAND.

Ah! this is a secret indeed!—worth the wand of the magician, the lamp of Aladdin, or the wishing-cap of the fairy. What could any of these give in exchange for the love of a husband? Yet this pearl of great price, how often is it treated as lightly and carelessly as if it was any bauble of Brummagem!

'My husband,' we have heard young wives say, 'why, it is his duty to love me. Why did he marry me if he is not going to love me, love me fondly, love me ever?'

Yes, we all know

Love the gift, is love the debt.

But in this world of ours it is often hard to get one's own; and when got, our care must never cease, lest it be wrested from us. The plant you bought at the greenhouse, and that now blossoms on your window-sill, became yours by purchase, but it has required your daily care to keep it alive and persuade it to unfold its blossoms. Infinitely more delicate is this plant of love. It, too, you purchased. You gave in exchange for it your own heart. It too, you must daily tend with constant solicitude, lest it wither and die.

In this country, some women think that anything is good enough to wear at home. They go about in slatternly morning dresses, unkempt hair, and slippers down at heel. 'Nobody will see me,' they say 'but my husband.' Let them learn a lesson from the wives of the Orient.

In those countries a married woman never goes abroad except in long sombre robes and thick veil. An English lady visiting the wife of one of the wealthy merchants, found her always in full dress, with toilet as carefully arranged as if she were going to a ball.

'Why!' exclaimed the visitor, at length, 'is it possible that you take all this trouble to dress for nobody but your husband?'

'Do, then,' asked the lady in reply, 'the wives of Englishmen dress for the sake of pleasing other men?'

The visitor was mute.

Not that we would wish our women to be for ever in full costume at home. That would be alarming. But she who neglects neatness in attire, and, above all, cleanliness of person, runs a great danger of creating a sentiment of disgust in those around her. Nothing is more repugnant to the husband's senses than bad odors, and, for reasons which every woman knows, women who neglect cleanliness are peculiarly liable to them. When simple means do not remove them, recourse should be promptly had to a medical adviser.

So it is with bad breath. This sometimes arises from neglect of the teeth, sometimes from diseases of the stomach, lungs, etc. A man of delicate olfactories is almost forced to hold at arm's length a wife with a fetid breath.

There are some women—we have treated several—who are plagued with a most disagreeable perspiration, especially about the feet, the arms, etc. Such should not marry until this is cured. It is a rule among army surgeons, to be chary about giving men their discharge from military service on surgeon's certificate. But fetid feet are at times so horribly offensive, that they are considered an allowable cause for discharge. No doubt, in some of our States they would be received as a valid ground for divorce!—certainly with quite as much reason as many of the grounds usually alleged.

In short, the judicious employment of all the harmless arts of the toilet, and of those numerous and effective means which modern science offers, to acquire, to preserve, and to embellish beauty, is a duty which woman, whether married or single, should never neglect. With very little trouble, the good looks and freshness of youth can be guarded almost to old age; and, even when hopelessly gone, simple and harmless means are at hand to repair the injuries of years, or at least to conceal them. But this is an art which would require a whole volume to treat of, and which we cannot here touch upon.

INHERITANCE.

We now come to the consideration of a very wonderful subject,—that of inheritance. It is one of absorbing interest, both because of the curious facts it presents, and of the great practical bearing it has upon the welfare of every individual.

In order to the better understanding of this matter, it is necessary at the outset to make a distinction between four kinds or varieties of inheritance. The most generally recognised is direct inheritance,—that in which the children partake of the qualities of the father and mother. But a child may not resemble either parent, while it bears a striking likeness to an uncle or aunt. This constitutes indirect inheritance. Again, a child may be more like one of its grandparents than either its father or mother. Or, what is still more astonishing, it may display some of the characteristics possessed only by a remote ancestor. This form of inheritance is known by the scientific term atavism, derived from the Latin word atavus, meaning an ancestor. It is curious to note in this connection that sometimes a son resembles more closely his maternal than his paternal grandsire in some male attribute,—as a peculiarity of beard, or certain diseases confined to the male sex. Though the mother cannot possess or exhibit such male qualities, she has transmitted them through her blood, from her father to her son.

The fourth variety of inheritance is that in which the child resembles neither parent, but the first husband of its mother. A woman contracting a second marriage, transmits to the offspring of that marriage the peculiarities she has received through the first union. Breeders of stock know this tendency, and prevent their brood-mares, cows, or sheep from running with males of an inferior stock. Thus the diseases of a man may be transmitted to children which are not his own. Even though dead, he continues to exert an influence over the future offspring of his wife, by means of the ineffaceable impress he had made in the conjugal relation upon her whole system, as we have previously mentioned. The mother finds in the children of her second marriage

'... the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still.'

A child may therefore suffer through the operation of this mysterious and inexorable law, for sins committed not by its own father, but by the first husband of its mother. What a serious matter, then, is that relation between the sexes called marriage! How far-reaching are its responsibilities!

A distinction must here be drawn between hereditary transmission and the possession of qualities at birth, which have not been the result of any impression received from the system of father or mother, but due to mental influences or accidents operating through the mother. A child may be born idiotic or deformed, not because either parent or one of its ancestors was thus affected, but from the influence of some severe mental shock received by the mother during her pregnancy. This subject of maternal impressions will come up for separate consideration in the discussion of pregnancy. Again, a child may be epileptic, although there is no epilepsy in the family, simply because of the intoxication of the father or mother at the time of the intercourse resulting in conception. Such cases are not due to hereditary transmission, for that cannot be hereditary which has been possessed by neither the parents nor any other relatives.

In considering the effects of inheritance, we will first pass in review those connected with the physical constitution. These are exceedingly common and universally known. Fortunately, not merely are evil qualities inherited, but beauty, health, vigor, and longevity also.

BEAUTY.

Good looks are characteristic of certain families. Alcibiades, the handsomest among the Grecians of his time, descended from ancestors remarkable for their beauty. So well and long has the desirable influence of inheritance in this respect been recognised, that there existed in Crete an ancient law which ordained that each year the most beautiful among the young men and women should be chosen and forced to marry, in order to perpetuate the type of their beauty. Irregularities of feature are transmitted from parent to child through many generations. The aquiline nose has existed some centuries, and is yet hereditary in the Bourbon family. The hereditary under-lip of the House of Hapsburg is another example. When the poet Savage speaks of

'The tenth transmitter of a foolish face,'

he scarcely exaggerates what is often seen in families where some strongly-marked feature or expression is long predominant or reappears in successive generations.

NECK AND LIMBS.

The form and length of the neck and limbs are frequently hereditary, as is also the height of the body. The union of two tall persons engenders tall children. The father of Frederick the Great secured for himself a regiment of men of gigantic stature, by permitting the marriage of his guards only with women of similar height. A tendency to obesity often appears in generation after generation of a family. Yet such cases are within the reach of medical art.

COMPLEXION.

Even the complexion is not exempt from this influence. Blondes ordinarily procreate blondes, and dark parents have dark-skinned children. An union in marriage of fair and dark complexions results in an intermediate shade in the offspring. Not always, however; for it has been asserted that the complexion chiefly follows that of the father. The offspring of a black father and a white mother is much darker than the progeny of a white father and a dark mother. In explanation of this fact, it has been said that the mother is not impressed by her own color, because she does not look upon herself, while the father's complexion attracts her attention, and thus gives a darker tinge to the offspring. Black hens frequently lay dark eggs; but the reverse is more generally found to be the case.

PHYSICAL QUALITIES TRANSMITTED BY EACH PARENT.

In general, it may be said that there exists a tendency on the part of the father to transmit the external appearance, the configuration of the head and limbs, the peculiarities of the senses and of the skin and the muscular condition; while the size of the body, and the general temperament or constitution of the child, are derived from the mother. Among animals, the mule, which is the produce of the male ass and the mare, is essentially a modified ass having the general configuration of its sire, but the rounded trunk and larger size of its dam. On the other hand, the hinny, which is the offspring of the stallion and the she-ass, is essentially a modified horse, having the general configuration of the horse, but being a much smaller animal than its sire, and therefore approaching the dam in size as well as in the comparative narrowness of its trunk. The operation of this principle, though general, is not universal. Exceptions may easily be cited. In almost every large family it will be observed that the likeness to the father predominates in some children, while others most resemble the mother. It is rare to meet with instances in which some distinctive traits of both parents may not be traced in the offspring.

HAIR.

Peculiarities in the colour and structure of the hair are transmitted. Darwin mentions a family in which, for many generations, some of the members had a single lock differently coloured from the rest of the hair.

TEMPERAMENT.

The law of inheritance rules in regard to the production of the temperament. The crossing of one temperament with another in marriage, produces a modification in the offspring generally advantageous.

FERTILITY.

A peculiar aptitude for procreation is sometimes hereditary. The children of prolific parents are themselves prolific. It is related that a French peasant woman was confined ten times in fifteen years. Her pregnancies, always multiple, produced twenty-eight children. At her last confinement she had three daughters, who all lived, married, and gave birth to children,—the first to twenty-six, the second to thirty-one, and the third to twenty-seven. On the contrary, sometimes a tendency to sterility is found fixed upon certain families, from which they can only escape by the most assiduous care.

LONGEVITY.

In the vegetable kingdom, the oak inherits the power to live many years, while the peach-tree must die in a short time. In the animal kingdom, the robin becomes grey and old at ten years of age; the rook caws lustily until a hundred. The ass is much longer-lived than the horse. The mule illustrates in a striking manner the hereditary tendency of longevity. It has the size of the horse, the long life of the ass. The weaker the ass, the larger, the stronger, and the shorter-lived and more horse-like the mule. It is also a curious and instructive fact, that this animal is the toughest after it has passed the age of the horse: the inherited influence of the horse having been expended, the vitality and hardiness of the ass remain.

It is universally conceded, that longevity is the privileged possession of some lineages. That famous instance of old age, Thomas Parr, the best authenticated on record, may be mentioned in illustration. It is vouched for by Harvey, the distinguished discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Parr died in the reign of Charles the First, at the age of 152, after having lived under nine sovereigns of England. He left a daughter aged 127. His father had attained to a great age, and his great-grandson died at Cork at the age of 103.

DEFORMITIES.

Deformities are undoubtedly sometimes transmitted to the progeny. It is by no means rare to find that the immediate ancestors of those afflicted with superfluous fingers and toes, club-feet, or hare-lips, were also the subjects of these malformations. There are one or two families in Germany whose members pride themselves upon the possession of an extra thumb; and there is an Arab chieftain whose ancestors have from time immemorial been distinguished by a double thumb upon the right hand. Darwin gives many similar instances. A case of curious displacement of the knee-pans is recorded, in which the father, sister, son, and the son of the half-brother by the same father, had all the same malformation.

PERSONAL PECULIARITIES.

Gait, gestures, voice, general bearing, are all inherited. Peculiar manners, passing into tricks, are often transmitted, as in the case, often quoted, of the father who generally slept on his back with his right leg crossed over the left, and whose daughter, whilst an infant in the cradle, followed exactly the same habit, though an attempt was made to cure her. Left-handedness is not unfrequently hereditary. It would be very easy to go on multiplying instances, but we forbear.

HOW TO HAVE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN.

A practical question now naturally suggests itself. How can the vices of conformation be avoided, and beauty secured? The art of having handsome children, known under the name of callipaedia, has received much attention, more, perhaps, in years gone by than of late. The noted Abbot Quillet wrote a book in Latin on the subject. Many other works, in which astrology plays a prominent part, were written on this art in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

We have already stated that well-formed parents will transmit these qualities to their children, with scarcely an exception. Like begets like. Unfortunately, all parents are not beautiful. Yet all desire beautiful offspring. The body of the child can be influenced by the mind of the parent, particularly of the mother. A mind habitually filled with pleasant fancies and charming images is not without its effect upon the offspring.

The statues of Apollo, Castor and Pollux, Venus, Hebe, and the other gods and goddesses which were so numerous in the gardens and public places in Greece, reproduced themselves in the sons and daughters of the passers-by. We know also that marriages contracted at an age too early or too late, are apt to give imperfectly-developed children. The crossing of temperaments and of nationalities beautifies the offspring. The custom which has prevailed, in many countries, among the nobility, of purchasing the handsomest girls they could find for their wives, has laid the foundation of a higher type of features among the ruling classes. To obtain this desired end, conception should take place only when both parents are in the best physical condition, at the proper season of the year, and with mutual passion. (We have already hinted how this can be regulated.) During pregnancy the mother should often have some painting or engraving representing cheerful and beautiful figures before her eyes, or often contemplate some graceful statue. She should avoid looking at, or thinking of ugly people, or those marked with disfiguring diseases. She should take every precaution to escape injury, fright, and disease of any kind, especially chicken-pox, erysipelas, or such disorders as leave marks on the person. She should keep herself well nourished, as want of food nearly always injures the child. She should avoid ungraceful positions and awkward attitudes, as by some mysterious sympathy these are impressed on the child she carries. Let her cultivate grace and beauty in herself at such a time, and she will endow her child with them. As anger and irritability leave imprints on the features, she should maintain serenity and calmness.

INHERITANCE OF TALENT AND GENIUS.

The effects of inheritance are perhaps more marked upon the mind than upon the body. This need not surprise us. If the peculiar form of the brain can be transmitted, the mental attributes, the result of its organization, must necessarily also be transmitted.

It is a matter of daily observation, that parents gifted with bright minds, cultivated by education, generally engender intelligent children; while the offspring of those steeped in ignorance are stupid from birth. It may be objected, that men the most remarkable in ancient or modern times, as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakspeare, Milton, Buffon, Cuvier, etc., have not transmitted their vast intellectual powers to their progeny. In explanation, it has been stated that what is known as genius is not transmissible. The creation of a man of genius seems to require a special effort of Nature, after which, as if fatigued, she reposes a long time before again making a similar effort. But it may well be doubted whether even those complex mental attributes on which genius and talent depend are not inheritable, particularly when both parents are thus endowed. That distinguished men do not more frequently have distinguished sons, may readily be accounted for when it is recollected that the inherited character is due to the combined influence of both parents. The desirable qualities of the father may therefore be neutralized in the offspring by the opposite or defective qualities of the mother. That contrasts in the disposition of parents are rather the rule than the exception, we have already shown. Every one tends to unite himself in friendship or love with a different character from his own, seeking thereby to supplement the qualities in which he feels his own nature to be deficient. The mother, therefore, may weaken, and perhaps obliterate, the qualities transmitted by the father. Again, the influence of some remote ancestors may make itself felt upon the offspring through the operation of the law of atavism, before alluded to, and thus prevent the children from equaling their parents in their natural endowments. Notwithstanding the workings of these opposing forces, and others which might be mentioned, we find abundant illustration of the hereditary nature of talent and character.

Of six hundred and five names occurring in a biographical dictionary devoted to men distinguished as great founders and originators, between the years 1453 and 1853, there were, as has been pointed out by Mr. Galton, no less than one hundred and two relationships, or one in six. Walford's Men of the Time contains an account of the distinguished men in England, the Continent, and America, then living. Under the letter A there are eighty-five names, and no less than twenty-five of these, or one in three and a half, have relatives also in the list; twelve of them are brothers, and eleven fathers and sons. In Bryan's Dictionary of Painters, the letter A contains three hundred and ninety-one names of men, of whom sixty-five are near relatives, or one in six; thirty-three of them are fathers and sons, and thirty are brothers. In Fetis's Biographie Universelle des Musiciens, the letter A contains five hundred and fifteen names, of which fifty are near relatives, or one in ten. Confining ourselves to literature alone, it has been found that it is one to six and a half that a very distinguished literary man has a very distinguished literary relative; and it is one to twenty-eight that the relation is father and son, or brother and brother, respectively. Among the thirty-nine Chancellors of England, sixteen had kinsmen of eminence; thirteen of them had kinsmen of great eminence. These thirteen out of thirty-nine, or one in three, are certainly remarkable instances of the influence of inheritance. A similar examination has been instituted in regard to the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and other American States, with like results. The Greek poet AEschylus counted eight poets and four musicians among his ancestors. The greater part of the celebrated sculptors of ancient Greece descended from a family of sculptors. The same is true of the great painters. The sister of Mozart shared the musical talent of her brother. As there are reasons, to be detailed hereafter, for believing that the influence of the mother is even greater than that of the father, how vastly would the offspring be improved if distinguished men united themselves in marriage to distinguished women for generation after generation!

INFLUENCE OF FATHERS OVER DAUGHTERS; OF MOTHERS OVER SONS.

We have already called attention to the parts of the physical organization transmitted by the father and by the mother. It would seem, moreover, that each parent exercises a special influence over the child according to its sex. The father transmits to the daughters the form of the head, the framework of the chest and of the superior extremities, while the conformation of the lower portion of the body and the inferior extremities is transmitted by the mother. With the sons this is reversed. They derive from the mother the shape of the head and of the superior extremities, and resemble the father in the trunk and inferior extremities. From this it therefore results, that boys procreated by intelligent women will be intelligent, and that girls procreated by fathers of talent will inherit their mental capacity. The mothers of a nation, though unseen and unacknowledged in the halls of legislation, determine in this subtle manner the character of the laws.

History informs us that the greater part of the women who have been celebrated for their intelligence, reflected the genius of their fathers. Arete, the most celebrated woman of her time, on account of the extent of her knowledge, was the daughter of the distinguished philosopher Aristippus, disciple of Socrates. Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was a daughter of Scipio. The daughter of the Roman emperor Caligula was as cruel as her father. Marcus Aurelius inherited the virtues of his mother, and Commodus the vices of his. Charlemagne shut his eyes upon the faults of his daughters, because they recalled his own. Genghis-Khan, the renowned Asiatic conqueror, had for his mother a warlike woman. Tamerlane, the greatest warrior of the fourteenth century, was descended from Genghis-Khan by the female side. Catherine de Medicis was as crafty and deceitful as her father, and more superstitious and cruel. She had two sons worthy of herself,—Charles IX., who shot the Protestants, and Henry III., who assassinated the Guises. Her daughter, Margaret of Valois, recalled her father by her gentle manners. The cruel deeds of Alexander VI., the dark records of which will for ever stain the pages of history, are only rivaled in atrocity by those of his children, the infamous Borgias. Arete, Hypatia, Madame de Stael, and George Sand,—all four had philosophers for their fathers. The mother of Bernardo Tasso had the gift of poetry. Buffon often speaks of the rich imagination of his mother. The poet Burns, 'Rare Ben Jonson,' Goethe, Walter Scott, Byron, and Lamartine,—all were born of women remarkable for their vivacity and brilliancy of language. Byron, in his journal, attributes his hypochondria to a hereditary taint derived from his mother, who was its victim in its most furious form; and her father 'was strongly suspected of suicide.' He was said to have resembled more his maternal grandfather than any of his father's family. The daughter of Moliere was like her father in her wit and humor. Beethoven had for a maternal grandmother an excellent musician. The mother of Mozart gave the first lessons to her son. A crowd of composers have descended from John Sebastian Bach, who long stood unrivaled as a performer on the organ, and composer for that instrument. It may be remarked here, that it is almost invariably true that the ability or inability to acquire a knowledge of music is derived from the ancestry. Parents who cannot turn a tune or tell one note from another, bring forth children equally unmoved 'with concord of sweet sounds.' Examples could easily be adduced at still greater length, illustrating the direct influence of the father over the daughter, and of the mother over the son. Those given will suffice.

INFLUENCE Of EDUCATION OVER INHERITED QUALITIES.

In correcting the evil effects of inheritance on the mind, education plays a very important part. A child born with a tendency to some vice or intellectual trait, may have this tendency entirely overcome, or at least modified, by training. So, also, virtues implanted by nature may be lost during the plastic days of youth, in consequence of bad associations and bad habits.

Education can therefore do much to alter inherited mental and moral qualities. Can it be invoked to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits, and secure the good? Everything that we have at birth is a heritage from our ancestors. Can virtuous habits be transmitted? Can we secure virtues in our children by possessing them ourselves? Science sadly says, through her latest votaries, that we are scarcely more than passive transmitters of a nature we have received, and which we have no power to modify. It is only after exposure during several generations to changed conditions or habits, that any modification in the offspring ensues. The son of an old soldier learns his drill no more quickly than the son of an artisan. We must therefore come to the conclusion with Mr. Galton, that to a great extent our own embryos have sprung immediately from the embryos whence our parents were developed, and these from the embryos of their parents, and so on for ever. Hence we are still barbarians in our nature. We show it in a thousand ways. Children, who love to dig and play in the dirt, have inherited that instinct from untold generations of ancestors. Our remote forefathers were barbarians, who dug with their nails to get at the roots on which they lived. The delicately-reared child reverts to primeval habits. In like manner, the silk-haired, parlor-nurtured spaniel springs from the caressing arms of its mistress, to revel in the filth of the roadside. It is the breaking out of inherited instinct.

TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE.

Perhaps the most important part of the subject of inheritance, is that which remains for us to consider in relation to the transmission of disease, or of a predisposition to it.

Consumption,—that dread foe of modern life,—is the most frequently encountered of all affections as the result of inherited predisposition. Indeed some of the most eminent physicians have believed it is never produced in any other way. Heart disease, disease of the throat, excessive obesity, affections of the skin, asthma, disorders of the brain and nervous system, gout, rheumatism, and cancer, are all hereditary. A tendency to bleed frequently, profusely and uncontrollably, from trifling wounds, is often met with as a family affection.

The inheritance of diseased conditions is also influenced by the sex. A parent may transmit disease exclusively to children of the same sex, or exclusively to those of the opposite sex. Thus, a horn-like projection on the skin peculiar to the Lambert family was transmitted from the father to his sons and grandsons alone. So mothers have through several generations transmitted to their daughters alone supernumerary fingers, color-blindness, and other deformities and diseases. As a general rule, any disease acquired during the life of either parent, strongly tends to be inherited by the offspring of the same sex rather than the opposite. We have spoken of the apparently reverse tendency in regard to the transmission of genius and talent.

ARE MUTILATIONS INHERITABLE?

How, it may be inquired, is it in regard to the inheritance of parts mutilated and altered by injuries and disease during the life of either parent? In some cases mutilations have been practised for many generations, without any inherited result. Different races of men have knocked out their upper teeth, cut off the joints of their fingers, made immense holes through their ears and nostrils, and deep gashes in various parts of their bodies, and yet there is no reason for supposing that these mutilations have been inherited. The Comprachicos, a hideous and strange association of men and women, existed in the seventeenth century, whose business it was to buy children and make of them monsters. Victor Hugo, in a recent work, has graphically told how they took a face and made of it a snout, how they bent down growth, kneaded the physiognomy, distorted the eyes, and in other ways disfigured 'the human form divine,' in order to make fantastic playthings for the amusement of the noble-born. But history does not state that these deformities were inherited; certainly no race of monsters has resulted. The pits from small-pox are not inherited, though many successive generations must have been thus pitted by that disease before the beneficent discovery of the immortal Jenner. Children born with scars left by pustules have had small-pox in the womb, acquired through the system of the mother. On the other hand, the lower animals, cats, dogs, and horses, which have had their tails and legs artificially altered or injured, have produced offspring with the same condition of parts. A man who had his little finger on the right hand almost cut off, and which in consequence grew crooked, had sons with the same finger on the same hand similarly crooked. The eminent physiologist Dr. Brown-Sequard mentions, that many young guinea-pigs inherited an epileptic tendency from parents which had been subjected to an operation at his hands resulting in the artificial production of fits; while a large number of guinea-pigs bred from animals which had not been operated on were not thus affected. At any rate, it cannot but be admitted that injuries and mutilations which cause disease, are occasionally inherited. But many cases of deformities existing at birth, as hare-lip, are not due to inheritance, although present in the father. They arise from a change effected in the child while in the womb, through an impression made upon the mind of the mother, as will be shown hereafter.

LATE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF INHERITANCE.

Not only are diseases inherited which make their appearance at birth, but those which defer their exhibition until a certain period of life corresponding with that at which they showed themselves in the parents. Thus in the Lambert family, before referred to, the porcupine excrescence on the skin began to grow in the father and sons at the same age, namely, about nine weeks after birth. In an extraordinary hairy family, which has been described, children were produced during three generations with hairy ears: in the father, the hair began to grow over his body at six years old; in his daughter somewhat earlier, namely, at one year; and in both generations the milk teeth appeared late in life, the permanent teeth being deficient. Greyness of hair at an unusually early age has been transmitted in some families. So, also, has the premature appearance of baldness.

HOW TO AVOID THE TENDENCY OF INHERITANCE.

These facts suggest the practical consideration, that in those diseases the predisposition to which alone is inherited, and which break out only after a lapse of time, it is often altogether possible to prevent the predisposition being developed into positive disease. Thus, for instance, the inherited tendency to consumption remains asleep in the system until about the age of puberty, or later. Therefore, by the use of a diet in which animal food forms a large portion, properly regulated, and systematic exercise in the open air, the practice of the long inhalations before recommended, warm, comfortable clothing, together with a residence, if practicable, during the changeable and inclement seasons of the year, in an equable climate, we can often entirely arrest the development of the disease. Prevention here is not only better than cure, but often all that is possible. Those in whom the disease has become active, must too often, like those who entered Dante's infernal regions, 'abandon hope.' Let our words of caution therefore be heeded.

When there is reason to believe that an individual possesses an inherent tendency to any disease, it is the duty of the medical adviser to study the constitution of the patient thoroughly, and after such study to recommend those measures of prevention best suited to avert the threatened disorder. Above all, let the physician look closely to the child at the period of life when any grave constitutional inheritable disease attacked the parent. This supervision should be carried into adult years, for there are instances on record of inherited diseases coming on at an advanced age, as in that of a grandfather, father, and son, who all became insane and committed suicide near their fiftieth year. Gout, apoplexy, insanity, chronic disease of the heart, epilepsy, consumption, asthma, and other diseases, are all more or less under the control of preventive measures. Some hereditary diseases, such as idiocy and cancer, we are impotent to prevent, in the present state of our knowledge.

A singular fact in connection with the transmission of disease is the readiness with which a whole generation is passed over, the affection appearing in the next. A father or mother with consumption may in some instances have healthy children, but the grandchildren will die of the disease. Nature kindly favors one generation, but only at the expense of the next.

Some diseases require, in addition to the general means of prevention to be found in a strict observance of the laws of health, some special measures in order to effectually ward off their appearance. But the extent of this work will not admit of their discussion. Already, indeed, have we unduly, perhaps, extended our remarks upon inheritance. The interest and importance of the facts must be our justification.

WHY ARE WOMEN REDUNDANT?

It cannot be without interest to look into the relative proportion of men and women now living. It will interest us still more to inquire into the reason why one sex preponderates over the other in numbers. This done, we will answer the question; Is the production of sex at all under the influence of the human will?

The female sex is the more numerous in all thickly populated parts of the world where we have trustworthy statistics. In Austria, England, and Wales, there are nearly one hundred and five women for every one hundred men. In Sweden they are as one hundred and nine to one hundred. In all cities the disproportion is greater than in the country. In London there are one hundred and thirteen women to every one hundred men; and in the large towns of Sweden they stand as one hundred and sixteen to one hundred.

This is not true, however, of newly-populated regions. The relative difference is reversed in recent and thinly-settled localities. In our Western States, for instance, the number of the men exceeds that of the women. In California they are as three to one; in Nevada as eight to one; in Colorado, twenty to one. In the State of Illinois there were, according to a recent United States census, ninety-three thousand more men than women. In Massachusetts, on the contrary, there are between fifty and sixty thousand more women than men.

The disproportion of men to women in new countries is due to the disinclination of women to emigrate. They are also unfitted for the hardships of pioneer life.

How is this general preponderance in the number of women produced? Is it because there are more girls born than boys? Not at all. The statistics of over fifty-eight millions of persons show that there are one hundred and six living boys born to every one hundred girls. In the state of Rhode Island, for instance, the proportion for three years, from 1853 to 1855, was one thousand and sixty-four boys born to one thousand girls. But now we meet with the wonderful arrangement of nature, that a larger proportional number of male infants die during the first year of their lives than of females. In the second year, the mortality, though less excessive, still remains far greater on the male side. It subsequently decreases, and at the age of four or five years is nearly equal for both sexes. In after life, from the age of fifteen to forty, the mortality is something greater among women, but not sufficiently so to make the number of the two sexes equal. The greater tendency of male offspring to die early is seen even before birth, for more male children are still-born than female,—namely, as three to two. For this reason, the term 'the stronger sex,' applied to men, has been regarded by some authors as a misnomer. They are physically weaker in early life, and succumb more readily to noxious influences.

Having thus pointed out that there are more women actually living in the world than men, although a larger number of boys are born than girls, we will consider for a moment some of the laws of nature which determine the number of the sexes. Without giving the figures,—which would make dry reading,—we will state in brief the conclusions derived from many observations, extending over many years and many nationalities. The relative age of the parents has an especial influence upon the sex of the children. Seniority on the father's side gives excess of male offspring. Equality in the parents' age gives a slight preponderance of female offspring. Seniority on the mother's side gives excess of female offspring. This tallies with the fact that in all civilized countries, as has been stated, the proportion of male births is greater than that of females; for, in accordance with the customs of society, the husband is generally older than the wife. A curious instance, in confirmation of this law, has recently come under our observation. A patient, married for the second time, is ten years older than her husband. She has two children by him, both girls. Singular to relate, her former husband was ten years older than herself, and by him she had four children, of whom three were boys, the fourth (a girl) having a twin brother.

Still, the relative age is not the sole cause which fixes the sex of the child. Its operation is sometimes overruled by conflicting agencies. In some districts of Norway, for example, there has been a constant deficiency in boys, while in others the reverse has been the case. The circumstance is well known, that after great wars, and sometimes epidemics, in which a disproportionate number of men have died, more boys are born than usual. Men who pass a sedentary life, and especially scholars who exhaust their nervous force to a great extent, beget more girls than boys. So, also, a very advanced age on the man's side diminishes the number of males among the offspring. The quantity and the quality of the food; the elevation of the abode; the conditions of temperature; the parents' mode of life, rank, religious belief, frequency of sexual intercourse,—have all been shown to be causes contributing to the disproportion of the sexes, besides the relative ages of the parents.

Some writers have stated that a southerly or warm and humid constitution of the year is most favorable to the birth of female infants, while in cold and dry years most males are produced. This statement has not been supported by trustworthy statistics in regard to the human race, but in respect of domestic animals the agriculturists of France have long observed that the season has much to do with the sex. When the weather is dry and cold, and the wind northerly, mares, ewes, and heifers produce more males than when the opposite meteorological condition prevails.

The saying among nurses, that 'This is the year for sons or daughters,' is based upon the erroneous supposition that mothers bring forth more male infants in one year than in another.

That, however, which concerns us the most in this connection, is the question:

CAN THE SEXES BE PRODUCED AT WILL?

This question was asked many centuries ago. It was a hard one, and remained without a satisfactory answer until quite recently. Science has at last replied to it with authority. M. Thury, Professor in the Academy of Geneva, has shown how males and females may be produced in accordance with our wishes.

Some families are most anxious for male offspring, others ardently desire daughters. And would it not often be a matter of national concern to control the percentage of sexes in the population? Is it not a 'consummation most devoutly to be wished,' to bring about that Utopian condition when there would be no sighing maids at home, nor want of warriors in the field? The discussion of this subject is therefore important and allowable.

It has been observed that queen-bees lay female eggs first, and male eggs afterwards. So with hens: the first-laid eggs give female, the last male products. Mares shown the stallion late in their periods, drop horse-colts rather than fillies.

Professor Thury, from the consideration of these and other like facts, formed this law for stock-raisers: 'If you wish to produce females, give the male at the first signs of heat; if you wish males, give him at the end of the heat.' But it is easy to form a theory. How was this law sustained in practice? We have now in our possession the certificate of a Swiss stock-grower, son of the President of the Swiss Agricultural Society, Canton de Vaud, under date of February 1867, which says:

'In the first place, on twenty-two successive occasions I desired to have heifers. My cows were of Schurtz breed, and my bull a pure Durham. I succeeded in these cases. Having bought a pure Durham cow, it was very important for me to have a new bull, to supersede the one I had bought at great expense, without leaving to chance the production of a male. So I followed accordingly the prescription of Professor Thury, and the success has proved once more the truth of the law. I have obtained from my Durham bull six more bulls (Schurtz-Durham cross) for fieldwork; and having chosen cows of the same color and height, I obtained perfect matches of oxen. My herd amounted to forty cows of every age.

'In short, I have made in all twenty-nine experiments after the new method, and in every one I succeeded in the production of what I was looking for—male and female. I had not one single failure. All the experiments have been made by myself, without any other person's intervention; consequently, I do declare that I consider as real and certainly perfect the method of Professor Thury.'

A perfectly trustworthy observer communicates by the Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia for May 2, 1868, the results of similar experiments on animals, with like conclusions.

The plan of M. Thury was also tried on the farms of the late Emperor of the French, with, it is asserted, the most unvarying success.

What is the result of the application of this law to the human race? Dr. F. J. W. Packman, of Wimborne, has stated in the Lancet, that, 'in the human female, conception in the first half of the time between menstrual periods produces female offspring, and male in the latter. When a female has gone beyond the time she calculated upon, it will generally turn out to be a boy.'

In the Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter for February 8, 1868, a respectable physician writes that, in numerous instances that have come under his observation, Professor Thury's theory has proved correct, 'Whenever intercourse has taken place in from two to six days after the cessation of the menses, girls have been produced; and whenever intercourse has taken place in from nine to twelve days after the cessation of the menses, boys have been produced. In every case I have ascertained not only the date at which the mother placed conception, but also the time when the menses ceased, the date of the first and subsequent intercourse for a month or more after the cessation of the menses,' etc.

Again, a physician writes to the same journal for June 20, 1868, recording the result of his own experience.

A farmer in Louisiana states, in the Turf, Field, and Farm, in support of this law, that 'I have already been able in many cases to guess with certainty the sex of a future infant. More than thirty times, among my friends, I have predicted the sex of a child before its birth, and the event proved nearly every time that I was right.'

The wife, therefore, who would wish, as Macbeth desired of his, to

'Bring forth men-children only,'

should avoid exposing herself to conception during the early part of the time between her menstrual periods.

The prediction of the sex of the child before birth can now be with some accuracy made by the intelligent and skilful physician. The method of doing so will be mentioned in treating of pregnancy.

TWIN-BEARING.

As a rule, a woman has one child at a time. Twins, when they occur, are looked upon with disfavor by most people. There is a popular notion that they are apt to be wanting in physical and mental vigor. This opinion is not without foundation. A careful scientific examination of the subject has shown, that of imbeciles and idiots a much larger proportion is actually found among the twins born than in the general community. In families where twinning is frequent, bodily deformities likewise occur with frequency. Among the relatives of imbeciles and idiots, twin-bearing is common. In fact, the whole history of twin-births is of an exceptional character, indicating imperfect development and feeble organization in the product, and leading us to regard twins in the human species as a departure from the physiological rule, and therefore injurious to all concerned. Monsters born without brains have rarely occurred except among twins.

The birth of twins occurs once in about eighty deliveries. A woman is more apt to have no children than to have more than one at a time. In view of the increased danger to both mother and child, this rarity of a plural birth is fortunate.

WHY ARE TWINS BORN?

What are the causes or favouring circumstances bringing about this abnormal child-bearing? For it is brought about by the operation of laws. It is not an accident. There are no accidents in nature. By some it is supposed to be due to the mother, by some to the father. There are facts in favour of both opinions. Certain women married successively to several men have always had twins, while their husbands with other wives have determined single births. Certain men have presented the same phenomenon. We can scarcely cite an example more astonishing than that of a countryman who was presented to the Empress of Russia in 1755. He had had two wives. The first had fifty-seven children in twenty-one confinements; the second, thirty-three in thirteen. All the confinements had been quadruple, triple, or double. A case has come under our own observation in which the bearing of twins has seemed to be due to a constitutional cause. The wife has nine children. The first was a single birth, a girl; the others were all twin-births, and boys.

It has been asserted that compound pregnancies are more frequent in certain years than in others. But that which seems to exert the greatest actual influence over the production of twins is the age of the mother. Very extensive statistics have demonstrated that, from the earliest child-bearing period until the age of forty is reached, the fertility of mothers in twins gradually increases. Between the ages of twenty and thirty, fewest wives have twins. The average age of the twin-bearer is older than the general run of bearers. It is well known that by far the greater number of twins are born of elderly women. While three-fifths of all births occur among women under thirty years of age, three-fifths of all the twins are born to those over thirty years of age. Newly-married women are more likely to have twins at the first labour the older they are. The chance that a young wife from fifteen to nineteen shall bear twins is only as one to one hundred and eighty-nine; from thirty-five to thirty-nine the chance is as one to forty-five,—that is, the wives married youngest have fewest twins; and there is an increase as age advances, until forty is reached.

Race seems to have some influence over plural births. They occur relatively oftener among the Irish than among the English.

INFLUENCE OF TWIN-BEARING ON SIZE OF FAMILIES.

Do women bearing twins have in the end larger families than those never having but one at a time? Popular belief would answer this question in the affirmative. Such a reply would also seem to receive support from the fact, well established, that twins are more frequently additions to an already considerable family than they are either the first of a family or additional to a small family. But statistics have not answered this question as yet positively. They seem, however, in favour of the supposition that twin-bearing women have larger families than their neighbors.

Women are more apt to have twins in their first pregnancy than any other, but after the second confinement the bearing of twins increases in frequency with the number of the pregnancy. It becomes, therefore, an indication of an excessive family, and is to be deplored.

MORE THAN TWO CHILDREN AT A BIRTH.

Cases of the birth of more than two children at a time are still less frequently met with than twins. They are scarcely ever encountered, excepting in women who have passed their thirtieth year. Such cases are all more or less unfortunate both for the mother and the children.

THREE AT A BIRTH.

The births of triplets are not exclusively confined to women above thirty years, but in those younger they are so rare as to be great curiosities. Neither are they apt to occur in the first pregnancy. In this respect they differ from twins, who, as has just been said, are peculiarly prone to make their appearance at the first childbirth. Only four cases of treble births occurred among the 36,000 accouchements which have taken place in the Hospice de Maternite of Paris in a determined time. Out of 48,000 cases of labor in the Royal Maternity Charity in London, only three triplets occurred. History informs us that the three Roman brothers, the Horatii, were triplets. They fought and conquered the three Curiatii of Alba (667 B. C.) who were likewise triplets.

As an interesting fact in connection with this subject, we may mention that in the St. Petersburg Midwives' Institute, between 1845-59, there were three women admitted, who, in their fifteenth pregnancies, had triplets, and each had triplets three times in succession. Happily, the fifteenth pregnancy is not reached by most women.

FOUR AT A BIRTH.

Instances of quadruplets are fewer than triplets. But four vigorous infants have been born at one birth.

FIVE AT A BIRTH.

The birth of five living children at a time is very exceptional, and is usually fatal to the offspring. A remarkable case of this kind is reported in a late medical journal. A woman aged thirty, the wife of a laborer, and the mother of six children, was taken in labor about the seventh month of her pregnancy. Five children, and all alive, were given birth to,—three boys and two girls. Four of the children survived an hour, and died within a few moments of each other. The fifth, a female, and the last born, lived six hours, and was so vigorous that, notwithstanding its diminutive size, hopes were entertained of its surviving.

Another case is reported in a recent French medical journal. The woman was forty years old. She had had twins once, and single children five times. On her seventh pregnancy, when five months gone, she was as large as women usually are at the end of their full term. At the close of the month she was delivered of five children. They were all born alive, and lived from four to seven minutes. All five children were males, well built and as well developed as foetuses of five and one-half months usually are in a single birth. The woman made a good recovery. Other cases of five at a birth might be quoted. They are known to medical science as very singular and noteworthy occurrences.

INCREDIBLE NUMBERS.

Some books speak of seven, eight, nine, ten, and more, children at a birth. But these statements are so marvelous, so incredible, and unsupported by proper testimony, that they do not merit any degree of confidence. The climax of such extraordinary assertions is reached, and a good illustration of the credulity of the seventeenth century furnished, by a writer named Goftr. This traveller, in 1630, saw a tablet in a church at Leusdown (Lausdunum), about five miles from the Hague, with an inscription stating that a certain illustrious countess, whose name and family he records, brought forth at one birth, in the fortieth year of her age, in the year 1276, 365 infants. They were all baptized by Guido, the Suffragan. The males were called John, and the females Elizabeth. They all, with their mother, died on the same day, and were buried in the above-mentioned church. This monstrous birth was said to have been caused by the sin of the countess in insulting a poor woman with twins in her arms, who prayed that her insulter might have at one birth the same number of children as there were days in the year. Of course, notwithstanding the story being attested by a tablet in a church, it must be placed among the many other instances of superstition afforded by an ignorant and credulous era.

We may remark, in closing this subject, that fewer plural births come to maturity than pregnancies with single children. Miscarriages are comparatively more frequent in such pregnancies than in ordinary ones.



PREGNANCY

VENERATION FOR THE PREGNANT.

We have been considering woman hitherto as maiden and wife. She now approaches the sacred threshold of maternity. She is with child. In no period of her life is she the subject of an interest so profound and general. The young virgin and the new wife have pleased by their grace, spirit, and beauty. The pregnant wife is an object of active benevolence and religious respect. It is interesting to note how, at all times and in all countries, she has been treated with considerate kindness and great deference. She has been made the subject of public veneration, and sometimes even of religious worship. At Athens and at Carthage the murderer escaped from the sword of justice if he sought refuge in the house of a pregnant woman. The Jews allowed her to eat forbidden meats. The laws of Moses pronounced the penalty of death against all those who by bad treatment or any act of violence caused a woman to abort. Lycurgus compared women who died in pregnancy to the brave dead on the field of honour, and accorded to them sepulchral inscriptions. In ancient Rome, where all citizens were obliged to rise and stand during the passage of a magistrate, wives were excused from rendering this mark of respect, for the reason that the exertion and hurry of the movement might be injurious to them in the state in which they were supposed to be. In the kingdom of Pannonia all enceinte women were in such veneration, that a man meeting one on the road was obliged, under penalty of a fine, to turn back and accompany and protect her to her place of destination. The Catholic Church has in all times exempted pregnant wives from fasts. The Egyptians decreed, and in most Christian countries the law at the present time obtains, that if a woman shall be convicted of an offence the punishment of which is death, the sentence shall not be executed if it be proved that she is pregnant.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF PREGNANCY.

1. The sign most commonly relied upon is the cessation of the monthly sickness. The wife who misses the expected return of her illness, is apt to conclude that conception has taken place. This sign is far from being an infallible one.

It should be borne in mind that young married women sometimes have a slight show for two or three periods after their first impregnation. Ignorance of this fact has very frequently led to a miscalculation of the time of confinement. On the other hand, the menses will sometimes become arrested soon after marriage, and continue so for one or two months, without there existing any pregnancy. The temporary disappearance of the monthly sickness in such cases is due to the profound impression made upon the system by the new relations of the individual.

It not unfrequently happens that menstruation continues with regularity during the whole period of pregnancy. Exceptional cases are given by distinguished writers on midwifery, of women menstruating during their pregnancy, and at no other time.

As a general rule, when a healthy wife misses her monthly sickness, she is pregnant. But this symptom, though a strong one, must be supported by others before it can be regarded as establishing anything.

2. Morning sickness is a very common, a very early, and, in the opinion of most mothers, a very conclusive symptom of pregnancy. We have already had occasion to remark that it sometimes makes its appearance almost simultaneously with conception. It usually comes on in the first few weeks, and continues until the third or fourth month or until quickening. This symptom is apt to be a troublesome one. Often the vomiting is slight, and immediately followed by relief. But it may produce violent and ineffectual straining for some time. It is, however, not to be called a disease: unless it proceeds to an exhausting degree, it must be looked upon as favorable and salutary. There is an old and true proverb, that 'a sick pregnancy is a safe one.' The absence of nausea and vomiting is a source of danger to the mother and child. Women who habitually fail to experience them, are exceedingly apt to miscarry. In such cases medical skill should be invoked to bring about the return of these symptoms, of such importance to healthful pregnancy.

Morning sickness is therefore a very general, almost constant, accompaniment of the pregnant condition; and great dependence may be placed upon it as a sign.

3. Changes in the breasts are valuable as symptoms. They become larger and firmer, and the seat of a pricking or stinging sensation. The nipples are swollen, prominent, and sometimes sore or painful. The veins beneath the skin appear more conspicuous, and of a deeper blue than ordinary. The peculiar circles of rose-coloured skin which surround the nipples increase in extent, change to a darker color, and become covered with a number of little elevations. Subsequently, numerous mottled patches, or round spots of a whitish hue, scatter themselves over the outer part of this circle.

The time at which these changes make their appearance is variable. They may begin to develope themselves in two or three weeks, oftener not until the second or third month, and in women of a delicate build, sometimes not until the latter end of pregnancy. Occasionally no alteration whatever occurs in the breasts until after confinement, in which cases the secretion of milk is delayed for several days after the birth of the child. In some rare instances the breasts never assume maternal proportions, and the mother is debarred from the pleasure and duty of nursing her own child.

4. Quickening is the next symptom we will consider. By this term is meant the arrival of that time when the mother first becomes conscious by the movements of the child of its presence. The ancients thought that then life was imparted to the new being. Modern physiology emphatically condemns this absurdity. The embryo is as much alive in the very earliest moments of pregnancy as at any future stage of its existence. Let every woman therefore remember that she who produces abortion is equally guilty in the eyes of science and of Heaven, whether the act be committed before or after the period of quickening.

How is quickening produced? Undoubtedly by the movements of the child. So soon as its nervous and muscular systems become sufficiently developed to enable it to move its limbs, the mother, if the movements be sufficiently active, is rendered sensible of her situation. But the muscular contractions may not be strong enough to impart any sensation to the mother. In many cases in which they are too feeble to be noticed by herself, the skilled accoucheur is capable of recognizing them. And the movements of the foetus may be excited in various ways known to physicians.

Time of quickening.—This symptom usually occurs about the middle of pregnancy, near the eighteenth week. Some women feel the movements of the foetus as early as the third month of pregnancy, others not till the sixth month. Cases occur in which no movement whatever is felt until the eighth or ninth month, or even not at all. It has been suggested that a foetus which does not indicate its presence in this way is a kind of 'Lazy Lawrence,' too indolent to move. Certainly, many of both sexes exhibit after birth such indomitable love of repose, that it can readily be supposed they were equally passive in foetal life.

The non-occurrence of this sign may, however, be due to the debility of the young child, or to a want of sensibility in the walls of the womb itself.

A woman may be deceived, and suppose she has quickened, when her sensations are to be traced to flatulence of the bowels, or perhaps a dropsical effusion. Many ludicrous instances of self-deception are on record. The historian Hume states that Queen Mary, in her extreme desire to have issue, so confidently asserted that she felt the movements of the child, that public proclamation was made of the interesting event. Despatches were sent to foreign courts; national rejoicings were had; the sex of the child was settled, for everybody was certain it was going to be a male; and Bonner, Bishop of London, made public prayers, saying that Heaven would pledge to make him beautiful, vigorous, and witty. But all those high hopes and eager expectations were destined never to be realized. The future disclosed that the supposed quickening was merely a consequence of disordered health, and commencing dropsy.

Some women possess the power of imitating the movements of a foetus, by voluntary contraction of the abdominal muscles. A well-known colored woman of Charleston, 'Aunt Betty,' had a great reputation as having 'been pregnant for fifteen years.' She made a good deal of money, by exhibiting to physicians and medical students who were curious, the pretended movements of her unborn child. She was repeatedly presented to the medical classes in the city. No pregnancy existed, as was revealed by a post-mortem examination. She imposed upon the credulous by the habit she had acquired of jerking her muscles at pleasure, and thus closely simulating the movements of an embryo.

5. Changes in the abdomen.—In the first two months of pregnancy the abdomen is less prominent than usual: it recedes, and presents a flat appearance. The navel is also drawn in and depressed. About the third month a swelling frequently shows itself in the lower part of the abdomen, and then diminishes, thus leading the wife to suppose that she was mistaken in her condition, for she finds herself at the fourth month smaller than at the third. After this, however, there is a gradual increase in the size and hardness of the abdomen. What is of more value, is the peculiar form of the swelling. It is pear-shaped, and is thus distinguished from the swelling of dropsy and other affections. The navel begins to come forward, and finally protrudes. The pouting appearance it then presents is very characteristic.

In this connection it may be remarked that, towards the change of life, childless married women often think they perceive that 'hope deferred' is about to be gratified. An enlargement of the abdomen takes place at this time, from a deposit of fatty matter. The nervous perturbations and the cessation of the menses, which are natural to this period, are looked upon as confirmations of the opinion that pregnancy exists. But the day of generation with them has passed. These symptoms herald the approach of the winter of life, which brings with it death to the reproductive system.

6. Changes in the skin.—The alterations occurring in the skin are worth observing. Those women who have a delicate complexion and are naturally pale take a high color, and vice versa. In some cases a considerable quantity of hair appears on those parts of the face occupied by the beard in men; it disappears after labor, and returns on every subsequent pregnancy. Oftentimes the skin becomes loose and wrinkled, giving a haggard, aged air to the face, and spoiling good looks. Women who ordinarily perspire freely, have now a dry, rough skin; whereas those whose skin is not naturally moist, have copious perspiration, which may be of a peculiarly strong odor. Copper-colored or yellow blotches sometimes appear upon the skin, mole spots become darker and larger, and a dark ring developes itself beneath the eyes. The whole appearance is thus in many cases altered. On the other hand, obstinate, long-existing skin affections sometimes take their departure during pregnancy, perhaps never to return. These alterations do not occur in all women, nor in all pregnancies of the same woman.

7. We may now group together a number of less important and less constant signs, such as depraved appetite, longings for unnatural food, excessive formation of saliva in the mouth, heartburn, loss of appetite in the first two or three months, succeeded by a voracious desire for food, which sometimes compels the woman to rise at night in order to eat, toothache, sleepiness, diarrhoea, palpitation of the heart, pain in the right side, etc. These, when they occur singly, are of little value as evidence.

Among these, that of depraved appetite is by far the most important, and may be regarded as quite significant. A married woman in her ordinary health, suddenly feeling this morbid taste for chalk, charcoal, slate pencil, and other unusual articles of food, may look upon it as a strong presumptive evidence of impregnation.