ceived this seal of affection, had heard that their husbands
were seen kissing other ladies, they would have had sad forebodings
that improper sentiments at least existed between the parties.
An honorable physician would not designedly
do any thing to bring about an unhappy result; but in the medical
profession, as in others, there are all sorts of men. Many a
one, of course, base enough to gratify his vanity by making
a conquest of another man's wife. Many others, in Bible language,
'having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin;
beguiling unstable souls; a heart have they exercised with covetous
practices; cursed children.' Various hypotheses have been offered
to explain why the study and practice of medicine tend to irreligion,
infidelity, and consequent want of principle, as has been observed
by moralists, and medical authors themselves. Some suppose the
constant dwelling on the material part of human nature creates
an indifference to the spiritual and moral portion. A truer
explanation would be, the nature of the physician's duties,
the great intimacy now required between physician's and the
female population. It operates unfavorably both by drawing depraved
men into the practice, and by depraving men who were upright
and honorable when they entered upon it.
Clerks and cashiers
in banks, in consequence of handling so much money, look upon
it as cheap, and, as the temptation is constantly before them,
they are very liable to make unlawful appropriations. So the
physician, by constant familiarity, comes to consider female
delicacy and reserve as not worth preserving, and even fidelity
and virtue are perhaps considered of as little consequence as
bank notes.
Quite as bad is the effect on the patient.
Many a daughter of infamy could date her ruin from some customary
professional intimacy. That was the time she passed the Rubicon.
No man ever suddenly became a drunkard, a debauchee; no woman
without a preliminary moral prostitution ever became
a harlot.
William Cobbet, an acute observer and widely
celebrated author, in speaking on this very subject, the great
intimacy of physicians with the female population, says, 'We
have this conclusion, this indubitable proof of the falling
off in real delicacy; namely, that common prostitutes,
formerly unknown, now swarm in our cities, and are seldom wanting
even in our villages; and where there was one
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illegitimate child only fifty years ago,
there are now twenty. And who can say how far the
employment of men, in the cases alluded to, may have
assisted in producing this change, so disgraceful to
the present age, and so injurious to the female sex? The prostitution
and swarms of illegitimate children have a natural and inevitable
tendency to lessen that respect, and that kind and indulgent
feeling, which is due from all men to virtuous women. And
many a man is disposed to adopt the unjust sentiment of Pope,
that "every woman is at heart a rake." Who knows,
I say, in what degree the employment of men-operators
may have tended to produce this change, so injurious to the
female sex?' --This was spoken of man-midwifery in England,
but it is strictly applicable to our own country.
Buffon, --whose one hundred and twenty volumes,
on the Natural History of the earth, minerals, plants, animals,
and man, testify to his comprehensive mind and his vast research,
and who for his gigantic labors, was honored by his king with
the title of 'Count,' -- the intelligent observer of nature,
Buffon says, "This species of folly, which considers
female chastity merely a physical existence, has given
rise to many absurd opinions, customs, and ceremonies, and
to the most illicit abuses, and to practices which shock humanity.
In the submission of women to the unnecessary examinations
of physicians, exposing the secrets of nature, it is forgotten
that every indecency of this kind is a violent attack against
chastity, that every situation which produces an internal
blush is a real prostitution."
If the opinion of this eminent man be correct,
man-midwifery, with other 'indecencies,' is a great system
of fashionable prostitution; a primary school of infamy --as
the fashionable hotel and parlor wine glass qualify candidates
for the two-penny grog-shop and the gutter. Who wonders at
the present rage of women for exhibiting themselves upon the
stage, in state of semi-nudity, so that the public generally
may be entertained, without the trouble and expense of studying
medicine!
The advertisement of the Medical Lectures
for 1847, in the New York University, says, 'During the past
five sessions, more than 1200 cases of midwifery have been
attended by the students of the university.' Procuring and
prostitution go hand in hand. This institution is bound to
flourish, affording such facilities for information.
Physicians make great account of the fact,
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