Children, their hydropathic management in health and disease : a descriptive and practical work, designed as a guide for families and physicians.

  • Shew, Joel, 1816-1855.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Children, their hydropathic management in health and disease : a descriptive and practical work, designed as a guide for families and physicians. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    if exempt from those troublesome though important symptoms. Fat women, and those who experience excessive menstruation, those who are hysterical, very nervous, irritable, or excessively sensitive; those who are rick- ety, much scrofulous, or have any other formidable constitutional deterioration; those who have dropsy, or are effected with cancer; and those who must com- press their bodies with stays, corsets, tight clothing, or other appliances of art, are most subject to miscar- riage, and consequently should avoid pregnancy—for their own good, as wTell as that of their offspring. And not less important is it to observe, that sexual com- merce should be carefully guarded against during the period of pregnancy.* There are vile books in circulation, sold, too, some- times, by highly respectable booksellers, in which the writers affirm that abortion can be produced without * Dr. Edward Baynard, an able and very sarcastic English writer, one hundred and fifty years ago, in speaking of the evil ef- fects of swathing and dressing infants too tightly, indulged in the following reflections : Tis a great shame that greater care is not taken in so weighty an affair, as is the birth and breeding of that noble creature, man ; and, considering this stupid and supine negligence, I have often wondered that there are so many men as there are in the world ; for what by abortions, too oft caused by the unseasonable, too frequent, and boisterous, drunken addresses of the husband to the wife, when young with child, and her high fced- ing, spiced meats, soups, and sauces, which with strait lacings, dancings, and the like, one full half of the men begotten are de- stroyed in the shell, squabed in the nest, murdered in embryo, an 1 never see light; and half of the other half are overlaid, poisoned by ill food, and killed at nurse,'' etc.