Essays in medical sociology, Volume 1 (of 2)Blackwell, Elizabeth
Science
Essays in medical sociology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Blackwell, Elizabeth
Prostitution; Sexual ethics; Social medicine
APPENDIX I. (PAGE 262)
_Christian Duty in regard to Vice_
Cruelty and Lust are the twin evils that now most seriously afflict
our race, and which women--the mothers of the race--are especially
called on to fight. Women must act. No one not partially blind can fail
to see that the onward movement of events is carrying women forward
into positions of active influence in social life that they have not
hitherto occupied. Whether we welcome or dread this change, it goes
on irresistibly, based upon industrial activity, and extending into
every other department of life. The command of wisdom is to accept this
advance, recognise its responsibilities, and bravely rise to meet them.
Women, by the endowment of Motherhood, are created with special powers.
This endowment, which is a mighty spiritual as well as a physical
force, indicates their distinctive line of active influence, and will
show why they are especially called on to combat cruelty and lust,
which kill motherhood.
In this special subject, women must initiate their own lines of
action, for they are called on by the constitution of Humanity to
lead in this moral warfare, not be led. Equal justice to all, with
protection for the most defenceless, is the only foundation on which
both custom and legislation can safely rest in any attempt to improve
the relations of the sexes or to remedy the direful evils which these
relations at present engender.
APPENDIX II. (PAGE 265)
Terrible instances of this may be seen in Trélat’s medical work, _La
Folie Lucide_, etc. Lallemand and other French surgeons report numerous
cases of fatal injury done even to nursing infants by the wicked
actions of unprincipled nurses. I have myself traced the ill-health of
children in wealthy families to the habits practised by confidential
nurses, apparently quiet, respectable women! Abundant medical testimony
confirms these observations.
It is not the plan of the present essay to enter into minute details
and suggestions relative to every step of family life which bears upon
our subject; such details are more suited to the private and familiar
conferences of those who are resolved to ennoble the life of sex. When
this high resolve has become a guiding principle, it will throw light
upon every practical arrangement from infancy onward. It will then be
seen that no details are insignificant to the watchful mother; that the
shape of the child’s nightdress, made in the form of loose drawers; the
manner of washing and of attending to its natural wants; the nightly
prayer; simple and respectful answers to the questions of awakening
curiosity--all endless applications will flow from a perception of the
necessity of securing the slow and healthy development of sex.
Dr. Acton has called attention to the necessity of securing local
cleanliness, and to the evil arising from worms and from the habit of
wetting the bed.
FOOTNOTES:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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