The vaginal irrigation is to be undertaken immediately after the act; if sufficient time is allowed to pass, the spermatozoa will have entered the mouth of the womb; then they are clearly beyond the reach of the wash. The warm water and the necessary paraphernalia are to be held in readiness so as to lose no time in making the toilet, nor should there be unnecessary exposure to the danger of catching cold. The nozzle of the syringe should always be of hard rubber, because that is not likely to rust or corrode. The syringe is to be kept scrupulously clean by means of occasional brushings in soapy water. Vaginal injections should never be taken in the morning, if the person is required to exercise on her feet, and for the same reason, should any husband have marital relations with his wife before rising in the morning, the wife is likely to suffer all day, either by soreness or pain or by a dragging sensation of the womb and vagina. The same rule is to be followed in vaginal irrigation as for other purposes, the main point being to throw the fluid well up into the vagina, and that can only be done if the nozzle is carried directly backward and not upwards. No violence or force is to be used, under any circumstance. CHAPTER VII. CRIMINAL ABORTION OR FETICIDE. I HAVE so far endeavored to give a cursory description of _avoidable_ causes, which were inadvertantly or thoughtlessly encouraged, and it is to be hoped that my friendly reproof and counsel will incite my readers to modify their pernicious habits and direct the currents of their thoughts into channels more or less in harmony with the hygiene that I have been at liberty to suggest. There are few persons, if any, who would voluntarily act and think in a manner that would be prejudicial to their physical or moral welfare, if they were educated to a standard of knowledge that gave them an insight into the evil consequences. The law of _self-preservation_ is innate in our natures, so that we are ready to cultivate the good and useful and shun that which may do harm. Among the avoidable causes there is none so prolific of disease as that which is traced to the premature expulsion of the ovum or fetus from the mother’s womb. This appears self-evident, when we stop to consider that the function of reproduction is at once by far the most complicated of the physiological processes of the female economy, so that its sudden interruption will naturally induce any one or all of the physical or pelvic ailments which we are called upon to discuss. For our purpose it will not be sufficient to consider the subject from a medical standpoint alone, because the thoughts drift involuntarily, as it were, from the physical into the metaphysical, from the material into the spiritual part of our nature.