"I think the profession deeply indebted to Dr. Robert Lee for bringing this question forward for discussion. It is not one of mere medical or surgical treatment, but of medical and public ethics; and I confess myself astonished at the light manner in which a vaginal examination was spoken of by one of the gentlemen present at the Society. I think the challenge of Dr. Bennet should have been accepted at once, and that a committee should have been, and should now be, appointed to test the existence, or the non-existence, of the thousand and one 'ulcers,' or 'abrasions,' of which so much has been said of late. "The gentleman to whom I have alluded above, huffed the idea of indecency in making a vaginal examination. There need be no exposure of the person of the patient. Surgeons make no scruple about an examination of the rectum (as if the two examinations could, morally speaking, be compared). But, if there be no exposure of the person, and if the examination of the rectum be frequently made, is there, at first, no wounding of the feelings? and is there afterwards no deterioration and blunting of those feelings by the repeated daily or weekly use of the speculum vaginae in the virgin, and in the very young, even amongst the married? I loudly proclaim that there is such deterioration, and that the female who has been subjected to such treatment is not the same person, in delicacy and purity, that she was before. "I have known cases of the most revolting attachment, on the part of such patients, to the practice and to the practitioner. I have known them to speak of the 'womb' and of the 'uterine organs' with a familiarity which was formerly unknown, and which, I trust, will, ere long, be obsolete. The current of the ideas becomes hypochondriacally directed to these organs. The very mind is poisoned. A new and lamentable form of _hysteria_--I had almost said of _furor uterinus_--is induced, with this aggravation, that the subject of distress is either concealed by the greatest effort, or explained at the expense of virgin or female modesty. "There is a case of 'poisoned mind' in the male sex, induced by the quack doings of the day, relative to the existence of impotency, which all of us must have treated and deplored. A similar case of 'mental poisoning' is now being induced in the other sex, by the frequent, constant, and undue reference, on the part of the profession, to the condition of the 'uterine organs.'"... "One poor, miserable patient comes to me weekly, thus afflicted. She has been treated by the speculum and the caustic for months, as an out-patient at University College Hospital. I sent her to Dr. Robert Lee twice. Twice that gentleman examined, and declared that there was _no_ uterine or vaginal disease. Meanwhile the miserable patient's mind is absorbed by this ideal malady, and the peace of her husband's home is destroyed.