It may, perhaps, be alleged that the topics of which this book must treat are such as cannot possibly be discussed without offending good taste or transcending propriety. This opinion, like many that are merely preconceived, may be found an erroneous one. It may also, perhaps, be said that the field of inquiry is one that has been given over, by tacit consent, to a class of writers who are theorists only, without previous opportunities of extended observation, or self-constituted moralists, who argue from abstract speculations rather than from the facts that nature daily furnishes to the physician in active practice. This has undoubtedly been the case. I have been astonished at the mass of material of the description referred to, that my publishers have sent me from their shelves for inspection since the manuscript of this book was placed in their hands. Essays of the most incoherent character, some of them utterly unintelligible even, have vied for circulation with others, which, under the guise of a rational physiology, or philosophy, or religion, inculcate doctrines the most pernicious alike to body, mind, and soul. It is my aim to avoid being confounded in any way whatever with this class of writers. The views that I present are those accepted as true by the physicians of our time most competent to judge, and it will be seen that they are consistent with sound common sense. The result of many years of study, under very unusual opportunities for observing disease, I have not the slightest doubt as to the verdict that will be passed upon them by the grand jury to whom they are now submitted. I have said that the Prize Essay upon Abortions has elicited extended and very favorable comments. Among those that have been brought to my notice there have been two of a very striking and very peculiar character, both of them apparently made in the most perfectly good faith, and from the most diametrically opposite quarters. As to the personal identity of their authors, I know nothing. One of these criticisms is offered by a woman, “the wife,” she is styled, “of a Christian physician;” her plea is evidently the result of extended observation, in no way, I trust, from personal experience, though it must have been the unlocking of a warm, and brave, and sympathetic heart. Its arguments are so weighty, and they are so well put, that I copy the letter entire in an Appendix to this essay, and trust, with the editors of the journal in which it appeared, “that it may find its way, in some more popular form than their pages afforded, to the eyes of every husband in the land.”[3]