The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in HygieneGalbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Science
The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in Hygiene
Galbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Women -- Health and hygiene
Gonorrhea often prevents conception by the inflammation traveling up
the womb, and along the Fallopian tubes to the ovaries, whose covering
is rendered thick and dense, so that the ovum cannot escape, or if it
does, the fimbriated end of the tube is so agglutinated that it cannot
grasp the ovum.
Alcoholism is considered a cause of sterility. It evidently does
diminish the sexual potency in the male, and for this the female is
often blamed.
It does not follow because a woman has not given birth to a child that
she has not conceived. The life of an infant for a long time after
birth is a frail one, and before birth its existence is extremely
precarious; it often perishes a few days after conception. A period
coming on a few days late, and at the same time one which is unusually
profuse, is the only evidence which the young wife may have of an
abortion. Among prostitutes, the frequent delay of menstruation, then
abundant hemorrhage, is in many cases only habitual abortion, and
leads to changes in the generative organs which must result in
sterility. A tendency to miscarriage may therefore be all that stands
in the way of having a family; this can frequently be remedied.
Sexual incompatibility is well known to exist; prominent examples
being Augustus and Livia; Napoleon and Josephine. It is also a
well-known fact that frigidity is a cause of barrenness. A short
separation of husband and wife is often salutary in its influence upon
fertility.
It is a well-established fact that the time immediately before the
period, but still more that immediately following the period, are the
most favorable times for conception to take place; the remaining quiet
in bed of the woman after the generative act is also favorable to
conception.
The most frequent causes of sterility in women are inflammation of the
lining membrane of the uterus, or of the neck of the uterus, or of
both. The source of this condition in women who have had children is
most frequently due to parturition or abortion. In the newly married
it may be due to a previously existing slight uterine catarrh in a
displaced uterus, or it may be a manifestation of a run-down state of
the system. In a majority of the newly married, however, the
inflammation of the endometrium is probably due to the first efforts
at conjugal approach. Many young women as the result of the
preparation of the trosseau, augmented by a round of gaities at the
time of marriage, enter the married state in a condition bordering on
physical and nervous exhaustion; and then begin engorgements and
inflammations which lead to future suffering and to sterility.
Displacements and flexions of the uterus also cause sterility. Such
displacements of the neck of the uterus may occur that, instead of
lying in a pool of semen, as it should, it is above, in front of, or
away from it, and this may prevent conception.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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