CHAPTER VI

HARMFUL METHODS PRACTICED TO AVOID LARGE FAMILIES

_In this chapter it is shown that ignorance of scientific means of preventing conception involves women in harmful practices. The most common is coitus interruptus which results in nervous disorders. Long continued celibacy or unnatural continence leads to sex inversions. When, in spite of these unscientific practices, pregnancy follows, abortion, the greatest disgrace of modern civilization, is the only resort of the harassed mother, unless she will bear unwanted offspring._

COITUS INTERRUPTUS

_THE SEXUAL LIFE OF WOMAN IN ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL AND HYGIENIC ASPECTS. E. Heinrich Kisch, M.D._

The prevailing practice of coitus interruptus leads, in my experience in consequence of the intense hyperaemia of the uterus and the uterine annexa unrelieved by the occurrence of the orgasm, to a condition of stasis in the female reproductive organs, and this ultimately passes on into chronic netritis, (with relaxation of the uterus, retro-flexion, or ante-flexion, catarrhal diseases of the mucous membrane, erosions and follicular laceration of the portio vaginalis) oophoritis and perimetritis. The evil effects of coitus interruptus for a woman are dependent on the fact that the woman fails to obtain complete sexual gratification, and that this has an important influence on her entire organism. If this ungratifying coitus interruptus is frequently repeated in a voluptuous woman disorders of the reproductive organs ensue, and even more frequently nervous disorders in the form of neurasthenia sexualis. P. 403.

Mantegazza believes that organic disease of the spinal cord may actually result from coitus interruptus.

Hirt considers that even when marital intercourse is carefully regulated with respect to frequency, coitus interruptus may lead to neurasthenic manifestations.

Eulenberg also declares that coitus interruptus is already a frequent cause of sexual neurasthenia in women and that its evil influence in this respect is becoming more and more frequently manifest. P. 405.

Valenta declared that coitus interruptus was one of the chief causes of chronic netritis.

According to Kleinwachter, coitus interruptus is harmful to the woman to an extent by no means trivial, whereas the man in whom ejaculation occurs, suffers comparatively little. P. 407.

_DISORDERS OF THE SEXUAL FUNCTION. By Max Huhner, M.D., Chief of Clinic, Genitourinary Department, Mt. Sinai Hospital Dispensary, New York City._

If the act of coitus is stopped before it is completed, the seminal vesicles have not been able to completely empty themselves, or to empty themselves as completely as during a normal coitus, and are thus left more or less filled. The mucous membrane in the prostalic urethra has not been able to completely deplethorize itself, and thus remains more or less congested after the act. As a result of all this, impulses are sent much sooner from the distended vesicles and the prostatic urethra to the erection center and the cerebrum, so that the desire for coitus is felt sooner than after normal coitus. The seminal vesicles, being never completely emptied during withdrawal coitus, are constantly sending impulses to the erection center, while the mucous membrane of the prostatic urethra, being in a condition of chronic congestion in consequence of repeated acts of withdrawal, is likewise sending continuous impulses to the same center whether coitus is indulged or not. The result of these continued impulses sent from both sources, as well as the repeated demands made upon the center itself from the oft repeated acts of coitus, is, that the erection center does not completely recover itself and finally remains in a state of hyperexcitability.... It must be remembered, however, that all this does not occur as a result of a single act of withdrawal; and it is often only after years of this practice that the harmful effects above described become evident. Page 227.

CONTINENCE

_THE SEXUAL LIFE OF WOMAN IN ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL AND HYGIENIC ASPECTS. E. Heinrich Kisch, M.D._

Grafe, with reference to the view that if for any reason conception must be avoided this should be done by abstinence from sexual intercourse, remarks, “doubtless the ideal demand, but one which even those with exceptional strength of will are unlikely to satisfy. And the worst of it is that even a single indiscretion will often result in impregnation.” Moreover, it is distinctly contrary to natural conditions that a healthy married couple, united by an intimate affection should live together, abstaining completely from sexual intercourse. The question has already been much discussed, both in speech and writing, and this will continue in the future without altering the fact that the physician will be asked, and will be compelled to give advice regarding the use of means of prevention of pregnancy. P. 399.

The desired goal of artificial sterility will not, however, be reached through advocacy of moderation and continence. P. 400.

_EFFECTS OF ABSTINENCE. Rassenverbesserung. Translated from the Dutch of Dr. J. Rutgers._

And if we could penetrate still more deeply into the recesses of the instincts, and project into the light of day the world of phantasy of those who live in enforced continence, we would draw away in horror from the spectacle of what each individual must conceal from himself and others. We would not then be so eager for the consummation of what is called sexual abstinence. P. 14.

Physiology teaches that every function gains in power and efficiency through a certain degree of control, but that the too-extended suppression of a desire gives rise to pathological disturbances and in time cripples the function. Especially in the case of women may the damage entailed by too long continued sexual abstinence, bring about deep disturbances, all the more because women more often than men misunderstand, or are unaware of this etiological moment, and have not the slightest idea of the true cause of their psychic and somatic injury. P. 15.

The unmarried state is a trying and often injurious condition for a man as well as a woman, when they live in strict continence; and if the latter is not the case and they resort to prostitution, there are even more pain and suffering in store for them. P. 16.

We must not forget that there are always two parties to the situation. What can a physically weaker and spiritually stronger woman do even if she desires continence with her whole soul, but her husband will have none of it? Is it not then her duty to protect herself in order that she may not give birth to a weakly progeny?

_HARPER’S WEEKLY. 1915._

When Dr. A. A. Brill, Lecturer in Abnormal Psychology, New York University, and formerly Chief of Clinic in Psychiatry, Columbia University, was asked how he regarded contraception in relation to nervous diseases, he replied emphatically: “You can say that I am for it. It is much better than an abortion. For instance, I have in mind a woman who was discharged from the insane hospital. She had three children and had been three times insane. What chance in life has a child born between two attacks of insanity, whose mother is mentally defective? Even sane women, if they are nervous and emotional, should never bear children against their will. It is foolish to talk about making people have children when they do not want them. It’s bad for the woman and bad for the child. It is very bad for a child to be born into a home where he is not desired. I find that many adult, nervous patients were unwished-for-children, and it was the early attitude of their parents toward them that contributed much to their bent toward nervous invalidism.” In reply to the contention of the anti-regulationists that contraception is physically and mentally harmful, he stated that certain methods are injurious, while others are not. He commented on the unfortunate fact that it is the undesirable methods which are employed by the poorer people, because druggists put a high price upon the better means on the plea that they run a risk in selling them at all. Remembering that Dr. Brill was for years connected with Central Islip, he was asked if he did not consider it demanding a good deal to expect a man discharged from an insane asylum and sent home to his wife, to live a sexually abstinent life. He replied: “Only people who know nothing of the sex impulse can make such a demand of a person who has a poor mental organization. Of course it is impossible. It is impossible even for the average normal man, and especially for those who live crowded in two or three rooms.”

_THE SEXUAL LIFE. By P. W. Malchow, M.D., Professor of Proctology, and Associate in Clinical Medicine, Hamline University, College of Physicians and Surgeons; member Hennepin County Medical Society, Minnesota State Medical Society, American Medical Association, etc._

There can be no doubt that the influence of prolonged continence upon either the male or female is to dwarf and in many respects destroy that which goes to make a broad and full physical and intellectual personality and that to perform the sexual act whenever there is an existing state of sexual excitement, with the usual marital restrictions, is rather beneficial that otherwise. Page 201.

In cases of nervousness in either sex it may be found that, as a rule, the first indication is a disturbance of the sexual function, following which there will be digestive troubles, then affections of special nerves, of which disorders of sight are the first and most frequent, with neuralgias, etc., later. Observation has shown this to be the general rule, and that is also in accordance with the law of self-preservation. With the conviction that nervousness is first manifested and begins with an alteration in the natural sexual function we may conclude that other functional disorders are a natural sequence. It thus becomes evident that the most prolific cause of nervousness is an inability for natural sexual living. Page 296.

A life of celibacy cannot be said to be a natural one, and when this state of celibacy is combined with propinquity, in which there must of necessity be a source of repeated and more or less constant sexual excitability there is added to one already incomplete life a greater burden of increased tension, which must be a very considerable factor in the causation of unrest or nervousness. Page 155.

How best to circumvent family complications is the burning question of the hour with the average young wife, and a satisfactory solution of this problem would be a boon to society and prevent untold suffering. When confronted with the question, the usual answer is, in effect, “be natural,” which in these days of stress, is no answer at all, as it is not practical. Page 158.

THE OBJECTS OF MARRIAGE

BY HAVELOCK ELLIS

What are the legitimate objects of marriage? We know that many people seek to marry for ends that can scarcely be called legitimate, that men may marry to obtain a cheap domestic drudge or nurse, and that women may marry to be kept when they are tired of keeping themselves. These objects in marriage may or may not be moral, but in any case they are scarcely its legitimate ends. We are here concerned to ascertain those ends of marriage which are legitimate when we take the highest ground as moral and civilized men and women living in an advanced state of society and seeking, if we can, to advance that state of society still further.

The primary end of marriage is to beget and bear offspring, and to rear them until they are able to take care of themselves. On that basis Man is at one with all the mammals and most of the birds. If, indeed, we disregard the originally less essential part of this end,—that is to say, the care and tending of the young,—this end of marriage is not only the primary but usually the sole end of sexual intercourse in the whole mammal world. As a natural instinct, its achievement involves gratification and well-being, but this bait of gratification is merely a device of Nature’s and not in itself an end having any useful function at the periods when conception is not possible. This is clearly indicated by the fact that among animals the female only experiences sexual desire at the season of impregnation, and that desire ceases as soon as impregnation takes place, though this is only in a few species true of the male, obviously because, if his sexual desire and aptitude were confined to so brief a period, the chances of the female meeting the right male at the right moment would be too seriously diminished; so that the attentive and inquisitive attitude towards the female by the male animal—which we may often think we see still traceable in the human species—is not the outcome of lustfulness for personal gratification (“wantonly to satisfy carnal lusts and appetites like brute beasts,” as the Anglican Prayer Book incorrectly puts it) but implanted by Nature for the benefit of the female and the attainment of the primary object of procreation. This primary object we may term the animal end of marriage.

This object remains not only the primary but even the sole end of marriage among the lower races of mankind generally. The erotic idea in its deeper sense, that is to say the element of love, arose very slowly in mankind. It is found, it is true, among some lower races, and it appears that some tribes possess a word for the joy of love in a purely psychic sense. But even among European races the evolution was late. The Greek poets, except the latest, showed little recognition of love as an element of marriage. Theognis compared marriage with cattle-breeding. The Romans of the Republic took much the same view. Greeks and Romans alike regarded breeding as the one recognizable object of marriage; any other object was mere wantonness and had better, they thought, be carried on outside marriage. Religion, which preserves so many ancient and primitive conceptions of life, has consecrated this conception also, and Christianity—though, as I will point out later, it has tended to enlarge the conception—at the outset only offered the choice between celibacy on the one hand and on the other marriage for the production of offspring.

Yet from an early period in human history a secondary function of sexual intercourse had been slowly growing up to become one of the great objects of marriage. Among animals, it may be said, and even sometimes in man, the sexual impulse, when once aroused, makes but a short and swift circuit through the brain to reach its consummation. But as the brain and its faculties develop, powerfully aided indeed by the very difficulties of the sexual life, the impulse for sexual union has to traverse ever longer, slower, more painful paths, before it reaches—and sometimes it never reaches—its ultimate object. This means that sex gradually becomes intertwined with all the highest and subtlest human emotions and activities, with the refinements of social intercourse, with high adventure in every sphere, with art, with religion. The primitive animal instinct, having the sole end of procreation, becomes on its way to that end the inspiring stimulus to all those psychic energies which in civilization we count most precious. This function is thus, we see, a by-product. But, as we know, even in our human factories, the by-product is sometimes more valuable even than the product. That is so as regards the functional products of human evolution. The hand was produced out of the animal fore-limb with the primary end of grasping the things we materially need, but as a by-product the hand has developed the function of making and playing the piano and the violin, and that secondary functional by-product of the hand we account, even as measured by the rough test of money, more precious, however less materially necessary, than its primary function. It is, however, only in rare and gifted natures that transformed sexual energy becomes of supreme value for its own sake without ever attaining the normal physical outlet. For the most part the by-product accompanies the product, throughout, thus adding a secondary, yet peculiarly sacred and specially human, object of marriage to its primary animal object. This may be termed the spiritual object of marriage.

By the term “spiritual” we are not to understand any mysterious and supernatural qualities. It is simply a convenient name, in distinction from animal, to cover all those higher mental and emotional processes which in human evolution are ever gaining greater power. It is needless to enumerate the constituents of this spiritual end of sexual intercourse, for everyone is entitled to enumerate them differently and in different order. They include not only all that makes love a gracious and beautiful erotic art, but the whole element of pleasure in so far as pleasure is more than a mere animal gratification. Our ancient ascetic traditions often make us blind to the meaning of pleasure. We see only its possibilities of evil and not its mightiness for good. We forget that, as Romain Rolland says, “Joy is as holy as Pain.” No one has insisted so much on the supreme importance of the element of pleasure in the spiritual ends of sex as James Hinton. Rightly used, he declares, Pleasure is “the Child of God,” to be recognized as “a mighty storehouse of force,” and he pointed out the significant fact that in the course of human progress its importance increases rather than diminishes. While it is perfectly true that sexual energy may be in large degree arrested, and transformed into intellectual and moral forms, yet it is also true that pleasure itself, and above all, sexual pleasure, wisely used and not abused, may prove the stimulus and liberator of our finest and most exalted activities. It is largely this remarkable function of sexual pleasure which is decisive in settling the argument of those who claim that continence is the only alternative to the animal end of marriage. That argument ignores the liberating and harmonising influences, giving wholesome balance and sanity to the whole organism, imparted by a sexual union which is the outcome of the psychic as well as physical needs. There is, further, in the attainment of the spiritual end of marriage, much more than the benefit of each individual separately. There is, that is to say, the effect on the union itself. For through harmonious sex relationships a deeper spiritual unity is reached than can possibly be derived from continence in or out of marriage, and the marriage association becomes an apter instrument in the service of the world. Apart from any sexual craving, the complete spiritual contact of two persons who love each other can only be attained through some act of rare intimacy. No act can be quite so intimate as the sexual embrace. In its accomplishment, for all spiritually evolved persons, the communion of bodies becomes the communion of souls. The outward and visible sign has been the consummation of an inward and spiritual grace. “I would base all my sex teaching to children and young people on the beauty and sacredness of sex,” writes a distinguished woman of today; “sex intercourse is the great sacrament of life, he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh his own damnation; but it may be the most beautiful sacrament between two souls who have no thought of children.” To many the idea of a sacrament seems merely typo for ecclesiastical, but that is a misunderstanding. The word “sacrament” is the ancient Roman name of a soldier’s oath of military allegiance, and the idea, in the deeper sense, existed long before Christianity, and has ever been regarded as the physical sign of the closest possible union with some great spiritual reality. From our modern standpoint we may say, with James Hinton, that the sexual embrace, worthily understood, can only be compared with music and with prayer. “Every true lover,” it has been well said by a woman, “knows this, and the worth of any and every relationship can be judged by its success in reaching, or failing to reach, this standpoint.”

I have mentioned how the Church—in part influenced by that clinging to primitive conceptions which always marks religions and in part by its ancient traditions of asceticism—tended to insist mainly if not exclusively on the animal object of marriage. It sought to reduce sex to a minimum because the pagans magnified sex; it banned pleasure because the Christian’s path on earth was the way of the Cross; and though theologians accepted the idea of a “Sacrament of Nature” they could only allow it to operate when the active interference of the priest was impossible, though it must in justice be said that, before the Council of Trent, the Western Church recognized that the sacrament of marriage was effected entirely by the act of the two celebrants themselves and not by the priest. Gradually, however, a more reasonable and humane opinion crept into the Church. Intercourse outside the animal end of marriage was indeed a sin, but it became merely a venial sin. The great influence of St. Augustine was on the side of allowing much freedom to intercourse outside the aim of procreation. At the Reformation, John à Lasco, a Catholic Bishop who became a Protestant and settled in England, laid it down, following various earlier theologians, that the object of marriage, besides offspring, was to serve as a “sacrament of consolation” to the united couple, and that view was more or less accepted by the founders of the Protestant churches. It is the generally accepted Protestant view today.[50] The importance of the spiritual end of intercourse in marriage, alike for the higher development of each member of the couple and for the intimacy and stability of their union, is still more emphatically set forth by the more advanced thinkers of today.

Footnote 50:

It is well set forth by the Rev. H. Northcote in his excellent book, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, (2nd edition, 1916, F. A. Davis Company, Philadelphia), especially Ch. XIII.

There is something pathetic in the spectacle of those among us who are still only able to recognize the animal end of marriage, and who point to the example of the lower animals—among whom the biological conditions are entirely different—as worthy of our imitation. It has taken God—or Nature, if we will—unknown millions of years of painful struggle to evolve Man, and to raise the human species above that helpless bondage to reproduction which marks the lower animals. But on these people it has all been wasted. They are at the animal stage still. They have yet to learn the A. B. C. of love. A representative of these people in the person of an Anglican bishop, the Bishop of Southwark, appeared as a witness before the National Birth-Rate Commission which, two years ago, met in London to investigate the decline of the birth-rate. He declared that procreation is the sole legitimate object of marriage and that intercourse for any other end was a degrading act of mere “self-gratification.” This declaration had the interesting result of evoking the comments of many members of the Commission, formed of representative men and women with various standpoints,—Protestant, Catholic, and other,—and it is notable that while not one identified himself with the Bishop’s opinion, several decisively opposed that opinion, as contrary to the best beliefs of both ancient and modern times, as representing a low and not a high moral standpoint, and as involving the notion that the whole sexual activity of an individual should be reduced to perhaps two or three effective acts of intercourse in a life-time. Such a notion obviously cannot be carried into general practice, putting aside the question as to whether it would be desirable, and it may be added that it would have the further result of shutting out from the life of love altogether all those persons who, for whatever reason, feel that it is their duty to refrain from having children at all. It is the attitude of a handful of Pharisees seeking to thrust the bulk of mankind into Hell. All this confusion and evil comes of the blindness which cannot know that, beyond the primary animal end of propagation in marriage, there is a secondary but more exalted spiritual end.

It is needless to insist how intimately that secondary end of marriage is bound up with the practice of birth control. Without birth control, indeed, it could frequently have no existence at all, and even at the best seldom be free from disconcerting possibilities fatal to its very essence. Against these disconcerting possibilities is often placed, on the other side, the un-esthetic nature of the contraceptives associated with birth control. Yet, it must be remembered, they are of a part with the whole of our civilized human life. We at no point enter the spiritual save through the material. Forel has in this connection compared the use of contraceptives to the use of eye-glasses. Eye-glasses are equally un-esthetic, yet they are devices, based on Nature, wherewith to supplement the deficiencies of Nature. However in themselves un-esthetic, for those who need them they make the esthetic possible. Eye-glasses and contraceptives alike are a portal to the spiritual world for many who, without them, would find that world largely a closed book.

Birth control is effecting, and promising to effect, many functions in our social life. By furnishing the means to limit the size of families which would otherwise be excessive it confers the greatest benefit on the family and especially on the mother. By rendering easily possible a selection in parentage and the choice of the right time and circumstances for conception it is again, the chief key to the eugenic improvement of the race. There are many other benefits, as is now generally becoming clear, which will be derived from the rightly applied practice of birth control. To many of us it is not the least of these that birth control effects finally the complete liberation of the spiritual object of marriage.

ABORTION

_THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By Joseph De Lee, M.D...._

It is said that there is one abortion to eight labors, but in all probability it is more frequent than this. Almost half of the child-bearing women have had a miscarriage before the thirty-fifth year. Statistics are of questionable value because hospital figures do not represent the conditions of private practice. Further, many occur in first weeks and pass under the diagnosis of delayed or profuse menstruation. Finally, many abortions are deliberately concealed. Page 426.

_PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By J. Clifton Edgar, M.D._

Immediate dangers of abortions are: hemorrhage, retention of an adherent placenta, sepsis, tetanus, perforation of the uterus. They also cause: sterility, anemia, malignant diseases, displacements, neurosis, and endometritis. Pages 338–9.

_TRUCHTABTREIBUNG UND PRAVENTIVVERKEHR, IN ZUSAMMENHANG MIT DEM GEBURTENRUCKGANG; Eine Medizinische, Juristische und Sozialpolitische Betrachtung von Dr. Max Hirsch. Wurtzburg, Kabitzsch Verlag, 1914._

He who would combat abortion and at the same time assail contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would fight contagious diseases and forbid disinfection. For contraceptive measures are important weapons in the fight against abortion. The use of contraceptive measures is largely responsible for the fact that the number of abortions does not increase immeasurably. The apprehension is perfectly justified that the prohibition of contraceptive measures would enormously increase the practice of abortion with its dangerous consequences for the life and health of women. P. 131–2.

America has a law since 1873, if I am not mistaken, which prohibits by criminal statute the distribution and regulation of contraceptive measures. It follows therefore, as I have already stated in my introduction, that America stands at the head of all nations in the huge number of abortions. P. 132.

_THE DISEASES OF SOCIETY AND DEGENERACY. The Vice and Crime Problem. G. F. Lydston, M.D., Professor of Genito-Urinary Surgery, State University of Illinois; Professor of Criminal Anthropology, Chicago; Kent College of Law; Member of the American Medical Association, etc., etc. The Riverton Press, Chicago, 1912._

The familiar cry of “public demand” would fit the abortion business better than it does some other things. The evil is wide-spread, both in and out of matrimony. Its existence is recognized “under the rose” as a social necessity, yet the law calls it murder. For every man and woman caught in its commission and punished a thousand escape detection.

_THE DISEASES OF SOCIETY AND DEGENERACY. G. F. Lydston._

In many instances abortion results directly in the death of the woman. Such are the consequences resulting from ungoverned natural law on the one side, and moral on the other. It must be confessed that an element of sympathy is evoked by the mental distress of the unfortunate woman who is extra-matrimonially pregnant. P. 370.

_SEXUAL PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY. Wm. J. Robinson, Critic and Guide. 1912._

I have gone on record with the statement that about a million abortions are brought about every year in the U. S. Exact statistics are not and never will be available, but I am sure that my estimate is very conservative, and that three million would be nearer the truth. Justice John Proctor Clark stated that 100,000 abortions are performed annually in New York City alone, and if these figures are correct, then the number for the U. S. would be in the neighborhood of two and a half million. P. 158.

There is one measure and one only which will positively do away with the evil of abortion and that is teaching people how to prevent conception. P. 164.

_ABORTION AND ECONOMIC NECESSITY. (Hirsch)._

According to a report in the _Medical Record_ 80,000 abortions are performed annually in New York and only one case in 1,000 is brought before the authorities.

According to Lewin it has been determined by court investigations that there are at least 200 people in New York who make a profession of performing abortions.

It has been estimated that 2,000,000 abortions are performed annually in the U. S. P. 7.

Bertillon estimates the number of criminal abortions in Paris at 50,000 annually, in Lyons at 19,000. (Le depopulation de la France). P. 8.

We must first attack a very wide-spread fallacy, namely that abortion is more prevalent among unmarried girls than among married women. In other words, that it is concomitant with free sex relations. This fallacy is exploded by practical medical experience as well as by observation and statistics of social conditions. P. 23.

Among the causes of criminal abortion the fear on the part of the woman of the pains and dangers of confinement plays a not inconsiderable role. P. 54.

In marriage the cause for the practice of abortion springs in most cases from economic necessity. Most frequently this necessity is a genuine dire need arising from overcrowded quarters, lack of food and clothing, sickness and lack of employment. P. 33.

This economic need finds its most obvious expression in the congestion of the city populations. P. 34.

The dangers of childbirth are still serious enough to cause a certain degree of uneasiness in the woman and the family circle. This foreboding is due partly to our higher valuation upon health and life, and also to a shifting of pre-eminence from a solely generative function in women to other interests in their life. P. 84.

This greater consideration and valuation of woman’s individuality is the expression of continued progress and a higher culture. P. 87.

_TRUCHTABTREIBUNG UND PRAVENTIVVERKEHR, In Zusammenhang mit dem Geburtenruckzang; Eine medizinische, juristische und sozialpolitische Betrachtung von Dr. Max Hirsch, Wurtzburg, Kabitzsch Verlag, 1914._

In Chicago six to ten thousand abortions are performed yearly, of which 75–90% are married women. P. 7.

I believe I may say without exaggeration that absolutely spontaneous or unprovoked abortions are extremely rare, that the vast majority—I should estimate it at more than 80% of abortions have a criminal origin. P. 9.

We may affirm that next to sexual diseases, abortion and its consequences are the most important factor in the etiology of chronic genital inflammations and of sterility. P. 9.

Our examinations have informed us that the largest number of abortions are performed on married women. This fact brings us to the conclusion that contraceptive measures among the upper class, the practice of abortion among the lower class, are the real means employed to regulate the number of offspring. P. 32.

_THE SEXUAL LIFE OF WOMAN IN ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL AND HYGIENIC ASPECTS. E. Heinrich Kisch. Translated by M. Eden Paul, M.D. Rebman & Co., New York._

A means of insuring artificial sterility, which in all civilized countries is punishable as a criminal offense, and which is nevertheless very frequently practiced, is the artificial induction of abortion. Especially in North America it would appear that there exist regular professional abortionists. P. 413.

_THE FAMILY AND THE NATION. A Study in Natural Inheritance and Social Responsibility. Wm. Cecil Dampier Whetham, M.A., F.R.S. Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Catherine Durning Whetham. Longmans Green & Co., N. Y., Bombay and Calcutta, 1909._

There is no finality, a nation must either be losing or gaining ground, either improving or degenerating. Hence the scientific study of the effect of the existing conditions of any time on the rates of reproduction of different stocks of the nation, should be the chief work of the sociologist, and the control of these conditions the supreme duty of the statesman. P. 5.