Safe Marriage | Page 9

be most
comfortable."]
[Illustration: UTERUS, OVARY AND FALLOPIAN TUBE.
DIAGRAM 2.--The Fallopian tubes and ovaries are not shown on
Diagram 1. There are two ovaries and two Fallopian tubes, one on each
side of the uterus. The female cells or ova are formed in the ovaries and
discharged into the Fallopian tubes, along which they travel into the
uterus. It is believed that the union of the male with the female cell
usually occurs in the Fallopian tubes, but that it may occur in the
uterus.]
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 3.--This diagram shows the male urethra or
passage down the male organ as somewhat distended. Generally, the
walls of this passage are collapsed together. The seminal fluid is

discharged down the urethra and emitted at orifice marked "meatus."
The small glands indicated are especially liable to be infected with
gonorrhoea germs, but infection may occur almost throughout the
entire length of the male passage. Infection with syphilis may occur on
the outside of the male organs and elsewhere.]
I have discussed the various measures fully with leading medical
authorities in London and Paris and elsewhere during the last five years,
and have gradually evolved the recommendations made here, and these
recommendations have the highest medical and scientific support and
approval. Other methods than those recommended are referred to in
Appendix I; to enumerate here those that have been eliminated would
be purposeless and confusing. We are satisfied that we have selected
the least harmful and most reliable methods known to science yet.
These methods and these only will be explained and recommended.
Everything possible has been done to make the methods acceptable to
women.
UNATTAINABLE CONDITIONS.
Before detailing these methods, I want to ask every woman to rid her
mind of certain false hopes and impossible demands. It is no use asking
for something which gives no trouble at all, which costs nothing, and
which is at the same time absolutely certain to prevent conception.
These conditions are unattainable. But almost absolute control of her
reproductive functions is most certainly attainable by every careful,
intelligent woman willing to spend a good deal less time and money
over her sexual toilet than she now spends over the care of her teeth, for
example.
SEXUAL TOILET OUTFIT.
To begin with, it is necessary to obtain suitable sexual toilet outfit, and
the requirements for this are as follows:--
Enamel bidet, soluble suppositories, suitable syringe, and
properly-fitting rubber pessary. These are illustrated on pages 38 and
43.

[Illustration: Diagram 4]
GENERAL CONDITIONS.
1. Cleanliness.--Sexual control is largely a matter of sexual cleanliness.
We must all learn to keep the genital passages cleansed in the same
way as we keep all the other openings of the body clean. The ears, eyes,
nostrils, mouth, anus, orifice to the urethra, and the vagina should be
appropriately cleansed daily. The openings of the body which stand
most in need of daily cleansing are the anus and the vagina, and yet
many women fail to cleanse these properly at all. Every home should
have a suitable bidet (preferably fitted into the bath-room, with hot and
cold water attached), and every member of the family should be trained
from childhood to use the bidet, night and morning, with the same care
and regularity as they use their sponge or toothbrush. All over the
Continent and in the United States of America this is done in
well-ordered households nowadays, but hardly anywhere in the British
Empire is it done at all.
2. Soluble Suppositories.--Generally speaking, the soluble quinine
pessaries or suppositories which are sold in the shops are unreliable.
Several brands have recently been analysed and found to contain no
quinine at all--or particular pessaries have been without sufficient
quinine. Quinine is fatal to the spermatazoa, and without it these
pessaries are simply pieces of soluble cocoa-butter. Cocoa-butter is the
substance generally chosen for cheap soluble pessaries, because it is
easily obtainable, and has what is called a sharp melting point--that is,
it dissolves or melts very suddenly and readily at body-heat, but is solid
below that heat. Cocoa-butter in itself is quite harmless--usually
non-irritating (unless it is "rancid")--and it gives some mechanical
protection, in the same way as vaseline or any kind of fat or oil would
do, provided, of course, it is in the right place to catch and entangle the
spermatazoa and thus prevent their uniting with the ovum. Research
and experiment have proved conclusively that no spermatazoa--indeed,
_no microbes or germs of any kind--can pass through a film of oil_.
But if the protective covering of grease is incomplete at any point, it
may there prove ineffective, and there is no chemical protection

whatever if the particular germicide relied upon, such as quinine, has
been omitted. Quinine is sometimes omitted on the ground of expense,
and sometimes because it proves irritating to