Safe Marriage | Page 9

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 many women. Only really suitable suppositories, guaranteed to be made in accordance with accredited medical formul?, should be used. These suppositories should be composed of specially selected and tested fats, should be soothing and cleansing, as well as protective; should be stainless, odourless, and quite non-irritating. If they do cause any woman discomfort temporarily, vaseline or soap-suds could be substituted, but might not be quite so certain to prevent conception.
3. Syringe.--The ordinary enema is not a particularly suitable appliance for the purpose of douching. The kind of syringe required is one which will not only flood the vaginal passage with warm water