is easy to account for the manner of action of this pathogenetic
cause, if we consider how probable it is that the ejaculation and
contact of the sperm with the uterine neck, constitutes, for the woman,
the crisis of the genital function, by appeasing the venereal orgasm
and calming the voluptuous emotions under the action of which the entire
economy is convulsed."

"We may, we trust, be pardoned for remarking upon the artifices imagined
to prevent fecundation that there is in them an immense danger, of
incalculable limits. We do not fear to be contradicted or taxed with
exaggeration in elevating them into the proportions of a true
calamity."

The following is from an eminent physician[25] who for many years
devoted his whole attention to the diseases of women and lectured upon
the subject in a prominent medical college:--

"It is undeniable that all the methods employed to prevent pregnancy
are physically injurious. Some of these have been characterized with
sufficient explicitness, and the injury resulting from incomplete
coitus to both parties has been made evident to all who are willing
to be convinced. It should require but a moment's consideration to
convince any one of the harmfulness of the common use of cold ablutions
and astringent infusions and various medicated washes. Simple and often
wonderfully salutary as is cold water to a diseased limb, festering
with inflammation, yet few are rash enough to cover a gouty toe,
rheumatic knee, or erysipelatous head with cold water.... Yet, when
in the general state of nervous and physical excitement attendant upon
coitus, when the organs principally engaged in this act are congested
and turgid with blood, do you think you can with impunity throw a flood
of cold or even lukewarm water far into the vitals in a continual stream?
Often, too, women add strong medicinal agents, intended to destroy by
dissolution the spermatic germs, ere they have time to fulfill their
natural destiny. These powerful astringents suddenly corrugate and
close the glandular structure of the parts, and this is followed,
necessarily, by a corresponding reaction, and the final result is
debility and exhaustion, signalized by leucorrhoea, prolapsus, and
other diseases.

"Finally, of the use of intermediate tegumentary coverings, made of
thin rubber or gold-beater's skin, and so often relied upon as absolute
preventives, Madame de Stael is reputed to have said, 'They are cobwebs
for protection,