In our stock-breeding, the bovine and ovine species are well weeded of their faulty and diseased specimens by the butcher. That innocent individual, called the butcher, purchases the rickety or scrofulous calf of the honest farmer, and John Bull enjoys his Kalbfleisch through the Norman medium of veal. Thus nature cares for the survival of the fittest of the bovine species.
With the human species it is very different; faulty specimens of man not not be annihilated for the bettering of the race, and civilized life tends to the protection and fostering of the physically faulty, and hence to the deterioration of the race. This is one great reason why civilization tends to the destruction of society through a gradual deterioration of the race by the preservation of the weak from destruction under the reign of law, and by the collateral power of wealth.
In a savage state the weakling goes to the wall; in a civilized state he may be very rich, and of ancient lineage, and then it becomes most important, from the particular standpoint, that he should be married and beget off spring so in the end the barbarians are strong, and then numerous, and then they break in upon a highly civilized community, and a reconstruction of society ensues.
It remains to be seen whether science and art will in the future be able to save civilized society from being overwhelmed by savage hordes.
The true source of national greatness is large families of healthy children; these are the only true “fruits of philosophy.” Those other “fruits of philosophy” are rotten at the core, and, like all rottenness, lead by the shortest road to annihilation, having here, however, a preliminary stage of bondage and servitude to the seed of the truly philosophically fruitful.
Surely it would be a strange philosophy that came in the mouths of ranting demagogues; fruit is the means of reproduction; Dawn of Destruction is what they mean.
Mankind is moved to marriage from purely selfish motives: the pairing takes place for almost every reason except for the physical bettering of the race. No doubt it is well so; the production of the most massive members, or of the biggest brains, can hardly be the chief end of man.
Still nature works wisely in making us all, more or less, worshipers of physical beauty and strength; and when the period of motherhood comes high, perhaps no greater fear is known than that of ill-formed offspring. It may not be often expressed, but if you could look deep into the sacred secrets of the expectant’s heart you would know that many are the prayers that fly upwards for the great and blessed gift of a perfect child.
“Is it all right?” “Is it perfect?”–is very commonly the first question one hears after the newling’s entree au monde.
To what does all this beauty-worship conduce? To the amelioration of the race. Many an important family has been saved from dying out by a supposedly ignoble mesalliance. The British aristocracy is recruited from the ranks of the commoners in more ways than one.
To pretend to inaugurate marriages on racial or scientific grounds is crooked; and although the good old institution known as the family doctor may now and then he asked about the physical desirability of a given projected union, still this is very rare, and when it occurs it usually serves as a cover for other and occult reasons. Therefore, the physician’s role begins later on. We all know what it usually is.
But to-day I propose directing attention to a subject that has met with but comparatively little notice–certainly with much less than it deserves. I mean the medicinal treatment of the human fruit, while still within the womb, for the cure of hereditary taints and for the prevention of deformity.
My attention was more particularly directed to the subject some six years since in the following manner :
At the end of the year 1874 I was consulted by a gentleman about his children, the youngest of whom had double hare-lip. He had some confidence in Homoeopathic treatment, and was desirous of knowing whether there were any means of getting the wound to heal well after the operation for hare-lip that an able surgeon was on the point of undertaking. I recommended the local application of Calendula officinalis as an excellent and well- established vulnerary, especially to clean wounds. The operation took place, the gentleman used the Calendula as directed, and the surgeon, a man of some experiences, declared he had never before seen such a rapid healing process or such a nicely- healed surface in any of the cases of hare-lip on which he had operated.
The reputation of Calendula (the common marigold) as a vulnerary is very old, but it survives almost exclusively in the homoeopathic school, in which it is, as you all know, in daily use.
The next older child than the one operated on had, and has, a slight insufficiency of the upper lip; if it were a little worse it would be hare-lip.
Subsequently the gentleman consulted me in regard to his own health, and after the consultation the conversation fell upon his children, upon the excellent result of the operation, and the rapid healing of the wounded parts. Then regret was expressed, especially as the child was a girl, as of course the neatest scar can never constitute a perfect or pretty lip. At the best it is only passable, and not particularly unsightly.
Finally he said, “In case my wife should have another child, what would you expect the next to be like?”
I answered, “That cannot be determined; but taking all the circumstances into consideration, viz., that your first child is perfect, that your second child has only a slight defect in the upper lip, that your third child has double hare-lip, and that your wife was in apparently good health with these, all equally, I should expect the next to have hare-lip also, a little worse than the last, and perhaps even cleft-palate.”
He further inquired whether anything could be done to prevent it? My answer was, that I knew of no special experience on the subject at all, but as the body fruit could certainly be affected medicinally I should think hopefully of properly directed medicinal treatment of the mother during pregnancy. I promised to do my best, and he said he would let me know if any further pregnancy should occur, and place the mother under my treatment.
The subject took hold of my mind, and I often animadverted upon it. Many remedies suggested themselves, and many plans of treatment; the one that found most favor with me was to be based upon specificity of seat or local drug affinity. I reasoned that any drug that would specifically affect the upper lip and palate might act as a stimulus to the part if coursing in the mother’s blood, and thus bring about complete union of the bilateral parts. But an insuperable difficulty here presented itself–viz., I knew of no such drug with anything like a strong-expressed affinity for the part. Such remedies as Kali bichromicum, Aurum, Iodine, Mercury, Natrum muriaticum, Mezereum, Phosphorus, were thought of, but I did not feel the local affinity idea was workable here.
I then thought to tissue affinity or specificity of histological seat, as worked out of its fullest extent of late years by Dr. Schussler, of Oldenburg, in regard to disease. I thought that a formative element of the tissue might be wanting, and thus condition imperfect development. If we grow wheat, we must supply its elements, as manure, to the soil, and if we grow tissue we must supply its elements in the mother’s blood which is the food of the foetus; if the wheat just fail to finish the ear, we concluded formative elements are wanting; if the absolute concrescence of the bilateral parts of the human foetus just fails of completion, we may fairly assume that formative elements are lacking. So I thought. And in order to try to find out what was likely to be lacking, I went over embryology a little, and I will ask you to go over exactly the same ground as myself presently, by giving a short resume of the development of the involved parts first, and then show how, and what remedy I diagnosed.
The surgeon who had operated on the little girl, and also the family accoucheur who assisted at the operation, were also consulted upon the hoped-for possibility of preventive treatment in the then future; but these gentlemen laughed at the idea, and said the only thing for it was operation, prevention being out of the question.
But we may reflect upon the fact that it is not at all an uncommon thing in our hospitals, and occasionally in general practice, to treat a pregnant person suffering from syphilis very actively with Mercury, and the results are on the whole very encouraging indeed; still, as far as I am aware, it is seldom that any physician attempts the intra-uterine treatment of any other complaint, and even here the idea has generally been to treat the mother only, or principally.
In thinking the matter over, and endeavoring to find some sound reason to guide me in the to-be-attempted preventive treatment of hare-lip, I was encouraged to hope for a good result from the recorded experience of a few homoeopathic obstetricians who tell us of the successful medicinal treatment of the uterus and of the expectant mother herself; for it seemed no great difficulty, theoretically, to modify the development of the foetus, which grows in the uterus and is fed with the blood of the mother, seeing that both the mother’s blood and uterus can, demonstrably, be modified therapeutically.
Editor of The United States Medical Investigator. Member of the Chicago Paedological Society. First President of the American Paedological Society Author of: Diseases of infants and children, with their homoeopathic treatment. Published 1878 and Hand book on the diseases of the heart and their homeopathic treatment. by Thomas C. Duncan, M.D. Published 1898