Elements of medical jurisprudence / By Theodric Romeyn Beck.

Theodric Romeyn Beck

Date:: 1825

Credit: Elements of medical jurisprudence / By Theodric Romeyn Beck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

197/708 page 133

$horrible. It is incorporated into their system of religion, and its atrocities are beyond description. The blood of their infants seems to have quenched completely the sacred flame of humanity, while the lights of reason and truth are extinguished by the absurdities of super- _ stition, This crime has existed among them for at least 2000. years, for Greek and Roman historians notice it, and refer to some of the very places where it is now known to exist.*. The number of infantile murders in the provinces of Cutch and Guzerat alone, amounted, according to the lowest calculation in 1807, to 3000 annually ; + according to another computation, 30,000. Females are almost the only victims. In defence of the practice, they urge the difficulty of rearing female children, the expense attending their education, and the small probability of their ever being married. { Within a few years, through the benevolent exertions of some of the subjects of Great Britain, infanticide has been completely abolished in many of the provinces. Mr. Duncan, governor of Bombay, Marquis Wellesley, and Col. Walker, were the persons who took the lead in this affair, and by whose energy and perseverance, results, so honourable to themselves, and which may be expected to have a beneficent influence on the progress of civilization, were accomplished.§ Previously to the late conversion of Otaheite to Christianity, infan- ticide was so common, that it threatened the complete depopulation of the island. According to a late voyager,|| at least two-thirds of the children born were destroyed. The effect which it had in dimi- nishing the number of inhabitants was astonishing; and affords a strong fact, in refutation of the doctrines of Malthus, who maintains that the practice of destroying children has a direct tendency to aug- ment population. In 1774, when Captain Cook visited the island, he found it to con- tain 204,000 souls.q— In less than thirty years after, this terrestrial paradise, blessed with a genial climate and a luxuriant soil, was re- duced to 5000 inhabitants.** Turnbull relates, that “< the missionaries made two tours whilst he was in the isiand, and in each of which they * Buchanan’s Researches in Asia, Eng. ed. p. 49. Ward’s View of the History, Literature, &c. of the IUndoos, Also Moor’s Hindu Infanticide, &c. Review of the same in Quarterly Review, vol. 6, p. 210. + Buchanan’s Researches in Asia, p. 49. ; {.Dr. Buchanan states, that two modes of putting the child to death, are princi- pally prevalent. _Assoon as it is known to be a female, a piece of opium is put into iis mouth; or-the umbilical cord is drawn over its face, which, by. preventing respiration, destroys it.—Researches in Asia, p, 47. ! : _ §A high caste tribe, in Upper Bengal ; poison all their female children with a pours of opium and milk, to prevent the possibility of the family being disgraced, w Ho , can only occur by means of a female member of it. With the other ae O} Bengal, the imolation of children is generally in fulfillment of a vow made by ae women, that in case Gunga (the river) will bless them with an offspring, they a sacrifice their eldest-born at his shrine; otherwise, the Hindoo women are as atec- tionate mothers as are to be met with inany country.—Epiror. || Turnbull’s Voyage round the World, in 1800, 2, 3, and 4.$

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