Works on phrenology, physiology, etc / edited by J. Barker.

  • Orson S. Fowler
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Works on phrenology, physiology, etc / edited by J. Barker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/632 (page 31)
    MADAME RESTELL,—TREATMENT OE THE ERRING, 81 perpetrates this violation of nature’s laws, must suffer its terrible con- sequences. MADAME RESTELL. In view of these truths, what shall we say of Madame Rested!’s life- destroying and murdering business ? She is destroying the lives of both mothers and embryo human beings to an incredible extent. Few pass through her hands without having their constitutions broken up, and many die in consequence of the mortal wounds she inflicts. If human life should be protected by law—if murderers should be punished by law’s most severe penalties—she surely should be punished, and her deathly practice be at once arrested. And yet behold her patronage, her riches, and her utter contempt of law in her ability to bribe its administrators. She proffers a passport to lust, and in effect says, to our youth and to all: 4 Indulge your carnal passions, and if its natural consequences follow, come to me, and I will hide your sin and shame, and make you as if it had not been.’ But beware ! A lie is on her tongue and a dagger in her hand. A certain beautiful and healthy young woman, who had been seduced, was taken to Restell, to be delivered of the fruits of her sin. She almost died during the operation—and many do die in and by the treatment itself—but returned home, her bloom departed, her flesh wasted, her constitution destroyed, a vital artery tapped and bleeding, and after lingering thus a few months, died. This is but a sample case. Oh, daughter of passion ! beware how her flattering pro- mises of deliverance encourage you to sin! In virtue alone is there safety and happiness. TREATMENT OF THE ERRING. Far be it from us to pander, in any form, to this sin. If we regard one form of virtue as more holy than any other, it is moral purity. If we regard one sin as more black and hideous than any other, it is this, because so prolific a cause of crime, and so terrible in its consequences. If we have one 4 desire and prayer to God,’ it is that we may be instru- mental in staying the current of lust, as well as in sanctifying that function of our nature to which this work, in common with 4 Love and Parentage,’ is devoted, by promoting connubial LOVE—its legitimate terminus. We reason, we beseech, and show 4 a more excellent way.’ But when our fellow beings have fallen, we would not crush them in consequence. 4 A bruised reed shall he not break.’ We would rather apologize. We would say to beholders : 4 These unfortunate mani- festations of carnality doubtless had a physical origin. Ignorant of the laws of Physiolog}r, these erring sons of passion, and these daughters of frailty, had lashed up this feeling by heating meats and drinks, by novel reading, by blasted affection, by giving their minds to this class of subjects, till this propensity became uncontroulable, and in a moment of its preternatural action, they sinned. They were, in all practical respects, deranged. A fevered state of their bodies had wrought up this passion to an insupportable pitch of tension, and they sinned in conse- quence. They were more sick physically, than depraved in motive. 4 They knew not what they did.’ And the licentious of our land require to be cured in body as the means of restoring them to virtue. We have demonstrated that this passion is induced by a disordered physiology, quite as much as by depravity of intention. There is a certain epidemic disease, the subjects of which, when recovering, are tormented with a fury of lustful desires which will cause the most virtuous in the world to stray. Now suppose a similar physical derangement had caused them to say and do in anger many hard things against us, which we knew they would not have said and done if they had been well; should we lay up against them these wrathful ebullitions—the offspring of disease ? No ; but should attribute all to sickness—to temporary derangement or alienation of mind, and pity, not blame relentlessly. Precisely thus should we regard much of the sensuality of mankind, It is the legitimate and