The names of Gordon, John Clarke, Denman, Burns, Young, Hamilton, Haighton, Good, Waller; Blundell, Gooch, Ramsbotham, Douglas, Lee, Ingleby, Locock, Abercrombie, Alison; Travers, Rigby, and Watson, many of whose writings I have already referred to, may have some influence with those who prefer the weight of authorities to the simple deductions of their own reason from the facts laid before them.  A few Continental writers have adopted similar conclusions.  It gives me pleasure to remember, that while the doctrine has been unceremoniously discredited in one of the leading Journals, and made very light of by teachers in two of the principal Medical Schools, of this country, Dr. Channing has for many years inculcated, and enforced by examples, the danger to be apprehended and the precautions to be taken in the disease under consideration.

I have no wish to express any harsh feeling with regard to the painful subject which has come before us.  If there are any so far excited by the story of these dreadful events that they ask for some word of indignant remonstrance to show that science does not turn the hearts of its followers into ice or stone, let me remind them that such words have been uttered by those who speak with an authority I could not claim.  It is as a lesson rather than as a reproach that I call up the memory of these irreparable errors and wrongs.  No tongue can tell the heart-breaking calamity they have caused; they have closed the eyes just opened upon a new world of love and happiness; they have bowed the strength of manhood into the dust; they have cast the helplessness of infancy into the stranger’s arms, or bequeathed it, with less cruelty, the death of its dying parent.  There is no tone deep enough for regret, and no voice loud enough for warning.  The woman about to become a mother, or with her new-born infant upon her bosom, should be the object of trembling care and sympathy wherever she bears her tender burden, or stretches her aching limbs.  The very outcast of the streets has pity upon her sister in degradation, when the seal of promised maternity is impressed upon her.  The remorseless vengeance of the law, brought down upon its victim by a machinery as sure as destiny, is arrested in its fall at a word which reveals her transient claim for mercy.  The solemn prayer of the liturgy singles out her sorrows from the multiplied trials of life, to plead for her in the hour of peril.  God forbid that any member of the profession to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, should hazard it negligently, unadvisedly, or selfishly!

There may be some among those whom I address who are disposed to ask the question, What course are we to follow in relation to this matter?  The facts are before them, and the answer must be left to their own judgment and conscience.  If any should care to know my own conclusions, they are the following; and in taking the liberty to state them very freely and broadly, I would ask the inquirer to examine them as freely in the light of the evidence which has been laid before him.