“For those who are very anxious for offspring,” wrote Marion Sims, “I usually order sexual intercourse on the third, fifth, and seventh days after the flow has ceased; and on the fifth and third days before its return.  For the most obvious reasons this would always be before going to bed at night, instead of just before rising in the morning.  The horizontal position favors the retention of semen; the erect its expulsion.  I am satisfied that too frequent sexual indulgence is fraught with mischief to both parties.  It weakens the semen; in other words, that this is not so rich in spermatozoa after too frequent indulgence; and when carried to the extent of a debauch, the fiuid ejaculated may be wholly destitute of spermatozoa.  Thus it will be seen that it will be much better to husband the resources of both man and wife.”

The Prevention of Conception and the Limitation of Offspring.—­ Some of the contraindications to procreation are when either parent suffers from a disease which is transmissible, and such diseases frequently manifest themselves only after marriage; when the pregnancy would endanger the mother’s life, or even where the pregnancy is a nine months’ torture to her; where either parent is suffering from ill health; or where for economical reasons no more children are desired.

If there exists no condition in either parent or in their circumstances why they should not have children, the next consideration due to their children, is how the same may be procreated under the most favorable conditions possible; this condition can only be secured by making the circumtsances such that the mother shall be able to choose the time for their conception when both parents are in the best physical condition.  That children should be brought into the world haphazard, as the result of accident, is to degrade the human race below that of the lower animals, where the female admits the male only at the time of the rut, which in the majority of cases occurs only once a year.

Another requisite to bearing healthy children is that the pregnancies shall not follow each other too rapidly.  Aside from the consideration for the health of the mother herself, she must be in good physical condition to bear the healthiest children she is capable of giving birth to; and for this there must be from two and a half to three years between the successive pregnancies.  The results of overproduction on the children are frequently, that they are sickly, short-lived, or suffer from rickets, cerebral paralysis, idiocy, or imbecility.

And last, but certainly not least, many women become chronic invalids, or are hastened to premature graves, by having children as fast as they possibly can.

The most natural and moral way for the artificial prevention of conception, when on account of ill health or for economic reasons no more children are desired, is to abstain from sexual intercourse.  But in the majority of cases the husband will not agree to this, and so the greatest number of methods have come to be used to prevent conception.