LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 MRS. MARY WOLFSOHN 
 
 Z&FKKlf. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 HENRY WOLFSOHN 
 
 DE WITT & SHELL 
 
 BOOKSELLERS 
 

J. H. KUTTLEY, M. D 
 
NATURE'S SECRETS 
 
 AND 
 
 The Secrets of Woman Revealed ; 
 
 OB, 
 
 HOW TO BE BORN 
 
 AND 
 
 HOW TO LIVE. 
 
 OBEY THE TEACHINGS OF THIS BOOK, AND YOU MiY LEAEN TO LIVE A 
 
 HUNDBED YEAKS WITHOUT THE AID OF DOCTORS, 
 
 LAWYEBS OB CLEEGrYMEN. 
 
 BY J. H. BUTTLEY, M. D. 
 
 . I. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, OAL 
 PUBLISHED BY J. H. BtrrrLEY, 745 MISSION STREET. 
 1875. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 
 
 J. H. RTJTTLEY, M. D ., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. 0. 
 
 Stereotyped by Painter & Co., 
 San Francisco. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The market is flooded with books which purport to treat upon 
 the various topics included in the title which I have given to this 
 work, and yet there is no one of them that meets the public de- 
 mand. Two motives seem to have influenced the authors and pub- 
 lishers, namely: 1. A desire to make money by the sale of the 
 books; 2. A desire to advertise certain quack nostrums. Many of 
 these works are the merest trash, crowded with indecent language, 
 apparently for no other purpose than to attract the ignorant and 
 vulgar. All of them cater more or less to the popular prejudices, 
 seeking to curry favor with the influential classes. In^iewof these, 
 and many other considerations, I have been induced\fl undertake 
 the task of the present publication. 
 
 In the present day, it seems to me that "the three learned pro- 
 fessions," as they are called, are contributing more than all things 
 beside to the perpetuation of the errors and superstitions of the 
 dark ages. A mystery is made of everything, so that the common 
 people shall not understand, and whoever can employ the highest 
 sounding terms, or quote most fluently from the dead languages, is 
 accepted as an oracle of wisdom. Thus, error is popularized and 
 transmitted to future generations. 
 
 The people themselves have long been aware that they are be- 
 ing doctored to death, yet they do not comprehend a tenth part of 
 the misery that is being entailed upon them by the administration 
 of poisonous drugs. Nor can any one, save an educated physicijrfi, 
 even approximate to a knowledge of the dreadful sufferings and 
 cruel murders that are daily inflicted. A realization of these things 
 have prompted me to take up my pen in behalf of the common 
 people, and the reader has now before him the first installment of 
 what I have undertaken. 
 
 1 58785 
 
When I commenced this work my first thought was to abridge 
 BO as to include all within the compass of the present volume; but 
 a very little reflection assured me that this could not be done with- 
 out greatly impairing the benefits which I was anxious to confer 
 upon mankind, and then I decided that if my life was spared other 
 volumes should follow as I could spare the time for their prepara- 
 tion. Still, something will depend upon the demand for the first 
 volume. If the people stand by me I will not only fight their 
 battle for them, bat will teach them how they may secure life and 
 health without employing doctors, and what is far more important* 
 how beautiful, moral and intellectual children may be born to them, 
 in place of the sickly unfortunates which everywhere meet the 
 gaze. 
 
 The second volume will begin where this one leaves off, con- 
 tinuing to tear down the errors of the popular systems of medical 
 practice, and giving instead the vis medicatrix naturea, so that the 
 mother may take proper care of herself during gestation; and when 
 the child shall have been born, then full directions as to the care 
 of both it and the mother. If permitted, I shall follow the child 
 through all the stages and epochs of life, including diet, clothing, 
 bathing, exercise, employment, study and education, courtship for 
 both sexes, and finally marriage, the greatest event of life. In the 
 meantime let the reader study the present volume and accept for 
 his and her J*st prosperity the kind regards of the 
 
 AUTHOE. 
 
OF THf 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 NATURES SECRETS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 SECRETS OF WOMAN REVEALED; 
 
 OR 
 
 How to be Born and Plow to Live. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EVOtUTION I ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT FORCE., 
 
 Science is a knowledge of facts and forces ; Art is the ex- 
 ercise of intellectual and physical power in the control of 
 these forces for the benefit of mankind. Between the or- 
 ganic and inorganic there is no such gulf as men have in the 
 past ages thought. From crystal to protoplasm, the way 
 seems long and impassable by the laws of chemistry as form' 
 erly understood, or indeed, even to-day. But the flinty crys- 
 tal has come through the geologic ages, from silic acid dif- 
 fused through water, colloidal or dynamical condition of the 
 atoms which the crystal holds at rest ; and between that crys- 
 tal and the simplest form of organic matter. Nature could 
 show you many colloidal states, many compounds formed and 
 forming, many activities, an unrest of the atoms, a discontent 
 with death, a struggling upward in search of life. 
 
 These ever varying phenomena, the passage of a colloid 
 
2 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 into a protoplasm, or the genesis of an animalculae from the 
 decaying atoms of a leaf or muscle, to a bioplasm, give the 
 lie to Atheism and proclaim a spirit of Infinite Intelligence 
 which Christians are agreed in calling God. Moral philoso- 
 phy teaches that force is spirit in motion. What is that spirit? 
 Is it an aggregation of spirit from mortal life? By no means, 
 else it would be finite, whereas this spirit which pervades the 
 entire universe must be infinite. Alexander Pope was in- 
 spired with a most sublime comprehension of this spirit when 
 he exclaimed : 
 
 " See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, 
 All matter quick, and bursting into birth." 
 
 Again, while describing the manifestations of this infinite 
 spirit, he says : 
 
 11 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent/' 
 
 The nimble fingers of the sunbeam have stirred up all the 
 reservoirs of Force, from the coal in the rock to the brain in 
 mankind. The most complicated organ known to Science 
 is the thinking Brain. From the moment we wake in the 
 morning until sleep closes our eyes at night, it is in constant 
 activity, and we cannot keep from thinking even if we would. 
 The Brain is the great volume of nervous tissue that is lodged 
 within the skull ; it is the largest and most complete of the 
 nervous centres ; its maximum weight in the adult male is 
 five. pounds, and in the female four and a half pounds ; but 
 the loss of weight in the female is more than compensated in 
 the fineness of the textuie, etc. Within the skull the brain 
 is enveloped by certain membranes which at once protect it 
 from friction, and furnish it with a supply of nutrient vessels, 
 the one called the araehonid or "spider's web," the dura 
 
Natures Secrets. 3 
 
 mater and the pia mater, or "the tough and delicate cov- 
 erings. " 
 
 The supply of blood sent to the brain is very liberal, 
 amounting to one-fifth of all that the entire body possesses. 
 The brain of man is heavier than that of any other animal, 
 except the elephant and whale. For the formation and per- 
 fection of that greatest of all wonders, we find more than 
 seven hundred combinations of the atiomes that lie dead in 
 air, and water, and rock, are wrought into this living dome of 
 power. What hand snatched the atoms from air and rock 
 and wrought them into brains ? It was the sunbeam. Every 
 clement in the living frame has first been taken by the plant 
 from the air, the water and the soil, each element passing 
 through a transformation in the leaf, guided by the spirit of 
 infinite intelligence. Man is so constituted that he hungers 
 for the plant, and having eaten it, another transformation 
 occurs, assimilating the elements to their changed conditions, 
 and though raised to higher estate, still required to act and to 
 carry on the war against statics. 
 
 The gray nerve matter of my brain is the laboratory in 
 which the thought is evolved which I am now putting on 
 paper for this Book A. leaf was the laboratory in which the 
 atoms, that compose my brain, were won from the lifeless 
 elements and fitted for the uses of thought. What forces 
 wrought in the leaf? It was the sunbeam. Some rays of the 
 sunbeam are chemical ; we employ them in Photography ; 
 they fell on the compounds of silver on the plate and decom- 
 pose them ; they fall on the green leaf and decompose the 
 compounds of carbon. They elaborate sugar, starch, albu- 
 men. Photograph the leaf; your picture is dark; the chemi- 
 cal rays were expanded in working transformations in the 
 leaf ; and the light shed from the leaf has no force to break 
 the compound of silver on the plate. We come to that great 
 truth the force which underlies all the vital activities of na- 
 ture ; force therefore, which sends the atom from the rock, 
 
4 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 up to its throne in the human brain, is lodged in the sun- 
 beam. We are the offspring of the sun. Bird and beast, 
 too, are the offspring of the sun. The weed, the worm and 
 all things that live, are members of one celestial brotherhood ; 
 all, all are the children of the sun. Is there nothing beyond 
 the sun's rays ? Is the sun the ultimatum of causes ? The 
 chemical rays of the sun are convertable into Electricity ; 
 Electricity is convertable into Magnetism. Professor Farra- 
 day's experiments on the electric eel have shown us most 
 conclusively that Magnetism is convertable into Nerve Force, 
 and Nerve Force into Will and Empyria ; thus demonstrating 
 that the sun's rays are not the ultimate cause. Cast your eye 
 along the table of Forces, and at the head you will find Will, 
 Mind, Spirit ; ( and Dr. Carpenter tells us in his Conserva- 
 tion of Force that " Spirit is a Dyanamic capable of acting 
 on Matter/') It dominates all the Forces that play through 
 the universe ; its energies are perennial, flowing into the great 
 nervous centre. 
 
 The Brain of man, with its ethers, essences, fibres, convo- 
 lutions, membranes, corpus colliseum, gangilia, gray a.nd 
 white nerve matter, and fluids of inconceivable tenuity, to- 
 gether with all the forces of the Brain ; sending forth these 
 subtle occult forces to bless or to curse the race, is the great 
 generator of Electricity, Magnetism, and Empyria; this force 
 the ancient philosophers called the " Regenerating Fire," and 
 it is at this time attracting a great deal of attention as a re- 
 medial agent. Prof. Ellitson, of England, Professor of the 
 Theory and Practice of Medicine in the London College, 
 says in his report: "I have cured by this agent, after all others 
 had failed, Paralysis and many other diseases." Dr. Ellitson, 
 a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, has established 
 a Hospital where the subtle forces are daily employed in the 
 cure of diseases. Cicero says, ''Pythagoras could charm 
 away any pain by the laying on of his hands." Pliny says : 
 "There exist some men whose bodies are eminently cura- 
 
Natures Secrets. 5 
 
 tive." Plutarch relates that " Pyrrhas, King of Ephrus, had 
 the gift of removing diseases by slowly touching the affected 
 parts with his hands. " Galen, when brought before the Ro- 
 man Senate for making cures by magic, openly confessed his 
 knowledge of the secret means of Hyppocrates. A. Trilli- 
 anus, M. D., an eminent Physician of Greece, in the 6th cen- 
 tury, says he resorted to two different sysetms, namely, the 
 laying on of the hands, which he termed the " occult means, 
 or natural remedies ;" and the administration of medicine, 
 which he termed the "common remedies." Vespacian, 
 Emperor of Rome, cured a blind man, and another of par- 
 alysis. The Kings of England, for 800 years, were public 
 healers. Valentine Greatrakes travelled in England from 
 1663 to 1666 ; the learned Geo. Rust, Lord Bishop of Derry, 
 says of him, " I do affirm that I saw him cure by the laying 
 on of his hands, ophthalmia, epileptic fits, scrofula, and cancer- 
 ous tumors of the breast ;" and the Royal College of Sur- 
 geons published his cures in their journals. See Pecklin, 
 Observ. Medi. Lib. III. Baron Emil Sweedenbourgh, Mar- 
 tin Luther, and Rev. John Wesley used these subtle forces in 
 curing diseases. See Armenian Magazine, vol. 1 1, page 85. 
 Archbishop Whately, of Dublin, not long before his transla- 
 tion from earth, cured a man who was totally blind by these 
 occult forces. 
 
 Man is of the earth, earthy. The Science of Chemistry 
 demonstrates that there are 64 substances known as prima- 
 ries ; they enter into the composition of all things in nature 
 and Man is a part of nature ; his eternal, immortal soul came 
 from God, and permeates, sublimates, and etherealizes with 
 its Divine essence those remedial agents, and fits them for the 
 scientific removal of disease ; for when a man's entity is placed 
 in contact with another and a more controling entity, the 
 most happy remedial results are effected ; and when the 
 Theory and Practice of Medicine admit all the remedial 
 agents that are known and proven in their Pharmacies, then 
 
6 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 will it begin to be a positive science, and not be charged, as 
 Dr. Skey, Head Surgeon (f pf St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 
 London, declared, "An uncertain Science," but a credit and 
 honor, to the medical profession, and a great blessing to suf- 
 fering hnmanity. But it is high time that Religion and Sci- 
 ence should do all in their power to remedy causes, and not 
 always be seeking for and curing effects. Here is a theme 
 for an able pen. I know God has given us the Law, but 
 we must work out his Divine problem through obedience to 
 other laws. 
 
 There is probably no department in the great laboratory of 
 Nature which so aptly demonstrates the presence of spirit 
 force, with its infinite intelligence, as the growth - and devel- 
 opment of an embryo, whether we take for example that of 
 the sea-weed or oak, radiate or mollusk, guinea pig or rab- 
 bit, dog or man ; for in the primitive stage of embryotic life, 
 so closely do the cells of these widely different beings resem- 
 ble each other, that even the most expert naturalist would en- 
 tirely fail in an attempt to distinguish one from the other. 
 Then why not the cell of an oak grow into a man, or of a 
 man into a sea-weed ? Simply because everything is subject to 
 law, and there is no such thing as chance ; because the great 
 spirit of intelligence directs all things understandingly, and 
 executes everything in power ; because it has ample time for 
 everything, and never makes a mistake ; because " the spirit 
 of God moves upon the face of the waters," and moves 
 everywhere else throughout this vast universe. 
 
 In order that the reader may fully comprehend the subjects 
 which this volume will endeavor to expound, a knowledge of 
 at least the rudiments of these laws and principles is absolute- 
 ly necessary. And if this is to be demanded of the unpro- 
 fessional reader, what are we to think of the professional 
 teachers and physicians who know absolutely nothing about 
 primary causes, but devote their time entirely to the treatment 
 of palpable, tangible effects? To illustrate: Fever is an 
 
Natures Secrets. 7 
 
 effect, not a cause, but formerly the entire medical profession 
 treated it as a cause, and chief among the remedies employed 
 was blood-letting. Now the fever was a kindly effort which 
 Nature was making to throw off theMisease, by an increased 
 action of the heart, and so forth. By depriving the system 
 of a portion of the vital fluid, of course the fever would abate, 
 and Nature, having abandoned the struggle for life and health, 
 the patient would appear much easier, and be assured by the 
 physician that "the symptoms are more favorable'/' whereas 
 the disease has been aggravated ten fold. The unprofession- 
 al reader can readily understand the malpractice in this case, 
 but fails to discover it in thousands of others, because unac- 
 quainted with the occult causes. 
 
 But there is malpractice among the law-makers, in a hun- 
 dred ways, just as absurd as the practice of bleeding in 
 case of fever ; yet the masses appear just as ignorant of the 
 great wrongs inflicted upon'them as were the fever patients a 
 hundred years ago. Nor is this malpractice confined to the 
 physician and law-maker. Our clergy, our school teachers, 
 our lecturers upon ethics, and in fact all, including parents, 
 who have any hand in shaping and regulating the great body 
 politic. Like bleeding for fever, their efforts are worse than 
 useless. 
 
 I do not charge base or improper motives upon those prac- 
 titioners, but I do insist that their ignorance of remote causes 
 is resulting in the most unhappy consequences. Every form 
 of vice and crime is aggravated and made worse by injudi- 
 cious treatment, while disease seems to be annually upon the 
 increase, each generation growing weaker, if not wiser, under 
 a system of practice that originated in the dark ages. Every- 
 where humanity appears to realize these facts, as is evinced 
 by the great army of reformers, all earnest and anxious to 
 do something for the elevation of the race, yet in conse- 
 quence of their ignorance of the remote causes which pro- 
 duce the ills they are seeking to remedy, their efforts, at the 
 least, are but the gropings of a blind man. 
 
8 Nature's Secrets* 
 
 The advice which I shall give, and the information which I 
 shall endeavor to communicate, will be based upon a know- 
 ledge of primal causes, and although want of space will pre- 
 vent me from entering into full details, yet I will be suffi- 
 ciently explicit to enable the reader to comprehend the im- 
 portance of the subject and perceive its full bearing. Then, 
 any person desirous of fully mastering the subject, must make 
 himself acquainted with Zoology, Botany, Geology. Embry- 
 ology, Anthropology and" the laws governing Natural Selec- 
 tion. A thorough knowledge of these sciences will so expand 
 the mind, that the presence of spirit force will be detected in 
 a thousand instances where now it is not dreamed to exist ; 
 the errors of physicians, law-makers, and so forth, will 
 become apparent, while it will be seen that the so-called 
 reformer, ignorant of these sciences, does not deserve the 
 least respect or gratitude from poor, suffering humanity, save 
 that the reformer is actuated by good motives while hope- 
 lessly ignorant. 
 
Natures Secrets. 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 HUMAN ATTRIBUTES : THEIR ORIGIN AND TRANSMISSION. 
 
 When you stop to gaze admiringly upon a beautiful little 
 girl, whose sunny smile and gentle manners remind you of a 
 disembodied spirit, you are quite likely to think of her only 
 as a cause, and giving loose reins to Fancy, you sketch for 
 her a bright future, with many parts to play, in all of which 
 she is a heroine, or the grand, moving cause. But there is 
 another view to take: consider her as an effect, and she will 
 afford you a study that is infinitely more interesting. Think 
 of her as the result of a thousand causes which have been 
 operating for millions of years, and that if but one cause had 
 been wanting she could not have been the perfect creature 
 that she is. Now you have a study more worthy of your con- 
 sideration, for you may deal with facts instead of theories, 
 evolve principles through induction, and establish a science 
 that is valuable. But to go on dreaming about this beautiful 
 child as a cause, theorizing upon imaginary effects, will have 
 no more bearing upon the science of humanity than a sensa- 
 tional novel has upon mathematics. 
 
 Turn your gaze in another direction. Search for men who 
 have splendid physical organizations, with bone, nerve and 
 muscle well developed. You find a numerous class in all 
 ranks of society. Now look for women of a similar type. 
 Alas ! you look in vain. Turn once more to the lords of 
 creation and search for men as perfect in the mental as their 
 brothers are in the physical. Look for men who think well, 
 reason well, write well, and act well their every part in the 
 
io Natures Secrets. . . 
 
 great drama of life. Your search is almost useless, for such 
 men are very rare, standing wide apart in the centuries, with 
 a great wilderness of barbarism between them. 
 
 But look once more, and this time confine your search for 
 men whose moral and spiritual development take rank with 
 those of fine physical organizations. As a standard for weigh- 
 ing and measuring your model man, call to mind the picture 
 drawn of the gentle Nazarine. He must be a man that if 
 smitten upon one cheek will turn the other ; he must feed 
 the hungry, clothe the naked, and administer to the afflicted, 
 even though they are his deadly enemies ; he must assist the 
 widow though she has no beautiful daughter on whom he 
 can thrust his love, or impose his lust ; in a word, one whose 
 whole life, from infancy to hoary age, has been sanctified by 
 doing good and never evil. You look in vain, for the Ages 
 have not yet produced him, and judging the future by the past, 
 tens of thousands of years must elapse before the elements 
 upon our earth will be sufficiently matured for the produc- 
 tion and sustenance of such a masculine mortal. You may 
 find women who approach this standard, but not men. 
 
 You naturally inquire : " Why this discrepancy in the devel- 
 opment of the species? Why do not the mental, moral and 
 spiritual keep pace with the physical? Is it not as easy for 
 God to develope the one as the other ?" Be careful, my friend, 
 for such queries smell of blasphemy. Your clergyman will 
 assure you that you have no right to be prying into these 
 mysteries, for' they belong alone to God. Should such be 
 your view, then shut this book and never look into it again. 
 It \> not intended for such as you. I am not writing for the 
 fossils of a barbarous age and dead past, but for the progres- 
 sive minds of the living present. 
 
 Presuming that I have a reader not afraid to listen to truth, 
 I will proceed to a solution of this seeming mystery, which 
 can be done only by considering man's origin. If we turn to 
 Genesis for information upon the subject, we learn that "man 
 
Nature's Secrets. 1 1 
 
 was made from the dust of the earth." The words here 
 quoted convey only a general idea to the mind ; they are 
 like the title of a book which cannot be fully comprehended 
 until the book has been read in detail. Suppose you pick 
 up a book with the appalling title : " How Butter is made 
 from Grass and Hay." You do not read the book, and being 
 totally ignorant of the daily business, you naturally infer that 
 it means that butter is made from grass and hay, something 
 as a box is made from boards, or bricks from clay. You im- 
 agine a quantity of grass put through some mysterious chemi- 
 cal or mechanical process and coming out butter. Such a 
 suggestion may seem very silly to you, and yet the conclusion 
 that man was made from the dust of the earth, in a manner 
 similar to the manufacture of a brick, as we have been so 
 long taught, is just as silly. The details are what we want, and 
 these will show that the words quoted are strictly true. 
 
 Instead of looking for the origin of man as a whole, the 
 product of a few hours' creative power, let us take a single 
 organ, the heart for instance, and opening the great book of 
 Nature, under the title "Geology," we run down its Groups 
 and Ages to the Silurian Period. We pause and look around. 
 A radiate from the Cambrian attracts our attention. He is 
 the first type of animal life, struggling up from the vegeta- 
 ble, partaking as much of the nature of the latter as of the 
 former. We look in vain for a pulsating heart. We are 
 standing upon"the shore of a Silurian sea. At our feet is a 
 mollusk. He comes next in the scale of animal life to the 
 radiate, and is an object of our special interest. We ex- 
 amine him by the aid of a powerful microscope, and lo ! there 
 is a contracting and dilating muscular movement, revealing 
 the action of a heart which sends the cold, colorless blood 
 through its appointed conduits. Here we see the germ of 
 the heart of man. It has been developing and maturing, 
 passing through every type of animal life, for untold millions 
 of ages, each successive type higher than the last, until it has 
 
12 Natures Secrets. 
 
 reached its present point of culmination in the highest type 
 of intelligence upon our planet. 
 
 Let us next investigate the origin of the human hand. 
 We look in vain for traces of it among the mollusks. We 
 ascend to the Devonian, a later Period, in the Age of Fishes, 
 where animal life is taking on higher conditions. How 
 marked the change from the Silurian 1 As we found the 
 mollusk removed farther from the vegetable than the radiate, 
 so we find the fishes developed still farther away. The 
 , power of locomotion has been wonderfully increased, and as 
 we watch them darting through the Devonian waters, our at- 
 tention is attracted by certain protuberances which are used 
 like paddles. We examine them more closely. They are 
 fins. And here we find the outline of the human hand! 
 Trace it to the reptile and it becomes a foot. It is but a 
 slight change from a fin, and yet millions of years elapsed 
 while this change was going on. God works slowly. He 
 has no occasion to hurry, for eternity is before him. Thus 
 we discover how it was that man was made from the dust of 
 the earth. He has grown from the earth just as surely as a 
 tree. He has been developed from the rudimental forms of 
 life beneath him just as certainly as the butterfly is developed 
 from the catterpillar. He has in him the characteristics of 
 every animal, and I regret to say that many of the species 
 seem to have inherited largely from the swine. 
 
 Man possesses two kinds of intelligence, instinct and 
 reason. It is the predominance of the latter over the for- 
 mer which distinguishes man so greatly from the lower order 
 of animals. When we search for the first form of intelli- 
 gence we find it clear down to the zoophyte ; nor have we 
 traced it to its origin even then, for the plant manifests in- 
 stinct just as surely as the dog. Bury a block of wood 
 wiithn two feet of the spot where you plant some squash 
 seeds ; ten feet farther away bury a bone full of marrow. 
 Now watch the result. While the block of wood is un- 
 
Natures Secrets 13 
 
 heeded, a little root is rapidly sent out in the direction of the 
 bone, and having reached it, divides into a hundred branches, 
 the extremity of each directed to a part of the bone that is 
 most porous, and with its hundred little mouths it sucks out 
 the nturiment from the bone, sending it to the parent root. 
 No one would deny intelligence to the animal that acts with 
 so much wisdom ; then why deny it to the plant ? In these 
 wonderful evolutions do we not discover the working of an 
 infinite intelligence, an Infinite Spirit whose center is nowhere-, 
 but whose circumference is everywhere ? 
 
 If we leave the plants and go to the minerals, we still find 
 intelligence, still find an instinct exactly adapted to the wants, 
 of the mineral. We trace this instinct to the infinite. There 
 is neither time nor place where it is not found. Not so with 
 reason. We look in vain for the first dawn of reason until 
 the later Ages of the earth. The lower order of mammals 
 can reason a little, but are mainly dependent upon their in- 
 stinct, an intelligence that never errs, while reason is con- 
 stantly blundering. 
 
 Now comes the query: Why is man less perfect, intellec- 
 tually, than physically? Because his intellect is not so old by 
 millions of years as his physical. It has not had time for 
 growth and developement. His instinct is perfect, but when 
 he was endowed with reason he was almost totally deprived 
 of instinct, not possessing a tenth part so much as a pig. The 
 reader can now understand why this discrepancy between 
 man's physical and intellectual natures. So, too, why man's 
 moral and spiritual natures are not as perfect as his intellec- 
 tual. The former are far younger. The idea of looking 
 among the animals for morality and spirituality seems absurd, 
 yet the germ of these attributes must have existed in the 
 animal, in an undeveloped state, from the earliest moment 
 of animal life. 
 
 Right here I must be pardoned for what may seem a 
 digression, but which is really an important feature of this 
 
14 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 "work, namely, a consideration of the moral nature of man. 
 The clergy try to monopolize this department of knowledge, 
 but have made such wretched work of it that it becomes the 
 duty of the intelligent physician to instruct man in a general 
 knowledge of ethics, just as much as to enlighten him regard- 
 ing his physical nature. 
 
 No reflecting person will deny that the physical organs are 
 all the result of growth and progression. In the seal we dis- 
 cover a rudimental hand, yet very imperfect as compared 
 with the human hand. Now fancy some critic, not only con- 
 demning the poor seal on account of his awkward flipper, 
 but actually treating him with cruelty, not only as a punish- 
 ment to the individual seal, but that it may prove a warning 
 to all others. Perhaps most of my readers see the point, but 
 there are probably some dull ones who need a plainer illus- 
 tration, and since it is chiefly for the benefit of this class that 
 I am writing, I will elaborate the idea. 
 
 Suppose you have half a dozen children, ranging from two to 
 twelve years of age. You furnish each with a bucket and direct 
 them to carry it full of water, across the parlor carpet, threat- 
 ening the direst punishment should they spill even a drop. 
 Explain to them that they are free moral agents, to spill the 
 water or not, and therefore the spilling of a single drop 
 will subject them to the same penalty as if they had 
 spilled a bucketfull. " For whosoever shall keep the whole 
 law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." James 
 ii., 10. You lay down the law most positively, conditioned 
 with rewards as well as penalties, and leave them in a state to 
 act for themselves. 
 
 Your law is no respecter of persons, and therefore exacts 
 the same obedience from the two-year-old that it does from 
 the twelve-year-old. Besides, the buckets are all of the same 
 size, and you require that all shall fill them to the same 
 fullness, for you make no distinctions and show no partiality. 
 Left to themselves, the labor begins. The eldest discovers 
 
Natures Secrets. 15 
 
 that by a little care he has no trouble in obeying your com- 
 mands, for he possesses not only the physical strength but a 
 matured mind to plan as well as execute. The next younger, 
 being inferior,- both mentally and physically, finds that the 
 greatest care is necessary in order not to come under the 
 curse of the law which you have given. For a time he suc- 
 ceeds, but becoming weary, his muscles exhausted, by a false 
 step he spills a single drop. This seals his doom, and in pure 
 recklessness he throws down the bucket, spurns it with his 
 foot, deluging the fine carpet with water. Perhaps he would 
 not have been guilty of this last act but for the severity of the 
 law which punished him the same for spilling a drop as for a 
 bucketfull. 
 
 Of course the third child will fail more signally than the 
 second, and so on to the youngest, whom we will suppose 
 to be a little girl. Imagine the poor thing toddling along, not 
 more than half conscious of the responsibility resting upon 
 her, when suddenly one of the other children puts out 'his 
 foot in front of her, and away she goes sprawling on the 
 floor. This ends the period of probation. All save the 
 oldest have broken your law, and now, with your "anger 
 kindled," your "fierce wrath aroused," you summon them, 
 "with the great sound of a trumpet." to appear before the 
 judgment seat for trial. Five of the six are found guilty and 
 sentenced to be shut up in the gloom and darkness of the 
 cellar, to be fed on bread and water, with an opportunity to 
 ponder upon the enormity of their crimes. 
 
 To prove that you have done this with the best of motives, 
 you employ a missionary to visit them and administer conso- 
 lation, which he does by telling them that they are the spared 
 monuments of your mercy, and that if you had been strict 
 to mark their iniquities against them that they would have 
 long since been beyond the reach of hope. He admonishes 
 them that they had good and evil set before them ; that you 
 gave them the law, and they knew just what to expect in case 
 they violated its wise and beneficent provisions. 
 
1 6 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 But we will suppose that one of these five unfortunates is 
 very intelligent, and should reply to the missionary something 
 in this way : 
 
 "I am simply the victim of circumstances* over which I 
 had no control. Had it been in my power I would have* 
 made myself as strong as my eldest brother, and then I should 
 have avoided spilling the wafer, and thus escaped this cruel 
 imprisonment." 
 
 " Cruel imprisonment !" exclaims the missionary ; " How 
 dare you utter such a slander against your kind and noble 
 father ? Did he not warn you beforehand what to expect if 
 you disobeyed him ? 
 
 " Yes, but I couldn't help spilling the water." 
 
 " It is the devil putting these wicked thoughts into your 
 mind. Remember that you are a free moral agent ; God 
 gave you the power to choose, but you chose the evil instead 
 of the good, and therefore your punishment is just. No, my 
 poor child, all this complaining, this attempt to shift the res- 
 ponsibility from yourself upon your kind father or upon God 
 himself, comes from your depraved and rebellious spirit.'* 
 
 "Who gave me my depraved and rebellious spirit?" 
 
 "You brought it on yourself by disobedience." 
 
 "Well, suppose I did ; but God must have known, when 
 he was making me, that I was liable to have that rebellious 
 spirit ; then why did he not make me so strong that I would 
 not have it?" 
 
 "Because he made you a free moral agent and left you to 
 choose for yourself." 
 
 " Did he know before I was born the exact choice that I 
 would make?" 
 
 "Of course he did, for he knows everything; but that is 
 no excuse for you." 
 
 " Beg pardon, but tell me this : Could I do anything to 
 change God's foreknowledge ?" 
 
 By this time the missionary would be in a dilemma. If 
 
Natures Secrets. 17 
 
 he answered in the affirmative, that would at once be a denial 
 of God's omniscience ; if in the negative, that would most 
 effectually upset the theory of free moral agency. So the 
 missionary would be likely to resort to the clergyman's dodge 
 whenever he is cornered in this way, and answer : 
 
 " Oh, the depravity of the human heart, before it has been 
 enlightened by God's Holy Spirit ! prone to evil as the 
 sparks to fly upward ; and then, setting carnal reason against 
 Divine Inspiration, try to shift the blame upon God himself. 
 Let us pray !" 
 
 We will leave this imaginary missionary at his devotions, 
 while we proceed to make a practical application of the al- 
 legory. For yourself, as the father of these children, we will 
 substitute the legislative and judiciary powers of the State, 
 with humanity at large in the place of the children. We find 
 men and women just as incapable of living up to the high 
 moral standard established, as were these little children of 
 keeping the law laid down for them. There are persons so 
 weak in morals, in consequence of bad antenatal conditions, 
 that they can no more lead honest and upright lives than the 
 little two-year-old could carry a bucketfull of water without 
 spilling a drop. These persons are just as destitute of capa- 
 city to be moral, as Prof. Combe was of mathematical abili- 
 ty, and he assures us that at the end of seven years' hard 
 study he had failed to learn even the Multiplication Table. 
 As he was one of the most brilliant philosophers that Scot- 
 land has ever produced, would you, had you been his tutor, 
 have inferred that he might learn mathematics just as well as 
 philosophy, and then would you have punished him for his 
 failure ? This is the way society is dealing with its unfortu- 
 nates, utterly blind to the law of their being. This business 
 has been in the hands of lawyers and clergymen from time 
 immemorial, leaving the physician to take care of the body, 
 but the bungling manner which has characterized their man- 
 
1 8 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 agement seems to demand a change of administration, and 
 hence my interference. 
 
 Whether we accept Genesis or Geology for authority, we 
 find that man was made from the dust of the earth. His 
 physical and metaphysical qualities are perfected according 
 to the age of each, just the same as my allegorical children 
 were capable of carrying the water without spilling it, accord- 
 ing to their age and strength. His physical is oldest, and 
 therefore nearest perfect ; then come the intellectual, the 
 moral and the spiritual. Some are progressed in one direc- 
 tion, some in another. Some are idiots in mathematics, 
 some in music, some in finance, some in intellect, some in 
 morals and some in spirituality. But to punish them for 
 these deficiencies is to criticise their Maker, and virtually 
 charge him with not understanding his business. 
 
 Would you punish a savage, simply because he is a savage ? 
 If you would, then you censure God for making savages, 
 since he might have made them all of the Caucassian race, 
 had he been so disposed. Would you punish for immorality 
 the man born without moral perceptions? Who made him 
 so? "Did this man's parents sin," or was it God? In either 
 case you assume a fearful responsibility when you punish 
 him for his moral imperfections. How dare you do it ? Do 
 you imagine that you can engineer matters on this planet bet- 
 ter than the Supreme Architect of the universe ? 
 
 No, the savage should not be condemned for being a sav- 
 age. He was needed in nature, else it was folly in the God 
 of Nature to produce him. He fills his niche, and is just as 
 true to his conditions as a Humboldt or La Place. Neither 
 must the man with a weak moral nature be condemned. He 
 is one of the toiling human corals, contributing his quota to 
 the great whole, and just as necessary as a Tyndall or Hux- 
 ley. If we compare imperfect morality to the fin of a fish, 
 and partially perfected morality to the human hand, selecting 
 George Washington as the highest type, we shall find human- 
 
Natures Secrets. 19 
 
 ity swarming with fins, flippers and paws, yet but few with 
 hands. How sublime the thought of punishing these poor 
 handless wretches for imderfections which they cannot help ! 
 
 They are filling a place in the great human hive, and if I 
 condemn them, and denounce them, then I am condemning 
 God because he did not make them better, as he certainly 
 might. But society condemns them, and sends them to pris- 
 on, where they are treated more like the wild and ferocious 
 animals than they are like human beings. Every prison, in 
 every Christian country, is a standing libel upon the charac- 
 ter of the Christian's God, for he might have made them all 
 good and perfect, when there would have been no necessity 
 for prisons. 
 
 I would not be understood as advocating the same freedom 
 for these poor unfortunates as for men like George Washing- 
 ton. No, we should restrain them just as we would a maniac 
 whom we fear might murder us or burn our houses. Society 
 has a right to protect itself, but has no right to inflict punish- 
 ment. I mean just what I say : that Society has no right to 
 inflict punishment under any circumstances, and for this 
 reason : We have seen from a logical and philosophic pre- 
 sentation of the subject, that every living thing is simply an 
 effect, the product of millions of causes, those eauses being 
 infinite. Hence, to punish the effect, the thing produced 
 for being what it is, would be to imitate the boy who stubs 
 his toe against a solid rock, and then in anger beats the rock 
 with a club. Or, suppose it to be a deformed idiot, instead 
 of what we call a criminal, would we dare to punish him for 
 his deformity? We might find it necessary to restrain .him 
 from going at large, but to punish him would seem horrible. 
 Yet our so-called criminals are just as much deformed mon- 
 strosities as the idiots, and just as deserving of our charity. 
 
 I hope the reader will not think me tedious in my illustra- 
 tions of man's moral nature. Remember that I am treating 
 of humanity in every department, instead of confining my 
 
20 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 observations to the physical. Therefore it is proper to lay the 
 foundation by showing how it is that man has been made 
 from the dust of the earth. This being done, we have a 
 foundation laid on which to build, and we may then consider 
 the laws of generation, or how to be born. 
 
 Man lives by virtue of certain nutriment which he takes 
 into his system ; so, too, does a plant. The plant must be 
 supplied with food, or it will die just as certainly as man 
 when deprived of food. In this the similarity is marked. 
 So, too, both must be supplied with wholesome food, or 
 disease will result, followed by death. Finally, both must be 
 able to digest and assimilate the food taken into the system, 
 or, proving a foreign substance, injury must result. Thus a 
 parallel might be traced between man and a plant for a great 
 distance ; nor would it be any argument against this parallel 
 to show that man had one mouth, one stomach and so forth, 
 while the plant has many. This difference has been effected 
 in consequence of their different natures and different re- 
 quirements. Man inherits from the plant his mouth, stomach, 
 digestive apparatus, excretory organs, etc. Hence, a thorough 
 knowledge of anatomy involves a knowledge of every living 
 thing below man, to the mineral. Without this knowledge 
 the medical practitioner is but a quack and imposter. It is a 
 knowledge, too, that should be diffused among the masses. 
 Hence this book. 
 
 . I might devote several volumes to a consideration of the 
 gradual changes which have been going on in the great la- 
 boratory of Nature, during untold millions of years, the 
 whole -aim of which has been to produce man upon our 
 planet ; but I must not dwell upon this portion of the subject. 
 
 Starting with the mineral, we discover certain differences, 
 not only in the physical, but the spiritual characteristics, which 
 are designated by such terms as positive and negative, corres- 
 ponding to the masculine and feminine. Coming to the 
 plants, we find conclusive evidence of the presence of male 
 
Nature's Secrets. 21 
 
 and female. Rising in the scale to the zoophyte, where 
 there is positive animal life, the proofs of male and female 
 are less apparent than in the plant; yet there can be no doubt 
 but that all animal life is characterized by a distinction of sex, 
 although we may not discover any sexual organs. Neverthe- 
 less there are some species of the Radiate that will multiply 
 by being divided into several pieces, each part growing into 
 a perfect animal. This is true of the angle worm ; also of 
 the fresh water polyp, and has been asserted of the snake, 
 but this last requires proof. The polyp is so constructed that 
 there appears to be no difference between the skin upon his 
 surface and his stomach, for if you turn one inside out, he is 
 just as ready for his dinner as before the change was made. 
 Our modern politicians appear to have inherited this peculi- 
 arity to a marked degree, and it is a striking coincidence that 
 pol is the first syllable in both their names. 
 
 The Radiate and Mollusk appear to be perfectly passion- 
 less, unless sympathy can be called passion, even a sympathy 
 as cold as that which exists among the minerals. Natural- 
 ists tell us that in the lowest forms of animal life, where the 
 zoophyte looks as much like a vegetable as an animal, pro- 
 pagation is carried on by a system of " budding." A bunch 
 appears as if attached to a larger form, continuing to enlarge 
 until having attained a sufficient size, when it drops from the 
 parent stem, becomes a distinct entity and sets up in busi- 
 ness on its own account. In this the animal retains the char- 
 acteristics of the plant with but slight modifications. 
 
 Ascending in the scale of being, we discover a gradual 
 change in the law of generation, or rather its conditions, until 
 the method peculiar to the plant can scarcely be traced. The 
 fishes are cold-blooded, but still they manifest towards each 
 other something like amatory passion. Coming to the warm- 
 blooded animals, the evidences of amativeness are indisputa- 
 ble. The marsupials, such as the opossum, kangaroo, and so 
 forth, preserve a relic of plant propagation, something like 
 
22 Natures Secrets. 
 
 " budding," for the female is provided with a sack, or 
 false stomach, as it is called, in which are carried the young 
 during gestation, each with his little mouth glued to a nipple 
 from which he draws nutrition. Like the "budding" zoophyte, 
 when embryo life is complete, he " drops off" and becomes 
 a distinct, individualised marsupial. 
 
 Embryology, in all the departments of Nature, should be 
 studied by all who contemplate becoming parents. Indeed, 
 it is a science that should be taught in our public schools. 
 Boys should know the laws governing generation ; girls should 
 know what is to be expected from them in the relations of 
 wife and mother, and when both sexes are thus instructed, 
 the offspring born will be vastly superior to the wretched 
 abortions that owe their existence to blind passion 
 
 In concluding this part of my subject, I desire to impress 
 it deeply upon the mind of the reader, that man, with all his 
 organs, faculties and traits, is but an effect. That as yet he 
 is far from being perfected, and that at his present ratio of 
 progress, millions of years may elapse before the human race 
 will attain to its point of culmination. In the mean time, let 
 the reader consider man as just as good and just as perfect as 
 God designed he should be, at this epoch, instead of censur- 
 ing and condemning him because he is no better. Further- 
 more, the reader should never forget that the attributes of 
 man are like a family of children, some older and some 
 younger, and that less should be expected from the young 
 than the old. The PHYSICAL is approaching maturity ; the 
 INTELLECTUAL is only a sprightly youth ; the MORAL is in its 
 childhood, while the SPIRITUAL has but just been born. Had 
 God produced these constituent elements all at the same 
 epoch, then we might be excused for railing against him on 
 account of the disparity between man's Physical and Spiritual 
 natures. But to rail now, when the latter is so much younger 
 than the former, is rank blasphemy, a luxury which only our 
 Christian law-makers can afford to indulge in, and they only 
 because they hire Chaplains to pray for them. 
 
Nature s Secrets. 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANTE-CONCEPTION CONDITIONS : THE. ROYAL FAMILY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The heading for this Chapter is one of several sub-titles 
 under which I shall consider the laws governing generation. 
 I shall commence in society just as I find it to-day : a majority 
 of the men and women united in wedlock, and therefore lia- 
 ble at any time to become parents, whether they so will it or 
 not. Under this sub-title I shall not raise the question 
 whether or not the parties are fit companions for each other, 
 in the marriage relation, but accepting conditions as they are, 
 instead of theorizing upon conditions as they should be, we 
 will try and make the best of everything, and produce the 
 best offspring possible under the conditions, pointing out the 
 best methods for rearing and educating the same, and then, 
 when the improved breed shall become old enough to marry, 
 I will endeavor to so instruct them, that with an improved 
 marriage relation their offspring will be as much superior to 
 themselves as they have been made superior to their parents, 
 and thus go on, from generation to generation, improving 
 the race as the stockraisar is enabied to improve every variety 
 of animal, even to the sow that wallows in the mire. 
 
 In order that my advice may not appear to be purely theo- 
 retical, and therefore make but little impression, 1 shall en- 
 deavor to deal with facts as much as possible. I regret that 
 most of the writers upon this subject have labored chiefly to 
 prove that their deductions are true, instead of proving their 
 premises. I shall aim entirely at proving my premises, leav- 
 ing the deductions, as the fish does its young, to shift for 
 
24 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 themselves. Were the reader acquainted with the same per- 
 sons as myself, I could take him to different families of chil- 
 dren, point out the dissimilarities of constitution, intellect, 
 disposition, and so forth; and then, after careful inquiry from 
 the parents, be able to point out the causes for these differen- 
 ces. But since this course is not practicable, I will refer to 
 the present royal family of England, the history of which it is 
 easy to learn. 
 
 Prince Albert was most emphatically an intellectual man, 
 quite free from low indulgences which usually characterise 
 royality and nobility. Aside from his dignity of birth, if he 
 had only been a hod-carrier, he would have been admired 
 for the purity of his life, his uprightness of conduct, and ex- 
 alted ambition. Queen Victoria was a most exemplary young 
 woman, and in all her relations of life, whether as friend, 
 wife or mother, aside from her royalty, affords a fair model 
 for her sex. Here, then, we have two persons united, much 
 above the average of humanity, and have a right to expect 
 superior offspring. Nine months and eleven days after mar- 
 riage, the Princess Royal was born. She has proved a very 
 superior woman, and just such as would very naturally be ex- 
 pected from such parents. Just eleven months and eighteen 
 days after the birth of Victoria Adelaide, Albert Edward, the 
 Princs of Wales, was born. The Prince is a poor model for 
 goodness, and just such a son as would not be expected from 
 such parents. In the Galaxy for March, 1870, Justin Mc- 
 Carthy says of him : 
 
 "Those who saw the Prince of Wales, when he visited this 
 country, would surely fail to recognize the slender, fair-haired, 
 rather graceful youth of that day, in the heavy, fat, stolid, pre- 
 maturely bald, elderly young man of this. It would not be 
 easy to see in any assembly a more stupid-looking man than 
 the Prince of Wales is now. * * * All that he could do 
 by countenance and patronage to encourage a debauching 
 and degrading style of theatric entertainment, he . has done. 
 He is said to be fond of the singing of the vulgar and low 
 
Natures Secrets. 25 
 
 buffoons of the music hall, and to have had such persons 
 brought specially to his residence, Marlborongh House, to 
 sing. * * * Night after night, even during the long and 
 lamentable illness of his young \vife, he visited such theaters 
 and gazed upon those prodigies of myriad nakedness. * 
 * Almost any and every one you meet in London, will tell 
 you, as something beyond doubt, that the Prince of Wales is 
 dull, stingy, course and profligate." 
 
 Dismissing the Prince for the present, I pass on to observe 
 that seventeen months and sixteen days after the birth of the 
 Prince, Alice Maud Mary was born, a grand improvement on 
 her brother. Then fifteen months and eleven days later 
 Prince Alfred was born, who is much superior in every way to 
 the Prince of Wales. 
 
 Now the question arises, Why so much difference in children 
 born of the same parents? Does such a question ever arise 
 in the minds of the Court physicians ? If so, the world is none 
 the wiser for it, for they are as silent as the grave upon these 
 subjects. Is this difference the result of chance or accident ? 
 By no means, for it is impossible that there should be an 
 effect, of any kind, without a cause. Now I must be able to 
 account for these differences, in a rational manner, in order 
 to inspire, the reader with confidence, and if I succeed in 
 doing this I shall expect to command his respect in other 
 matters that may be new to him. To begin then. 
 
 It is evident that conception followed immediately after 
 the marriage of Albert and Victoria, while both were full of 
 vitality and magnetism, before exhausting themselves with 
 passional excesses, as usually happens with a newly married 
 pair, for fashionable decency forbids that young people 
 should be enlightened upon these points, so important not 
 only to their own well being, but that of their offspring. 
 Another cause contributed to the happy organization of the 
 Princess Royal. She was begotten in love, before the honey- 
 moon of tenderness and devotion had passed ; before canker- 
 ing cares had sprung up, strewing thorns in their paths, and 
 2 
 
26 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 while their minds were temporarily diverted from the vexa- 
 tions, anxieties and responsibilities of state. I might dwell 
 upon these circumstances, elaborating them in extenso, but 
 for the intelligent reader, I have probably said sufficient for 
 my purpose. Having given the hint, his own thought and 
 reflection will supply corroborating facts. 
 
 We next consider the circumstances and conditions con- 
 nected with the conception of the Prince of Wales. He was 
 begotten in less than a year after the marriage of his parents. 
 Deductions ; i . During this year the parents had exhausted 
 their vitalities by passional excesses, the indulgences being 
 new to both. This exhaustion must have incapacitated them 
 for fulfilling the high and holy mission of parentage, and off- 
 spring begotten under such conditions must of a necessity be 
 inferior. 2. During this year Victoria had endured the pains 
 and anxieties attendant upon the period of primal gestation, 
 having become a mother only a few weeks prior to the second 
 conception. 3. During this year both were experiencing the 
 cares and responsibilities of sovereignty, and although this 
 was a weak adversary compared with the two former, still it 
 would have been sufficient, other conditions being equal, to 
 have made the offspring inferior to the first-born, begotten in 
 the honeymoon of love. 
 
 "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 This is true, 'because a law of Nature, rather than because it 
 is in Galatians. We see its verification everywhere in the 
 plant, the animal and the human. The seed of the plant, 
 the germ of life, may be talked about before a mixed audi- 
 ence, and even the most fastidious ladies are not shocked at 
 the mention of rice, corn, barley and so forth, yet they would . 
 be horrified if some one should say " semen" in. their hearing. 
 This does not arise from a natural delicacy, but is the result of 
 a perverse education and the engendering of a false modesty.; 
 for as before remarked, during the early stage of embryo life, 
 there is a period when not even the most learned Naturalist 
 
Nature's Secrets. 27 
 
 is capable of distinguishing the plant from the human em- 
 bryo. Here are two things so exactly alike, that not even the 
 slightest difference between them is distinguishable, yet while 
 the plant may be discussed in all its stages, from the germ to 
 perfect completion of reproduction, both decency and polite 
 usage forbid even the mention of the male seed, which is to 
 the human what the grain of corn is to the vegetable. If 
 the kernel of corn to be planted is of an inferior quality, no 
 one would expect to be rebuked for indecency, should he 
 venture the remark that the product of that kernel would be 
 inferior. But to make the same remark about the male germ, 
 would be to challenge ostracism from polite society, notwith- 
 standing the Bible informs us that "whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall 
 of the flesh reap corruption." Fools must strain the meaning 
 of words, and dig deep for folly, not to comprehend the sub- 
 lime thought here expressed, namely the sowing of the germ 
 of human life and the production of offspring. For, " Be not 
 deceived ; God is not mocked/' That is, if by over indul- 
 gence of bridal rites the male germ is not allowed a suffi- 
 cient time to mature before being ejected, having barely 
 enough vitality to impregnate the female ovum with animal 
 life, but none to spare for intellectual, moral and spiritual life, 
 then 'depend upon it that " God will not be mocked," and that 
 " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 Physicians who write books upon this subject are too much 
 disposed to follow in the wake of each other, giving out sim- 
 ilar ideas, but clothed in different language. Hence, a cen- 
 tury ago it was thought that the status of the child depended 
 mainly upon the conditions of the mother during gestation. 
 This idea has been perpetuated, and is popular to-day, yet 
 very erroneous, for the status of the child depends equally 
 upon the conditions of the father at the time of conception. 
 If he has been upon a drunken debauch, or just recovering 
 from a severe illness, or has been indulging to excess in bridal 
 
28 Natures Secrets. 
 
 rites ; or any other cause existing that impairs the quality of 
 the life germ, not all the care possible, on the part of the 
 mother during gestation, can prevent the birth of an inferior 
 child, deficient either physically, intellectually, morally or 
 spiritually. "F<^r whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
 reap." Combe tells us in his Moral Philosophy that "a 
 soldier and his lover both got drunk; that conception took 
 place during the drunken debauch, and the poor child was 
 born an idiot." 
 
 It is evident that at the conception of the Prince of Wales, 
 his father sowed an inferior quality of seed. It may be that ill- 
 ness on the part of Prince Albert contributed something to- 
 wards this inferiority, yet it may be entirely accounted for 
 upon the hypothesis of intemperate indulgence, the germinal 
 secretion being thin and watery, instead of being character- 
 ized by being rich, thick and full of vitality and magnetism, 
 as is the case when a man is in perfect health and has been 
 continent for at least thirty days. 
 
 Keeping up the agricultural similie, the next consideration 
 is the nature and condition of the soil where the seed is de- 
 posited, for if the soil is inferior, or if superior by nature but 
 in bad condition, no matter how superior the seed, or how 
 favorable the season, it is impossible that there should be a 
 glad harvest. In the case of Victoria, although a superior 
 woman by nature, the conditions were very unfavorable when 
 she conceived the Prince of Wales. According to the aver- 
 age period of gestation, less than three months had elapsed 
 since the birth of her first-born, when she conceived a second 
 time. It is impossible that either her physical or nervous 
 system should have returned to normal conditions, and in 
 fact it was not judicious for her to yield to the solicitations of 
 her husband, much less to conceive. This circumstance 
 doubtless contributed greatly to the degeneracy of the child, 
 yet the bad conditions of Prince Albert may have been 
 equally potent for evil. 
 
Natures Secrets. 29 
 
 There may have been many other minor circumstances 
 that assisted to this unhappy result, but enough have been 
 enumerated to account for this degeneracy, where so much 
 had been expected, not only from his parents and kindred, 
 but from the whole English people. But should we condemn 
 the poor Prince for what he cannot help? It is not his fault 
 that he was so badly begotten that he should prefer vice to 
 virtue, becoming recreant to the memory of an honored 
 father, a continued source of misery to a widowed mother, 
 poisoning every cup of happiness for a betrayed wife, and a 
 living disgrace to his innocent children. Humanity at large 
 will condemn him, for they have been so taught in the church 
 and by the clergy, but the true philosopher will pity him, and 
 not only him, but the millions of physical and moral deform- 
 ities which we meet at every turn. 
 
 With regard to other children of the royal family, my 
 theory is this : I. Prince Albert was evidently an intel- 
 lectual man, living more on the brain than the passions ; 
 hence, however intense his passions at first, it was only a 
 question of time when the intellect would resume its sway. 
 Before the conception of the Princess Alice, sufficient time 
 had elapsed for his passional nature to have become satiated, 
 and as indulgences were less frequent, the male germ had 
 time to mature and become more perfect. 2. Nearly 
 double the time elapsed between the birth of the Prince and 
 Alice, than between Victoria Adelaide and the Prince. This 
 afforded the queen time for more complete recuperation, and 
 therefore she was in better condition as well as her husband ; 
 and yet even in this case the time was altogether too short 
 between the births of her second and third children, while 
 between the first and second, the time was so brief as to 
 amount to positive cruelty. 3. The conditions were also 
 improved on account of the ripening and maturing of the 
 queen, who had been too young to become a mother. True, 
 her eldest was superior, but to make her so, required such a 
 
30 Natures Secrets. 
 
 draft upon the vitality of the young mother, that years of re- 
 cuperation were necessary for her to recover normal condi- 
 tions. Finally, the recuperation and improvement of condi- 
 tions continuing, of course Arthur must be an improvement 
 upon his older brother, yet entitled to no credit for being so, 
 for he had no hand in the circumstances that endowed him 
 with superior qualities. 
 
 Before dismissing the royal family of England, I must 
 remark that no child of Queen Victoria possesses the excel- 
 lent qualities of either body or mind that it was the right and 
 privilege of her Majesty to have born to her, provided the 
 children had been begotten upon scientific principles instead 
 of being the offspring of lust the result attendant upon 
 the gratification of passion, regardless of any design to 
 beget a child. Two such persons as Albert and Victoria 
 might breed children as much superior to the common herd 
 as Baron Von Humboldt was intellectually superior to the 
 country pedagogue. But modesty [ ? J and decency [ ? ] for- 
 bade that either of them, especially Victoria, whose very life 
 was at stake, to say nothing about the well-being of her chil- 
 dren, should be instructed even by a hint upon matters of 
 such vital importance. Blindly this couple assumed the mar- 
 riage relation, and have brought into existence a brood of 
 children in many points unworthy of their parentage. But 
 this, instead of being an exceptional case, is a representative 
 case, illustrating how nine-tenths of the children are con- 
 ceived and born, while fully nine-tenths of the other tenth 
 are bom under far worse conditions, and not one in a hun- 
 dred is properly conceived and brought into existence. 
 
 Thus far, in this Chapter, like Dicken's Circumlocution 
 Office, I have been explaining " how not to do it/' just as an 
 intelligent father would warn his son against the evils and 
 dangers that he is to avoid. There are many other warnings 
 that I might give, yet if the reader will follow strictly the 
 course which I shall point out, refusing to turn aside into bye 
 
Natures Secrets. 31 
 
 and forbidden paths, there will be no necessity for occupying 
 space to give warnings which may be so much more profit- 
 ably occupied by giving instruction of a positive character, so 
 that all may know "how to do it." Still there are other 
 warnings which duty will compel me to give from time to 
 time. 
 
 The begetting of offspring should be a design on the part 
 of parents just as much as the putting of seed in the ground 
 is design on the part of the farmer. Everybody would laugh 
 at a farmer as a fool who would cast out his agricultural seed 
 at random upon the soil, regardless of the proper season, the 
 quality of the seed and a careful preparation of the soil. Sup- 
 pose he had a new kind of wheat to propagate, and should 
 attempt it in the heedless manner described, would not even 
 an idiot ridicule him ? Yet the propagation of the human 
 species, of such infinite importance when compared with re- 
 producing wheat, is practised by ninety-nine in a hundred, in 
 a manner just as heedless and stupid, because decency would 
 be shocked, modesty outraged, and Mother Grundy deeply 
 mortified, should any one attempt to instruct our young peo- 
 ple upon these vital points. 
 
 The proper season, the best quality of seed, and the most 
 complete preparation of the soil, are pre-requisite for the 
 successful reproduction of the plant. No person outside a 
 madhouse or an asylum for idiots will deny this proposition. 
 Then, as the animal is only a progressed form of the plant, 
 the same conditions, modified and adapted to the higher or- 
 der of life, must be pre-requisite for a successful re-produc- 
 tion of the animal ; that is, the male should be in the best of 
 physical health, full of vitality and magnetism, the accumula- 
 tion during several days of perfect continence ; the female 
 should also be in the best of conditions, fully ripened by age, 
 and in the first stage of physical maturity. The conditions 
 being thus favorable, the stock raiser would, have a right to 
 expect, an improvement in the breed. 
 
32 Nature 's Secrets. 
 
 Passing from the animal t rt man, the highest order of life, 
 the same conditions, in a modified form, are pre-requisite 
 for successfully propagating the human species. Not only 
 should the man be in good physical health, but intellectually, 
 morally and spiritually, he should be free from all ailments. 
 
 In addition to these requirements, for at least thirty days 
 ninety days would be better the man should lead a life of 
 perfect chastity. 
 
 If he has ever injured himself by masturbation, then he 
 should not dare to become a father until he has the full ap- 
 probation of an intelligent physician to whom he has com- 
 municated his unhappy secret. 
 
 If syphilis has at any time marked him for a victim, then 
 let him beware, for not one physician in a hundred can ever 
 rid his system of the deadly virus, so but that his innocent 
 offspring will be born a mass of putrefaction, similar to the 
 description which King David gives of himself in Ps. XXXVIII, 
 5, 8. "My wounds stink and are corrupt, and so forth." 
 How often it has happened that a pure, healthy young woman 
 has wedded a man apparently of sound constitution, yet the 
 offspring has been a " mass of scrofula," which is only the po- 
 lite term for inherited syphilis. An investigation discloses that 
 the husband was poisoned some years before, but had been 
 pronounced "perfectly cured." Yet all the time the poison 
 had been sealed up in his system, or apparently circulating 
 harmlessly through it, but secreted in the germinating recep- 
 tacles in sufficient quantity to do its deadly work with his un- 
 born child. It is a horrible crime for a man to commit, and 
 yet the laws affix no penalty for it. Murder, in the most ag- 
 gravated form, the victim dying by a torture that is endured 
 for a whole week, is a kindness and mercy compared with 
 begetting a child that may live for years, an object of both 
 pity and loathing, longing for death as the only relief. 
 
 Young man ! if your blood has ever been polluted by this 
 awful scourge, which the God of Nature sends as the penalty 
 
Natures Secrets. 33 
 
 of violated law, better go and hang yourself than make some 
 trusting girl the mother of your syphilitic offspring. Should 
 you do so, after reading this book, although I am opposed 
 to the infliction of the death penalty under any circumstances, 
 still I would say that you deserved hanging a thousand 
 times more than Vasquez, the notorious California robber and 
 murderer. True, there is a hope that you may be thoroughly 
 cured, but the chances are greatly against you, for among the 
 hundreds of remedies laid down by the different Medical 
 Schools, I have never found but one that is infallible, and this 
 is known to but very few physicians. If you can apply to me, 
 either personally or by letter, I will put you in a way to be 
 perfectly cured ; but if not, then I warn you, that if you 
 would escape a terrible remorse and torture of conscience, to 
 die sooner than become the father of a 1 syphilitic child. 
 
 The same remarks concerning syphilis, will apply to wo- 
 man, but it is so rare that a young woman becomes thus dis- 
 eased, and so much more common for a young man than is 
 generally supposed, that I have pointed to him especially, 
 and must particularly caution the young ladies to be careful 
 how they permit any man to become the father of their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Coming directly to the point, supposing that the conditions 
 for both male and female are all right, I will give definite in- 
 structions as to how offspring should be begotten. 
 
 1. Both the expectant parents should desire offspring and 
 feel that they can afford it pecuniarily. 
 
 2. Both should live perfecUy chaste for at least thirty 
 days, and ninety days would be better, or even a whole year 
 if possible. 
 
 3. Both should be in love, each with the other, and both 
 earnestly desire the procreative act. 
 
 A few details, as to the modus operandi, seem appropriate, 
 in order that there may be no misunderstanding. If it was 
 to be only a crop of wheat, it would be thought worth whfle 
 
34 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 to state all the particulars, and yet if a whole harvest should 
 be lost, that loss would scarcely be felt five years later, 
 whereas a badly begotten child would be a source of misery 
 through life. 
 
 If the woman has previously been a mother, then at least 
 two years should intervene between the last birth and next 
 conception. This time is fixed upon the hypothesis that the 
 woman has been fortunate and successful with her last child, 
 and that her constitution is good. If otherwise, then a much 
 longer time. Much depends upon circumstances, as to the 
 time that should elapse, but two years is the veiy shortest 
 period, even when these circumstances have been the most 
 favorable. 
 
Natures Secrets. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 WHO SHOULD NOT BECOME PARENTS; THE HORRORS OF MASTUR- 
 BATION. 
 
 I have already indicated that the victim of syphilis should 
 not assume the great responsibility of parentage until assured, 
 beyond even the shaddw of a doubt, of perfect soundness. 
 But there are .many other classes of persons who are under 
 equally imperative moral obligations not to become parents. 
 I shall therefore devote a Chapter especially to such, hoping 
 that parents may be admonished thereby to put forth more 
 care in training their children, and that they may not form 
 any of these disgusting habits, so at varience with good 
 breeding, so destructive of morals, and utterly incapacitating 
 them from becoming the parents of robust, intellectual chil- 
 dren. Reader, if you have any pride of family, if you would 
 see your name honored in your third generation, give heed 
 to my counsel. Carefully train the children you now have, 
 and some day your grandchildren may rise up and call you 
 blessed ; neglect your children, permit them to form these 
 vile habits, which will make them objects of loathing to all 
 their acquaintances, and then you may expect your grand- 
 children to be fit candidates for the almshouse, insane asy- 
 lum, reform school, house of correction, prison, penitentiary 
 and gallows. 
 
 I deem it unnecessary to make any additional comments 
 upon the enormity of the crime of parentage by either man 
 or woman whose system still retains even a shadow of the 
 deadly virus of syphilis. It is a crime too horrible for con- 
 
36 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 templation, and too unnatural to be suspected but for the 
 ghastly evidences which we meet at every turn in eveiy rank 
 of life, from the king in his royal purple to the beggar in his 
 rags. It is the awful penalty which the God of Nature has 
 imposed for the violation of his law, and he is no respecter 
 of persons. It is the penalty not only of unfaithfulness to a 
 bosom companion, but it is the terrible penalty of prostitu- 
 tion and licentiousness. God has ordained one man for one 
 woman, and whatsoever is more than this, on the part of 
 either, is sin. And not only has God ordained these horrible 
 diseases as a present punishment, but that the sin shall be 
 visited upon his children to the third and fourth generations. 
 Aye, and so it is even to the fiftieth generation, taking the 
 various names of "scrofula/' "king's evil/' "humor in the 
 blood, etc.," when the system has been once poisoned with 
 the deadly virus. 
 
 On the -subject of masterbation a few "more words seem 
 necessary. In spite of our boasted civilization, our "intelli- 
 gent masses/' our free schools, our gorgeous churches, main- 
 tained at an annual expense of more than fifty millions of 
 dollars, in the United States, our fifty thousand clergymen, 
 with an equal number of doctors and lawyers, to say nothing 
 of eleven millions of Spiritualists, every one of whom claims 
 to be a reformer, in spite of all these things, the loathsome 
 practice of masturbation is steadily upon the increase. Its 
 victims are crowding the asylums for the insane and idiotic. 
 A vast army of them are annually swept into their graves. 
 And still there are millions of cases, of a milder type, swarm- 
 ing every walk of life. We meet them in every rank of 
 society, their pale and pinched faces giving notice of their 
 disgusting practices, just as certainly as a striped pole gives 
 notice of a barber-shop. These of the milder type are doing 
 far more injury to society than the poor wretches first named, 
 for they are denied parentage on the score that monsters can- 
 not propagate their species. 
 
Nature's Secrets. 37 
 
 Were you to look at the statistics of those "who die an- 
 nually, victims of this revolting crime against Nature, you 
 might fancy that they would soon all die off. Yet only a 
 small proportion of these imbeciles die until middle age ; 
 they drag on a miserable existence, marrying and intermarry- 
 ing, reproducing their kind, filling the earth with male and 
 female masturbators, male and female prostitutes, male and 
 female consumptives, and so on to the end of the chapters of 
 vice, crime and disease. Millions of dollars are annually ex- 
 pended in passing laws to punish these loathsome unfor- 
 tunates ; other millions to prosecute and bring them to jus- 
 tice [?]; other millions in the erection and support of alms- 
 houses, prisons and gallowses whereby the public may give 
 expression to its utter abhorrence of these monsters, making 
 them atone by vicarious suffering for the sins of their parents, 
 and not only of the parents, but the sins of the public itself. 
 If only one dollar in a hundred, expended as above enumer- 
 ated, were set aside and appropriated in the employment of 
 teachers, both men and women, to instruct the masses, as I 
 am trying to instruct them in this little work, it would not be 
 many years before it would be found that less than one-half 
 as many of these unfortunates would be born. Then what 
 results might not be expected if one half of these millions, 
 instead of one per cent, should be so expended ? 
 
 But we need never expect any such policy on the part of 
 Government, so long as doctors, lawyers and preachers are a 
 controlling influence in the land, for this would be aiming a 
 death-blow at the three learned professions, which, now ac- 
 tually control the Government. 
 
 In order that I might be able to furnish facts and statistics 
 upon this sickening subject, I have been in the habit of gather- 
 ing them for years, and now, instead of being at a loss to fur- 
 nish them, I am at a loss what to select and what to omit, for I 
 might fill a large volume upon this subject alone. Many 
 years ago, in England, ths land of my nativity, my attention 
 
38 Nature^ Secrets. 
 
 was called to these things, and at first I fotmd it impossible 
 to credit the half that I heard. But on visiting the alms- 
 houses, asylums and so forth, I became amazed at the hor- 
 rors there revealed. I then thought that it might be peculiar 
 onty to my own countrymen, but that in free, proud, happy 
 America, such vices, or at least such disgusting horrors, did 
 not exist. ' I have since travelled over almost the entire 
 Union, become familiar with the habits of nearly all nations 
 and religions, and am obliged to declare that Englishmen 
 are no worse than others. As the last cases are apt to impress 
 us most strongly, I will copy from my diary, under date of 
 
 "February 8th, 1875. Visited the Almshouse for the city 
 and county of San Francisco, Cal. This Institution receives 
 patients and unfortunates from all parts of the State, and may 
 so far be considered a State Institution, notwithstanding the 
 taxpayers of the county are called upon to contribute for its 
 entire support an injustice that should be corrected. Na- 
 ture made the location an Eden of loveliness, and Art has 
 been liberal in aiding Nature. Good order was apparent in 
 all the arrangements, with good ventilation and a model of 
 cleanliness. 
 
 "Saw a lady from Scotland, aged 109 years ; also one from 
 Ireland, aged 90. Visited all the wards and workshops, kitchen 
 and dining rooms, witnessing many cases of suffering from 
 age and infirmities. Next visited the Insane Ward belonging 
 to the Institution, situated some distance from the main build- 
 ing. The quiet and harmless insane are here provided with 
 homes and the best of care instead of being sent to the In- 
 sane Asylum at Stockton. Upon inquiry, I learned that it had 
 been proven in numerous instances, in the cases of German 
 women, that the use of lager beer has been the direct cause 
 of their insanity. This fact is worthy of note, although not 
 related to the principal cause of my visit. 
 
 "Sandwiched between the main building and this one for 
 the insane and idiotic, I passed through a beautiful and artis- 
 tic garden, where I saw ripe strawberries, nestling in delicions 
 harmony by the side of beautiful flowers, whose fragrance 
 perfumed the very air. If it is but one step from the sub- 
 lime to the ridiculous, so, too, I discovered that it was but a 
 
Natures' Secrvts. 39 
 
 single step from the beautiful to the horrible. Within the 
 building I found 33 inmates. The first that attracted my at- 
 tention was the head of an idiot, and one of the most strongly 
 marked that I had ever seen Next, a boy about ten years 
 old, who had recently been exhibited in San Francisco as a 
 monkey. Of course this boy was very badly begotten and 
 badly born, but surely the persons who thus exhibited this 
 wretched abortion of humanity for money ^ must have also been 
 the victims of bad antenatal conditions. 
 
 "The causes assigned for the dethronement of reason in. 
 these 33 unfortunates, were, Masturbation, Indiscretions of 
 Youth, and Sexual excesses. These were the direct causes, 
 but does any one ever think of the remote causes ? of the 
 causes of these causes ? Alas ! but few persons, even among 
 our intelligent physicians, appear to ever have such a thought, 
 or if they do, their lips are sealed against uttering it. Yet 
 there must have been a cause for these excesses and indiscre- 
 tions, and in searching for it we discover that it was evil, or 
 unnatural, antenatal conditions. 
 
 "When we define these "remote" causes we find them to 
 have been passional excesses on the part of the parents dur- 
 ing the periods of utero-gestation and lactation, or during the 
 ante-conception period, for this is a very important period, 
 whereon greatly depends the fate and conditions of the unbe- 
 gotten child. Suppose that for one month prior to conception 
 the mother had been overtasking her vital energies and at 
 the same time indulging in passional emotions to excess. This 
 would have been sufficient cause for her child to be a born 
 masturbator. If the conditions of the father were similar, 
 then expect a semi-idiot to be born." 
 
 Being unable to picture with a pen, in my Diary, these 
 wretched abortions of humanity, I subsequently despatched 
 an artist that he might photograph one of them to preserve as 
 a specimen of moral horror and degradation. Anxious that 
 it might do all the good possible by way of warning, I have 
 procured it to be engraved, together with two other likenesses, 
 taken at earlier periods of his life, and herewith present 
 them for the contemplation of young men and maidens, that 
 they may see as it were their own likeness, should they ever 
 
40 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 yield to this awful vice. Fathers and mothers would you 
 like this as a picture of one of your children? See en- 
 gravings, and mark the awful changes wrought by this damn- 
 ing vice. 
 
 NO. I.-BEFORE YIELDING TO THIS LOATHSOME VICE. 
 
 "Of the 33 wrecks here, there are 19 who have sunk so 
 far below the brute creation that they utterly disregard the 
 calls of nature. Even a hog will not pollute his straw, but 
 these poor creatures appear as unconscious of evacuations as 
 a new-born infant. Only think of it ! Full grown, living, 
 breathing specimens of the genus homo, must have their cloth- 
 ing changed, sometimes, as many as five times in a single 
 day, as I was informed by the courteous and obliging Superin- 
 tendent. They can neither dress nor undress, and have to be 
 fed like little children. The God-portion of their nature has 
 fled, Reason is dethroned, and nothing remains but a germ 
 of the lowest type of animal life, as stupid and senseless as a 
 radiate \ 
 
 "One of these particularly attracted my attention. He 
 was a German by birth, aged 28 years, and had been an in- 
 mate of the institution for a year. When admitted he could 
 work a little, but now, in spite of all care and precaution' he 
 
Nature's Secrets. 41 
 
 was totally incapacitated for any kind of labor. He was 
 bent half double, leaning against the wall, with both hands 
 pressed against his generative organs. So completely had he 
 
 NO. 2. AFTER MASTURBATING FOR THREE YEARS 
 
 perverted his nature, that constant excitement seemed an ab- 
 solute necessity of his most wretched existence. I asked him 
 if he was sick. 
 
 " 'Yes/ he answered. 
 
 "'Where?' I enquired. 
 
 " ' Where my hands are/ 
 
 " ' What caused your sickness ?' 
 
 " ' Lying too long on the wrong side/ 
 
 " This was all the information that I could glean from him, 
 and as may be seen from his replies he possessed only a glim- 
 mering of intellect. 
 
 "There are 70 females in the institution, about ten of whom 
 are the miserable victims of this soul and body-destroying- vice. 
 Women suffer less than men, on account of the catemenial ; 
 yet to look upon their wasted, haggard forms, contrasting them 
 with a plump, rosy-cheeked maiden, such as every true man 
 feels like worshipping, and they seem so loathsoms that we 
 
42 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 wonder how a man can become more degraded or suffer more 
 from this filthy vice. I will close this sickening memoranda 
 by suggesting that our Supervisors remove these poor suffer- 
 ers to the city, and place them on exibition, for the benefit of 
 the young and as a terrible warning to such as might other- 
 wise become the victims of this debasing vice." 
 
 NO. 3. SEVEN YEARS LAND HIM IN A COFFIN. 
 
 With a feeling of relief I turn away from discussing this 
 nauseating subject for the present, although I may return to 
 it again anon, hoping that every person who reads this work 
 may be so impressed with the disgusting and horrible crime 
 of masturbation that if not yet a victim, there will be no dan- 
 ger of becoming one ; and that such a feeling of loathing 
 may arise as to cause one to commit suicide sooner than ever 
 be guilty again. True, I look tipbn suicide as an awful 
 crime, yet what is masturbation but slow self-murder? Nor 
 is the wretch who practices it the only victim of murder, for 
 if he lives, there is danger that he may beget a whole pro- 
 geny of masturbators, who will continue the filthy breed of 
 
Natures Secrets. 43 
 
 emaciated bipeds for generations to come. Therefore it 
 would be a mercy to future generations for such a personifi- 
 cation of all that is loathsome to lie down to die, if he cannot 
 abandon the accursed habit. I hope, too, that parents, guar- 
 dians and teachers may be so aroused by the importance of 
 the subject, that they will double their diligence in looking 
 after the young entrusted to their care, for negligence in 
 these matters is a positive crime. 
 
 THE SYMPTOMS OF A MASTURBATOR. 
 
 It may seem cruel to the victims of this loathsome vice to 
 be so described that even a child might be able to point them 
 out, but for the sake of humanity, and to save others from 
 following in their footsteps, it is absolutely necessary. The 
 policy of both society and the medical profession has been 
 to utterly ignore the subject. There are many middle-aged 
 people, otherwise intelligent, who are incapable of detecting 
 one of these fallen beings. It might be an only son, on 
 whom they depend for comfort and support in their declin- 
 ing years, slowly withering away under this terrible blight, 
 and yet no thought of the dreadful truth would enter their 
 minds, because decency [?] has concealed from them all 
 knowledge of the symptoms. In mercy then to parents, and 
 in mercy to children, I will point out a few of the symptoms 
 of this filthy practice. 
 
 When the habit commences early in life, as it sometimes 
 does, even before the child can speak plainly, the growth is 
 retarded, the mental faculties impaired, the appearance indi- 
 cating premature old age, while the countenance expresses 
 fear and timidity. A very common symptom, especially with 
 young girls, is a disposition for solitude. The poor victims 
 suffer with headaches, are wakeful and restless during the 
 night, nervous, iritable, indolent, forgetful, distate for study, 
 given to melancholy and hypochondria, and suffering with 
 pain in various parts of the body. The appetite is variable, 
 
44 Natures Secrets. 
 
 they lack confidence in their own abilities, are subject to 
 great mental despondency, weakness of the back and repro- 
 ductive organs, a gradual wasting away of the flesh, and if a 
 female, hysteria, Jluor albus, etc. 
 
 Cowardice is a marked, symptom of this disgusting prac- 
 tice. The masturbator makes a poor soldier, for he lacks the 
 physical strength to endure the fatiguing marches, and is 
 powerless to face great danger of any kind. Indeed the poor 
 wretch lacks the courage to look a person full in the face. 
 When the filthy habit has been continued for a series of years, 
 the system will be feverish, with sudden flashes of heat over 
 the face. The eyes have a sheepish, wavering, hesitating 
 look ; the countenance pale and gloomy, with an expression 
 of distrust ; dark spots or semicircles beneath the eyes, es- 
 pecially with females ; pulse irregular, and from the constant 
 waste of nervous matter the hair dry and brash. 
 
 General debility and emaciation ensue, continuing with an 
 accelerating ratio. Then shortness of breath, and severe 
 palpitation of the heart on taking even slight exercise, or ex- 
 periencing a sudden emotion of joy or grief. The head 
 suffers constant pain, especially in the cerebellum. The va- 
 rious organs fail in the performance of their functions, espe- 
 cially the eyes and generative organs of the male, which 
 greatly diminish in size, losing their muscular power, incapa- 
 ble of excitement without resorting to extraordinary means, 
 and in thousands of cases an entire loss of virile power. The 
 skin suffers from eruptions, attended with great spinal irrita- 
 tion. To unrefreshing sleep are added licentious dreams by 
 night and lustful thoughts by day. Then follow cough, dis- 
 pepsia, night-sweats, costiveness and pains in the chest and 
 loins. The poor wretch is slowly wasting away, a curse to 
 himself and a horror to his friends, until death kindly closes 
 the scene. 
 
 Professor John King, M. D., in his "Family Physician," 
 page 380, says : "I have treated no less than 2,500 patients 
 
Nature's Secrets. 45 
 
 whose ailments~ y were brought on by the horrible habit of mas- 
 turbation, and among these about one-third were females." 
 Prof. King further says : " The children of parents, whose 
 nervous systems have been impaired by masturbation are never 
 robust and vigorous. They are subject to convulsions in in- 
 fancy; to epilepsy; to scrofula; their mental qualifications 
 never extraordinary, and they are apt to be diminutive in 
 stature." 
 
 From the annual report of the Insane Asylum at Columbus, 
 Ohio, for the year 1868, it appears that about one third of the 
 causes assigned for the dethronement of reason was mas- 
 turbation. Comment is unnecessary. 
 
 In order to gain information upon this subject, Professor 
 Chancy addressed a letter to the courteous Superintendent of 
 the Insane Asylum at Stockton, Cal., and received the follow- 
 ing in reply : 
 
 STOCKTON, February 25, 1875. 
 PROF. W. H. CHANEY: 
 
 Dear Sir Your letter of the gih inst. is rec'd. 
 
 Upon examination of the commitments of patients sent to 
 the Asylum since 1857, extending through a term of sixteen 
 years, I find that during said period, there have been com- 
 mitted and received 5,459 patients; and of these, mastur- 
 bation is the assigned cause of insanity in 495 cases. There 
 is no cause at all assigned however in about one third of the 
 cases. 
 
 The prevalence, and ruinous effects on body and mind, of 
 this unnatural practice, are so generally conceded, that my 
 opinion in confirmation thereof is only adding another mite 
 in the scale which already contains the entire weight. 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 G. A. SHURTLEFF. 
 
 Consumptives should never become parents. Like syphilis, 
 when the seeds of this insidious disease are once sown in the 
 system, it may be transmitted and linger 'for a dozen genera- 
 tions. Its victims often attain to middle age, and become 
 fathers and mothers without .exhibiting any of the symptoms 
 
46 Natures- Secrets. 
 
 of consumption. The first attack is set down simply to " a 
 bad cold/' And it proves so bad a cold that it cannot be 
 cured. The patient may reproach himself for negligence, or 
 blame the physician with ignorance, but all are of no avail. 
 He has inhorited consumption from either a parent, grand- 
 parent, or some remote ancestor, and must die. His little 
 children, now so rosy and full of life, have inherited from him 
 a germ of the fell destroyer. It may lie dormant in the sys- 
 tem until they have grown to manhood or womanhood, and 
 then, just as they feel that life has fairly commenced, this 
 germ of death will develope. Then comes the slowly wast- 
 ing away, the victim still clinging to life, hoping against hope, 
 even until the-last breath. Would it not be better if such 
 persons had never been born? Yet thousands and tens of 
 thousands are annually ushered into existence, only to suffer 
 and die ! 
 
 If a man is a thief at heart, a liar or a murderer, he knows 
 it, even though he may conceal the knowledge from every one 
 e i s e even though he never yields to any of the dreadful 
 temptations to which he must be subject. Still he may beget 
 a whole family of thieves, liars and murderers. I have often 
 witnessed cases of this kind during my thirty years' practice of 
 medicine. I remember one very sad instance which made a 
 deep impression upon my mind. It was that of a clergyman, 
 apparently one of the most honest and upright of men. His 
 wife was a model woman. Yet, of four sons born to them, 
 the three eldest were convicted of theft and sentenced to im- 
 prisonment. The you'igest was very intellectual, and to all 
 appearance, entirely free from any dishonest taint. He be- 
 came an eminent lawyer and was elected to the State Senate. 
 Everywhere he was honored and beloved, yet two of his three 
 sons were convicted of stealing in spite of his influence as a 
 lawyer and statesman. 
 
 Now for a solution of this seeming mystery. The clergy- 
 man had inherited a disposition to steal, as he confessed to his 
 
Natures Secrets. 49 
 
 prison myself. Therefore I shall quote from others when- 
 ever I can. 
 
 In \hzAtlan1tc Monthly for February, 1868., on page 142, 
 you find the following ; 
 
 "But in our civilized, sedentary life, he who wovld have good 
 health must fight for it. Many people have the insolence to be- 
 come parents who have no right to aspire to the dignity ; children 
 are born who have no right to exist ; and skill preserves many 
 whom nature is eager to destroy /" 
 
 There is something terribly shocking to old fogy ideas of 
 right and justice in the foregoing, and yet if the reader can 
 only divest himself of the prejudices of education, and view 
 the subject purely from a moral and philosophical standpoint, 
 he will have no desire to controvert the doctrine taught. Ac- 
 cepting this as a foundation on which to build, I will next' 
 quote from the critical and philosophical pen of Rev. James 
 C. Jackson, M. D. of Dansville, New York : 
 
 "If so large a proportion of married and marriageable 
 women in the United States foreign-born women not included 
 as forty in a hundred are so constitutionally organized, and 
 functionally developed, as to render them incompetent to give 
 to offspring healthy bodies and proper combinations of men- 
 tal and moral faculties, it follows of necessity, it seems to me, 
 that they are not competent to the task of child-bearing and 
 child-rearing without great injury to themselves. 
 
 " If this be so, the question arises and at once assumes a 
 moral aspect, whether they are at liberty to become mothers 
 at all. Could they give birth to healthy children, though they did 
 it to their own loss of health and life, the moral aspect of the 
 case might be changed ; but to become mothers of children 
 who, in all probability, under present customs and habits of 
 training and rearing children in America, can never have good 
 health, though they may live to adult age while in so doing 
 
 2 
 
50 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 they make themselves sick and essentially shorten their own 
 lives does not seem to present in its behalf, a right minded 
 morality. On the other hand, it wears decidedly the appear- 
 ance of a transaction originating in heedlessness of conse- 
 quences, and productive of very ill and very sad results. 
 Justly, therefore, it may be characterized as immoral, criminal 
 and wicked, for a man and woman to beget and bear children, 
 where the woman is so constitutionally feeble as to forbid the 
 reasonable expectation that during the period of pregnancy, 
 nursing and early rearing, she will be able to give to her off- 
 spring, robust constitutions and vigorous functional activities. 
 If to do so be not immoral, it would seem difficult to make 
 any act in one's life such. It is conceded on all sides, that to 
 train a child wrong is wrong. If so, what is the nature and 
 character of the act which begets and conceives a child so 
 that when born it goes wrong by the force of antenatal im- 
 pulses, goes wrong because all its predispositions and ten- 
 dencies are wrong ? Writers on moral philosophy, agree in 
 saying that whoever makes a fundamental falsehood take the 
 place of fundamental truth, as though it were a truth, com- 
 mits a more grievous wrong upon mankind by far, than 
 though he should make a wrong application of a fundamen- 
 tal truth in his conduct in life. For, in the one case he poi- 
 sons the fountain, and so poisons all who drink, while in the 
 latter he poisons perhaps only himself. 
 
 "If a feeble, sickly, mal-organized woman, only injured 
 herself by acts of conception, the evil would be of compara- 
 tively small account, though bad enough at that, but when to 
 the injury she receives, is added that of giving birth as all of 
 this class of women do to children who are either still-born, 
 or if born alive, died early, or if able to live along into full- 
 ness of years, never see a single day when existence to them 
 is not a burden, the immorality of such conduct is not doubt- 
 ful. To any candid mind, at once it becomes clear and con- 
 clusive. The law of the case .governs the fact of the case, 
 
Nature's Secrets. 51 
 
 and science " determines its character, declaring in precise 
 terms, that women who cannot bear healthy and well-disposed 
 children should not have any, and that those who do bear 
 them commit moral wrong. 
 
 " It is a curious but very significant fact, that the vicious 
 portions of our population have their starting or originating 
 point in families, or in parentage, much more moral than 
 themselves. Especially is this true of native-born Americans. 
 I have visited Jails, Penitentiaries, State Prisons, Houses of 
 Correction, Poorhouses, and Lunatic Asylums, and made 
 minute and general inquiries, and I could not find five per 
 cent, of the whole number of American born inmates, who 
 could date back two generations to knavish, vicious ancestors. 
 The great majority was made up of persons whose parents 
 were conventionally or morally respectable. How then, came 
 they to be adepts in crime or victims to it? I answer, largely, 
 by reason, in the first place, of constitutional proclivities to 
 mental and moral abnormalism, instituted and induced through 
 the ill health of their mothers, producing in these mental and 
 moral perversities which their children inherited as predis- 
 positions ; and, in the second place, by reason of the want of 
 such healthful early training and moral instructions, as every 
 child must have, if, in after life, he is to keep in the right 
 way, and which a sickly, peevish, fretful, fault-finding, half- 
 drugged-to-death mother is quite incompetent to give. 
 
 " One of the laws of human nature is that physical condi- 
 tions, or states of body, find their correspondents in mental 
 and moral conditions, or states of mind and heart. Thus, if 
 one wants a sound mind, he should expect to find it in a 
 sound body more surely than in an unsound one, and a 
 healthy, well balanced state of the affections in a healthy 
 body than in a sickly one. The reason for such expectation 
 is, that body and mind reciprocally influence each other, and 
 that where the ordinary, habitual, or constitutional conditions 
 of body are unhealthy, there must exist in greater or less de- 
 
52 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 gree correspondingly unhealthy conditions of mind. These, 
 as they exist in the mother, may be simply a functional de- 
 rangement, and so be only temporary, or they may be consti- 
 tutional and so ever-present. Whichever it be, if she is un- 
 der their influence at conception, and during foetal life, and 
 during the period of nursing, and during the subsequent 
 period of her child's life in which Nature designs she should 
 be his teacher, guide, inspirer and supporter, he can no more 
 resist her morbid sway than once in the current of Niagara 
 river he could resist going over its ' Falls. ' If then she be in 
 all her structural relations, physical, mental, and spiritual, ab- 
 normally organized say feeble in body, morbid in mind, and 
 extremely vibratory in spiritual impulses, she is by every law 
 that involves moral considerations enjoined not to have chil- 
 dren. Nevertheless, such women keep on having them, and 
 they die, and the mothers weep,* and the fathers mourn, and 
 solemn funerals are had, and pious platitudes are uttered, and 
 God's providence is admited to be mysterious, and resignation 
 to the Divine will is invoked all this while God's will having 
 been that such children should not be bom, their deaths re- 
 sulting not by a mysterious Providence, but strictly in accord- 
 ance with Law. -There are tens of thousands of fathers and 
 mothers in the Republic who every year are called to mourn 
 over the deaths of little ones whom they dearly love, who 
 otght to repent in sackcloth and ashes for the sin of having 
 given them birth only to have them die. In God's plan 
 of Human existence, Heaven is not the natural home of In- 
 fants, but earth is. Children bom to the earth, ought of right 
 to themselves, and to Society, and to mankind at large, to have 
 Life Force enough conditions of living being favorable to 
 remain here, grow up, mature and die only of old age, when, 
 if they lived for Humanity and loved God, they will be pre- 
 pared for Heaven. It is a sin huge enough, for parents to 
 have children who are sufficiently hardy in constitution to live 
 under fair auspices but who have to die because their parents and 
 
Natures Secrets. 53 
 
 the Doctors whom they employ do not know enough to keep them 
 alive; but it is in my view, a much more enormous sin to give 
 to children so feeble vitality that they cannot live. This is in 
 its inception and in its conclusion so heartless a transaction, 
 as to demand the severest censure. Did it not generally or- 
 iginate in desires quite selfish and in gratifications mainly 
 lustrul, one might pity the ignorance that produces such dire 
 results ; but as it is, when children are begotten under prompt- 
 ings of mere animal passion, and born so feeble that they 
 must die, or if they live, suffer death twice told, one does no} 
 feel much like pitying, but more like rejoicing that God is 
 true to the great law of the ' Fitness of Things.' 
 
 ****** **** 
 " Of late, public attention has been called, by certain Physi- 
 cians, Editors and Clergymen, to the crime of abortion. They 
 claim that the practice of procuring loss of Embryo is quite 
 common amongst American-born women who are married. 
 This practice they characterize as highly immoral, and they 
 appeal to the moral sense of such women as indulge in it 
 henceforth to cease <from it. With them, I recognize the 
 looseness of morals which allows the prospective mother to 
 commit the act of fceticide. With them, also, I feel the need 
 of putting a stop to it. But I confess my astonishment that 
 meh eminent in their knowledge of philosophy, of morals 
 and of casuistry should have concluded that all that is needful 
 to cure an evil already so wide-spread and rapidly on the in- 
 crease, is to call public attention to it, and make fervid ap- 
 peals to those committing it to abstain from it. 
 
 " Is nothing else demanded ? Let us see. A pretty, deli- 
 cate, good-looking woman is married to a hale, hearty, robust 
 man. He finds her to possess eminently those qualities 
 which he desires in a wife. She has defects, however. She 
 has little constitutional stamina and very feeble functional 
 force. She, therefore, cannot become a mother without, 
 first- impairing her health; or, second, perhaps, without 
 
54 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 killing her; or, third, if she lives, without giving birth to a 
 very feeble, sickly, pining baby; and, fourth, without be- 
 ing totally unable to fulfil toward her child the duties and 
 responsibilities of a mother. Now these relations of hers to 
 child-bearing all could have been ascertained before marriage. 
 Notwithstanding these fundamental defects in her physical 
 organization, her husband oourted and married her. If he 
 did not know these peculiarities of hers before, who but him- 
 self is to blame ? Would a farmer buy a horse for breeding, 
 without satisfying himself that she could answer his ends ? Or, 
 if desiring any particular end to be secured, would he take 
 his risks blindly? Why should a man play the fooh 'sh in the 
 most important act of his life, and take to himself a woman 
 whom he wants to fulfil the double duty of wife and mother, 
 when she cannot'take on herself the latter relation without 
 jeopardy to her life ? In the case supposed, however, he has 
 done it, and the question arises whether, in the exercise of 
 his love or his authority, he may impose gestation upon her, 
 thus putting her life in peril without himself incurring 
 blame? For a man living in any neighborhood in our 
 country to be known as habitually exposing his wife to con- 
 ditions that should place her life in imminent hazard, would 
 be to strip him of all respect, if it did not subject him to 
 punishment. Yet there are such men as I have 'supposed; 
 there are thousands and tens of thousands of them yes, as 
 many as there are women who produce abortions on them- 
 selves who do this very meanness this great wickedness of 
 exposing their wives to death, by making them take on 
 maternal conditions. And the gentlemen who have written 
 on the subject of the criminality of abortion, have not thought 
 it worth while to make any allusion to this horrible crime of 
 enforced pregnancy. In the case supposed this frail, feeble 
 woman, finding herself prolific, and fearing the result of going 
 to full birth, ponders it long and anxiously. Some friend 
 tells her that she can be freed from all her troubles without 
 
Nature s Secrets. 55 
 
 risk if miscarriage is .procured in the earlier months of ges- 
 tation, and so it is done. Poor creature; with death staring 
 her in the face if she does not produce it, her conscience- 
 keepers tell her she must submit and take her chances of liv- 
 ing through child-labor. They may tell her so and tell her 
 the truth but as long as ' ^//"-preservation is the first law of 
 nature/ she will most likely heed her instincts, rather than 
 any conscientious scruples they may awaken. 
 
 " If this evil is ever to be cured, writers other than those 
 who can only see one side of it must engage in its discussion 
 and cure. Men must be made intelligent and moral as well 
 as worn err. If the latter are to be taught that abortion can 
 not be super-induced without the commission of a crime, the 
 former must be made to feel that heedless and selfish cohab- 
 itation, resulting in propagation of young, is in itself and all 
 its succcedants and consequences a great immorality. If men 
 will love their wives as their own bodies, when these are 
 sickly, or feeble in health, or lacking in constitutional stamina, 
 or unwilling to bear children, they will live continently with 
 them; in which case their wives will have no motives to com- 
 mit abortion. For it follows quite of necessity that if a 
 woman is not made pregnant, she cannot miscarry her young. 
 If they will not do this, but will use their wives, as many men 
 now-a-days do, for purposes of lust, then however much may 
 be written or said on the subject, miscarriages, whether aris- 
 ing in the main from sexual debility, or from the use of 
 mechanical or vitally reactionary causes, will continue to in- 
 crease in the ratio of the illness or the morbid sensibilities of 
 the parties involved. 
 
 " It may be thought that for husbands who have wives that 
 are so feeble as to be unable to bear children without great 
 peril to their lives, to forego all conjugal enjoyment except 
 such as is consistent with the entire freedom of their wives 
 from maternity, must in its very nature be quite difficult. 
 Possibly it may be to those of them who prefer their own 
 
56 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 pleasure to the health and lives of their wives, but to such of 
 them as love and honor their companions, it is not at all 
 difficult, nor need it involve great self-denial. If, however, 
 it were a matter involving large resolution and great self- 
 abnegation, it would none the less be their duty, for the 
 Christian law for the husband is that he love his wife as him- 
 self. 
 
 " If moralists and casuists would meet these evils, let them 
 induce the husbands of feeble wives, or wives unwilling to 
 have children, to respect their preferences, and the cure for 
 abortion will be immediate and effectual." 
 
 These, and numerous other considerations, induced Dr. 
 Jackson to seek for a remedy of such a character that no 
 injury could possibly result. The remedy having been dis- 
 covered, the doctor thus discourses concerning it : 
 
 " The subject of parentage, its peculiarities, necessities and 
 varied conditions and responsibilities, has been criminally neg- 
 lected. More than half of the people of the United States 
 entering into matrimonial relations, are not prepared to do so, 
 ignorantly or wilfully violate the laws of reproduction, and the 
 culpable consequences of their conduct to mother and off- 
 spring are frequently attributed by worthy people even, to 
 ' the mysterious dispensations of Providence.' With this 
 day of increasing knowledge, our duties and obligations must 
 keep pace. The conditions of parentage, its present and 
 prospective effects upon the health of both mother and off- 
 spring, should be well considered. The reasons of its impro- 
 priety, if any exist, the circumstances which amount to a 
 moral prohibition, should be as well considered and under- 
 stood, and also as universally acted upon as that of marriage 
 itself. To us, as reasoning, intelligent beings, moral and re- 
 sponsible for the results, are committed these interests. 
 Science sheds the refulgent light of physiology on these sub- 
 jects, and the best of writers are discussing them. The time 
 
Nature 's Secrets. 57 
 
 of ignorance was once winked at, but no v ", all who remain so 
 are culpable and without adequate excuse. 
 
 " It is more than twenty years since we actively engaged in 
 the arduous and responsible duties devolving upon the prac- 
 tice of medicine, and how repeated have been the many, many 
 solicitations to ascertain if our skill could not furnish for the 
 family, a safe, certain and healthful cure for the various kinds 
 of female weakness, everywhere prevalent, and annually upon 
 the increase. Such a remedy would undoubtedly act as a 
 prophylactic, avoiding the incomparable evils of miscarriage 
 as well as the issues of ill health, debility and death which 
 are imposed on the enfeebled mother. The Wafer now 
 offered is especially designed for those who make excellent 
 wives, but are disqualified from becoming good mothers. It 
 is likewise designed as a REMEDY in UTERINE WEAKNESSES; 
 also for LEUCORRHCEA, IT is WITHOUT A RIVAL. In EXCESSIVE 
 
 MENSTRUATION it is a REMEDIAL AGENT OF THE FIRST CLASS. In 
 
 fact, I may mention prolapsus uteri, antroversion, retrpversion* 
 ulceration of the uterus, continuous menstruation, and vica- 
 rious mestruation, by which is meant where the catamenia 
 makes its appearance at the nipple, umbilical, etc. After 
 much reflection and experience, we candidly think that THE 
 WAFER, used for legitimate purposes only, is perfectly health- 
 ful. In a word, it is designed and well calculated to prevent 
 unnecessary pain, sickness, and untold woe, conferring ines- 
 timable and innumerable moral and felicitous advantages 
 upon the married state. 
 
 " Finally, we have been most urgently solicited to prepare 
 these WAFERS, so that the benefit might be enjoyed by those 
 not within our own immediate practice. It occurred to us, 
 at first, that a proper article might be used for improper pur- 
 poses; but on more mature consideration, we see that such an 
 objection might lie equally well against any worthy article, 
 cause, or object, capable of mis-direction. Responsibility, 
 therefore, rests in moral and intelligent action, and the duty 
 belongs to each individual/' 
 
58 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 A medical writer who had read what Dr. Jatfkson says upon 
 the subject, and who evidently understood the matter in all 
 its bearings, says: 
 
 " Man is not content without lawful venery. Forbearance 
 and moderate indulgence, which should ever be the rule, is 
 attended wtih the very contingencies which we wish to avoid. 
 Often impregnation is a fortuitous event, coming not only 
 without our design, and when we least expect it, but when we 
 have carefully anticipated its possibility and been as cau- 
 tiously guarded against its occurrence. While chastity and 
 continence may moderate some of the evils, yet it does not 
 absolve from the responsibilities and liabilities which it is 
 necessary to avoid. In these instances which we are now spe- 
 cially considering, where prudential and moral considerations 
 plainly indicate the wickedness of exposing the wife to the 
 dangers of maternity, the peril nevertheless is imminent. The 
 tonjugal instincts and nuptial impulses are as warm and as 
 alluring, and the conceptive aptitude as certain as with those 
 who are prepared to become mothers. And yet the evils 
 which we wish to avoid, despite of the advice of experienced 
 physicians and the prudence which the circumstances of the 
 case enjoin, are forced upon us. The demand upon science 
 and art is to furnish the best qf remedies for these purposes. 
 
 " Finally, the WAFER is eminently proper for the use of the 
 married, who are healthy and capable of child-bearing. The 
 general experience of the medical profession will unite in 
 testifying to the fact that our country women bear children 
 too frequently. Before recovering from the constitutional 
 effects of bearing, nursing and rearing the child before re- 
 covering proper vigor and tone of body and of mind, she is 
 again overtaken, as it were, surprised by the indications pro- 
 mising prolificacy. This frequent fruilfulness debilitates the 
 system, is a constant and relentless tax upon the nutritive 
 powers, and the sustenance which should be developed for 
 
Nature's Secrete. 59 
 
 physical culture, for renewing the tissues and begetting hardi- 
 hood and health in her system, goes to build up the feeble, 
 puny embryo. We cannot expect healthy, hardy, long-lived 
 children under such circumstances. We sagely wonder why 
 it is that our race degenerates. Infantile mortality frightens 
 us, and yet one of the most palpable causes of it is too fre- 
 quent parentage. We do' not properly consider or provide 
 against it. No female should undertake the high mission of 
 maternity without the qualifications which are essential to 
 confer upon the offspring its physiological, infantile rights. 
 A careful physical preparation upon the part of the mother is 
 therefore necessary, and a wise foresight will amply prepare 
 for the contingency, so that she may bequeath in full her own 
 rugged vital stamina to the full measure of her ability. Just 
 how long she should be exempt after child-bearing we cannot 
 say, but a sufficient time to regain full elasticity and vigor of 
 body and mind. In some instances, three or four years ; in 
 others, seven to ten are necessary in order to insure the best 
 possible conditions for maternity. The necessities of the case 
 must be the law of the case ; and if we rashly or unthinkingly 
 violate the requirements of nature, we dearly count the cost 
 of our instruction in the remedial operation of the penalties. 
 
 " Especially should every mother, by the love which she 
 cherishes for her little ones, by her wishes for their prosperity, 
 by her hopes of their success in life, by all her desires for 
 their future usefulness and goodness, by every consideration 
 provide for their prospective well-being, and by so doing, she 
 lays a happy foundation for her own. 
 
 "In reflecting upon the various methods and remedies 
 which have been hitherto proposed and the means used, their 
 attending circumstances and uncertainty of them, forcibly 
 reminded me of the adage of the distinguished COLUMELLA : 
 " Nothing is perfected nothing completed, by the labor of one" 
 
 In turning our attention to therapeutics for a successful rem- 
 
60 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 edy, and evei. after its grand and important discovery, when 
 by art I succeeded in bringing it to its present availability and 
 perfection, I felt conscious that prejudice and skepticism, and 
 a low-minded incredulity, might object to its use. Ignorance 
 always assumes that she is the only safe repository of virtue. 
 That knowledge is unsafe and dangerous, and leads to im- 
 proper consequences. The remedy being new and original, 
 and having not yet the sanction of custom and the approval 
 of general usage, I anticipated that some might try to object 
 to its favorable introduction because persons might misapply 
 or misdirect its use. So upon every subject there are heard 
 two voices. Let one illustration suffice. When Guttenburg, 
 the first printer, was working in his cell in the Monastery of 
 St. Aborsgot, he tells us that he heard two voices address 
 him. The one bade him desist ; told him of the power his 
 invention would put in the hands of bad men to propagate their 
 wickedness ; told him how men would profane the art he had 
 created, and how posterity would have cause to curse the man 
 who gave it to the world. So impressed was Guttenburg with 
 what he heard, that he took a hammer and broke to pieces 
 the types he had laboriously put together. His work of de- 
 struction was only stayed by another voice, sweet and musical, 
 that fell upon his ear, telling him to go on and to rejoice in 
 his work ; that all good might be made the cause of evil ; that 
 God would bless the right in the end. So to all of us still 
 come those voices that came to Guttenburg, questioning our 
 intents as well as the results of our labors, and like him may 
 we have the courage and genius to be humane, and absolve 
 Ourselves from every ban of convention which impedes pro- 
 gress or is a hindrance to the well-being of mankind. 
 
 "It is a first inquiry if the ' WAFER FOR FEMALE WEAK- 
 NESS ' contains any deleterious or poisonous substance or 
 any property injurious to health. Anything, in fact, which 
 can in any way operate to the prejudice of the uterine organs, 
 or in the slightest detract from their functional powers. We 
 
Nature's Secrets. 61 
 
 make our answers complete at once by alfhtning that they 
 contain nothing injurious to the health of women or in the 
 slightest degree opposed to the function? i integrity of the fe- 
 male constitution, either in its present . or ultimate effects. 
 The directions which accompany each box, enumerate their 
 medicinal properties and qualifying remedial effects, which 
 determine their character, entitling them to our high considera- 
 tion for female weakness. Their employment, so far from be- 
 ing in any sense detrimental, is of high moment, especially in 
 the alleviation and cure of Leucorrhceal discharges, checking 
 passive Hemorrhage, excessive Catamenia and Menorrhagic 
 tendencies. They have proved to be excellent remedies in 
 ulcerations of the neck and mouth of the Uterus, and all the 
 female ailments which have been enumerated. 
 
 "When the directions, as given in each box, are faithfully 
 followed, we have the utmost confidence in this WAFER as a 
 certain and safe remedy. The wonderful predisposition and 
 exceedingly great aptitude of all women to female weakness 
 is the reason why the WAFER should be properly employed, 
 and with that care and conscious prudence which every 
 female should exercise, they will prove effective for the 
 purposes for which they are designed. As it is not possible 
 nor proper to make public references of their successful em- 
 ployment, we would simply ask those who have become ac- 
 quainted with the virtues of the WAFER to speak to their 
 friends who need them, and thus introduce them to favorable 
 notice. From the foregoing pages, the reader will also per- 
 ceive that I have treated the subject with care and with the 
 gravity it demands. I have done so, also, in order that each 
 may be able to form some opinion as to the merits of the 
 remedy proposed, and be able to distinguish it from any arti- 
 cle put forward without the sanctions of skill or experience. 
 Those who wish to communicate with me personally and 
 confidentially by letter on this subject, or concerning female 
 diseases or weaknesses, and their proper management, will, 
 bear in mind my address." 
 
62 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 So much for what others have said upon this subject, and 
 in conclusion I will only add that I have a thorough knowl- 
 edge of the " WAFER" spoken of, know all the ingredients of 
 which it is compounded, and have the right to make and pre- 
 scribe the same. I have used this WAFER in my private 
 practice during the past ten years, with only two cases arising 
 which may be called failures, or even an approach to failure. 
 The peculiar diseases to which women are subject, are aggra- 
 vated, after marriage, by excessive venery, and therefore no 
 young couple should presume to enter into this holy alliance 
 without first providing this remedy, that it may always be at 
 hand if needed. Mothers are sure to transmit to the offspring 
 the diseases with which they are afflicted during pregnancy, 
 and this will explain why our American women are so gener- 
 ally the victims of female weakness they have inherited 
 from their mothers and will transmit it to their children if 
 nothing is done. I can give numerous references to ladies of 
 the highest standing in society, showing that these WAFERS 
 are a perfect panecea for all the ailments and weaknesses to 
 which woman is subject by reason of her sex. 
 
 In addition to this WAFER, I have a most wonderful remedy 
 for barrenness, which I have named "The Elixir of Life. 
 It is not only a perfect specific for sterility, on the part of the 
 female, in cases where there is no malformation, but in the 
 case of males who have lost their powers of virility, the 
 ELIXIR works like magic. I have employed this remedy very 
 successfully for many years, and now there are scores of 
 couples blessed with children who would have else gone 
 childless to their graves. But as in the case of the WAFER, 
 so of the ELIXIR. I do not like to prescribe either without a 
 personal interview, for there are so many things to be con- 
 sidered that -I have not time to write the necessary questions. 
 Full particulars should be stated by letter, wiiere a personal 
 interview cannot be had. 
 
Natures Secrets* 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TEMPORARY SEPARATION; PREPARATIONS; CONCEPTION. 
 
 At least one month before conception is to be attempted 
 there should be a separation between the man and woman, 
 during which they should not meet One should leave home, 
 and it is preferable that it should be the woman. Let her 
 go on a visit to her mother, or some very kind friend, where 
 she is sure not only of being welcome, but that her company 
 is actually desired. A mountainous region, or thick forest 
 groves, made healthy by pellu'cid streams of flowing water, 
 or the sea shore in a rural district during the pleasant season, 
 should be selected as the retreat, in preference to a city, vil- 
 lage, or the open plain. The object is to bring her into the 
 closest possible rapport with Nature, not only inhaling a pure 
 atmosphere, but taking in the magnetism of Nature in all its 
 purity and freshness. If asked the why, my answer is that as 
 the human is a progression from mother earth, and really her 
 offspring, that when we would train the human into the 
 highest conditions, we must resort to first principles, in their 
 strongest and healthiest conditions, coming down to the very 
 dust from which we sprang, rather than stuffing with pound- 
 cake and champagne. 
 
 During this antenatal probation the woman should subsist 
 entirely upon the most nutritious diet, using the greatest care 
 never to gorge the stomach, or to partake of food not easy of 
 digestion. What this food should be, she will be able to 
 determine herself better than any physician can for her, be- 
 cause no two persons are alike, and what is wholesome nutri- 
 
64 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 ment for one may be poison for another. This I can say, 
 however, the food should be as near as possible the natural 
 product, avoiding what are called "appetizers," "artificial 
 condimente, etc." The person to whom mustard, pickles, 
 etc., have become a necessity, is like the boy in a cold windy 
 day who continues thrusting his hands into warm water, 
 declaring that they would freeze if he did not. And so 
 indeed they would, if he had continued this foolish operation 
 for a length of time, since every time he puts them into the 
 water renders them more tender and sensitive to the cold. 
 So, too, persons may so accustom themselves to living on 
 poisons poisons that are slowly destroying life that the sys- 
 tem as well as the appetite seems to demand them. 
 
 The meals should be regular, the food well masticated, be 
 eaten slowly, amid cheerful conversation, the mind free from 
 care and anxiety. Better to miss a meal entirely, than to eat 
 it half masticated, or when the mind is distracted by anxiety, 
 hatred, or any of the discordant emotions. 
 
 Constant exercise in the open air is of the utmost impor- 
 tance. It would be better if this exercise partook of the 
 nature of labor, rather than to walk about mechanically and 
 listlessly. Working in a garden, amid the flowers and sun- 
 shine is excellent. But she should have no fear of being 
 "sunburnt." Indeed she should court the sun's rays full in 
 her face, instead of striving to avoid them by seeking the 
 shade or hiding behind a huge sun-bonnet. She should also 
 dig in the soil with her hands, exposing her naked feet to the 
 fresh earth, when this can be done with safety from being chilled. 
 The next best kind of exercise is going a hunting or fishing, 
 provided she can enter upon either with enthusiasm. To do 
 so mechanically, with no heart for the sport, would be no 
 better than taking a walk without any object in view save to 
 have exercise. 
 
 The exercise recommended will of course necessitate 
 frequent ablutions and a daily bath. The exercise will tend 
 
Nature's Secrets. 65 
 
 to open the pores in order to throw off the excrementitious 
 elements which, if retained in the system through want of 
 exercise, or any other cause, will generate disease and death. 
 Digging, bare-headed, bare-armed, bare-legged and bare- 
 footed, when the sun is shining in the fervency of its heat, 
 will greatly assist both the sensible and insensible perspira- 
 tion. This is the first half of the work of purification, and 
 unless the last half, thorough bathing, is attended to properly, 
 the first half may prove a positive injury, from the clogging 
 of the pores on the surface, resulting in severe colds, fevers 
 and inflammations of various kinds. But bathe properly, with 
 the water neither too cold nor. too warm, rubbing thoroughly 
 and putting on flannels, or getting between a pair of blankets, 
 will complete the good work begun for the system by delving 
 in the ground. 
 
 During this time the mind should not only be kept free 
 from excitements of various kinds, but should be dwelling 
 with pleasure upon the memory of the man who is to be the 
 father of her child. He should write to her frequently, 
 always in a kind and affectionate way, never communicating 
 news of a kind likely to disturb the mental equilibrium. 
 Moreover, the mind should be occupied in reading such 
 authors as will tend to instruct, interest and elevate. In her 
 private room should be pictures such as the eye of a pure 
 woman can rest upon with pleasure, with nothing to disturb 
 the nervous system or offend the taste. 
 
 Many suppose that these conditions are not necessary until 
 after conception, but this is a grave error. It has been ob- 
 served in a few cases (and has doubtless occurred in thousands 
 where it has not been noticed), that the child has taken on 
 certain conditions peculiar to the mother before conception, 
 but which also ceased before impregnation. Thus a poor girl 
 in Boston, famishing and freezing for weeks, at last yielded 
 to the solicitations of a man and became his mistress. He 
 placed her in a comfortable home, and bountifully supplied 
 
66 Natuve s Secrets. 
 
 all her wants. In less than a month after she proved to be 
 mciente. When the child was born it manifested symptoms 
 of being cold. It would shiver and draw its knees up almost 
 to the chin, just as its poor mother had done in the wretched 
 cellar where she had passed so many cheerless nights. It 
 also appeared half famished for food. And these peculiar- 
 ities grew with its growth, and strengthened with its years. 
 What a pity that some nurse could not whip the child for its 
 greediness, and shake it for shivering ! 
 
 Another case was that of a young woman who was engaged 
 to be married to the captain of a ship which was away on a 
 foreign voyage. One day the news came that the ship was 
 lost, and that all hands had perished. This threw her into a 
 profound melancholy, and for weeks she was upon the verge of 
 insanity. Then the captain suddenly returned. He had been 
 picked up by a ship bound for South America, and had not 
 been able to send a communication home. They were mar- 
 ried without delay, and conception followed soon after. When 
 the child was born it acted somewhat strangely, but not much 
 was thought of it until old enough to run round the room and 
 play. It was then observed that the little thing was constantly 
 seeking solitude, acting as the mother had when she believed 
 that her betrothed was no more. 
 
 In both these cases there can be no doubt but that the evil 
 conditions had ceased before conception occurred. But for 
 weeks before the brightening of conditions came, every part 
 of the system was permeated with the terrible agony, and as 
 conception resulted before it had time to recover normal con- 
 ditions, it was the most natural effect imaginable that the 
 child should partake of those conditions. 
 
 To sum up the whole matter in a few words, the woman 
 should be put in a course of training calculated to develop, 
 in the highest degree, all those traits and peculiarities desired 
 in the child. If she would have him a mathematician, then 
 she must daily employ her mind solving mathematical prob- 
 
Natures Secrets. 67 
 
 lems; enthusiastically if possible, so that her whole system 
 will become permeated with the mathematical neurena. All 
 the functions will thrill sympathetically with mathematics, the 
 nervous vibrations continuing for days after the cause ha: 
 ceased to operate. Under such circumstances the child woulc 
 be begotten a mathematician, an influence far more poten 
 than the method advised by all other physicians who have 
 written upon this subject, namely, to breed a mathematician. 
 In like manner the mother may prepare for a poet, an orator, 
 and so forth. 
 
 These hints are with reference to preparing the soil for the 
 seed, whereas it is generally taught, in a brief way, that the 
 seed must be planted, and that the qualities of the yield will 
 depend entirely upon the care afterwards bestowed; or, to be 
 plain, the superiority of the child will chiefly depend upon 
 the care bestowed upon the, mother during gestation. But 
 we have seen in the two cases cited that although the mothers 
 were properly cared for during gestation, still that care was 
 insufficient to overcome ante-conception conditions. Then, 
 if the ante-conception conditions are so powerful for evil, we 
 may depend upon it they will prove equally powerful for 
 good. And all this is very logical for this reason: Man has 
 come up from the dust, through the plant, still inheriting 
 many of the plant conditions. Now we know that far more 
 depends upon how the soil has been prepared for the seed, 
 than upon the care bestowed afterwards. 
 
 What I have said regarding the life and habits of the wo- 
 man, applies with equal force to the man. He should live a 
 life of chastity and purity, never allowing his mind to dwell 
 upon the charms of any woman save the one who is to be- 
 come the mother of his child. It should be agreed before- 
 hand as to the kind of child desired, so that both can work in 
 harmony. Suppose it to be a mathematician. Then he 
 should daily exercise his mind in mathematics until his whole 
 system partakes of the spirit. The secretions even will be 
 
68 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 affected in consequence, permeating the very germ of life, so 
 that he would beget a child that would become a better mathe- 
 matician than himself, even though there should be no pre- 
 paration of this kind on the part of the woman. But with 
 both preparing for this single object, even though neither 
 should be above mediocrity in mathematical ability, they 
 might produce a child to excel even Zerah Colburn, for his 
 mathematical powers were evidently the result of accident, 
 that is, without design the result of the mind of one or both 
 of the parents having been much excited with numbers, and 
 thus it was transmitted to Zerah. 
 
 Any person of ordinary intelligence will be able to prepare 
 for begetting a poet, an orator, or whatever type of child 
 desired, from the general instructions here given. The 
 physical training will not be varied much, and a,s a further hint 
 upon this point I will refer to tha^ training of a pugilist be- 
 fore a prize fight. Everything that he does is with a view of 
 developing his physical into the most perfect conditions ; and 
 this is what both the man and woman should do who medi- 
 tate the holy act which has for its object the begetting of off- 
 spring. 
 
 Here I ask the reader to pause for a moment's reflection. 
 The best and highest authority and example to which I could 
 refer was a prize fighter ! It is a disgrace to the intelligence 
 of the age and proves beyond question that the standing of 
 the Medical profession is even lower down than the barbar- 
 ous custom of pugilism. If the science of life held the rank 
 it should, then prize. fighters would learn from the faculty how 
 to put themselves into the best physical conditions; but in this 
 one particular, as matters now stand, the "practised trainer" 
 is in advance of the whole Medical profession. Should any 
 physician dispute this and assert that it was educated physi- 
 cians who first taught the "professional trainer," then I reply, 
 so much more disgraceful for the doctors, since they have 
 taught mankind how they -.may most successfully beat, bruise 
 
Natures Secrets. 69 
 
 and maim each other, but have not thought it worth while to 
 instruct them how to most successfully beget offspring. Does 
 not this condition of socjety prove the necessity of this work ? 
 But 'why has the medical faculty been so condescending in one 
 direction and reserved in another? The answer involves a se- 
 cret which I will expose. 
 
 Doctors, lawyers and preachers are all manufactured in the 
 same shop, namely, the college. They constitute the three 
 "learned professions," and take highest rank in society. Be- 
 ing class-mates and college chums naturally endears them to 
 each other, and they soon learn to work for each other's inter- 
 ests. Their sons and daughters intermarry, and it is desirable 
 to preserve and perpetuate, not only the wealth and respecta- 
 bility connected with these three professions, but to provide 
 for an increase of business for their children and children's 
 children, rather than to devise a plan which would leave them 
 without professional employment, and perhaps make it neces- 
 sary for their sons to become mechanics and laborers. But 
 suppose every physician in the United States should try, as I 
 am doing, to teach how children should be born. In the 
 next generation disease would decrease more than one thou- 
 sand per cent. Doctors are all aware of this, and since the 
 respectability and perpetuity of the profession depends upon 
 a bountiful supply of disease, they are not going to do any- 
 thing so idiotic as to teach people how their children may be 
 born sano meno in sano corpore, or with sound minds and 
 with sound bodies. 
 
 Moreover, children born as I am teaching, and in the next 
 generation there would be such a decrease of crime and pau- 
 perism that many a lawyer would go hungry unless he went 
 to work for a living, .Besides, children born under such per- 
 fect and harmonious relations would mature into harmonious 
 men and women ; they would be ashamed to go to law with 
 2ach other, and the result would be that civil as well as crim- 
 mal courts woukl have but little to do, all of which would be 
 
 [UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 \ r / 
 
70 Nalurds Secrets. 
 
 very bad for the lawyers, who are the dear friends of the doc- 
 tors. 
 
 Still rnore : children so well bom the first time, would not 
 need to be "born again." They would not be in danger of 
 a never-ending hell ; would not need to be " washed in the 
 blood of the Lamb," and consequently there would be but 
 little for the preachers to do by way of patching up and re- 
 pairing humanity, getting it in presentable shape for passing 
 muster with St. Peter, at the golden gate of the New Jerusa- 
 lem. At present "the harvest is great but the laborers are 
 few," when we consider the hundreds of thousands of mon- 
 strosities born annually in the United States, and notwith- 
 standing we have some fifty thousand clergymen, still our 
 prisons are crowded with criminals because the clergy have 
 not time to regenerate them all. Were the physicians to do 
 their duty, as I am trying to do mine, this vast army of cler- 
 gymen would soon be decimated like our army of soldiers at 
 the close of the war. 
 
 I am aware that the exposure of these secrets will call down 
 upon my head the bitterest denunciations from the three 
 learned professions and their friends. They will not only at- 
 tempt to ruin me professionally, but personally, charging me 
 with every crime in the calender. The three combined con- 
 stitute the greatest moral [immoral ?] power in the land, and 
 usually, whoever dares to utter a syllable against their estab- 
 lished practices must expect to have his name made infamous. 
 But my hope is in the people and in their support. This book 
 may cost me my reputation, or even worse, but I shall have 
 the satisfaction of knowing that I have aimed a deadly blow 
 at what are styled the " learned professions," but what are really 
 only the relics of barbarism. 
 
 Should a clergyman object to the severity of my language, 
 this is my answer : More than fifty thousand of you in this 
 country are preaching " regeneration," while not even one 
 preaches generation. You are gentlemen of intelligence and 
 
Nature's 'Secrets. 71 
 
 education ; you know that the race might be improved many 
 hundred per cent, if parents were taught the laws to be ob- 
 served in the propagation of offspring, /et you are silent as 
 the grave upon the subject. For hundreds of years the clergy 
 have been preaching " Christ and him crucified " in order to 
 reform the world, yet crime and immorality have been stead- 
 ily upont he increase. Then why not try another remedy if 
 you are really in earnest in your pretences- about elevating the 
 race. The remedy which you are trying is like purifying the 
 stream instead of the fountain. You cannot gainsay these 
 facts. You know they are true. Therefore the only reply I 
 expect you to make is to denounce me individually. 
 
 As for the lawyers, I make no pretensions to a knowledge 
 of their profession, but a friend of mine, Prof. W. H. Chaney, 
 who has had a dozen years' practice in the courts of different 
 states of the Union, assures me that I am right in my deduc- 
 tions, so far as lawyers and preachers are concerned, and that, 
 he is ready to meet any one, with either tongue or pen, who 
 takes issue with me. This leaves me only the doctors to 
 fight, and backed up by the intelligence and common sense of 
 the masses, I do not fear for the result. 
 
 This may seem like a digression from the subject, but is 
 only so in a technical sense. I must not only teach the way to 
 beget offspring, but I must try and arouse the people from the 
 fossilized apathy in which they have been plunged for cen- 
 turies, and this arousing element I must sandwich between the 
 scientific facts. But to resume: 
 
 During the absence of the wife, the husband should make 
 such changes and improvements about the house and grounds 
 as within his power, first being sure that the same will be 
 pleasing to his wife. A stump or rock in the way, that annoys 
 her, should be removed. Flowers should be planted and 
 trained artistically. Injuries to doors and windows should be 
 repaired. Carpets taken up and beaten, or a good time to 
 put down a new carpet, or re-paper a room. There are a 
 
72 Nature' s Secrets. 
 
 thousand things which a kind and thoughtful man might do, 
 all intended as pleasant surprises for the woman that he ought 
 to love more than all things beside on this planet. Daily, 
 every day of her absence, he should try to think of some- 
 thing that will add to her pleasure. 
 
 The reader may here interpose the objection that most per- 
 sons are too poor to carry out these directions. Then I re- 
 ply that they have no right to become parents. I speak of 
 moral right, and cannot employ language too strong when I 
 affirm that persons in straightened circumstances have no 
 right to bring Children into the world to suffer for the com- 
 forts of life, which often provokes to the commission of the 
 first crime. All agree that prevention is worth more than 
 cure. Then is it not better to prevent crime than to provide 
 for its punishment ? Yet if the parents are too poor to propa- 
 gate children properly, then instead of bringing into exist- 
 ance a race of paupers and criminals they should have no 
 children at all, and prevent crime in that way. But how ? I 
 will not tell in this book for the following reasons : 
 
 1. If revealed to all classes, indiscriminately, as it would 
 be if made public, it would be prostituted to base purposes. 
 
 2 . Although the foregoing is sufficient, there is still another 
 reason which would alone deter me from making the matter 
 public. Doctors, lawyers and preachers would become fran- 
 tic over such a revelation, for it would be a dead shot at all 
 three of the professions, depriving them of business and ac- 
 tually taking the bread out of their mouths. Fashionable re- 
 spectability would go into spasms over it and I should forth- 
 with be dragged to prison, whereby my power to serve man- 
 kind would be utterly paralyzed. 
 
 O, no ; I will not publish this secret, for it would please 
 my enemies too well. As all three are virtually in partner- 
 ship, the lawyers have taken fine care to have the laws fixed 
 up right with a view to any such emergency, and they would 
 feel particularly outraged towards me, since there- is nothing 
 
Nature's Secrets. 73 
 
 criminal, no wrong, no injury of any kind invoked. They 
 might forgive the professional abortionist, the murderer of un- 
 born innocence, because those cases give employment to the 
 doctor and bring good fees ; also to the lawyer, who is called 
 in to either prosecute or defend ; also to the preacher, with 
 material for a sensational sermon. But were I to reveal to 
 the poor how they might avoid becoming parents, and the 
 method be of that kind, destitute of even immorality, afford- 
 ing no employment for the learned professions and resulting 
 in depriving their sons ana grandsons of business in the fu- 
 ture, don't you see they could not forgive me? Why, in the 
 last of the year A. D. 1874, in San Francisco, a man and 
 woman were arrested and imprisoned for having a printed 
 circular advertising something of this kind, the circular stat- 
 ing that the great object was to starve out the abortionist and 
 break up the infant slaughterhouses, where the most horrible 
 murders are committed almost daily. You see, the three 
 learned professions became alarmed, for they looked beyond 
 the mere destruction of these murderers ; they saw that if the 
 use of this preventive became general that there was danger 
 that San Francisco would stop breeding criminals, and then 
 they would be out of employment. O, no ; I cannot afford 
 to give them such an advantage, for as it is they may accuse 
 me of crime and conspire for my ruin. 
 
 Resuming once more the subject : The wife should select 
 the proper time for returning home, namely, within a day or 
 or two after the cessation of the menses. The husband should 
 be notified and prepared to give her a kind and affectionate 
 welcome. And indeed the feelings of both, if they have 
 lived right during the separation, will be tender and loving. 
 They will experience that old magnetic thrill, as their hands 
 clasp and their lips come together, that thrill of pleasure so 
 dear to both, at each meeting during the days of their be- 
 trothal. Perhaps that thrill had not been experienced for 
 several months before she went away; perhaps they thought 
 
74 NatiirJs Secrets. 
 
 it vanished forever. But now as it permeates through every 
 nerve and fiber, they seem to have rolled back the years 
 and to be living again in the honeymoon of love. This is as 
 it should be, and without these emotions the begetting of 
 offspring is unholy and impure. 
 
 No third party should be present at the meeting, because 
 the magnetism of any one besides themselves would be a 
 disturbing element. Like doves in the spring, they should 
 lovingly fondle and pet each other, every motion, look and 
 word characterized by the greatest gentleness. There should 
 be no hurry, no impatience, no nervousness, nor any of the 
 symptoms peculiar to beastly lust, but arm in arm, with quiet 
 dignity, let them adjourn to the sleeping room. Remember 
 that this must be in the broad light of day, with the blinds 
 thrown open, and all the better if a gentle breeze comes dal- 
 lying through the room, the pure breath which Nature wafts 
 laden with magnetism and vitality. 
 
 If either has some unpleasant news they should not even 
 think of it, much less impart it to the other, for this would 
 break the delightful spell which should pervade every part of 
 the being. As Byron says, they should let "Soft eyes look 
 love to eyes that speak again. " As for the rest, Nature is a 
 good teacher, only I must caution the man against haste, that 
 haste which has its birth in brutal passion, which proves a foe 
 to the happiness of man and has so often caused the death of 
 woman. I do not mean that the single act has caused death, 
 although there are well authenticated cases even of this; there 
 may be a thousand acts, before the woman yields, up her 
 wretched life, but she is dying nevertheless, dying by inches, 
 being murdered by the man who should be her protector. 
 
 Not only should there be gre^t gentleness and moderation, 
 Lut a prolongation, deferring yet anticipating the trance of 
 ecstasy, until at last, when it can be deferred no longer, then, 
 gathering all the energies I will let Alexander Pope tell the 
 rest: 
 
 " Till, all dissolving, in the trance \ve lay, 
 And in tumultuous raptures died away." 
 
Nature's Secrets, \ 75 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GESTATION AND ATTENDING CONSEQUENCES IN GENERAL. 
 
 Presuming that conception has taken place, we come next 
 to consider the most important period in the history of gen- 
 eration, namely, utero-gestation. But before giving definite 
 instructions upon this subject, I must first correct a very popu- 
 lar error. 
 
 It is generally understood by the masses that the mother is 
 almost entirely responsible for the physical, intellectual and 
 moral status of the child. To illustrate : A wealthy mer- 
 chant who had acquired a smattering knowledge of the. laws 
 of generation, decided, on ascertaining that his wife was preg- 
 nant, that the child should prove a sort of prodigy, for ho 
 supposed that this might be accomplished entirely by the care 
 taken of the mother during gestation. Hence, she wanted 
 for nothing that money could purchase, her home was like 
 a palace, and servants obeyed her wishes without questioning. 
 Thousands of dollars were lavished in order to secure every- 
 thing desirable, and so confident was he that a very superior 
 child would be born, that he boasted among his acquaintances 
 what a wonder it would be. 
 
 At last the anxiously expected heir arrived, and began its 
 earthly career under the most favorable surroundings. The 
 lew father employed the best of medical attendance, the best 
 }f nurses and the best of servants. But all were of no avail. 
 The child was extremely delicate from birth, incapable of 
 sound and refreshing slumber, constantly starting up in its 
 sleep, and seemingly, the poor thing was nothing but a bun- 
 
7 6 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 die of nerves. By a hard struggle it was kept alive until the 
 fourth month of its worried life, when it was released from an 
 existence of pain and unrest. 
 
 So far as he knew, the father had done his whole duty in 
 the premises, and he honestly -thought that the entire blame 
 rested upon the wife. He had lavished his money freely, and 
 had she been but half as devoted, their child would have been 
 robust and healthy. Such were his thoughts, and in the keen- 
 ness of his sorrow they found utterance, wounding afresh the 
 already heart-broken mother. On her part she knew that 
 nothing had been neglected, and therefore his reproaches were 
 hard to bear. 
 
 Now the solution of this seeming mystery is very simple to 
 an intelligent physician, when once put in possession of the 
 facts of the case, which were as follows: 
 
 About a week prior to the conception of this child, the 
 merchant received notice that one of his debtors, whom he 
 had trusted to the amount of several thousand dollars, was 
 about disposing of his property under rather suspicious circum- 
 stances. His debtor was a country merchant, living nearly 
 two hundred miles away, over a rough, hilly country, traversed 
 only by teams and the old-fashioned stage coach. Traveling 
 day and night, he at last reached the end of his journey, and 
 then for two days and nights he was upon the watch to see 
 that his debtor did not escape, as he evidently intended doing. 
 At length the business was settled and he hurried home, after 
 an absence of eight days of continued watching, anxiety and 
 deprivation. His whole system was affected, and the child 
 which he begot under these conditions must necessarily par- 
 take of his nervous exhaustion, in spite of all the care 
 bestowed upon the mother during gestation. 
 
 This case sufficiently explains itself, and from the lesson it 
 teaches the reader may learn that something else besides good 
 care of the mother during gestation is absolutely necessary to 
 the production of healthy offspring. Nevertheless I would not 
 
Nature's Secrets. 77 
 
 he understood as underrating the blessings that must result to 
 the child from good care of the mother during this important 
 period. . Another case Illustrating this principle, although of 
 an entirely different character, will prove both interesting and 
 instructive : 
 
 In 1 86 1, when the Massachusetts sixth regiment was sud- 
 denly called out, a young man who belonged to it was 
 betrothed in marriage, intending that the ceremony should be 
 performed in a few weeks. Under the circumstances it was 
 thought best to anticipate the day already fixed, and so they 
 were married only thirty-six hours before his starting for 
 Washington. Both were strong and healthy, full of life and 
 magnetism. Brief as was the period for indulging in marital 
 rites, still conception was the result. 
 
 Now, mark the course of events. In less than four months 
 this young man fell upon the field of battle. His remains 
 were sent home for interment in his own Massachusetts. 
 Parents, brothers and sisters were deeply afflicted, for he was a 
 most worthy son and brother. But what was their grief com- 
 pared with the anguish of that young wife, suddenly reft of her 
 beloved companion, and her unborn child made fatherless. 
 Strong men, unused to tears, wept convulsively as they wit- 
 nessed her terrible grief and despair. "Bring my husband 
 back to life, or let me die," was the continued wail of her 
 broken heart. 
 
 Slowly and sadly the weeks went by, and she scarcely ral- 
 lied from her hopeless melancholy during the remainder of 
 the period of gestation. Of course her friends all expected 
 that her child would be idiotic or shockingly deformed, and 
 when at last the physician was called in as accoucheur, the 
 mother of the poor sufferer whispered in his ear: "If it is a 
 monster don't bring it to life, doctor, or it will be the death 
 of my poor darling." 
 
 But the infant was perfectly and beautitully developed, 
 seemingly so strong and robust, that the physician felt it to be 
 
78 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 his solemn duty to preserve its life. The child proved to 
 have inherited an excellent constitution, was rarely ill, and 
 caused but little trouble during infancy. I heard last from 
 this singular boy when he was in his seventh year. His 
 health had continued good, an he manifested more than or- 
 dinary intelligence, although of a grave and saddened aspect 
 beyond his years. 
 
 To the non-professional reader this case may seem to con- 
 tradict the two previously cited one, that of the poor girl who 
 became a mistress to escape starvation, and the other that of 
 a young woman who supposed that her betrothed had been lost 
 at sea. But a careful examination of the causes and effects 
 will show that all three are in harmony. In the two former 
 cases, the evil conditions were anti-conceptional, producing a 
 permanent effect upon the foetus at the moment of impregna- 
 tion. This was a radical defect, the same as in the case of the 
 merchant, and therefore incurable by any means possible to 
 employ either during gestation or after birth, for, " Whatso- 
 ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This much re- 
 lated to the laws of generation is irrevocable fate. 
 
 In the case last cited, the ante-conception conditions had 
 been very favorable. Unlike the others, the beginning of the 
 germ, the very foundation, had been nearly perfect. It may 
 be illustrated by an agricultural similie. A good quality of 
 soil is prepared in the best manner possible, and planted with 
 a good quality of seed. Afterwards there may be cold, or 
 storm, or drouth, and yet the crop prove above average. But 
 a poor quality of- soil, badly prepared, and planted with an in- 
 ferior quality of seed, neither sunshine, nor shower, nor 
 balmy air will produce any but a sorry harvest, whereas the 
 cold and storm may utterly destroy it, for being feeble, it will 
 not be able to resist an adversary like the good seed sown in 
 good soil. 
 
 But there is another point connected with the Massa- 
 chusetts case to which I wish to call particular attention, and 
 
Natures Secrets, 79 
 
 which, doubtless, had as much to do with this child so perfect 
 in his developments, namely, after conception there was no 
 man to claim the rights of a husband! I shall not dwell upon 
 this point at present, but am anxious to impress the mind of 
 the reader with the great importance and responsibility which 
 it involves. As we are taking our lessons from nature, let us 
 descend in the scale of being, from man to the radiate, and 
 after leaving the human we shall nowhere find the male 
 molesting the female during gestation. The inference is 
 therefore plain that man has become depraved in his desires, 
 showing forth less humanity towards his companion and un- 
 born child than even the brute. 
 
 At the risk of being tedious, I must cite one more case in 
 point: 
 
 In the early part of 1874, in Chico, California, a young 
 lady, whom we will call Miss C., was engaged as a teacher in 
 the public school. She was more than average in strength of 
 constitution, intelligence and moral character. She attracted 
 the attention of Mr. J. O. W., the City Marshal, and they be- 
 came engaged in marriage. On her part, all the wealth of 
 her woman's love was drawn forth and lavished upon one, 
 who, in her infatuation, seemed the personification of every- 
 thing noble and manly. On his part, as events have subse- 
 quently shown, he was actuated only by the basest of mo- 
 tives, carefully concealed under the pretence of the most de- 
 voted love. But I need not dwell upon details. It was the 
 old, old story of woman's blind trust and man's shameless 
 treachery. 
 
 . Betrayed, seduced, deserted, and soon to become an object 
 of loathing among her associates (for her dreadful secret 
 must soon reveal itself in her changed appearance), thousands 
 of miles from home and friends, none to counsel with but 
 her unprincipled betrayer, for a time she listened to his ad- 
 vice and tried means to bring on a miscarriage. But the 
 nobleness of her womanhood at last became aroused, and 
 
8o Nature's Secrets. 
 
 bidding defiance -to public opinion, she resolved to brave 
 everything for the sake of her unborn babe. But who can 
 imagine the anguish and torture of this poor young girl, as 
 day by day she felt her character and reputation approaching 
 nearer and still nearer the verge of utter and hopeless bank- 
 ruptcy. From being a favorite in society, she must soon "step 
 down and out " (as Henry Ward Beecher proposed, when he 
 saw exposure looming up before him), and to give a finishing 
 blow to her hopes, her betrayer married another. 
 
 Here, then, we discover the conditions all very unfavorable 
 during the period of gestation. But the child was begotten 
 under favorable circumstances, and like the Massachusetts case, 
 Miss C. was left free from those demands which the husbands in 
 civilized and Christianized communities make upon their wives 
 during gestation. Now for the conclusion, and it was not 
 different from what might have been expected by any person 
 thoroughly familiar with the laws of generation, although the 
 mother herself has been greatly surprised. In a private letter 
 to Flora W. Chaney, wife of the Professor, dated February 
 26th, 1875, in speaking of her beautiful daughter, this sorely- 
 tried mother says : 
 
 " She is one of the best-natured children you ever saw. I 
 can wake her up at any time, and she will laugh and coo. 
 Why is she not cross and fretful ? My state of mind, before 
 her birth, was anything but pleasant ; but she is as happy and 
 contented as if no blot rested on her name. " 
 
 From the explanations already given, the reader will be 
 able to answer the question which so puzzled Miss C. 
 Doubtless, many who read this book will recognize these par- 
 ties, and before dismissing the subject I am anxious to pay 
 my respects to Miss C. for the noble and independent course 
 she has thus far pursued. First, she has shown herself a true 
 woman and mother by refusing to sacrifice her unborn child, 
 as many a professed Christian has done, in order to save her own 
 reputation. Secondly, she has refused all offers for position, 
 
Natures Secrets. 81 
 
 or even a home, which involved the separation of herself and 
 child, notwithstanding she is poor and almost destitute. 
 Thirdly, her life and conduct prove her a good, true and pure 
 girl, in no way disposed to immorality or degradation, and 
 therefore capable of making some good man a far better wife 
 than the majority of girls who escape scandal. Had she been 
 unprincipled, she would have murdered her child and still re- 
 tained- her rank among the repectable portion of society. 
 As it is, she is a despised outcast, scorned by all respectable [?] 
 people, with every hope in life destroyed. All this she 
 must have foreseen as the result of pursuing the course which 
 she has, and that she had the moral courage to thus choose, 
 sacrificing everything but life for the sake of a principle, 
 proves her to be possessed of a nobleness of soul as much 
 above the vulgar herd as the heavens are above the earth. 
 
 I come now more directly to the subject of the care that 
 should be taken of the mother during pregnancy. Were I to 
 follow the beaten track pursued by physicians who have 
 written upon this subject, I should omit many things which I 
 deem of the highest importance. Therefore, since I cannot 
 give full particulars without swelling this book beyond its in- 
 tended proportions, I prefer omitting many common-place 
 instructions, such as you may find in scores of works, in order 
 to make room for facts not generally known. Still, I deem 
 it important to speak of many of the antenatal influences 
 and consequences which may be well known to many intelli- 
 gent parents, because this information should be diffused 
 among the masses. 
 
 While admitting the great influence which the mother 
 must necessarily exert upon her embryo child, I am anxious 
 to impress upon the minds of all, the necessity of good ante- 
 conceptional conditions, in order that the child may be able 
 to resist the adverse influences liable to arise during gestation. 
 Nevertheless, however favorable these ante - conceptional 
 conditions may have been, still there are shocks which the 
 
82 Nature 's Secrets. 
 
 mother may experience which will deform the unborn child, 
 not only by unpleasant " marks," but deform the body and 
 limbs, derange the mind, and even destroy the life. The 
 Deposit (N. Y.) Courier relates the following case : 
 
 " In the vicinity of Spoon river, in Illinois, is a child that 
 
 was born and has lived five years without a head. Mrs. , 
 
 the mother, is a widow of a soldier, formerly living in Mar- 
 shal county, who enlisted in the Sixty-fifth, or Scotch Regi- 
 ment, and was killed at the battle of Devington, Mo. She 
 was standing beside her husband during the engagement, 
 when a cannon-ball carried his head completely away, his 
 body falling into her arms, and covering her with blood. The 
 shock affected her greatly. When her child was born there 
 was not a semblance of a head about it. The limbs are per- 
 fectly developed, the arms long, and the shoulders, where the 
 head and neck should be, smoothly rounded off. 
 
 " But the most surprising thing of all is, that the face is sit- 
 uated in the breast. Of course, there being no neck, the 
 power of turning its head is wanting, except as the whole 
 body is moved; but this difficulty is overcome by the sin- 
 gular faculty of turning its eyes in their sockets, enabling it to 
 see quite as well on either side as those more perfectly 
 formed. The upper portion of its body is white as the 
 purest Caucassian ; from the waist downward is blood-red. 
 This strange creature, now an active boy of five years old, 
 as if to compensate for his deformity, possesses the most 
 clear and bird-like tones ever listened to, singing with sin- 
 gular correctness everything he may hear, and his voice at this 
 early age accomplishes two octaves easily." 
 
 In this case, the whole nervous system of the mother was 
 so severely shocked as to cause a corresponding shock to the 
 physical, which supplied the nutriment to the child ; or in 
 other words, which supplied the blood from which the body 
 and limbs of the child were formed. The physical of the 
 
Nature's Secrets. 83 
 
 mother being in strong sympathy with the nervous, became 
 paralyzed, so to speak, and rendered incapable of performing 
 the function only as the horrible picture was presented to the 
 mind. True, it was not a case of paralysis, only bearing a 
 resemblance to it, as illustrated in the following case, copied 
 from a New England paper : 
 
 " There is a man in Vermont who cannot speak to his 
 father. Previous to his birth, some difficulty arose between 
 his mother and father, and for a considerable time she re- 
 fused to speak to him. The difficulty was subsequently 
 healed, the child was born, and in due time began to talk, 
 but when sitting with its father was invariably silent. It con- 
 tinued so until the child was five years old, when the father, 
 having exhausted his powers of persuasion, threatened it with 
 punishment' for its stubbornness. When the punishment was 
 inflicted, it elicited nothing but sighs and groans, which told 
 but too plainly that the little sufferer could not speak, though 
 he vainly endeavored to do so. All who were present united 
 in the same opinion that it was impossible for the child to 
 speak to its father. Time proved this opinion to be correct. 
 At a mature age his efforts to converse with his parent could 
 only produce the most bitter sighs and groans." 
 
 This case would seem to show a paralysis of some of the 
 physical faculties of the child, yet it was nervous and intel- 
 lectual rather than physical. It was a " birth-mark," to all 
 intents and purposes, and to punish for it involved the same 
 cruelty as to punish a child for having the " mark of a straw- 
 berry." 
 
 All the physical organs are in sympathy ; one cannot suffer 
 without the others being correspondingly affected. This is 
 illustrated in a case cited by Sir Astley Cooper, in his work 
 "On the Breast :" A man drew a deadly weapon upon the 
 husband of a woman who had a nursing babe. Rushing to 
 the rescue, the wife succeeded in disarming the would be 
 
84 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 murderer, but of course was greatly excited. The melee 
 aroused her child from slumber, and to stop it from crying 
 she gave it the breast. The little thing had taken but a few 
 drafts from, the maternal fount when it went into spasms, and 
 was soon a corpse. Here we find that a mental force, ex- 
 erted by the mother, acting upon the physical, especially the 
 lacteal secretions, possessed sufficient power to convert the 
 milk into a deadly poison. 
 
 I have referred to this case as evidence of the influence 
 which the mind may have upon the body. Before birth, the 
 sympathetic relations between mother and child are far 
 stronger than after birth, because the entire nutriment is 
 furnished from the blood of the mother ; whereas, after birth 
 the child has a separate existence, inhales the atm'osphere, 
 etc. If then, the mental conditions of the mother can affect 
 so powerfully the child after birth, how much greater that 
 influence must be before birth. Hence the importance of 
 proper care during gestation. If ante-conceptional condi- 
 tions, or the influences during gestation, have caused a liar, 
 thief, tyrant or murderer to be bom, neither himself nor soci- 
 ety can any more change his nature thanja leopard can change 
 his spots or the idiot become intellectual. This condition 
 may be cultured and improved by kindness, or made worse 
 by cruelty. The latter is the general rule with society the 
 former the exception. No sickly sentimentality influences 
 me to this conclusion, for I hold that it is the duty of society 
 to protect itself against the outrages of monsters, even to 
 loading them with chains, when all milder measures have 
 failed. What I object to is this spirit which cries out, "Cru- 
 cify him ! Crucify him !" A little incident which occurred in 
 the Mississippi valley, a few years since a fair representative 
 case, will illustrate the facts and deductions better than any 
 abstract reasoning. 
 
 From early infancy the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Trueman manifested great craft and secretiveness. Not only 
 
Nature s Secrets. 85 
 
 would she hide her own playthings, but those belonging to 
 other children. As she grew older this propensity increased, 
 until the parents were at length driven to the agonizing conclu- 
 sion that their darling Ella was a thief I They were highly 
 respectable, wealthy, and members of a fashionable church. 
 It would never do for their daughter to bud into womanhood 
 a thief ; and, putting paternal love to the torture, they imi- 
 tated society and its laws by adopting the most stringent 
 measures. For every theft the punishment was made more 
 severe, but still the mania grew upon her. When ten years 
 old she was detected stealing a pair of gloves from a store 
 while her mother was making some purchases. The father 
 was desperate, and to save the honor of his family resolved 
 upon desperate measures. For three weeks Ella was locked 
 in a room alone, fed on bread and water, and every morning 
 severely whipped. At last, pale, trembling, worn to a mere 
 shadow, the unhappy father then hoped that a perfect cure had 
 been effected ; but he questioned her as follows : 
 
 " Does my little daughter know that it is wicked to steal ?" 
 
 "Yes, papa/' sobbed the pc^r sufferer. 
 
 "Then why do you do it?" 
 
 "I don't know, papa." 
 
 '' Do you know what will be come ofyou if you don't 
 stop it ?" 
 
 " I SHALL GO TO HELL, PAPA !" 
 
 The answer was deemed satisfactory, and she was once 
 more restored to freedom ; but within a week was again de- 
 tected in a theft. 
 
 I have recited enough of this sad case for present purposes, 
 and want of space forbids its continuation. Let us next in- 
 quire why Ella was a thief. 
 
 Mr. Trueman was of Puritan descent, inheriting what are 
 considered the sterling virtues of the stern New Englanders. 
 Savagely honest himself a slave to his word he knew no 
 mercy for a dishpnest person, or one who deviated io the 
 
86 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 slightest from an agreement. He did not marry until late in 
 life, and then only by a special contract as though purchas- 
 ing a piece of property on which there was an encumbrance. 
 The lady was a widow, having an only son by a former mar- 
 riage. The condition was that her son should ever be to him 
 as a stranger. Hard as the condition was, yet for the sake of a 
 magnificent home (she was poor) she complied with it. Her 
 boy was adopted by a stranger, and she entered upon what 
 seemed a bright and happy career. Time flew by, home 
 was pleasant, and a daughter blessed the union, who, in time, 
 grew into a lovely and virtuous woman. The now happy 
 wife was expecting to again become a mother, when her little 
 boy was sent to her, homeless and ragged. 
 
 In vain she implored her husband for money to clothe and 
 send her fatherless boy to her friends in the East. He coolly 
 reminded her of their ante-connubial contract, and expressed 
 his surprise at her request. All the wronged wife and mother 
 rose in her bosom, and what she could not obtain in the name 
 of humanity, she resolved to acquire by stealth. Every im- 
 aginable excuse was made to get money from her husband ; 
 many a valuable article was smuggled from his store and sold 
 in confidence to her lady friends her mind on a continual 
 strain to hoard up for her boy. At last a sufficient sum was 
 secured, her son sent East, and once more she breathed easy. 
 But a terrible wrong had been inflicted on her unborn babe, 
 stamping it with a curse which must cling to it through life. 
 Thus the sin of the parents for both had sinned was vis- 
 ited upon poor Ella. She was imprisoned, starved, her tender 
 flesh tortured all for what she could not help, any more 
 than an insane man can help his insanity. Reader, when you 
 feel like wreaking vengeance upon some one for a wrong done, 
 let the sad fate of poor Ella admonish you to temper justice 
 with mercy. 
 
 Nine-tenths of all the wrong and outrage which every- 
 where curse humanity result from bad antenatal conditions, a 
 
Nature s Secrets. 87 
 
 large proportion being from the influences at work during 
 gestation, and therefore can never be remedied by the enact- 
 ment and enforcement of severe laws. The only remedy is 
 to be found in having children better born. But few persons 
 are so ignorant as to deny my premises, yet not one in a 
 million ever lifts a finger to assist in remedying the evil. 
 Humanity, or rather inhumanity, seems actuated by the same 
 spirit which moved Mr. Trueman to attempt eradicating theft 
 from the nature of his child by punishment. The experi- 
 ment has been tried for thousands of years, filling this fair 
 earth with tears and blood, but still wrong, cruelty and out- 
 rage cover the land as the waters cover the deep, and must 
 continue to do so, in spite of the law and its penalties, just 
 so long as the propagation of these unfortunates continues. 
 
 I have cited a case where a child was made a thief by the 
 influence of the mother during gestation, for there was no 
 evidence going to show that she was not well begotten. In 
 like manner a child may be well begotten, yet in consequence 
 of the gestational influences, may be made a murderer, as in 
 the case of Jesse Pomeroy, ''the boy murderer," of Boston. 
 His mother frequented the slaughter house, while carrying 
 him, taking a sort of morbid pleasure in seeing the blood 
 flow. Poor Jesse was thus mentally "marked," and al- 
 though otherwise a superior youth, he could not escape the 
 - destiny which the ignorance and thoughtlessness of his mother 
 thus bequeathed to him. A correspondent 'of the Brooklyn 
 Eagle furnishes the following description of him : 
 
 " I have known Jesse and his father and mother for some 
 time, and am furthermore acquainted with all the facts of the 
 many attrocities perpetrated by the youthful criminal. Jesse's 
 father, up to two years ago, was a porter in a shipping house. 
 He is a rough, big-looking man, somewhat morose, but by 
 no means given to vice of any grade. Mrs. Pomeroy is a 
 medium-sized woman, of fair education and excellent char- 
 
88 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 acter, and for some time kept a millinery store on the main 
 street in South Boston. Before that they resided in Charles- 
 town. Jesse first attended a Methodist and then a Universal- 
 ist Sunday school, and was a diligent and attentive scholar. 
 His teachers all speak well of him, and there is no record of 
 his ever having been addicted to cruelty in any form until the 
 crimes which brought him into notoriety were discovered. 
 
 " At the time when Jesse thus became known, he was twelve 
 years old. He stood nearly five feet high. His chest was as 
 deep and square as that of a full grown man. His legs and 
 arms were moulded in symmetry and strength. When* he 
 was examined by a medical man, I was present, and but for 
 the testimony of his mother and the official registry of his 
 birth, we should have fixed his age at eighteen or nineteen 
 instead of twelve. His feet and hands were small, his flesh 
 was delicately white, and his muscular developments were 
 perfect. The most remarkable point in his physique was the 
 head. It was a perfect study. It was almost big enough for 
 two boys of his age. The forehead rose straight up nearly 
 four inches, and was of great breadth. The top and sides of 
 the head were almost flat. The back was nearly in a straight 
 line with the spinal column. The ears, small and clean cut, 
 were low down. The lower jaw was broad and massive. 
 The mouth was wide and the lips were thin, and formed 
 like a Cupid's bow, the upper being very deep. The nose was 
 somewhat short and broad, and the nostrils were distended 
 The eyebrows were dark, heavy and beetling. 
 
 "The features that attracted most attention were the 
 eyes. The right eye was a pale blue or gray, full of intelli- 
 gence. The left eye was covered with a cataract, and almost 
 perfectly white. This was his distinguishing mark, and but 
 for this defect, Jesse Pomeroy might have been still at liberty 
 furnishing fresh horrors for the public, and new surprises for 
 the police. Jesse's attainments as a scholar were by no means 
 meagre. He was educated at the public schools, and was 
 
Natures Secrets. 89 
 
 always dilligent and studious. At home he spent his leisure 
 in reading books of travel and adventure, and he could con- 
 verse intelligently, and in a peculiarly winning tone. His 
 voice was low and melodious, and he was a particular favor- 
 ite with the younger boys, on account of his gentle manners. 
 He was never known to be rough or boisterous, and always 
 manifested affection for his parents, and a disposition to 
 oblige strangers. He was, however, of a retiring disposition, 
 and had very few, if any, playmates of his own age. All his 
 companions were boys younger than himself." 
 
 This case is certainly one of the most remarkable on 
 record, establishing the fact beyond all question that the child 
 may be affected by the emotions of the mother during preg- 
 nancy. It does not appear that the mother of Jesse was 
 actuated by any feeling of violence whatever, or that she had 
 any desire to take life, but simply experienced a morbid 
 pleasure in witnessing the flowing of blood. Hence, Jesse 
 appears kind and gentle of disposition, full of love and affec- 
 tion. He only experienced an unconquerable desire to see 
 the flowing of blood, and to gratify this desire he was 
 prompted to take life. The case is therefore a very remark- 
 able one, since he has not manifested the disposition of a 
 murderer at any time. It is remarkable, too, because we 
 often meet with persons who become faint at the sight of 
 blood. A man by the name of Jellison, in Ellsworth, Maine, 
 very stout and robust, somewhat ill-tempered, and disposed 
 to be quarrelsome, could whip any man in the State, at a fist 
 fight, provided he did not see blood ; but would become 
 faint and weak, so that a child could whip him the moment 
 he saw blood, even though the blood of his opponent which 
 he had drawn himself. When his acquaintances had learned 
 his secret, they no longer feared him, for a man had only to 
 hit himself a smart blow on the nose, then rush at Jellison, 
 as the blood started, and poor Jellison was whipped. 
 
90 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 The Pomeroy boy was impressed by his mother to delight in 
 the sight of blood. Jellison was evidently impressed to feel 
 a horror at the same sight. Neither one should merit cen- 
 sure for the peculiarity, for it was brought upon them by the 
 mother, without their knowledge. We know, very well, that 
 Jellison would gladly escape from the influence of his mater- 
 nal legacy, and no doubt Jesse Pomeroy, should he be per- 
 mitted to live till he attains maturity, would be equally anx- 
 ious to escape from his horrible inheritance. But while still 
 a child of tender years, he has yielded to the terrible fascina- 
 tion with which his mother endowed him ; and, as I wriie, he 
 is under sentence of death. The thought of hanging this 
 poor boy, considering the circumstances, is simply horrible 1 
 
 Massachusetts distinguished herself at a very early epoch 
 in her history, by hanging witches in the name of God and 
 His Holy Word, which says : "Suffer not a witch to live." 
 Animated by a spirit drawn from the same source, the Colonial 
 authorities whipped Baptist clergymen, banished Roger Wil- 
 liams, hung Quakers on Boston Common, and, because poor 
 Ann Hutchinson ventured the remark : " I am afraid that our 
 minister preaches more for the fleece than the flock/' they 
 drove her out into the forest among the wild beasts, and 
 scarce less wild red men, there to perish. With this record 
 in the past, it seems fitting that Massachusetts crown her in- 
 famy by strangling to death poor Jesse Pomeroy. 
 
 Having laid a foundation in this Chapter, in the next I 
 shall proceed more in detail to point out the treatment which 
 the expectant mother should receive during pregnancy, prov- 
 ing and illustrating my doctrine by citing cases which have 
 actually transpired, rather than by quoting distinguished 
 names for authority. 
 
Natures Secrets. 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GESTATION AND ATTENDING CIRCUMSTANCES, ESPECIALLY ALCO- 
 HOL AND TOBACCO. 
 
 We are all the children of Nature. Our mother is so 
 exacting, that unlike an earthly mother, she never forgives. 
 She has breathed into each one of her children an amount 
 of oxygen sufficient to consume us in a few days, should we 
 cease to eat. We must eat, or cease to live. The nutritive 
 portion of the food is elaborated into chyme, chyle and 
 blood, expressly to supply the waste of bone, muscle, fibre, 
 and so forth, for this waste is going on every second of our 
 lives. Hence, the quality of the bone, muscle, etc., will be 
 determined by the quality of the food. The adipose matter 
 of hogs, fattened upon swill, or acorns, is very different from 
 that of those fattened on corn. So too, of beef cattle ; and 
 everybody knows that the milk of cows fed on " slop " is not 
 only inferior, but was proved in New York City to be posi- 
 tively poisonous. Hens cannot lay eggs, with shells, unless 
 fed with some article of food containing lime. But I need 
 not multiply proofs upon this point, since only a fool would 
 question it. 
 
 Not only must the pregnant mother eat to supply the waste 
 in her own system, but to supply material for making bone, 
 muscle, fibre, and so forth, for her foetal child. The umbil- 
 ical cord is the conduit through which the blood, thus fur- 
 nished, is sent to the embryo. And since the quality of 
 muscle, etc., for the mother is dependant upon the quality of 
 food, the same law operates in the formation of the child. 
 Nor are these effects limited to the quality of the physical, 
 
92 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 but extend to the mental, the disposition, and so forth, in 
 both mother and unborn child. If she uses tea, coffee, beer, 
 tobacco or alcohol, in any form, she must necessarily produce 
 an appetite for the same in her child, and sooner or later the 
 appetite is sure to develope. 
 
 In the beginning of this Chapter I remarked that " Nature 
 never forgives." By this I mean that she never pardons us 
 when we transgress her laws, but inflicts the full penalty in 
 spite of the most contrite repentance? Nor does she stop 
 with us, as individuals, for she '" visits the sins of the fathers 
 [and mothers] upon the children to the third and fourth gen- 
 erations." Chief among the sins thus punished are the sins 
 of using alcohol and tobacco. But few persons have any idea 
 of the enormity of these sins, and therefore I feel justified in 
 treating the subject more in detail than most topics. 
 
 In the year 1620, when the colony of Jamestown, in Vir- 
 ginia, had been established for about thirteen years, a great 
 want was felt for female aid, when ninety females were im- 
 ported from England, and sold to the planters at Jamestown 
 for wives, at the rate of one hundred and twenty pounds of 
 tobacco valued, at fifty cents per pound, for each individual so 
 purchased, or $60 for a wife. The first slavery therefore in 
 Virginia, was the slavery of the wife of the wife to her hus- 
 band. And the first exportation of tobacco was for this sin- 
 gular purpose. Prussic Acid is the most deadly poison in ex- 
 istence. Oleum Nicotia, or the oil of tobacco, is the second 
 most deadly poison known to chemistry. To the youth 
 whose body has never been defiled by this poison, I would 
 say, obsta principus, " oppose all beginnings." 
 
 I can only notice a few of the diseases this poison is 
 known to transmit to its unhappy slaves. Epithelioma, or the 
 cancer of the lips, which has been successfully treated by me, 
 is caused by tobacco. Smoker's sore throat, aphonia, or 
 partial loss of voice, dyspepsia, nausea, loss of appetite, sick 
 headache, bilious vomiting, sallow complexion, lung dis- 
 
Natures Secrets. 93 
 
 ease and cough, Angina Pectoris, a very painful and danger- 
 ous disease of the heart. Tobacco poisons the blood ; the 
 brain and nerves, however, suffer most from tobabco. Am- 
 aurosis, Hemepligia and Paraplegia, Insanity, loss of virility, 
 etc., may be caused by tobacco. 
 
 One drop of the oil of tobacco will kill a rabbit in three 
 minutes and a half. The thirty-second part of a grain will 
 produce burning at the mouth, throat and stomach. In two 
 persons, the sixteenth of a grain produced spasms, and five 
 drops would kill any man. Now, Mr. Smoker, fill your mouth 
 with the smoke, blow it on your thumb nail, then add 
 four more drops, for a good mouthful contains a drop, then 
 take this internally, but first set your house in order, make 
 your last will and testament, for in five minutes your spirit 
 will be forced out of the body forever. 
 
 I do not question any man's right to smoke under proper 
 conditions, namely, a huge smoking house built in the sub- 
 urbs of every city say one mile from the nearest house ; and 
 there let all the smokers congregate. For what right has any 
 man to pollute God's pure air, in smoking indiscriminately 
 on the public streets, and at places of amusement. The 
 British government has passed a law compelling owners of 
 factories, to erect chimneys that consume their own smoke. 
 It would be an excellent law to compel smokers who would 
 smoke outside the huge smoke house, to swallow all their 
 smoke, saliva and stumps and not permit them to poison 
 others, especially ladies, with their disgusting saliva. There 
 are but three animals that use this deadly poison : the tobacco 
 worm, the dirty mountain goat of Africa, and alas, must I 
 write it, man! The hog will turn aside from this filthy, dis- 
 gusting poison. But I do object to any man or woman, who 
 uses this filthy poison, becoming parents, for they thus trans- 
 mit, not only a shattered nervous system to offspring, but a 
 desire to use this deadly weed, and thus perpetuate the curses 
 on untold generations. 
 
94 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 The amount of tobacco consumed in the United States 
 in 1835, was 52,500,000 pounds, and its value Mas $10,000,- 
 ooo. The tinier consumed in using it, to say nothing- of loss 
 of time by sickness, would amount to $12,500,000. The 
 pauper list occasioned, I place at $3,000,000. This is based 
 upon the supposition that there are 2,000,000 individuals 
 that spend $5.00 a year, or a cent and a third a day. Con- 
 sidered in a national point, what a loss. Say $10,000,000 
 a year for one generation of thirty-six years, if computed at 
 compound interest, would make more than a thousand million 
 of dollars. Let me suggest that every smoker should contribute 
 the amount he uses in tobacco, to pay off the National 
 Debt, and he would be the better for it. 
 
 In 1869, the government tax on tobacco was $22,000,- 
 ooo. The entire crop of the United States for the year 1871 
 was 293,196,100 pounds, or an increase since 1835, a per- 
 iod of thirty-six years, of 210,696,100 pounds ; and a conse- 
 quent period of idleness, disease and crime. These figures 
 are startling. The nation is approaching a most fearful 
 crisis ! It has a tobacco mania, for tobacco is only second to 
 ardent spirits, beer, ale, etc., which I propose briefly to 
 review, for most people like to wet their pipe ; but I do 
 hope the temperance societies will raise a crusade against 
 tobacco, as well as all vinous and fermented liquors, for these 
 reforms should go hand in hand. 
 
 In the year 1869 the amount of money (as worse than 
 wasted) expended on intoxicating liquors, as sworn to by the 
 retail dealers, amounted to the enormous sum of $1,530,- 
 000,000, for the whole Union, which, according to temper- 
 ance statistics, caused the death of 50,000 people. A table 
 prepared by supervisor Richter, of New York City, states that 
 the collections in 1868 in that city on liquor were $1,143,672. 
 And in 1869 in the same gospel city, $1,266,598.68. Query, 
 did the population increase in the same ratio as the liquor 
 traffic ? The answer is emphatically no! Increase on licmor 
 
Nature's Secrets. 95 
 
 $122,926.68 ; if the population could be increased in the 
 same ratio, New York would soon be the largest city in the 
 world. Beer tax collected in all the States afid Territories in 
 1870 amounted to $5,676,084.85." And in 1871, $7,805,- 
 642.66. Representing a capital of over $150,000,000. The 
 State of New York yields an annual product from beer, of 
 the value of $2.5,923,648, representing a capital of $55,000,- 
 ooo. The retail sales of lager beer alone in the State of New 
 York for 1871 amounted to $64,818,100 ; and for the whole 
 Union for seven years to $1,016,814,500. England with a 
 population of less than 32,000,000 annually consumes in 
 beer, ale and porter over $500,000,000. 
 
 If statesmen were expert in Phyisiology, they would see at 
 a glance how utterly futile is the attempt to enforce a prohib- 
 itory law. I ask the advocates of the law to look at the fig- 
 ures in capital, and the extent in dollars used, and then look 
 at the great law of transmission which they must contend 
 against as well as capital ; look at New York to-day, and most 
 of its wealthy families, are or have been, connected with die 
 beer trade. England is proverbially a nation of beer drinkers, 
 and fathers a,nd mothers for untold generations have had their 
 systems so thoroughly saturated with beer, that each genera- 
 tion, as it has passed from the parental bodies into infantile 
 life, has carried with it the diseased desire for beer, more 
 beer. Facts are stubborn masters, and tobacco, ardent spirits 
 and beer, have had a large influence in producing the folio w- 
 lowing painful statistics : 
 
 In England all births must be recorded by a law of the 
 land, and we find in the year 1871, on the books of the reg- 
 istrar-general, 50,000 illegitimate births. In Vienna, Aus- 
 tria, in 1866 there were 12,927 legitimate births, and 13,272 
 illegitimate births. The Scotchman says, " that during fifteen 
 years there were over 150,000 illegitimate births in that 
 country, and during that period there were over 100,000 mar- 
 ried ladies with whom the first birth occurred six montlis 
 
96 Nature 's Secrets. 
 
 after marriage ; this makes over 250,000 ladies unchaste be 
 fore marriage in the land of the righteous Presbyterian." L 
 1869 there wer 152,000 divorces granted in this country. Ii 
 France there are 4 5,000* men and women living separated 
 as no divorce laws are in practice in Catholic France. Phil 
 adelphia, Pa., in 1869 sold liquor to the amount of $42,000,- 
 ooo, and Judge Allison, in his charge to the jury, declarec 
 that of the thirty-nine murders committed in that city during 
 that year, thirty-eight of them could be traced to the influ- 
 ence of liquor. The city of New York has 25,000 faller 
 angels, whose unhallowed profession annually earns $5,200,- 
 ooo, and transmitting a loathsome disease to 172,000 per- 
 sons. Is it any wonder that there is so much pulmonarj 
 disease there ? Here lies the unfortunate physiological cause 
 
 I could reiterate these painful facts to pages, but one more 
 must let the curtain drop, and that is from Gotham, which 
 has four hundred Herods that slaughter the unborn infants. 
 If these Herods average a foetus each day, it would amount 
 to the fearful total of 146,000 a year ; and yet one of these 
 emissaries of destruction pays pew rent in Grace Church to 
 the amount of $1,800 a year. Reader, statesman, clergyman, 
 judge and jury, fathers and mothers of all nations, there is 
 one universal panacea, able to cope with the advance of crime, 
 the vast increase of the use of tobacco, liquors, ale, beer, 
 porter, murder, rape, seduction, illegitemacy, robbery, etc, 
 Jesus has been preached for 1800 years ; punishment for 
 crime is as old as any criminal code of the East Indies down 
 to this new country. Anti-tobacco societies existed and pro- 
 hibitory laws have been passed and proved a most signal fail- 
 ure. I now proceed to give my panacea, which is a perfect 
 cure in all cases. 
 
 Let no man who ever intends to become a father, or 
 any woman who intends to be a mother, ever use tobacco, 
 and let the mother during utero-gestation use her mind to 
 hate tobacco. Let none who intend to propagate the human 
 
Nature's Secrets. 97 
 
 species ever use anything that intoxicates, and let both par- 
 ents exercise their will-powers conjointly during utero-gesta- 
 tion and lactation against this drinking evil, and like Samp- 
 son, your children will be Nazarites from the womb. If 
 50,000 drunkards die annually, there must be 50,000 born ; 
 remove the cause, and the effect ceases. If a man is a drunk- 
 ard he is born a drunkard. Temperance men, wake up to this 
 true physiological law, and prevent our daughters from "fall- 
 ing," as the false philosophy of the past has called it. Let a 
 perfect continence exist between husband and wife during 
 utero-gestation and lactation. Joseph knew not Mary till 
 Jesus was born. All men and all women will be just as sex- 
 ually pure, as was Jesus when parents obey the same Law of 
 God as did Joseph and Mary, and not till then. And the 
 same law holds good in regard to the murderer and robber, 
 and so down to the end of the chapter of all human crime 
 and human misery. 
 
 It is to me so painfully strange that intelligent men and 
 women can admit in everything, up to the human species, 
 that cause produces effect, but just as soon as they reach this 
 grandest of all causes, the poor Devil has to bear all the blame 
 But he is not to blame. Let the statesman, the clergyman, 
 the judge and all classes examine this physiologically, scien- 
 tifically, and historically, and before you begin, gentlemen, 
 just leave your religious prejudice at home, and examine 
 carefully, and I know you will arrive at just the same con- 
 clusions which I have written, and if you do differ from me, 
 you must admit this at least, that we shall be healthier and 
 stronger if we have less coitus, and the purer and better the 
 parents the purer and better must be the children. Let 
 science and reason govern us in the future. 
 
 When we reflect upon the enormous amount of alcohol 
 
 and tobacco there is used annually in this country, knowing 
 
 as we do the injurious effects upon both the born and unborn, 
 
 it should no longer be a cause of wonder why so many de- 
 
 5 
 
98 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 formed and idiotic are born; why children are so feeble in 
 health, that they die by the million every year, and why they 
 are so feeble in moral character that they mature by the 
 thousand into vicious and degrading criminals. Nor because 
 parents themselves abjure tobacco and alcohol need they ex- 
 pect their offspring to escape the contamination so long as 
 they live within the borders of what is called " civilization." 
 Every moment of life the human tissue demands a fresh 
 supply of oxygen. To be healthy, this oxygen should be 
 free from all impurities, and yet there is not a city, town or 
 hamlet in the United States where the atmosphere is not cor- 
 rupted with the odors of tobacco and alcohol. We are 
 obliged to take into our lungs the fumes of the alcohol 
 which some old guzzler is constantly emitting from his stink- 
 ing and rotting insides. (I use strong terms, because it is a 
 strong case, and I want to shock people). 
 
 Not only are we disgusted and sickened with this filthy 
 odor, but at every breath we must inhale the smoke that is 
 puffed from the nasty mouth of some unfortunate wretch who 
 has been so badly generated that he hungers for that which 
 sickens a hog. No matter where we go in search of fresh 
 air and health, until we pass entirely beyond the bounds of 
 civilization, we are condemned to inhale these odorous 
 poisons. In the hotel, the cars, steamboat, fashionable 
 watering-place, Woodward's Gardens, in San Francisco, 
 Boston Common, Central Park (New York), or country resort 
 of any kind, we can never escape this curse a curse not 
 only to our own comfort, but worse than death to our un- 
 born children, even though neither parent is addicted to the 
 disgusting habits. 
 
 Facts are worth more than theories, and the opinion of a 
 man who has been a 'victim to the use of tobacco must have 
 more weight than if a man has had no experimental knowl- 
 edge. I therefore quote the following, communicated by 
 Prof. Chancy to a weekly reform paper, entitled Common Sense, 
 
Natures Secrets^ 99 
 
 published in San Francisco, California, under date of June 
 13, 1874: 
 
 " I commenced the habit of chewing tobacco when I was 
 thirteen. I did not have to * learn,' as most persons do, for 
 I was a born chewer worse than that, I inherited an appe- 
 tite for it. My earliest recollections are associated with "see- 
 ing my father both smoke and chew, when my ' mouth would 
 water ' in sympathy, although I had only an imperfect idea as 
 to the taste, for I was strictly forbidden ever to touch the 
 weed. Perhaps my desire for it was increased because it 
 was denied me, for such is human nature. Occasionally I 
 would get a scale or crumb, just enough to afford a taste with- 
 out provoking nausea, and I remember that it was very pleas- 
 ant. And thus it was that I took to tobacco as naturally as 
 a duck takes to water. 
 
 "I have a purpose in narrating these circumstances, name- 
 ly, to show that my appetite has been as strong as that of 
 most any person, and that having used tobacco for forty years 
 used it to excess, as hundreds can testify still I have been 
 able to give it up. Hence, I deduce that any person who 
 has used it not to exceed forty years may also break off the 
 filthy habit. Any one who has been a slave to the cursed 
 weed more than forty years may not be able to quit it ; but 
 under forty they should not be excused. 
 
 " My friends often requested me to give up its use, but it 
 seemed to me impossible. If by chance I could not obtain, it, 
 three hours' abstinence would completely unfit me for busi- 
 ness. I was obliged to forego its use while lecturing, and 
 many a lecture I have shortened because I was so suffering 
 for a ' chew.' But being a reform lecturer, I fully re- 
 alized that my example was widely at variance with my pre- 
 cepts, and so kept on saying that I would quit ' one of these 
 days/ which is equivalent to saying that I did not intend 
 to quit. I tried various substitutes and cures, but had no 
 
ioo Nature s Secrets. 
 
 patience with them. I wanted the tobacco, and have it I 
 would. 
 
 " I returned to San Francisco on the I2th of March to at- 
 tend Prof. Denton's lectures. The flings of Denton against 
 the filthy weed made more impression upon my mind than 
 any one else had ever done. There was still another pres- 
 sure urging me to quit, not necessary to describe. These in- 
 fluences, together with my own desire to gain my freedom, 
 induced me to give up the filthy habit March 26, 1874, 
 since which I have not tasted it, and trust that I never shall 
 again. 
 
 " And now for the curious effects, to which I am desirous 
 of calling special attention. During the first week, my great- 
 est discomfort arose from a ravenous desire for tobacco in 
 my mouth. After that the appetite gradually subsided, but I 
 discovered that my nervous system was getting more and 
 more out of balance. It was nearly three weeks before this 
 trouble culminated, and I could feel sure of an improvement. 
 At first I had a drowsiness of a peculiar nature; would drop 
 asleep in the midst of a conversation, pause only for a mo- 
 ment; then as I dreamed, in an altered tone of voice, speak 
 of what I was dreaming. To illustrate : I was explaining 
 to a lady a portion of Mr. Denton's lecture, which she did 
 not hear, when I said: ' Granite was the primary formation, 
 the three principal ingredients of -which are felspar, quartz 
 and mica. Segregated by the action of the water, they re- 
 formed into the metamorphic. All this was accomplished 
 during the untold millions of azoic years, when ' At this 
 point I drowsed; dreamed that, accompanied by the lady to 
 whom I was speaking, I went in to 828 Market street; bought 
 some candy, as I had done a few evenings prior, paid for it, 
 came out, and as I reached the sidewalk, felt so sleepy that 
 I staggered, when, not only in my dream, but in reality, I 
 said: ' We didn't buy any sleep.' The lady assures me that 
 there was scarcely a pause in my conversation, although a 
 marked change in my voice. 
 
Nature s Secrets. 101 
 
 " This drowsiness continued for more than a week, during 
 which I did not sleep -well at night, waking every hour, or 
 sometimes eveiy few minutes. Next came the effect upon 
 both brain and nerves. My mind acted spasmodically, like 
 a contrary horse, one moment springing forward with 
 power, and the next setting back in the breeching. When 
 I tried to lecture I would lose myself, forgot the thread of 
 my discourse, and more than once forget where I was and 
 what I was doing. This phase continued to manifest suffi- 
 ciently to provoke comment from the reporters of both the 
 Herald and Free Press, in Stockton, two months after I had 
 given up tobacco, and after I had thought myself nearly re- 
 covered. 
 
 "The effect upon my nerves was equally marked. I be- 
 came impatient, irritable, restless, unable to sit and write, or 
 in fact to keep quiet ten minutes at a time. A game 
 of billiards or cards would fix my attention, but I would 
 forget myself, growl, criticise, and make myself disagreeable 
 generally. There are, no doubt, several gentlemen at the 
 Yosemite House (Stockton), who will corroborate this state- 
 ment. A dozen times a day I would go to my room in- 
 tending to write, but such a repugnance, amounting almost 
 to horror, would come over me, that I could not bear to sit 
 down much less take a pen in my hand. In the mean- 
 time, however, my craving appetite had almost entirely sub- 
 sided. 
 
 " For the past two weeks, prior to this writing, I have been 
 resting and recuperating, and am now nearly recovered; am 
 able to write from four to six hours per day, and shall resume 
 lecturing within a week. At first I was surprised at the 
 effects upon my nervous system, but, upon reflection, I am 
 surprised that I did not suffer more. For forty years my 
 system had been fed with the cursed stimulant, thereby ren- 
 dering it a necessity. Physicians and naturalists have discov- 
 ered that the human system can accommodate itself to great 
 
IO2 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 extremes in all the conditions of life. The old king who 
 feared being poisoned, upon the advice of his physician 
 gradually accustomed his system to various poisons until he 
 could, with impunity, swallow poison enough daily to kill fifty 
 men. Nor was this all. He could not suddenly give up his 
 poisons without endangering his life. So, too, with the 
 drunkard delirium tremens follow the sudden disuse of 
 alcohol at the termination of a * spree/ Then is it strange 
 that the disuse of tobacco should have affected me so power- 
 fully ? 
 
 "This article has been written chiefly for the benefit of the 
 young, under the hope that they may be deterred from ever 
 forming the filthy habit, which always proves a nuisance and 
 an injury. As for the old chewers and smokers, I have no 
 hope of reforming them. The most that can be done is to 
 keep them comfortable in their nastiness until they die off; 
 but we should try and save the rising generation from follow- 
 ing in their filthy footsteps/' 
 
 In the case of Prof. Chancy, there can be no doubt but 
 that he inherited his appetite for tobacco, and although ad- 
 dicted to its excessive use from thirteen to fifty-three, he i& of 
 the opinion that many other persons inherit the appetite 
 much stronger. In the Winter of 1840-41, he was teaching 
 school in Sciota County, Ohio, and " boarded round." In 
 the house of a Mr. Slocomb he found a nursing infant that 
 would leave the breast at any time to smoke an old, strong 
 pipe. Upon inquiry, he learned that the mother of the child 
 was an inveterate smoker, and during pregnancy her husband 
 offered to buy her a silk dress if she would quit smoking. 
 She agreed to the proposal and did stop for several days, but 
 so great was her desire so intense her longing that Mr. 
 Slocomb proposed to buy the dress anyhow, and she resumed 
 her pipe. 
 
 When her child was born it cried constantly for several 
 
Nature s Secrets. 103 
 
 days. The old ladies of the neighborhood all declared that 
 the mother must have had a " longing " for something, and 
 that the child had been " marked." But the circumstances 
 connected with her effort to quit smoking had been forgotten, 
 and so everything eatable or drinkable imaginable was offered 
 to the child, but without avail, until one day a son of Mr. 
 Slocomb, an inveterate smoker, jocosely remarked, t( perhaps 
 the baby wants to smoke," at the same time putting the stem 
 of the pipe into his mouth. The mother screamed a protest, 
 but it was too late; the child had drawn a whiff, and without 
 strangling in the least, emitted the smoke, nestling to 
 the pipe as eagerly as the hungry child to the breast. On 
 removing the pipe, the poor thing renewed its crying more 
 violently than ever, but instantly ceased and began puffing 
 away when the pipe was returned. It soon fell asleep, en- 
 joying the first sound slumber since birth. After that the 
 pipe was just as necessary for the child as the mother's 
 breast. 
 
 Here is a case well authenticated, and although an extreme 
 one, still within the bounds of reason, showing how com- 
 pletely the unborn child will take on the conditions of the 
 mother, and therefore should serve as a solemn admonition 
 to every mother who reads this book to be careful how she 
 stamps upon her child an impress that nothing can prevent 
 from becoming second-nature, as tenacious of existence as 
 nature herself. Had Prof. Chaney been as strongly marked 
 as this boy it is extremely doubtful if he would have ever con- 
 quered this habit. 
 
 Dismissing the subject of tobacco for the present, I must 
 refer more in detail to the effect of alcohol upon the human 
 system and the embryo child. 
 
 The gastric juice will not digest alcohol; the kidneys and 
 bladder will not secrete it, nor does the system appear to have 
 been constructed with a view of appropriating it in any way. 
 Hence, i\ is a foreign substance when taken into the stomach, 
 
IO4 Natiwes Secrets* 
 
 and all the forces of the system are set to work to expel it as 
 an intruder. Therefore it is called a " stimulant/' and so in- 
 deed it is, for all the functions are stimulated to get rid of it 
 until they either succeed or become exhausted by the effort, 
 both of which phenomena invariably result whenever any con- 
 siderable quantity has been swallowed. 
 
 The stomach sends it out with the chyme, the chyme turns 
 it over to the chyle, the chyle cannot escape it, and so 
 it reaches the heart. The heart is disgusted and sends it to 
 the lungs, but the lungs can do nothing but send it back again 
 to the heart, when, in sheer despair, the heart sends it out with 
 the blood to all parts of the system. Some is expelled 
 through the pores of both sensible and insensible perspiration, 
 and some remains, seeking entrance to the capillaries, in order 
 that it may be returned through the veins to the heart. The 
 capillaries, although entirely destitute of brains, manifest 
 more wisdom than the poor fool who swallowed the alcohol 
 in the first instance, for they instantly close their little mouths 
 against it as a man would his doors against a burglar. 
 
 More than one-fifth of all the blood in the human system 
 goes to supply and replenish the brain. Hence, more than 
 one-fifth of all the alcohol swallowed is sent to the brain 
 through the arteries. Being stopped at the capillaries, the 
 connecting link between the arteries and the veins, it also 
 causes an obstruction to the return of the blood. We may 
 easily verify this by examining the face of a hard drinker. 
 Mark the unnatural redness, especially of the eyes and nose. 
 This is caused by a detention of blood which should have 
 been promptly returned to the heart. In course of time, the 
 alcohol continuing the obstruction, the phenomena that is, 
 the detention of the blood between the arteries and veins 
 becomes chronic. But to resume. 
 
 An obstruction occurring at the capillaries of the brain im- 
 mediately results in a mechanical pressure upon that organ, 
 the effect of which is to cause dizziness. Now, any pressure 
 
Nature's Secrets* 105 
 
 upon the brain, though very slight, or a sharp blow upon the 
 skull, will produce the same effect. Increase the pressure, 
 or the blows, and unconsciousness will result. The effects of 
 taking alcohol into the system are mechanical rather than 
 chemical, as is generally supposed. And right here I will 
 correct another popular error. Alcohol does not act upon 
 the system, but on the contrary, the system acts upon the al- 
 cohol. I have admitted that alcohol is a "stimulant," but I 
 mean it only in the sense that the lash of the slave-master, or 
 brutal teamster, is a stimulant. The horse or slave is stim- 
 ulated by the whip, but not one particle of additional strength 
 or vitality is imparted by the cruel blow. Neither does alco- 
 hol impart any additional strength it is simply a foreign en- 
 emy which the system tries to expel. 
 
 I fancy that by this time the reader is ready to inquire how 
 it is that alcohol can act beneficially as a remedy for disease. 
 This is the very question which I have been asking for years 
 of the physicians who prescribe alcohol for their patients, but 
 have hitherto failed of receiving any satisfactory answer. It 
 is a disgrace to our boasted civilization that physicians may 
 still be found who prescribe alcoholic drinks for their patients 
 buthave hitherto failed of receiving any satisfactory answer. 
 It is a disgrace to our boasted civilization that physicians may 
 still be found who prescribe alcoholic drinks for their pa- 
 tients, even during pregnancy, thus making a drunkard of the 
 child before it is born. Yet these same physicians have the 
 audacity to ask State Legislatures to enact laws which punish 
 with imprisonment any physician who dares to practise a 
 system of medicine contrary to theirs 1 How sublime their 
 impudence ! They ask, and in some States have obtained, 
 protection by law to do what ? To make drunkards ! 
 
 Statistics disclose the startling fact that a very large propor- 
 tion of all the crimes committed are either the direct or in- 
 direct result of drunkenness. Hence, the conclusion is un- 
 avoidable, that to cure humanity of drunkenness would be the. 
 
io6 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 same as putting a stop to more than half the crime. Yet 
 these physicians, either through ignorance or impudence, not 
 only make drunkards, but ask for protection ! O tempora ! O 
 mores I 
 
 Resuming once more the subject of the direct effects of al- 
 cohol, I observe that it is sent out through all the arteries, to 
 every part of the system, and arriving at the capillaries, a gen- 
 eral obstruction follows. The brain suffers more than any 
 other organ, commencing with a slight dizziness, steadily in- 
 creasing, in proportion to the amount of alcohol swallowed, 
 notwithstanding the other organs are doing all in their power 
 for the relief of the poor brain, which may be compared to 
 a city besieged by a hostile enemy. The heart increases its 
 action, pumping the blood through the arteries with unusual 
 force, vainly endeavoring to remove the obstruction and drive 
 forth the foreign invader. * The lungs put on extra force, and 
 in fact every organ lends its aid. Fools imagine that all this 
 hubbub and commotion results from the chemical action of 
 the alcohol, whereas the alcohol may be compared to a rock 
 of a hundred tons cast upon the track of a railroad. The 
 cars rush down upon it and a scene of the wildest confusion 
 is the result. But the rock does not act upon the cars, for 
 like the alcohol, it is inert, and therefore incapable of acting. 
 The rock may stimulate a car to bound into the air, and fall 
 prone to the earth. Is not this the way alcohol stimulates the 
 idiot that drinks it ? 
 
 The pregnant mother, who takes alcohol into the stomach, 
 must expect a portion thereof to go with the blood to her 
 fcetal child. Aye, if she only inhales its fumes, either from a 
 grog shop or the breath of a drunkard, an impression will be 
 made upon her unborn offspring. Thus " marked," a de- 
 mand seems to be created in its nature, so that alcohol be- 
 comes a necessity, similar to the case of Prof. Chaney, in re- 
 gard to tobacco, or the eastern king whom he mentions as 
 living upon poison. 
 
Nature s Secrets. 107 
 
 I shall make no apology for having, at the risk of being 
 tedious, devoted so much space to these two curses of hu- 
 manity rum and tobacco for next to " the three learned 
 professions," I look upon them as the greatest afflictions to 
 mankind. Yet, so general is their use that they are both 
 popular and fashionable. Hotels and steamers would receive 
 but small patronage but for the bar and smoking-room, while 
 the steam cars have their "smoking-car," and on a horse car 
 the smoker is permitted to stand upon the front platform, so 
 that the forward motion will cause a draught of air through 
 the car, obliging the passengers to inhale the smoke which 
 he has just ejected from his filthy mouth. Let a pregnant 
 mother be thus situated for only five minutes, and her child 
 will at least "love the smell of a cigar/' and if a boy, will be 
 almost sure to smoke. 
 
 I will conclude this chapter by making brief allusion to 
 certain things important to be observed during the period of 
 gestation. And first, a point already alluded to, namely, the 
 yielding of the wife to the solicitation of the husband after 
 conception has taken place. Were I required to name the 
 two chief causes of the perpetuation of degradation I should 
 be at a loss which to name first, this or masturbation. Re- 
 member that I am speaking of the causes which affect the 
 offspring, compelling them to inherit degradation, rather than 
 the effect of these two causes upon the persons who practise 
 them. The poor masturbater soon renders himself or her- 
 self impotent, so their offspring is not cursed in consequence, 
 but millions of parents, for fully half their lives, practice the 
 former mentioned cause, filling the world with male as well 
 as female prostitutes, masturbaters and debauchees. 
 
 We know that the thoughts, emotions and desires of the 
 mother produce the most powerful effects upon the unborn 
 offspring, and even lustful emotions, if indulged in and dwelt 
 upon only in thought, will ' ' mark " the child so that if a 
 male he may mature into a rake or seducer, and if a female 
 
io8 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 into a very passionate woman or prostitute. How much 
 more powerful, then, the effect of a real indulgence, and how 
 much more likely to degrade the nature of the child. For 
 corroboration of this fact look around among your acquaint- 
 ances and you will discover two parents whose lives and con- 
 duct are unexceptionally pure, yet a daughter of theirs is a 
 born prostitute. Who made her so ? It was not accident, 
 but the result of fixed law, and the fault lies with her parents, 
 notwithstanding such a suspicion may never enter their mir.ds. 
 Indeed, it is fashionable in such cases for parents to turn 
 their daughter out of doors, curse her memoiy, and forbid 
 any one to mention her name in their presence, because, 
 tempted and instigated by the Devil, she has disgraced them. 
 But why punish her for the fault of the Devil ? 
 
 I laid down my pen at the conclusion of the preceeding 
 paragraph, in despair for language to express the utter loath- 
 ing and deep detestation in which I hold such parents, be- 
 cause, having been well born themselves, according to the 
 teachings of Christ, they cannot be permitted to plead igno- 
 rance, "for light has come into the world/' and the sin of 
 ignorance is no longer winked at. Such parents, by yielding 
 to the promptings of lust, made their daughter a strumpet, 
 and then, because she was no better than they had made her, 
 they drive her from home, and if disowned and disgraced by 
 her parents, she need hardly expect the charity of strangers. 
 Nothing remains for her but a brief career of infamy, with 
 no rest until she finds it in the grave of a prostitute. 
 
 And this is a specimen of the civilization and Christianity 
 of the nineteenth century, for it will be found that in three 
 cases out of four, the parents who thus disown their daugh- 
 ters are professors of religion and members of a church. 
 But this is not strange, for they thus imitate the God they 
 worship, who according to the way they have been taught, got 
 angry at the people of the old world for not being better 
 than he had made thorn, and drowned all but seven persons. 
 
Natures Secrets. 109 
 
 Moreover, " He is angry \vith the wicked every day/, that is, 
 with his own children, and therefore should not earthly 
 .parents get angry with their children ? And if God drowned 
 his children, or rained fire and brimstone upon them, shall 
 not earthly parents disown their children and drive them forth 
 to steal or starve ? Verily, the philosophers of old were right 
 when they said : "A people cannot rise superior to their 
 religion." 
 
 I am using severe language and most earnestly trying to 
 shock, or even anger, the reader. We have had quite enough 
 of the covering up and concealing of truth, and for one I pro- 
 pose to speak plainly regarding Nature's secrets and their 
 effects upon society, no matter'who gets offended. Not only 
 scholarly Christians, but educated clergymen, are continually 
 having scape-grace sons and daughters born to them. It 
 has even passed into a proverb that " ministers' sons are 
 always the wprst." Why ? Does God make them so with- 
 out any fault of the parents? The bare suggestion of 
 such a thought is rank blasphemy. No ; it is only a man- 
 made God that will bear such a charge. No ; the parents 
 have made their children what they are. If the sons are 
 libertines and the daughters harlots, the fault lies with the 
 licentious parents for being either masturbaters or not leading 
 lives of purity and chastity during the gestation of their 
 children. Then the meanness, the cowardice, of charging 
 the whole upon God Almighty. Bah ! I have no patience 
 with such people, and if their God was a God of " special 
 providence," as they aver, he would wipe them out of exist- 
 ence as liars and slanderers. Verily, the people of Sodom 
 were no worse. 
 
IIO Nature's Secrets. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 ANTENATAL INFLUENCES FURTHER CONSIDERED. 
 
 I have thus far been considering the fact as though admit- 
 ted by the medical profession that the fceetal child will be im- 
 pressed by the emotions of the mother. But such is by no 
 means the case. Upon weighing the different authorities I 
 think the preponderance of opinion will be against me. Dr. 
 William Hunter, a celebrated English surgeon, made observ- 
 ations upon two thousand consecutive births, at a lying-in hos- 
 pital, and did not discover a single case verifying the theory 
 that the shocks, longings, anxieties, disappointments, and so 
 forth, of the mother, had left their impress upon the child. 
 It is not for me to attempt any explanation of this negative 
 fact, for no number of negations can ever establish a princi- 
 ple against even one affirmative fact. Pat Murphy said he 
 could bring a thousand men t'o swear that they did not see 
 him kick the boy, yet on the testimony of one witness who 
 did see him, the court thought proper to convict Pat. 
 
 Dr. Dewees, very high medical authority, declares that he 
 " entirely rejects all the reasoning, as well as the appeal to 
 facts supposed to be illustrative of this wonderful influence." 
 But the doctor also makes this observation : 
 
 The immediate evils which may result from yielding to 
 temper are convulsions, nervous inquietudes, uterine haemorr- 
 hage, and perhaps abortion. Should this last not occur, the 
 foetus may yet receive such injury as shaW impair its natural 
 stamina, and thus entail upon k a feebleness of constitution 
 as long as it may live. It is a remark long since made, and 
 
Nature's Secrets. 1 1 1 
 
 we believe it to be in perfect conformity with fact, that pas- 
 sionate and irritable women are more prone to abortion than 
 those of an opposite temperament. 
 
 QUERY : Why should not serious shocks and disappoint- 
 ments affect the fetus just as sensibly as a passionate and 
 irritable temper ? But the doctor does not seem satisfied with 
 thus contradicting himself, for he adds: "Nothing con- 
 tributes more certainly to the safety and future good health of 
 the child than cheerfulness of mind, or, at least, equanimity, 
 on the part of the mother." Evidently still dissatisfied upon 
 the subject, Dr. Dewees tacks about and declares: " Un- 
 gralified longings may cause sickness at the stomach, tempo- 
 rary loss of appetite, sometimes vomiting ; but here the 
 evil ceases, so far as we have observed." Really, this is worse 
 than where "doctors disagree," for here we find a doctor dis- 
 agreeing with himself. 
 
 I do not propose arguing the point, any more than I 
 would argue that the sun gives light. Suppose two thousand 
 blind men should take the stand and testify that they had 
 tried their best to discover that the sun gives light, but had 
 failed to find it verified even in a single instance, still I would 
 refuse to argue the point with them. They are right, and to 
 them the sun does not give light; so, too, physicians may be 
 right when they deny these ante-birth influences, for to their 
 perceptions there is no evidence thereof. 
 
 But outside of the profession for I am writing for the 
 people I am willing to argue and explain everything in 
 my power. And here is a point that will no doubt puzzle 
 many, namely, how it could be possible that a mother, from 
 inhaling tobacco smoke in a car, the same being very offen- 
 sive, could so " mark " her child that it would love a cigar 
 or become a smoker. It seems to many as tho.ugh, if there 
 was anything at all in 1 these influences, that the child would 
 be born with a dislike for what was offensive to the mother. 
 Let me explain : 
 
H2 Natures Secrets** 
 
 The human system is affected chiefly through two sources, 
 sympathy and antipathy. The following will illustrate the 
 law of sympathy: A burn may be relieved by holding it as 
 near to a strong heat as a person can bear; cold water, or 
 snow, will draw the frost from a frozen limb without doing 
 much harm; a cold water compress will remove pain caused 
 by cold. Or, outside of animal life we observe the laws of 
 sympathy, thus: Heat is a better conductor of heat than cold; 
 a hot chimney or stove-pipe conducts the heat and smoke 
 rapidly to the top, but, when cold, the heat forces a passage 
 more slowly, while the smoke will puff out into the room. I 
 might multiply cases of sympathy, but deem these sufficient 
 for illustration. 
 
 The law of antipathy is equally marked in its manifesta- 
 tions, thus: A burn may be relieved by the application of 
 ice; a cold by swallowing hot drinks, while soreness in the 
 muscle, by kneading and pounding the parts affected. Out- 
 side of the physical we witness some singular phenomena. 
 Water and oil are alike, so far as being liquid is concerned, 
 yet so unlike in their radical elements that they can never be 
 united into a chemical compound. Acid and alkali appear 
 much more unlike than oil and water, yet they will unite so 
 rapidly, when brought in contact, that a violent effervescence 
 ensues. 
 
 I have cited these things only by way of illustration, or to 
 prepare a foundation for other remarks. Thus: One per- 
 son knows that heat will draw the fire from a burn on the 
 principle of similia y similibus, curantur, the motto of the 
 Homoeopathies, meaning that like cures like; another person 
 knows that ice will relieve a burn. Now, neither of these 
 persons knows the remedy of the other, but chancing to get 
 into conversation upon the subject of the best remedy for a 
 burn, one suggests fire, and the other, ice. An argument 
 will be raised at once, and the chances are that they will call 
 each other fools and liars before the dispute is ended, or, per- 
 
Natures Secrets. 113 
 
 haps, come to blows, I have cited this by way of illustrating 
 that the " disagreement of doctors/' and, in fact, nine-tenths 
 of all the disagreements and contradictions that arise are the 
 direct result of " a little learning," which is far worse than 
 downright ignorance. To the man who knows only of ice 
 as a remedy for a burn, the idea of applying heat seems pre- 
 posterous. And so it is in thousands of cases; for when some 
 people have learned one fact, they appear satisfied with their 
 education and ever after try to prove all other facts by their 
 single hobby. There is, probably, no class of educated men 
 to whom this criticism will apply with so much force as to 
 physicians. Is it any wonder, then, that " doctors dis- 
 agree ?" 
 
 I might now dismiss this point with the remark that the 
 woman, although disgusted with the smoke herself, still im- 
 presses her child to* love it through antipathy. But there are 
 so many thick-headed and badly generated people in the 
 world who are incapable of making a logical deduction, that 
 I will proceed to establish my position with facts: 
 
 A farmer's wife, who was in the habit of going bare-foot, 
 one day stepped upon a snake, when the ' reptile coiled 
 around her naked ankle and leg. Having a natural horror 
 for snakes, and not knowing that this was a harmless garter 
 snake, she went into convulsions, and came near dying. 
 Subsequently, when her child was born it proved an idiot, 
 and when old enough to move about, would crawl like a 
 snake, seeking a sunny spot, where it would coil up and go 
 to sleep. Now, people who would infer that because the 
 mother was disgusted with the smoke, therefore the child 
 would also loathe it, would have been likely in this case to 
 have argued that the child would have been " marked " 
 to be unlike a snake in every particular. Let this admonish 
 the reader to first learn all the facts, instead of learning but 
 one fact, and then trying to prove others by it; also, let him 
 keep ever in mind that, " A little learning is a dangerous 
 thing ; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." 
 
H4 Natures Secret^ 
 
 In further proof of my position, I add the following inci- 
 dent, furnished by Prof. Chaney, who had it directly from the 
 mother herself, in the summer of 1867, In New York City: 
 
 The daily papers contained an account of a girl but six- 
 teen years old, very beautiful, but so beastly degraded in her 
 nature that she ran away from a good home, consorted with, 
 the lowest prostitutes, and, when arrested at the instance of 
 her mother, was found living in a cellar, with a huge, black 
 negro for her companion. By request of her mother, she 
 was sent to the Reform School, and that is the last that is 
 known of her. The Professor was at that time gathering all 
 the facts possible connected with the laws of generation, and 
 sent the mother a note requesting her to call on him at his 
 office. She came, and having made known his object, he 
 desired her to try and remember any antenatal influences 
 which were likely to have " marked " her daughter to be so 
 unlike either of her parents. In vain the mother thought; 
 she could recall nothing of the kind. As for herself, she was 
 one of the purest of women; all her life she had been so bitter 
 against her sex who would step aside in the least that it 
 seemed that God had brought this terrible disgrace upon her 
 as a punishment for her uncharitableness. 
 
 A few weeks later the Professor had a second interview with 
 this poor heart-broken mother, when she informed him that 
 she had recalled every week of her life, while pregnant with 
 this daughter, and instead of any event having transpired 
 likely to destroy the womanly- virtue of her daughter, she re- 
 membered one, which, if there was any truth in the theory of 
 the laws of transmission must have stamped her daughter as one 
 to despise and abominate this especial vice. He desired her 
 to narrate the event, in order that he might judge of the cor- 
 rectness of her conclusions, which she did in substance if 
 not in words as follows : 
 
 "I was born here in New York; my father was a master 
 mechanic y and very rigid in his moral principles. My mother 
 
Natures Secrets. 115 
 
 was called beautiful, and being of a rathernretiringj but veiy 
 affectionate nature, always seemed to me to be so entirely ab- 
 sorbed in my father as to have no opinion of her own upon 
 any subject. I was reared as strictly as a Puritan of the last 
 century, -so you see that both by nature and education I 
 was a lover of purity and chastity. At school, when a young 
 woman, I had a classmate, who was a general favorite with 
 all her acquaintances. For a time I was one of Susie's 
 warmest admirers, but she fell somewhat in my good opinion 
 when I learned that she was an arch-hypocrite. Later, I 
 discovered that she held very lax views upon the question of 
 womanly purity, and I had the best of reasons for thinking 
 that she practised secretly the free-love doctrine, as it is now 
 called, although there were only whispers upon the subject, 
 and she was enabled to hold her place in society, her 
 father being quite wealhy. But she became to me an object 
 of great dislike, and always must be. 
 
 " Having graduated, I left school and saw no more of 
 Susie for several years. Indeed, I had quite forgotten her, 
 until the autumn of 1850, when, accompanied by my hus- 
 band, I went to spend a few weeks at the house of his mar- 
 ried sister. Here I met the brother of this sister's husband, 
 who, accompanied by his wife, was also on a visit. But you 
 may imagine my surprise and indignation when I discovered 
 that his wife was my old classmate, Susie. Being pregnant at 
 the time, with my likes and dislikes partaking somewhat of 
 the whimsical, 1 conceived such an intolerable disgust for 
 Susie that I could not bear to be in the same room with her, 
 and yet politeness required that I should treat her with the 
 greatest cordiality, and greet her with a kiss every morning. 
 In spite of all my efforts, my nature so revolted against this 
 woman that on several occasions I was obliged to retire to 
 my bed-room and have a good cry. My husband at length 
 induced me to tell him my trouble, and at the end of the 
 week, greatly to the disappointment of his relatives, I per- 
 
1 1 6 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 suaded him to take me home. This is the only event that 
 occurred, during my time of gestation, having the least refer- 
 ence to marking my daughter, and you see that the effect of 
 this would be to make her the very reverse of what she has 
 proved. No, you are mistaken, Professor ; God brings these 
 things upon us to make us humble, and for some cause, that 
 you, with all your philosophy, cannot explain." 
 
 But the Professor took an entirely different view of the 
 subject, and suggested that if her violent emotions had been 
 caused by seeing blood, then her child was likely to be born 
 with a mark resembling blood, rather than the reverse, and, 
 after citing several facts well known as connected with antena- 
 tal influences, the poor woman at length became convinced 
 that it was herself rather than God who caused her daughter 
 to be born a prostitute. And when once convinced, she be- 
 came very zealous in the cause of having mothers instructed 
 in all these points, but probably a word from her clergyman 
 silenced her and sent her back again to special providences, 
 instead of cause and effect. 
 
 Returning once more to the point which I am seeking to 
 establish, I think every intelligent reader will admit that if a 
 child is " marked " at all, that the mark will be of the nature 
 of whatever caused it, regardless of whether the mother was 
 attracted or repulsed, or was excited by feelings of joy or 
 sorrow. If the mother is shocked by seeing a drunken man, 
 or one with a hair lip, the child will be correspondingly 
 "marked," and the greater her disgust the more palpable will 
 be the mark. Therefore, if the mother is disgusted by in- 
 haling tobacco smoke, then by antipathy the child will be 
 born with a desire to smoke. True, these matters are so 
 little understood that we may not always be able to determine 
 in advance whether the inherited effect will be by sympathy 
 or by antipathy. Therefore, I have taken pains to recite 
 cases illustrating the various phases, hoping that the mother 
 will exercise her reason, and not only avoid similar results, 
 but hundreds of others to which I do not allude at all. 
 
Natures Secrets. 1 1 7 
 
 The mother is often overworked during' this important pe- 
 riod, so that all the blood which it is possible for her system 
 to make is required for supplying the waste of her own tissue, 
 for the waste is greatly increasqii by hard exercise, and then 
 there is no surplus for her poor babe. In cases of this kind 
 the results vary according to the extent of overtasking. If 
 very great, then, expect the child to die and be " still born," 
 just as certainly as if deprived of food after birth. With a 
 less degree it may live to be born, a poor, scrawny thing, 
 starved almost to death, and, after a few days of pain and 
 suffering, relinquish a life that is a curse rather than a bless- 
 ing. A still less degree of overwork on the part of the 
 mother, and the child may survive for one, five, ten or twenty 
 years, but always feeble, worn and exhausted, even without 
 taking exercise, just as the mother felt, day after day, and 
 night after night, between the time of conception and birth. 
 Such persons are called lazy, slack, shiftless, and so forth, and 
 generally disliked. " My back never aches ; / never feel 
 tired, and I don't see why you should always be complaining 
 when I do ten times as much work as you do," sneers a stout, 
 robust, well-generated man to one of these half-aborted un- 
 fortunates whose mother starved him almost to death before 
 he was born, simply because she was overworked. 
 
 The mildest form of this ailment, resulting from overtask- 
 ing the physical strength of the mother, will manifest itself by 
 the child always feeling tired. I am acquainted with a lady 
 who enjoys ordinary good health, steps about lively, is cheer- 
 ful and animated in conversation, yet always feels tired. She 
 was born tired, and there is no cure for the feeling. 
 
 It is not a very uncommon event for the mother to die in 
 child-bed, and therefore many would contemplate mother- 
 hood with a shudder. But we are chiefly indebted to the 
 follies and fashions of artificial life for the pain and death so 
 generally attendant upon child-bearing. We know this by 
 observing the phenomena of generation in the savage. The 
 
n8 Natures Secrets. 
 
 squaw does not even need a nurse, much less a mid-wife or 
 accoucher. Prior to the abolition of American slavery, the 
 negroes of the South formed a sort of connecting link between 
 savage and civilized life, liffeig much more natural than the 
 whites. It was often remarked that the negro women rarely 
 suffered much in child-birth; and as an illustration, a letter- 
 writer from the North, in describing the people of the South, 
 remarked that one day after conversing with a slave woman 
 lor some time, she appearing as well and robust as any one, 
 she astonished him by saying: " Me hab pickaninie dis morn- 
 in'; come and see." 
 
 He followed her into the cabin, and sure enough there 
 reposed the dark cherub, appearing as well and happy as its 
 mother. Here is a text for a whole sermon for our American 
 women who expect to become mothers. This poor slave 
 woman, compelled by stern necessity to live on plain diet, 
 sleep on a hard bed and take the needful amount of exercise 
 in the open air, even at the risk of working beyond her 
 strength, was thus brought into natural relations and enabled 
 to rear a child without manifesting the least appearance of 
 change in her physical health. It is from examples like this 
 that we may learn how women should be treated during ges- 
 tation, rather than by studying books and consulting learned 
 physicians. Nature would not cause this a\vful suffering and 
 death, so common in child-birth, save as a punishment for 
 her violated laws. She would never cause the birth of mon- 
 sters, if all obeyed her laws. She does not make criminals; 
 it is the parents who make the criminals, whereas Nature 
 only marks them. The woman generally has to bear all this 
 blame, because it has been fashionable to blame her, ever 
 s-ince some corrupt priest conceived the idea of putting a 
 literal construction upon the first and second chapters of 
 Genesis. But I feel well assured that the man is equally, and 
 probably more to blame, than the woman, for the offspring 
 being "marked" as a deformity, a criminal, and so forth. 
 
Nature's Secrtts. 119 
 
 The following case, which occurred in England, will illustrate 
 and corroborate my meaning: 
 
 Some years ago, a laboring man, whom we will call Mr. 
 Howard, being possessed of much more than ordinary intel- 
 ligence, and having received the advantages of a good educa- 
 tion, decided to engage in mercantile pursuits, being ambitious 
 to rise above trie rank of a hewer of wood and drawer of 
 water. His good address and intelligent appearance enabled* 
 him to obtain credit, and in a short time he was apparently 
 on the high road to wealth. Scrupulously exact, punctual in 
 his engagements, for a brief period he was both happy and 
 prosperous. But before he had been able to accumulate a 
 surplus, and while still doing all his business upon a good 
 name and a borrowed capital, there came a financial crisis. 
 He had a stock of goods on hand, bought on credit, and his 
 creditors would soon be demanding the money for them. 
 But not one-fourth their value could be realized while the 
 panic continued, and the money must be raised at once. 
 Failure not only involved disgrace, but relegation back to the 
 laboring class, two conditions which he was most anxious to 
 avoid. 
 
 Pondering upon the matter, the idea occurred of trying to 
 save himself by forgery. True, if detected, he would be dis- 
 graced and imprisoned; but without making this effort, he 
 would be disgraced and reduced to hard labor. Here were 
 two alternatives. The first offered a chance for escape; the 
 second offered no such chance. He inclined strongly to 
 risking everything upon the hope held out by committing a 
 crime. He counseled with his wife, hoping for encourage- 
 ment from her. He explained that no person would be 
 wronged in case he succeeded, as he would continue to repeat 
 the forgeries and take up the notes until such time as he 
 might be able to convert his goods into money, when he 
 would take up the last forged note, destroy it, and no one 
 would ever be the wiser. 
 
I2O Natures Szcrtts. 
 
 His wife was very devoted in her love to htm, but pro- 
 tested most vehemently against this dreadful risk. No; she 
 would rather live in a hovel, on a dry crust, and wear her 
 fingers to stumps with hard labor, sooner than have him incur 
 the danger of such utter and hopeless ruin. But his mind 
 was already made up; and being a brave, resolute man, her 
 opposition seemed to him only the croakings W cowardice. 
 
 Unable to move him, Mrs. Howard next became extremely 
 anxious and nervous upon the subject, so fearful was she that 
 the forgeries would be detected and her husband be led away 
 to prison. But Mr. Howard was more of a genius than a 
 degraded criminal. Proceeding with great coolness, he ob- 
 tained the genuine signatures of some responsible men, and 
 then day after day he practised trying to imitate them. This 
 was not in his store, but in the privacy of his bed chamber. 
 Of course, his wife was cognizant of all that he was doing,* 
 and who shall attempt to depict the anxious days and sleepless 
 nights which she endured ? True, it did not seem to her like 
 a crime; for he had so completely magnetized her into his 
 view of the case, that she saw no evil in it save the evil of 
 detection, since he would eventually pay every penny secured 
 by the forgery. But would he escape? Would he be able 
 to imitate the signatures so closely that there would be no 
 suspicion? These were the queries that were continually 
 tormenting her brain and driving her almost frantic. 
 
 At length Mr. Howard succeeded so well that even she, 
 with all her faculties sharpened by anxiety, could not distin- 
 guish the true signature from the counterfeit. The greatest 
 obstacle was now overcome. Notes were made, the names 
 of responsible endorsers forged,' the Bank of England dis- 
 counted them, and with the money he paid his indebtedness. 
 Just before the forged paper fell due, he committed other 
 forgeries, took up the first notes in time to prevent the en- 
 dorser from being notified, and again everything went on 
 swimmingly. In this manner he continued to renew his 
 
Natiire*s Secrets. 121 
 
 notes until the crisis was past, when, as he had intended, he 
 raised the money in a legitimate way, destroyed every vestige 
 of the illegal transaction, and continuing to prosper, in the 
 course of time became wealthy. 
 
 But there was a little boy born to him a few months after 
 he began his peculiar financial transactions, lone son of " his 
 house and heart." On this child was centered all the love 
 and hope of his parents, and as he developed from infancy he 
 bid fair to realize their fondest wishes. Much above children 
 of his own age in mental endowments, he also possessed a 
 degree of shrewdness and ingenuity, especially in drawing 
 with a pencil, in imitation of writing, printing, pictures, etc., 
 even before learning to read, that astonished all who saw him. 
 True, he manifested at times a gravity that amounted to sad- 
 ness, showing great anxiety and worriment without any ap- 
 parent cause. But these things were viewed as merely the 
 eccentricities of genius, and therefore excited no particular 
 comment. 
 
 Time flew by, and young Howard was sent to school. He 
 learned easily in all branches, but seemed to have a fascina- 
 tion for writing and imitating every specimen of penmanship 
 that came under his notice. Finally he was detected in a 
 forgery and severely punished. The offence was repeated, 
 and not even his father's wealth and standing could save him 
 from exposure and expulsion from school. He was removed 
 to another school, but soon expelled for the same offence. 
 Thus he went on, until he had been six times expelled from 
 school for committing forgery, his youth and father's influ- 
 ence alone saving him from arrest and imprisonment. At 
 this epoch in his eventful history his father sent him to a 
 school for incorrigibles, the teacher of which having a repu- 
 tation for reclaiming even the most desperate cases. But 
 young Howard proved an exception. After being severely 
 punished for a forgery, teacher, assistant teachers and pupils 
 set themselves as spies upon him, determined that he should 
 
122 Nature's Secrets. 
 
 not repeat the first offence ; yet, in spite of all their watch- 
 fulness, he managed to execute a forgery, upon the discovery 
 of which he was sent home as an incorrigible among incorri- 
 gibles. .Then it was that the father wrote to the teacher, re- 
 vealing what has already been made known to the reader, 
 and revealing a secret that would have ^ otherwise died with 
 him. 
 
 In commenting upon this case there are two points which I 
 wish to make. First, to show that the father may impress the 
 unborn child, in spite of the mother's protests. Left to her- 
 self, it is in no way likely that Mrs. Howard would have ever 
 become the mother of a forger. But the painful anxiety to 
 which she was subjected by her husband, all unknown to her- 
 self, caused her child, and worst of all, her only child to be a 
 born forger! Think of this, young men, when your wives 
 are undergoing their primal sorrow, and remember how many 
 thousand ways there are whereby your treatment may be the 
 means of changing, as it were, the nature of your unborn 
 child. 
 
 The second point in this case has been already touched 
 upon, namely, that the mental and physical effect upon the 
 child may be caused equally as well through antipathy as 
 through sympathy. If caused alone through the sympathy of 
 the mother, then this boy would have been born with a horror 
 for forgery, for such were the feelings of the mother at that 
 important period of her pregnancy when the mischief was 
 done. It was the dread and anxiety of the mother which 
 was imparted to the child. She experienced a horror at the 
 idea of her husband committing a crime, and when he had 
 argued her out of that horror, he had not in the least relieved 
 her mind of the dread lest he would fail in making a good 
 counterfeit and thus be detected. So the involuntary facul- 
 ties of the mind were set to work, every element of her na- 
 ture partook of the emotion, and no wonder that the blood 
 and nerve vital fluids were so affected as to make her child just 
 
Natures Secrets^ 123 
 
 what he subsequently proved. Indeed, when we review the 
 case and weigh the circumstances in the light; of science it 
 ceases to be a wonder, but the wonder would have been if 
 the child had not been born a forger. 
 
 The action of the involuntary faculties may be illustrated 
 outside of pregnant women, or even the sex, for men are 
 subject to the same law, as the following incident will show : 
 
 Down in the State of Maine, some years since, a deacon of 
 the Congregational church entered into partnership with a 
 brother of the same church K> till and carry on a farm, the 
 owner of which had gone to Ohio. The season proved 
 favorable, abundant harvests rewarded their labors, and after 
 the last fruits had been gathered they both felt like congratu- 
 lating themselves upon their success. No person lived upon 
 the farm, but as the neighborhood enjoyed an excellent reputa- 
 tion for honesty, the crops were considered safe, stored in the 
 barn and granary. When winter came, according to Yankee 
 custom, the wheat was threshed, put into a box and securely 
 locked, the deacon remarking as he took the key that if there 
 were any thieves about the lock would not be likely to deter 
 them. Subsequently, every time he met his partner he ex- 
 pressed a fear that some one would come and steal their 
 wheat. But his partner had no such fears, and thus the 
 matter rested. 
 
 Daily the good deacon visited the farm and examined the 
 box to make sure that it was all right. One day, to his aston- 
 ishment, he discovered that several bushels had been taken 
 away, yet the box was securely locked, and no evidence of 
 any violence having been used. Straightway he hurried to 
 his partner, and upon consultation it was decided that they 
 would take turns watching by night until the wheat could be 
 removed, which would be in a few days. So that night, the 
 deacon watched, but no thief made his appearance. Next 
 night his partner watched, and lo, the deacon came, unlocked 
 the box, took out a sack of wheat, and proceeded very cau- 
 
124 Natures Secrete. 
 
 tiously into the barn floor ; here he raised a plank and de- 
 posited the sack. His partner had discovered at the outset 
 that the deacon was in a somnambulic state, and so did not 
 interfere. The deacon removed several other sacks, then re- 
 placed the plank, relocked the box and went home. 
 
 This case alone, although thousands might be cited, es- 
 tablishes the fact that the muscles may be made to act in 
 obedience to the involuntary control of the mind, as well as 
 the voluntary. Here was the good deacon greatly exercised 
 in his mind lest their wheat would be stolen. This was a 
 voluntary action; when he fell asleep that is, the voluntary 
 faculties took a rest the involuntary had the field all to them- 
 selves. If they could have spoken, I fancy the speech would 
 have been something like this: 
 
 " Let us make the deacon go and hide that wheat, so that 
 it will not be stolen." 
 
 No quicker said than done; without rousing the voluntary 
 forces, the involuntary marched him off and worked him as 
 long as they dared, for fear that the voluntary might wake up 
 and catch them at it, and thus removed a portion the first 
 night. The second night the deacon watched, the voluntary 
 were kept awake, and so the involuntary were unable to get 
 control. Next night, however, they came into power, the 
 deacon was caught, and the missing wheat all found under 
 the barn floor. 
 
 Now, no one will deny the phenomena of somnambulism, 
 yet it is far more wonderful than the involuntary action of the 
 various functions which are employed in forming a fcetal 
 child. Then why deny these antenatal influences ? I think 
 I have proved their existence, both by the logic of events and 
 by logical deduction. 
 
Natures Secrets. 125 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 SHALL PEOPLE DRUG, OR DIET? OPINIONS OF LEARNED PRO- 
 CESSORS REGARDING MEDICINE. 
 
 I come next to one of the most important considera- 
 tions connected with generation, namely, the diet. I 
 have already dropped some hints upon the subject, but 
 shall now discuss it more in detail. Were you to make 
 a lever of soft pine, instead of hickory, you would not 
 be surprised at its breaking easily; yet, knowing as you 
 do, that your bodies are made of the food that you eat, 
 you often appear surprised that they become so easily 
 diseased. The fact is there are too many people made 
 from a " soft pine" material, and then they blame God, 
 or the devil, or the doctor they don't know which for 
 their diseased bodies. If people expect to be healthy 
 and happy they must eat wholesome food. So, too, of 
 the mother during gestation, the future welfare of her 
 child depends greatly upon the quality of food eaten by 
 the mother during both gestation and lactation. 
 
 But there are so many who depend solely upon drug 
 medication for health, foolishly imagining that no matter 
 what they eat the doctor will be able, by the administra- 
 tion of medicine, to correct all the wrongs and outrages 
 against natural law as easily as an alkili will correct an 
 acid. But doctors know better, and only laugh among 
 themselves at the folly of the masses. To prove this 
 (for I endeavor to prove my assertions), I need only to 
 quote a few of the expressions let fall by the most emi- 
 
126 Natures Secrets. 
 
 nent physicians, the most gifted and learned teachers 
 and practitioners, who, better than any one else, are 
 qualified to testify upon the subject. 
 
 Professor Alonzo Clark, M.D., of the New York Col- 
 lege of Physicians and Surgeons, says: "All of our 
 curative agents are poisons, and, as a consequence, every 
 dose diminishes the vitality of the patient." This tells 
 well for the tonics. 
 
 Says Professor Joseph M. Smith, M. D., of the same 
 school : ' ( All medicines which nter the circul ation poison 
 the blood in the same manner as do the poisons that pro- 
 duce disease." 
 
 Says Professor St. John, of the N. Y. Medical Col- 
 lege: " All medicines are poisonous." 
 
 Says Professor H. G. Cox, M. D., of the same school: 
 "The fewer remedies you employ in any disease the 
 better for your patients." 
 
 Says Prof. E. H. Davis, M.D., of the N. Y. Medical 
 College: " The modus operandi of medicines is still a 
 very obscure subject." 
 
 Prof. J. W. Carson, M.D., of the N. Y. University 
 Medical School, says: "We do not know whether our 
 patients recover because we give medicine, or because 
 Nature cures them." 
 
 Prof. Joseph M. Smith, M.D., gives testimony again, 
 and says that " Drugs do not cure disease; disease is 
 always cured by the vis medicatrix natures " the healing 
 forces of Nature. 
 
 The venerable Alex. H. Stevens, M.D., of the N. Y. 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons, says: "The older 
 physicians grow the more skeptical they become of the 
 virtues of medicine, and the more they are disposed to 
 trust to the powers of natnre." 
 
 Says Prof. C. A. Oilman, M. D., of the same school: 
 ' ' Blisters nearly always produce death when applied to 
 
Natures Secrets. 127 
 
 children." Again: " I' give mercury to children when 
 I wish to depress the powers of life." And again: " The 
 application of opium to the true skin of an infant is 
 very likely to produce death." And yet again : " A single 
 drop of laudanum will often destroy the life of an in- 
 fant." And once more: " Four grains of calomel will 
 often kill an adult;" and finally, " A mild mercurial 
 course, and mildly cutting a man's throat, are synonymous 
 terms." 
 
 Says Prof. Horace Green, M.D., of the N. Y. Medical 
 College: " The confidence you have in medicine will be 
 dissipated by experience in treating diseases." 
 
 Prof. H. G-. Cox again testifies. He says: "There is 
 much truth in the statement of Dr. Hughes Bennett, 
 that blood-letting is always injurious and NEVEB NECES- 
 SARY, and I am inclined to think it entirely correct." 
 Again: "Bleeding in pneumonia doubles the mortality." 
 And again: " Mercury is a sheet-anchor in fevers* but it 
 is an anchor that moors your patient to the grave." 
 
 Says Prof. B. F. Barker, M.D., of the same school: 
 " The drugs which are administered for the cure of 
 scarlet fever and measles kill far more than those dis- 
 eases do. I have recently given no medicine in their 
 treatment, and have had excellent success." Again: 
 " 1 have known several ladies become habitual drunkards, 
 the primary cause being a taste for stimulants, which 
 was acquired in consequence of alcoholic drink being 
 administered to them as medicine." And again: "In- 
 stead of investigating for themselves, medical authors 
 have copied the errors of their predecessors, and have 
 thus retarded the progress of medical science." 
 
 Dr. Baile, of London, says: " I have no faith whatever 
 in medicine.'' 
 
 Prof. Evans, fellow of the Koyal College of London, 
 says: " The medical practice of our day is, at the best, 
 
1 28 Natures Secrets. 
 
 a most uncertain and unsatisfactory system; it has neither 
 philosophy nor common sense to commend it to confidence." 
 
 Says Prof. Gregory, of Edinburg, author of a work 
 on theory and practice of physic: " Gentlemen, ninety- 
 nine out of every hundred medical facts are medical lies; 
 and medical doctrines are, for the most part, stark, 
 staring nonsense !\ 
 
 John Abernethy, M.D., of London, says, in his works: 
 " There has been a great increase of medical men of 
 late, but, upon my life, diseases have increased in pro- 
 portion." 
 
 Prof. Jamieson, of Edinburg, testifies as follows : c< The 
 present practice of medicine is a reproach to the name 
 of science, while its professors give evidence of an al- 
 most total ignorance of the nature and proper treatment 
 of disease. Nine times out of ten our miscalled remedies 
 are absolutely injurious to our patients, suffering under 
 diseases of whose real character and cause we are most 
 culpably ignorant/' 
 
 Listen to the following, from a high source: " As- 
 suredly the most uncertain and unsatisfactory art, that 
 we call medical science, is no science at all, but a jumble 
 of inconsistent opinions, of conclusions hastily and 
 often incorrectly drawn, of facts misunderstood or per- 
 verted, of comparisons without analogy, of hypotheses 
 without reason, and theories not only useless but danger- 
 ous." Dublin Medical Journal. 
 
 And this: " Some patients get well with the aid of 
 medicine, more without it, and still more in spite of it." 
 Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.K.S. 
 
 Hear the great doctor: " The science of medicine is a 
 barbarous jargon, and the effect of our medicines on the 
 human system in the highest degree uncertain, except, 
 indeed, that they have destroyed more lives than war, 
 pestilence, and famine combined." John Mason Good, 
 
Nature's Secret^ 129 
 
 M.D., F.R.S., author of "Book of Nature," " A Sys- 
 tem of Nosology," " Study of Medicine," etc. 
 
 Hear another: " I declare, as iny conscientious con- 
 viction, founded 011 long experience and reflection, that 
 if there were not a single physician, surgeon, man mid- 
 wife, chemist, apothecary, druggist, nor drug, on the 
 face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less 
 mortality than now prevail." James Johnson, M.D., 
 F.E.S., editor of the Medico-Chirurgical Review. 
 
 The National Medical Convention that was held in St. 
 Louis, Mo., a few years ago, deliberately adopted the 
 following confession: "It is wholly incontestable that 
 there exists a wide-spread dissatisfaction with what is 
 called the regular old Allopathic system of medical 
 practice. Multitudes of people in this country and in 
 Europe express an utter want of confidence in physicians 
 and their physic. The cause is evident: erroneous theory, 
 and, springing from it, injurious, often, very often, fatal 
 practice. Nothing will now subserve the absolute requi- 
 sitions of an in+elligent community but a medical doc- 
 trine grounded upon right reason in harmony with and 
 vouched by the unerring laws of Nature and of the vital 
 organism, and authenticated and confirmed by successful 
 results." 
 
 Dr. T. W. Davenport, of Marion County, Oregon, of 
 whom Prof. Chaney says : ' ' I consider Dr. Davenport 
 the most deeply learned in science and philosophy of 
 any man that I have met on this coast," having regu- 
 larly graduated in a medical college, turned his back on 
 his Alma Mater, and having been invited to deliver the 
 annual add: ess before the " Oregon and Washington 
 Health Reform Association," in 1868, after summing up 
 the foregoing quotations, remarks: 
 
 " To conclude these extracts, which are not a tithe of 
 what might be furnished, I will give the testimony of 
 
130 Natures Secrets. 
 
 one in whom I could place the most implicit confidence; 
 one whose candor, patience, sagacity, learning and ex- 
 perience entitled him to the highest consideration. He 
 was a graduate of the Medical College at Pittsfield, 
 Mass.; was admitted to practice by the N. Y. State 
 Board of Examination, and continued in the practice of 
 his profession, most of the time in the "Western States, 
 for a period of thirty-five years. As a physician and 
 accoucher, I am now satisfied I never saw his superior. 
 He said, ' I commenced practice with the never-to-be- 
 forgotten lancet, and my saddle-bags stored with a pretty 
 good assortment of our Materia Medica. Before ten 
 years had passed the pill- bags were permanently emptied 
 of tonics and specifics, and the lancet's edge was rusty 
 from idleness. Another ten had not passed, when the 
 lancet and bags were things of the past, and a small 
 vest pocket could carry more than was really for the 
 benefit of mankind. My brother Allopaths called me the 
 do-nothing doctor, and I must say there is much truth 
 in the epithet, as I have lost all confidence in our system 
 of medicine. I tell the people that medicine never 
 cured anybody, and that my success is to be attributed 
 to the employment of Hygienic means.' 
 
 " This was Dr. Benjamin Davenport, called by the 
 people ' the poor man's friend.' Now, if you have 
 pondered earnestly the extracts just read in your hear- 
 ing, and have not come to the conclusion that our learned 
 opponents have committed suicide a score of times in 
 those confessions, you are, at least, ready to go into an 
 impartial discussion of the foundation truths upon which 
 all medical science must rest. I propose to follow the 
 inductive method, and shall recall to your mind some of 
 the most obvious and essential points of anatomy and 
 physiology, and for the sake of brevity shall be obliged 
 
Nature's Secrets. 131 
 
 to assume many things, but only such as our adversaries 
 havo taught and therefore will not deny." 
 
 The " Dr. Benjamin Davenport/' here alluded to, was 
 the father of the speaker, well known and most deeply 
 beloved throughout Oregon. His son fails to do justice 
 to the skill, the learning, and the many virtues of the 
 father in the modest compliment which he pays l^im, yet 
 in his own life, grand, noble, and generous, he proves 
 himself worthy to be the son of so good and true a man. 
 I shall have occasion to make further quotations from 
 Dr. T. W. *Daveuport, and although he was not disposed 
 to swell the list of extracts from the sayings of eminent 
 physicians, I am inclined to do so. 
 
 An American student in Paris sends to the Medical 
 Gazette the following, extracted from the opening of a 
 lecture by Prof! Majendie, the celebrated French physi- 
 cian and physiologist: " Gentlemen, medicine is a great 
 humbug. I know it is called a science. Science, in- 
 deed! It is nothing like science. Doctors are mere 
 empirics, when they are not charlatans. "We are as 
 ignorant as men can be. Who, in the world, knows 
 anything about medicine ? Gentlemen, you have done 
 me the honor to come here to attend my lectures, and I 
 must tell you frankly now, in the beginning, that I know 
 nothing in the world about medicine, and I don't know 
 anybody who does know anything about it. 
 
 ' ' But do not think for a moment that I have not read 
 the bills advertising a course of lectures at the medical 
 schools. I know that this man teaches anatomy; that 
 man teaches pathology; another man teaches physiology; 
 such a one therapeutics; such another materia medica. 
 Eh bien et apnes. "What's known about all that ? Why, 
 gentlemen, at the school of Montpelier (God knows it 
 was famous enough in its day,) they discarded the study 
 of anatomy and taught nothing but the dispensary; yet 
 
132 Natures Secrets. 
 
 doctors educated there knew just as much, and were 
 quite as successful as any others. I repeat it, nobody 
 knows anything about medicine. 
 
 " True enough, we are gathering facts every day. We 
 can produce typhus fever, for example, by injecting cer- 
 tain substances into the veins of a dog. That is some- 
 thing. . "We can alleviate Diabetes, and I see distinctly 
 that we are approaching the day when phthisis can be 
 cured as easy as any disease. We are collating facts in 
 the right spirit, and I dare say, in a century or so the 
 accumulation of facts may enable our successors to form 
 a medical science. But I repeat to you, in this day 
 there is no such thing as medical science. 
 
 " Who can tell me how to cure the headache, or gout, 
 or disease of the heart? Nobody! * O/ you tell me, 
 ' doctors cure people.' I grant you that people are 
 cured, but how are they cured ? Gentlemen, Nature 
 does a great deal, and so does the imagination; doctors 
 do but devilish little, when they don't do harm! Let me 
 tell you, gentlemen, what I did when I was head physi- 
 cian at the Hotel Dieu: 
 
 " Some three or four thousand passed through my 
 hands every year. I divided the patients into two 
 classes; with one I followed the dispensary and gave 
 them the usual medicines without having the least idea 
 why or wherefore. To the others I gave bread pills and 
 colored water, without, of course, letting them know 
 anything about it. Occasionally I would create a third 
 division, to whom I gave nothing whatever. These last 
 would fret a great deal and feel that they were neglected. 
 Sick people always feel that they are neglected, unless 
 they are well drugged, les imbeciles, and they would 
 irritate themselves until they got really sick. But Na- 
 ture invariably came to the rescue, and all the persons 
 in the third class got well. There was a little mortality 
 
Nature's Secrets. 133 
 
 among those who received bread pills and colored water, 
 but the mortality was greatest among those who were 
 carefully drugged according to the dispensary." 
 
 Majendie was a great man in the profession of medi- 
 cine, and could therefore speak out plainly what the 
 ordinary Professor dare not say. What he said of 
 medicine, however, all within the profession feel to be 
 unfortunately and lamentably true. Medicine has never 
 been raised to a practical and trustworthy science, and 
 is, doubtless, as Majendie declares, a " humbug." Tak- 
 ing leave of the learned Frenchman, let us see what a 
 critic has said, by way of showing his estimate of the 
 practice of medicine in former times : 
 
 11 For nothing equals the frightful evils which were 
 inflicted upon mankind by the former practice of medi- 
 cine. This fatal ' art,' as you call it, which for centuries 
 has enjoyed the power to arbitrarily decide on life and 
 death, destroys ten times more than the most murderous 
 wars, and makes millions of others infinitely greater 
 sufferers than they were at first." 
 
 Dr. Skey, senior surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hos- 
 pital, and lecturer on anatomy at the School of Medi- 
 cine, speaking to his pupils, says: " If the science of 
 medicine was a certain and exact science, there could be 
 no difficulty in determining, if not the most appropriate 
 agent of cure, at least the most appropriate principle. 
 But no argument can be more conclusive in favor of its 
 great uncertainty, and of the inconclusiveness of medi- 
 cal reasoning, than the fact that this one disease ery- 
 sipelas is deemed amenable to one form of remedy by 
 one class of practitioners, and to the direct opposite by 
 another class. If one of these remedies be good the 
 other must be bad, for their properties are in direct 
 antagonism. Unhappily for the cause of truth, this or 
 that form of treatment is not for the most part the result 
 
134 Natures Secrets. 
 
 of observation, but ih& offspring of faith faith in the 
 authority and dicta of others. It appears to me that we 
 have reached an era when there must be a crisis in 
 medical opinions. Authorities, whether in person or in 
 the form of writings, are infinitely various and antago- 
 nistic, and yet there is no health in us which is not be- 
 gotten by observation and experiment." 
 
 Sir John Forbes, physician royal, says: " All well- 
 informed and experienced members of the medical pro- 
 fession are painfully aware of the great imperfections of 
 their art, and of its inadequacy to fulfil, in a satisfactory 
 manner, much that it professes to accomplish." 
 
 Dr. Pereira, the greatest authority on Materia Medica 
 in the English Schools of Medicine, agreed with Sir Gil- 
 bert Elaine " that in many cases the patients get well in 
 spite of the means employed, and sometimes when the 
 practitioner fancies that he has made a great cure we 
 may fairly assume that the patient has had a happy 
 escape." 
 
 Dr. James Johnson, physician to King William IV., 
 remarks: " There is as much quackery in the profession 
 as oid of it, and it is my conscientious opinion, founded 
 on long observation and reflection, that if there was not 
 a single surgeon, man-midwife, chemist or druggist on 
 the face of the earth there would be less sickness and 
 less mortality." 
 
 Prof. Elliotson, in his " Principles of Medicine," says: 
 " As respects this country, I cannot but think that if all 
 the patients in Asiatic cholera had been left alone the 
 mortality would have been much the same it has been." 
 
 Sir Anthony Carlisle used to say: " Hospitals are in- 
 stitutions in which medical education is perfected by 
 murder! " . 
 
 Dr. Billing, author of '-The Principles and Practice 
 of Medicine," says: " I visited the different schools of 
 
Nature's Secrets. 135 
 
 medicine, and the students of each hinted, if they did 
 not assert, that the other sects killed their patients " 
 
 Dr. Frank says: " Thousands are slaughtered in the 
 silent sick-room!" 
 
 Dr. Reed says: "More infantile subjects are probably 
 destroyed daily, by the pestle and mortar, than in ancient 
 Bethlehem fell victims in one day to the Herodian 
 massacre ." 
 
 Dr. Madden says: " In all our cases we did as other 
 doctors had done; we continued to bleed, and the patients 
 continued to die." 
 
 Sir Astley Cooper, England's greatest physician, gave 
 it as his opinion " That the science of medicine is 
 founded in conjecture and improved by murder!" 
 
 A celebrated French physician, distinguished alike for 
 both wisdom and wit, once said: "The science of medi- 
 cine consists of pouring drugs, of which doctors know 
 but little, into stomachs of which they know less." 
 
 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the first who called Bos- 
 ton " the hub of the universe," distinguished among 
 the best writers of the present age, says: " It would be 
 a blessing to the human family if all the medicine in the 
 world were thrown into the ocean, though it might be a 
 damage to the fishes. >} 
 
 Thirty years ago, Thomas B. Hazzard met at a water- 
 ing place three of the most celebrated physicians in 
 America, namely, Dr. Faugh, of Quebec, who stood at 
 the head of his profession in Canada; Dr. James, the 
 leading physician of Albany, and Dr. Francis, the first 
 physician in New York City. They were old and ex- 
 perienced, and all had retired with a competency. They 
 were men of sound judgment, and their opinions were 
 greatly respected, yet they agreed unanimously in this 
 conclusion: *' The medical profession may be wholly 
 
136 Natures Secrets* 
 
 abandoned without detracting from the arerage health 
 and longevity of the human race." 
 
 Prof. Pancoast, of Jefferson College, Philadelphia, 
 says: " I have discarded the cumbersome remedial agents 
 of the dispensary by reducing them to fifteen in my 
 practice, and consider five of the fifteen little better than 
 useless." 
 
 I might swell this list of quotations, but think that I 
 have given enough to prove that the practice of medi- 
 cine, as it has long existed, and as it exists to-day, can- 
 not be properly called a " science," for science means a 
 knowledge of facts and forces. Pain is not only a "fact/* 
 but generally a painful fact; for instance, tic doloreau, 
 neuralgia, rheumatism, etc. But in the practice of medi- 
 cine there is neither knowledge nor fact, to be relied 
 upon in all cases, for removing those pains. The great 
 Napoleon was near the truth when he declared that 
 " the physician is always in the dark, and the practice of 
 medicine but little better than guesswork." Napoleon 
 might not have been a physician, but he had more brains 
 than any man in Europe, in his day, as their weight 
 showed after his death. 
 
 "What I have said about allopathic doctors will not 
 apply to allopathic surgeons. The educated, scientific 
 surgeon is a necessity, whereas even an ignoramus might 
 administer poisonous drugs, and kill just as effectually, 
 although perhaps not quite so scientifically. From the 
 moment of our birth till the time arrives for putting us 
 in bur coffins we are incessantly poisoned . The circular 
 of the Society of Druggists of the city of New York 
 declares that the prescribed dose of Mrs. Winslow's 
 soothing syrup contains nine grains of opium/ Is this a 
 mother's blessing? If so, it is still the baby's curse. 
 Mothers, as you value the physical and intellectual lives 
 of your infants, refuse to poison them with this deadly 
 
Natures Secrets. 137 
 
 anodyne. Study and obey Nature's Taws, and yon 
 have no occasion for soothing syrups; or, if you must 
 use an anodyne, which I dispute, then obtain Hoffman's, 
 but avoid Mrs. Winslow's deadly nostrum as you would 
 the bite of a cobra. 
 
 In quoting this long list of extracts I have not been 
 actuated by a desire to disparage the medical profession, 
 nor to defame those who practice the art of healing. 
 My only motive has been to convince the reader that the 
 practice of medicine cannot be ranked even as an ap- 
 proximate science, much less among the exact sciences. 
 It has been fostered and kept in existence solely by the 
 ignorance of the masses, and is annually slaying its 
 thousands unnecessarily. 
 
 Mankind seem to be held as if by a spell, looking to 
 the physician as though he had the power to restore 
 them to health, regardless of how persistently or how 
 long they have been living in violation of the laws of 
 their being. To break this spell, to rescue man from 
 barbarism, and to point him to the true savior, I am 
 writing this book. To prove its necessity, and to illus- 
 trate the depraved appetites that exist, I quote the case 
 of Kev. Mr. Lloyd, an English divine, whose butler 
 assured me that when the parson was invited out to dine 
 it was his custom to eat a quarter of roast lamb, weigh- 
 ing ten pounds, before going, in order to conceal the 
 fact of his awful gluttony. 
 
 I have made quotations from many of the most emi- 
 nent physicians that have ever lived, in order to con- 
 vince my readers that the more a man learns about the 
 practice of medicine the less confidence he will have in 
 it. If I have succeeded in converting the reader to this 
 opinion, then he is in a proper state of mind to heed the 
 advice I am about to grve, which, though prepared for 
 patients in general, will be found of great value ta 
 
138 Natures Secrets* 
 
 women during gestation. These directions have been 
 published in the form of a large handbill, under the 
 heading, " DR. J. H. RUTTLEY'S DIETETIC AND HYGIENIC 
 
 RULES FOE HIS PATIENTS ": 
 
 THE CAUSES OF DISEASE are multitudinous. If the de- 
 velopment theory is correct the muscular system of our 
 race must have been the result of millions of years of 
 action, and from the inherited idiosyncrasies and eccen- 
 tricities, etc., of our remote ancestry, and our present 
 ignorance of physiological and antenatal laws, may we 
 trace, as in lines of blood, the cause of diseases of body 
 and mind; and hence, it is the first moral and religious 
 duty of all sick persons to ascertain what injurious habits 
 and employments have caused their sufferings, and im- 
 mediately change or correct them . 
 
 THE REMEDIAL AGENTS OF NATURE are dress, food, water, 
 air, light, electricity, magnetism and empyria, a force 
 we find upon the very summit of the grand structure of 
 positive and negative nervous forces, and medicines as 
 used by the various schools, however good and useful in 
 cutaneous diseases, will not reconcile injurious employ- 
 ments or bad physiological habits with health. History 
 and science demonstrate that it will always be useless to 
 attempt to cure any disease without the most careful 
 attention to diet and all the laws of health. 
 
 To INSUBE A CURE. Dr. Ruttley earnestly solicits all 
 who consult him professionally, all who use his medi- 
 cines and mode of Nature-a-pathic treatment, to observe 
 all the following rules of diet, etc., as long as they 
 remain under his professional charge, otherwise he will 
 not consider himself responsible for their cure. 
 
 STIMULANTS AND NARCOTICS. Carefully avoid the use 
 of all narcotic poisons, such as opium and tobacco. 
 Tobacco is the second strongest poison in the world, and 
 is a fruitful source of paralysis, etc., and all stimulants, 
 
Natures Secrets. 139 
 
 such as rum, tea and coffee, as well as all vinous and 
 fermented liquors, the use of which is a fruitful cause of 
 vertigo, or dizziness of the head, palpitation of the 
 heart, weakness of the stomach, brain, nerves, etc. 
 
 How TO COOK FOOD. Almost any kind of food may be 
 rendered comparatively wholesome by skillful cooking. 
 It is an old Spanish aphorism, that nature has provided 
 for mankind the greatest variety and abundance of 
 wholesome food. Ignorance, ever intent on mischief, 
 has sent into the world plenty of miserable cooks to 
 spoil it all. Miserable cookery has killed more than 
 war, pestilence and famine. 
 
 WHEN TO EAT. Never eat when fatigued or exhausted; 
 drink only a little gruel, and wait until rested. The 
 brain aids in digesting our food, and when exhausted by 
 excitement, or by over intellectual or physical employ- 
 ment, cannot digest anything until rested. Never eat 
 anything between meals; give the stomach time to rest, 
 especially when weak and debilitated; frequent eating 
 by invalids, and frequent nursing by infants, weaken the 
 stomach and liver, and bring on dyspepsia and other 
 kindred diseases depending on imperfect digestion. 
 
 How TO EAT. Eat very slowly. Our food may be 
 half digested while in the mouth. Kapid eating is one 
 of the curses of our civilization, and produces a fearful 
 amount of indigestion and diseases of the stomach and 
 liver, vertigo, headache, neuralgia, nervous debility, 
 palpitation of the heart, spinal irritation, rheumatism, 
 premature decay and old age. No invalid can make 
 stomach bitters chew his food. Perhaps nothing is 
 more prejudicial to the proper assimilation of food than 
 disputation. The mind becomes irritated, and instan- 
 taneously the stomach sympathizes. A dinner table is 
 the worst possible place for an argument which may 
 easily become heated and acrimonious. Nor should it 
 
140 Natures Secreis* 
 
 be a place where children are constantly reproved, or 
 their bad conduct suffered to destroy the comfort of the 
 meal. Discipline in the household is highly necessary, 
 but the wise mother will not make it a prominent feature 
 at the table. Good news, happy thoughts, innocent 
 mirth and cheerful sayings are the most efficacious 
 relishes, and should be used freely. An uncomfortable 
 meal, whatever may be the cause, is almost certain to 
 produce indigestion. And though such small matters 
 may be thought by many unimportant, they go very far 
 toward the establishment of good health, and even the 
 most robust cannot neglect them with impunity. 
 
 THE KIND OF FLOUR TO MAKE GOOD BREAD. The out- 
 side part of all grain contains the phosphates and the 
 nitrates, or all the brain, muscle and bone-forming 
 materials, while the central portion of the kernel is 
 composed of starch or fat-forming matter only, conse- 
 quently no animal can live in a state of health on fine 
 flour alone. A calf, if fed on fine flour alone, will die 
 in less than a month. "Wheat, corn, rye, barley, etc., 
 should be ground fine, and then only the outside husks 
 and hulls should be removed by a course sieve. A fine 
 flour-bolt was an ignorant invention, that has produced 
 a most fearful destruction of happiness and human 
 health. 
 
 BREAD, How TO MAKE. Good "bread is the staff of 
 life." The best bread is made of wheat, rye, barley, 
 corn and oatmeal flour, and without yeast, in the follow- 
 ing way: 
 
 UNFERMENTED BREAD. About fourteen per cent, of the 
 nutriment of all flour is destroyed by the process of 
 fermentation in making yeast bread. To make the best 
 unfermented bread the basins must be made of cast 
 iron, and twelve of these, small size, may be cast to- 
 gether, being connected together at the rim. Put the 
 
Natures Secrets. 141 
 
 clean, empty pans in the oven and heat the stove or 
 oven hot, so that it is in a good condition to bake 
 quickly. Mix your flour with cold water, and a pinch of 
 salt, so the dough will drop out *of the spoon. Remove 
 the hot basins from the oven, and after greasing them, 
 drop the dough out of the spoon, and fill two-thirds 
 full; put them into the hot oven and bake quickly and 
 thoroughly. 
 
 FERMENTED BREAD. Mix your flour with good sweet 
 hop-yeast and. cold water; knead thoroughly. The best 
 French bread is kneaded four hours, made into small 
 loaves, and baked on the bottom of the oven. The loaf 
 should not be more than two inches thick, and baked in 
 an oven moderately heated, until it is well done and 
 nicely browned. In fact, the more thoroughly it J 
 baked the sweeter and more digestible it will become, 
 since the crust is always the sweetest part. 
 
 WHAT MEAT TO EAT. Beef is the most nourishing of 
 all kinds of meat; it contains iron, in its highest perfec- 
 tion, and when skillfully cooked is the most wholesome. 
 Inferior beef may be made digestible and wholesome by 
 skillful cooking. Wipe clean and drop it into a kettle 
 of boiling water for ten minutes. This will coagulate 
 the albumen, and form a coating on the surface to retain 
 all its saline matter and nutritive juices. Then add 
 sufficient cold water to arrest the boiling, and set the 
 kettle or pot on the back part of the range. Let the 
 beef remain in the hot water, reduced twenty degrees 
 below the boiling point, until it becomes very tender, or 
 for three or four hours. If broiled or roasted the less 
 it is cooked the better. Haw beef might cure scrofula 
 and consumption, while fried beef will kill an ostrich. 
 
 BEEF TEA. Take one pound of nice tender stake, re- 
 move the fat, chop very fine, and add one pint of cold 
 water, stir and soak one hour. Boil ten minutes, then 
 
142 Natures Secrets. 
 
 strain and season with salt to suit the taste. May be 
 eaten by invalids suffering from extreme exhaustion and 
 great debility of the digestive organs. 
 
 WHAT VEGETABLES TO* EAT. Healthy people may eat 
 vegetables freely, but it is quite notorious that they are 
 less digestable than good bread, often causing flatulency 
 and indigestion, especially among children and old peo- 
 ple; in fact, they become laxative by virtue of their 
 mechanical irritation and stimulation, which they pro- 
 duce upon the mucous membrane and the intestinal 
 canal. Peas; beans, rice, etc., are very nutricious, and 
 should be eaten sparingly, if at all, by those who have 
 diseases of the stomach and liver. 
 
 Ho WTO COOK VEGETABLES. Oatmeal, cornmeal, rye and 
 wheat, when made into mush, should be thoroughly 
 cooked, or they will not agree with dyspeptics. Rice, 
 potatoes, peas and beans should be boiled, and never 
 fried or soaked in grease. 
 
 WHAT FRUIT TO EAT. Eaw fruit is wholesome for 
 healthy people, but does not agree with dyspeptics, or 
 those who have diseases of the stomach and liver, causing 
 acidity, flatulency and indigestion. When cooked plain, 
 and without much sugar, may be used sparingly, except 
 in cases of great irritability of the stomach, when every 
 article of the kind must be carefully avoided. The sub- 
 acid fruits are the most wholesome. 
 
 WHAT AND WHEN TO DRINK. 'Drink nothing at meals. 
 When the meal is finished an invalid may drink a little 
 warm milk and water, and in some cases a little black 
 tea, steeped only ten minutes and poured from the 
 grounds. Tea and coffee are rendered more injurious 
 by steeping too long; the peculiar stimulating qualities 
 are extracted the first ten minutes, and then the bitter 
 extractive and tannin, which are so constipating. Let 
 the invalid dip the polished blade of a table knife into a 
 
Natures Secrets. 143 
 
 cup of tea or coffee that has been steeped half an hour, 
 and he will know why they should not drink it, unless 
 they wish that the mucous membrane lining their stomachs 
 and bowels should resemble the leather of their old 
 shoes. 
 
 "WHAT FOOD TO AVOID. Eat no bread or cakes of any 
 kind soaked, fried or baked in grease of any kind, such 
 as corncakes, pancakes, doughnuts, etc., and all bread 
 and sweet cakes composed of lard, butter, sugar, spices, 
 etc., and all pastry, the crust of which is filled with 
 grease, and fit only for the stomach of an ostrich or a 
 gourmand. Eat no pork or sausages, nor any fat of beef 
 or mutton, and cabbage only twice a year. The use of 
 such food causes irritability of the stomach, shortness of 
 the breath, flatulency, headaches, bilious attacks, vio- 
 lent palpitation of the heart, paralysis, apoplexy, etc. 
 
 SUGAR AND SWEETMEATS. Sugar and sweetmeats of 
 every description are among the most unwholesome and 
 indigestible of all kinds of food, and should be care- 
 fully avoided by all invalids having an irritable stomach 
 or liver, with a tendency to flatulency and acidity, or to 
 diseases of the kidneys, rheumatism, etc. Very great 
 distress in infancy with irritability and restlessness, is 
 produced by too free use of sugar in the food prepared 
 for children. 
 
 EXERCISE FOR INVALIDS. After eating, exercise gently 
 in the open air, or engage in light, pleasing conversation. 
 Over-exertion, hard labor, strong mental excitement, 
 especially soon after eating, will exhaust the brain, 
 weaken the nerves of the stomach, and bring on the 
 severest attacks of dyspepsia. Light out-door employ- 
 ments are the best for invalids with weak and irritable 
 stomachs. Exercise is the most beneficial when taken 
 on an empty stomach. Short walks, often repeated, are 
 the best for all persons in delicate health. Keep out in 
 
144 Natures Secrets. 
 
 the open air and in the sun; keep away from the lounge 
 or bed, except at night for sleep. All invalids or old 
 people, when they lie down much in the daytime, gen- 
 erally live but a short time. Keep moving as long as 
 you can. Nature's activities are incessant; let us all 
 imitate and follow nature. 
 
 BATHING AND FRICTION. " Cleanliness is next to God- 
 liness." Wet a towel in tepid water and wash the skin 
 all over daily, using a little castile soap only about the 
 flexions of the joints. Two minutes only is required in 
 applying the water, then use a dry towel briskly for two 
 minutes, and then your own hands, or those of some 
 friend, two minutes. Six minutes thus spent will save 
 much suffering and heavy doctor bills. If quite feeble, 
 do this in a warm room at 10 A. M. , otherwise at any time. 
 
 DRY BATHING AND RUBBING, Passive exercise is very 
 important for all invalids so feeble as to be confined to 
 the house. Rub the skin all over twice a day night 
 and morning with a coarse towel, especially along the 
 spine, and over the seat of the pain or uneasiness, for 
 the nerves of the skin sympathize with all the internal 
 organs. Always finish with the hand, which is adapted 
 by nature to impart health and strength in all cases of 
 chronic diseases of long standing. 
 
 CLOTHING. Wear your clothing warm and loose over 
 all parts of the boiy, and more especially the extremi- 
 ties. Arms, legs and feet should be well protected with 
 warm clothing. It is estimated that at least one-sixth of 
 all those children who perish under one year of age, die 
 of diseases produced by want of sufficient clothing. 
 Children require more clothing to preserve health than 
 grown people. Bare arms and legs, with low neck 
 dresses in infancy, are only a species of cruelty and 
 wickedness, practised by those mothers who do not un-^ 
 derstand that they are killing their offspring. 
 
 
Natures Secrets. 145 
 
 LADIES' DRESS. Ladies, especially, should wear their 
 dresses loose around the waist, and short- waisted, and 
 with short straps or waists upon their underclothing, 
 raising up the binding of skirts close under the breasts, 
 completely supporting the whole weight upon the shoul- 
 ders, allowing no weight to press upon the spine, abdo- 
 men or hips. Tight-lacing and neglect of the above 
 simple rules is a frigh.ful source of pain in the side, pro- 
 lapsus uteri, and dragging-down sensation when walking 
 or standing. 
 
 SLEEP. Sleep in a large well-ventilated room, with an 
 open fire-place if possible. Husband and wife should 
 always occupy separate beds in connecting rooms. 
 Sleeping in the same bed is one fruitful source of 
 divorce, Young people should never sleep with old 
 people. If the invalid is confined to the bed or house, 
 the sick room should be well lighted, and the blinds and 
 curtains removed. All animals living in a state of na- 
 ture, when sick, instinctively seek the sunlight. Human 
 beings should imitate them; always live on the sunny 
 side of the street. 
 
 SUNLIGHT. The red coloring matter of the blood of 
 animals, and the green coloring matter of the leaves of 
 plants, the perfume of the flowers, and the delicious 
 flavor of all fruits can only be elaborated by the golden 
 rays of sunlight. We are all sons and daughters of the 
 sun, and should be much exposed to our Father's be- 
 nign heat. Dark rooms impoverish the blood, causing 
 scrofula and consumption, and are fatal to all invalids. 
 
 POSITION. Avoid carefully the stooping position, either 
 sitting or standing, as it will soon round the shoulders, 
 narrow the chest, weaken the lungs and stomach, causing 
 debility and deformity. Learn to sit, stand and walk 
 erect " blessed is the upright man" that every move- 
 ment may be instinctive with grace and beauty. If 
 
146 Natures Secrets. 
 
 troubled with cold, damp feet, wash them with cold 
 water and salt, at bed-time, and after wiping dry rub 
 them thoroughly with a dry, coarse towel, and finish 
 with the application of the hand. 
 
 ALWAYS BE CHEERFUL. "A merry heart doeth good 
 like medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth up the bones." 
 Every invalid must cultivate a cheerful disposition. A 
 sorrowful, morose, fretful mind, absolutely neutralizes 
 all remedial agents, and drives away heavenly influences. 
 Let invalids be firm and determined, and they well get 
 well, for "the gods help those who help themselves," 
 is a Grecian aphorism. 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. "Man is of the earth, earthy," 
 God, our Father, the positive, the earth, our mother the 
 negative. The earth commences to sleep at 12, meridian, 
 attaining its greatest density, or most profound sleep, be- 
 tween 9 and 12 P.M. Man to-day is but a child, and as 
 children sleep best with their mothers when young, 
 should always (urgent business excepted) retire at 9 
 o'clock, P. M., and rise at 5 or 6, A. M. Thousands have 
 filled premature graves by neglecting ' ' early to bed and 
 early to rise." 
 
 ADDENDUM. When religion, law, science and philoso- 
 phy shall be sufficiently expanded and enlightened to 
 admit that " whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
 reap," (for it is a demonstrable fact in the divine science 
 of God's laws during utero-gestation and lactation,) 
 together with the planets ruling at this period, form the 
 sickness or health, the happiness or misery, the virtue 
 or vice of our race, and make the poet, the warrior, the 
 statesman, the politician, the divine, the successful 
 financier, the murderer, the robber, the atheist, and the 
 religionist. When mankind have learned these facts, 
 an. I learned to regulate their lives accordingly, then, and 
 then only, may we expect to see the race attaining to 
 
Natures Secrets. 
 
 47 
 
 that high standard of physical, intellectual, moral and 
 spiritual excellence to which it is privileged by nature. 
 Parents daguerreotype their own inmost thoughts and 
 secret actions in the lives of their children, and by this 
 law can we read the most secret actions that otherwise 
 would be beyond human ken. None but the perfectly 
 pure and healthy should become parents. Parentage is 
 the most solemn and sacred of all things on earth, and 
 the least understood of all of God's laws. 
 
 WHAT is HEALTHY FOOD. The following chemical 
 analysis shows the composition of several of the most 
 common articles of food generally used, and also the 
 time in which they are digested : 
 
 
 Water. 
 
 Albumen 
 Cassin 
 
 Fats and 
 
 Sugar and 
 
 Time to Digest. 
 
 
 
 Fiberine.etc. 
 
 Oils. 
 
 Starch. 
 
 Hours. Minutes 
 
 Milk 
 
 870 
 
 47 
 
 35 
 
 48 
 
 2 15 
 
 Wheat Bread 
 
 125 
 130 
 
 220 
 150 
 
 13 
 60 
 
 642 
 
 660 
 
 3-30 
 3 15 
 
 Rice 
 
 90 
 
 140 
 
 12 
 
 758 
 
 1 00 
 
 Beans 
 
 130 
 
 250 
 
 30 
 
 590 
 
 2 30 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 790 
 
 15 
 
 30 
 
 192 
 
 3 00 
 
 Turnips 
 
 830 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 158 
 
 3 00 
 
 Cabbage 
 
 850 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 140 
 
 4. 30 
 
 E^gs . 
 
 7*5 
 
 193 
 
 82 
 
 
 3 30 
 
 Beef 
 
 650 
 
 225 
 
 125 
 
 
 3 00 
 
 Veal 
 
 680 
 
 205 
 
 115 
 
 
 4 30 
 
 Fork CH 
 
 260 
 
 80 
 
 660 
 
 
 5 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sometimes it is found necessary to bring up a child on 
 cow's milk. Whenever this is the case there are certain 
 conditions to be observed, else the milk may prove 
 poisonous. First, then, the milk should be from one 
 cow only, and never mix together the milk of two or 
 more cows to give your child. You should also be sure 
 that the cow has wholesome food and drink and is kindly 
 cared for. Under no circumstances should the milk be 
 given to the child if the cow has been misused, beaten 
 or irritated. Nor should she be hurriedly driven to or 
 from the pasture, since the heating of her blood affects 
 
148 Natures Secrets. 
 
 the milk; and there have been cases where disease han 
 been caused by a boy running the cow, or dogging her, 
 from the pasture to the stable, which has resulted in 
 death in a few hours. 
 
 Sometimes it is- observed that men sit down to a meal 
 in perfect good nature, but rise from the table cross, 
 angry, and ready for a fight. It is the food which has 
 caused this change of conditions, and among the fruit- 
 ful sources may be mentioned beef. Cattle are smothered 
 into densely packed cars, while being taken to market, 
 deprived of food and water, hurried to the slaughter- 
 house, often beaten and worried until they become per- 
 fectly furious. All the nerves and fluids are affected in 
 sympathy until even the whole muscular system has been 
 permeated with rage. Slaughtered in this condition the 
 "spirit" of combativeness remains, and whoever eats 
 the meat catches the influence just as surely as he would 
 catch a disease from eating diseased meat. Let the 
 reader bear these things in mind and avoid being poi- 
 soned, either physically or mentally. 
 
 The liver and panereas form a large amount of alka- 
 line fluid, which is poured into the intestinal canal, six 
 or seven inches below the stomach, and is designed to 
 digest the starch, sugar and fat of our fo<j^, reducing all 
 the oily matter speedily to a saponaceous emulsion, so 
 that it may be absorbed in the blood. I wish to strongly 
 impress on the minds of my readers that sugar, starch, 
 and fat are very difficult of digestion, not being digested 
 in the stomach at all, and for this reason should always 
 be avoided by dyspeptics. 
 
 The following chemical analysis of common articles of 
 food shows the amount of bone-forming material and 
 the amount of nourishment, or muscle and brain-forming 
 matter; also the amount of fattening material in one 
 hundred pounds of each of the articles named in the 
 table : 
 
Nature's Secrets. 
 
 149 
 
 ARTICLES . 
 
 Lbs. 
 
 Bone. 
 
 Nourish- 
 ment. 
 
 Fat. 
 
 Water. 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 100 Ib 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 
 s. 
 
 lib 
 
 1 ' 
 1 ' 
 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 3 
 1 
 3 
 3 
 5 
 
 s. 
 
 21b 
 
 7 
 4 
 
 8 
 22 ' 
 14 
 13 
 13 
 13 
 17 
 11 
 22 
 22 
 26 
 
 s. 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 23 Ib 
 92 
 82 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 63 
 14 
 7 
 66 
 66 
 66 
 66 
 75 
 66 
 66 
 25 
 
 s. 
 
 74 Ib 
 
 13 ' 
 
 28 
 63 
 78 
 20 
 20 
 20 
 14 
 13 
 9 
 9 
 44 
 
 8. 
 
 I 
 
 Rice 
 
 SlK'O 
 
 Stvar 
 
 Whisky 
 
 Fat 
 
 Bucon 
 
 Beef 
 
 Fish 
 
 Wheat 
 
 Rye 
 
 Barley 
 
 Oatmeal . 
 
 Corn 
 
 
 Peas 
 
 Cheese 
 
 Parents who have children suffering from rickets, or a 
 weakness of the osseous structure, should feed them on 
 beans, peas, and cheese, although the latter will some- 
 times cause constipation, and should be usecl sparingly 
 on that account. But by a careful examination of the 
 above table my readers can readily find out what kinds 
 of food will give them the greatest amount of nourish- 
 ment and strength. It will be seen that potatoes are a 
 very inferior article of diet, besides being very expen- 
 sive, when we remember that in one hundred pounds 
 we only have two pounds of nourishment and seventy- 
 four pounds of water, true our bodies are more than 
 two- thirds water. Bice, sago, and tapioca, it will be 
 seen, contain but little nourishment, but are easily 
 digested, and are highly recommended as articles of diet 
 for invalids. Sugar, whisky, and fat, as articles of food, 
 are chemically the same, containing not one particle of 
 bone, muscle, or brain-forming material, but retaining, 
 under all circumstances, their original composition of 
 fat, to its fullest extent. Kind reader do not, if you are 
 
150 Natures Secrets. 
 
 lean, ever attempt to fatten up on whisky, for it is the 
 father of a multitude of crimes. Bacon, or ham, is an 
 inferior article of diet, very indigestible, and should 
 never be eaten by persons of sedantary habits or weak 
 stomachs. From the solids and fluids, taken into our 
 stomachs, the blood is formed. If humanity only 
 avoided impure and indigestible food, and drank only 
 pure water, how much suffering would be saved, and 
 wha' little demand would exist for "blood purifiers." 
 Let the teeth do their duty, for who can tell how much 
 dyspepsia has been caused by rapidly swallowing half- 
 chewed food. 
 
 Six weeks before confinement use slippery elm bark, 
 as a mucillaginous cordial, or chew it. 
 
 The reader should never for a moment forget that the 
 great object which I have in view is to aid in developing 
 the reproduction of the human species into a positive 
 science, approximating as near to an exact science as 
 possible. Hence, all these facts regarding food, espe- 
 cially for the mother during pregnancy. Moreover, if 
 she desires painless labor and what mother does not 
 she should not eat either corn, beans, peas, cheese, nor 
 highly stimulating food of any kind. But in addition 
 to all that I can say, she must still exercise her own 
 judgment, carefully avoiding whatever has proved in- 
 jurious, and subsist upon that which is easy of digestion 
 and nutricious, without clogging or stimulating. 
 
Natures Secrets. 1 5 1 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF MEDICINES DK. DAVENPORT*S VIEWS MEDI- 
 CINES SHOULD BE NUTBICIOUS TO BE HYGIENIA.CAL THE 
 
 POISONERS. 
 
 Dr. T. W. Davenport, of Oregon, from whom I have 
 already quoted, goes to the extreme of denying that any 
 medicine ever does good. I am not disposed to quibble 
 with him about terms, but I think that he makes rather 
 a broad assertion, or at least that the general reader 
 would so view it, for the common people look upon any- 
 thing that relieves pain, or cures disease, as remedial 
 agent, or " medicine," and I am confident that the 
 doctor does not mean to be understood as ignoring 
 " remedies" of all kiods. To illustrate : 
 
 A man has been living upon superfine flour, made into 
 hot cakes, sweet cakes, doughnuts, etc., until his whole 
 system has become deranged; he applies to an allopathic 
 physician and "medicines" are prescribed that is, 
 poisonous drugs. 
 
 Should he apply to Dr. Davenport, or to myself, we 
 would at once put him upon a different diet, and per- 
 haps make a specialty of "graham gems." In due 
 course of time the man would recover normal conditions 
 and be called "healed,'' or "cured." If asked what 
 ' ' medicine " he had been taking he would probably 
 answer, " graham gems." No\v^ supposing instead of 
 the gems, I were to extract all the nutritive matter of 
 the graham flour from the excrementitious, and prepare 
 
1 52 Natures Secrets. 
 
 a jtill, or powder, therefrom, all must admit that this 
 would be a " medicine," and it would be easier for a 
 debilitated stomach to assimilate than if given in the 
 crude state; yet, according to Dr. Davenport's declara- 
 tion, he would repudiate it, while I would prefer its em- 
 ployment instead of the crude article. And so with all 
 the medicines that I prescribe; they are carefully pre- 
 pared in my laboratory, under my immediate supervision, 
 purely from vegetable and nutricious material. 
 
 In order that the reader may understand why super- 
 fine flour is not as wholesome as the graham, or un- 
 bolted, I will explain that the bran, which is separated 
 from the flour by bolting, contains the nitrates and phos- 
 phates, which are an absolute necessity, in the economy 
 of nature, for, in supplying the waste of the system; they 
 also act upon the stomach and bowels by their cathartic 
 properties, and thus carry off the effete matter which 
 would otherwise result in constipation, dyspepsia, etc. 
 It has been demonstrated by experiment that a calf will 
 not live thirty days if fed solely upon superfine flour and 
 allowed plenty of water. There is an old saying that 
 " the bolt was invented by the devil to punish the human 
 race," but T would sooner think that it was invented by 
 a man ignorant of the laws of physiology and dietetics. 
 
 But I will now introduce Dr. Davenport, who probably 
 differs from me more in the use of words than of reme- 
 dies, in order to convince the reader that I do not stand 
 alone, among the educated physicians, and show that 
 others are not afraid to speak out boldly against the un- 
 natural practices of the poison dispensers. The doctor 
 says: 
 
 " We must eat to live," says Dr. Davenport. " But 
 what shall we eat ? Most people answer, ' Eat what you 
 want.' We all do that, and all want what we are accus- 
 tomed to eat; so that is no solution. The Mexican eats 
 
Natures Secrets. 153 
 
 red pepper, the Russian eats candles, the Fejee eats 
 missionaries, and the Yankee eats oysters and sardines? 
 and drinks strychnine whisky, but neither of these would 
 be a safe and pleasant guide as to a proper dietary. 
 Volumes have been filled, and many more will be written, 
 before mankind will know what to eat. Centuries will 
 pass before they will learn that tea, coffee, tobacco and 
 whisky are abominations, only differing in degree, and 
 that physical, mental and moral perfection is impossible 
 while they continue to pollute their bodies by the use of 
 them. The mental and moral ^depend upon the physi- 
 cal, and an enduring Christianity is not possible among 
 gross feeding gourmands, simply because the highest 
 mental and moral states are not consistent with glut- 
 tony." 
 
 Here I must interrupt the doctor to call the attention 
 of Good Templars, and all other temperance societies, 
 to the truths which he is enunciating. By gluttony in 
 eating, the gestating mother may impress her child with 
 such a depraved appetite that it will desire to chew, 
 drink liquor in fact, anything to satisfy the abnormal 
 appetite. Many a child has inherited this gormandizing 
 appetite, which has ultimately led to drunkenness, no 
 other cause being perceptible. Cannot temperance men 
 and women learn from this that the evils of intemper- 
 ance can be permanently cured only by understanding 
 and observing the conditions which govern generation ? 
 To only reform a drunkard, or to train up a boy to be 
 temperate, is like purifying the water in the stream, 
 while the fountain remains corrupt . The few who are 
 thus saved from filling a drunkard's grave, are like a 
 sand from the seashore when compared to the vast army 
 of unfortunates who are annually born victims to this 
 terrible vice. Hear me, ye men and women who pro- 
 fess so much zeal in the cause of temperance! Your 
 
154 Natures Secrets. 
 
 labors are vain until you begin at the fountain head and 
 stop the race from breeding drunkards. The child may 
 be well begotten, yet be given to drunkenness or some 
 other crime if the mother disregards hygienic laws, for 
 drugs can never save tim. Ir. discussing this subject 
 Dr. Trail well remarks : 
 
 "Think you, would nature or Providence provide 
 penalties or punishments as the consequences of trans- 
 gression, and then provide remedies to do away with the 
 penalties ? Would nature ordain disease and suffering 
 as the corrective discipline for disobedience to the laws 
 of life, and then permit the doctor to drug and dose 
 away the penalties ? There is a condition of cure, and 
 this is obedience." 
 
 Taking .the foregoing for a text, Dr. Davenport goes 
 on to say: 
 
 " The idea that there are no laws governing the vital 
 economy, or else that they may be suspended, prohibited 
 or limited in their operation, seems to be the fruitful 
 source of all drug medication in the world, and the 
 greater part of the misery to which mankind is sub- 
 jected. Perhaps this assertion may be doubted, as it 
 almost passes the bounds of comprehension how the 
 medical world, with all its skill and science and learn- 
 ing, could be so oblivious. Such, however, is the fact, 
 deny it as they may. 
 
 ' ' Man transgresses the law of his being and is receiv- 
 ing the pains incident to the violation; the doctor gives 
 him fceted animal excretions, some vegetable or mineral 
 substance inimicable to the vital structure, and dismisses 
 him with the information that he will soon be all right, 
 without stopping his transgressions. Not long since 9 
 one of our honorable State officials consulted me in re- 
 lation to his bodily ailments, which he said were coming 
 thickly upon him. I pronounced, in his case, obedience; 
 
Natures Secrets. 
 
 told him distinctly how futile it is to try to avoid the 
 penalties coining from broken laws; that he must obey 
 th mandates of nature if he wished to live in peace and 
 have his days long in the land. But this did not suit, 
 for he expected to do better. Shortly afterwards I over- 
 heard him in consultation with one of the learned heads 
 of the medical college of that place, and although I 
 could not overhear ivhat the professor told him to take, 
 yet it was by the spoonful, and accompanied by the 
 assurance that " it would set him all right." But, said 
 the patient, " will I be obliged to stop drinking tea and 
 coffee and using tobacco?" The reply was, " No, no! 
 You need not stop anything, and you can eat what you 
 please. 
 
 " Why, instead of advising people to obey the physi- 
 cal laws, they recommend the habitual commission of 
 physical sin, and, as a consequence, increase the tenden- 
 cies to moral sin. The highest executive officer of Ore- 
 gon was advised by learned doctors to use tobacco 
 habitually; and if smoking or chewing that poisonous 
 weed is not a violation of natural laws there is no such 
 thing. Probably hundreds and thousands of human 
 beings are daily wasting their vitality in poisoning the 
 very fountains of life, by the use of alcoholic liquors and 
 tobacco, in obedience to and as a consequence of the 
 prescriptions of learned doctors of medicine. They 
 seem to have lost sight of the laws of nature altogether, 
 and have interpolated the drug-medical in their place. 
 If a peruon be troubled in consequence of deficient ex- 
 ercise, or over-exercise, or excessive alimentation, instead 
 of seeking peace by a return to normal conditions, the 
 doctor presents a pill or powder, which he says, and 
 probably believes, will satisfy all the conditions of the 
 problem and free him from the legitimate results of his 
 transgressions. No wonder that diseases have multiplied 
 
1 56 Natures Secrets. 
 
 in number and become more deadly in character . No 
 wonder that man is becoming weak and short-lived; that 
 woman's constitution is so shattered that it is said thre 
 is no longer a healthy woman to be found. No wonder 
 that a great proportion of infants die before the passage 
 of five summers, and so many more come still-born into 
 the world. No wonder that the ills of life crowd so 
 thickly upon us as to becloud and stifle its joys, causing 
 some to doubt whether existence be a blessing or a curse; 
 when the high-priests of nature have apostatized from 
 the true faith; when they persistently deny her unalter- 
 able laws by a continuous violation; assert medical pre- 
 scriptions instead of hygienic principles, and teach the 
 people to smother and suppress, with odious and dis- 
 easing poisons, her protesting pains. 
 
 ' ' There are no medicines in this world that act in har- 
 mony with nature all are extraneous and therefore 
 antagonistic. Food and drink are proper and har- 
 monious; your medicine, however, is neither food or 
 drink, and as to the ' rare recommendation that if they 
 do no good they will do no harm,' it certainly would 
 be rare if it were only true. The trouble is, that such 
 is impossible; it is a logical impossibility. 
 
 ' ' Another great humbug is embodied in the assertion 
 of the doctors and now common among the people, that 
 1 we do not believe in giving much strong medicine.' 
 This is a sort of mental morphia given to quiet the fears 
 of mankind. Let us see how much strong medicine the 
 doctors give and the people are obliged to take. They 
 believe in pukes, and if one dose of tartar, or ipecac, or 
 lobelia, will not do, they take two, three, four, and con- 
 tinue the medicine till it operates. They also believe in 
 physics, and after giving a dose of ten grains of calomel, 
 followed by salts or castor oil, they keep on giving one 
 or another medicine- until the desired effect is produced. 
 
Natures Secrets. 157 
 
 They believe in sedatives, and give a sufficient quantity. 
 They believe in stimulants, narcotics, tonics, etc., etc., 
 and give enough. They will not admit that they ever 
 believed in giving any more than enough for the purpose, 
 and they certainly do not believe in giving any less, and 
 as a conclusion they believe in giving little, less, least, 
 much, more, or most of all the medicines they ever gave, 
 whether those medicines be called strong or weak . 
 
 " The truth is, the medical men have not abandoned 
 any of their strong remedies or abated one jot or tittle 
 of their theory, however much their confidence may 
 fluctuate in regard to the comparative merits of the 
 a7'ticles composing their materia medica. The people, 
 on the contrary, are alarmed at the destructive success 
 of the drug doctors, hence the assertion against giving 
 much strong medicine. Let no one be deceived; if 
 medicine is to be rejected the system is wrong, and vice 
 versa. They stand or fall together. 
 
 cc We have seen that health comes from obedience and 
 disease from disobedience; that one is the result of 
 normal, and the other of abnormal conditions; that one 
 is a condition of cleanliness and purity, and the other a 
 condition of obstruction and impurity; and hence, to 
 cure means to return to normal conditions by removing 
 obstructions and impurities from the system, according 
 to nature's method by nature's means and consistent 
 with natural laws. The question, then, becomes, How 
 shall we assist nature in the process of purification, and 
 what are her laws to which we must yield obedience ? 
 And here should come in all the systems of medicine 
 that is, with the medicine left out. You know how the 
 poison doctors proceed; let us now inquire further as to 
 the ' true healing art.' 
 
 " Every particle of matter which passes into the sys- 
 tem, and every one that passes- out of it, is through and 
 
158 ff attire's Secrets. 
 
 by nature^ transporting medium and general solvent 
 water. "Upon its bosoru are borne the alimentary riches 
 which build up and support the various and complicated 
 tissues of the body, and upon it falls the burden of re- 
 moving the broken-down corpuscles and other waste 
 matters no longer fitted to the purposes of the animal 
 economy. It forms eight- tenths of the weight of the 
 whole body, and a greater proportion of the blood. It 
 is a sine qua non of existence, and the most important 
 element in the hands of the intelligent physician for re- 
 moving impurities, obstructions and poisonous matters 
 
 from the system. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " On account of the gross and improper dietary of the 
 people, made up mostly of substances having a great 
 preponderance of the carbonaceous elements of food, 
 nearly every case of disease is merely an effort on the 
 part of the vital forces to remove the surplus and ob- 
 structing carbon by uniting it with the oxygen of the 
 air through the lungs; in other words, by burning, in 
 which the products of combustion, carbon, acid, etc., can 
 be more readily and easily removed than the fatty car- 
 bonaceous matters which are insoluble in water. Hence, 
 the colds, coughs, congestions, rheumatisms, putrid sore 
 throats, inflamations, fevers, etc., etc., which so puzzle 
 the doctors, because they do not understand the true 
 philosophy of disease, and which are the inevitable 
 results of said impurities and said burnings, and only to 
 be avoided by keeping within the bounds of proper 
 alimentation. If people will take in an excess of fuel 
 they must expect sooner or later to burn, and purely no 
 one should be surprised or grumble at the flame, when 
 himself has supplied the elements of combustion. 
 
 ' ' A good illustration of this is afforded upon the 
 breuking-up of every cold winter. The appetite has 
 
Natures Secrets. 159 
 
 been keen, and quantities of fat have been padded away 
 under the skin, and stowed away in the celular tissues 
 and in the great cavities of the body, partly as a means 
 of defense against the pinching cold, and when the 
 warm weather comes the system is wholly unprepared 
 for the altered conditions. The fat now is an obstruc- 
 tion, a nuisance to be abated, and the organism com- 
 mences the work of removal, nearly always under diffi- 
 culties, as people keep on eating. The breathing is 
 hastened, and the supply of oxygen increased, combus- 
 tion goes on more rapidly, heat is evolved, the circulation 
 is quickened and most of the time unbalanced, thereby 
 producing congestions, inflamations and fevers. 
 
 " If the congestion or inflamation be in the nasal 
 passages and throat, it is called common cold; if it be 
 upon any other part mainly, it receives an appropriate 
 name, as croup, pulmonitis, pleurisy, enterilis, hepatites, 
 etc. , but whatever it is, the objective treatment is the 
 same, viz: to balance the circulation and remove the 
 surplus heat and carbon. One case may require a warm 
 foot-bath or a cold one, another may dictate a head-bath 
 or half-bath, a hip-bath or seitz-bath, a compress hot 
 or cold, a wet girdle, pack or douche, any or all of the 
 assisting depurative processes, and when the surplus is 
 removed and proper conditions restored a cure is ef- 
 fected, whatever you may call the disease. 
 
 " Some knowledge, skill and experience are necessary 
 to adapt the processes to the exigencies of each case, 
 inasmuch as what would be proper in one would be 
 wholly inadmissible in another. For instance, a cold 
 foot-bath, which is the true remedy for many cases of 
 headache and congestion, would be a great injury in 
 most cases of inflamation of the brain. Care should be 
 taken to have the baths adapted as to time and tempera- 
 tare, so as to ecoiiomize the vitality to the greatest possi- 
 
160 Natiires Secrets. 
 
 ble extent, for herein lies the key to our success in prac- 
 tice, and constitutes the chief difference among what 
 are termed water-cure physicians. I have known some 
 cases, treated by our doctors, which had better been left 
 to the unaided powers of nature. The trouble in these 
 seemed to come from a desire for heroic practice, a term 
 taken from the allopathists, and which signifies to throw 
 away common sense and run on pluck. This will not do. 
 Remember that our processes can be made to kill or cure, 
 just as we resist or assist nature. There is not the least 
 danger, if we have a proper respect for the vital acumen 
 and follow the rule rationally and carefully. ' Balance 
 the circulation, jcemove congestions and assuage fevers/ 
 
 " It is indeed astonishing to those accustomed to wait 
 upon the sick under drug treatment and see them falter, 
 faint and suddenly drop away, punished out of exist- 
 ence, when they come to the bedside of those treated 
 hygienically. They are always mistaken in their prog- 
 nosis; nature holds out so strong, so enduring, so tena- 
 cious of existence. They say it is past comprehension, 
 and indeed it is to those who never yet saw nature have 
 an open field and a fair fight. In their knowledge the 
 doctors were gouging for the enemy, and it is not 
 strange that they are mistaken when nature is relieved 
 of three-fourths of her foes and put in possession of all 
 the means of self-defense, 
 
 " Pain ceases when the enemy has been removed or 
 the vital forces have succumbed; and to give a medicine 
 to paralyze the nerves, deaden the sensibility and stop 
 pain, were as rational as cutting the telegraph wires to 
 stop bad news and prevent the defeat of an army. Gen- 
 eral Grant kept his telegraph operating and his aids 
 moving, and depended upon fighting and flanking to 
 whip Lee. But General Allopath has a novel strategy: 
 
Natures Secrets. 161 
 
 he cuts off communications 1. e., he kills off his aids, 
 throws down the telegraph, and ' goes it blind.' 
 
 " Changes are very easily produced in the features of 
 disease by the administration of medicine. For in- 
 stance, a person groaning with bilious cholic can be put 
 to sleep by a paralyzing opiate, or a child, crying from 
 an ear-ache, can be quieted to slumber by a narcotic, or 
 a lancinating pleurisy pain may be out-pained by an 
 outrageous blister; but however quieting such changes 
 may be to the nerves or the minds of the votaries of 
 medicine, they are not favorable to a return of normal 
 conditions or a cure. On the contrary, they retard, 
 complicate, and frequently arrest the curative process. 
 
 " How often has a physician given an opiate, in case 
 of cholic or inflammation of the bowels, waited a short 
 time to see the dose perform its quieting duties, leave 
 for home after assuring the friends that ' all would be 
 well' in a short time, and return only to find the vital 
 power exhausted and ' the disease beyond the reach of 
 his remedies/ How often do fond mothers, under the 
 direction of family physicians or quack advertisements, 
 still their children with soothing syrups and narcotizing 
 cordials, until the vitality of the little innocents is so 
 wasted that they are no longer able to withstand the 
 ordinary vicissitudes of life. How often, under drug 
 treatment, does simple indigestion become chronic dys- 
 pepsia, or a trifling constipation change to troublesome 
 hemorrhoids. How often is a slight cold aggravated to 
 a dangerous pneumonia, or a probable two or three days' 
 fever to a lingering and generally fatal typhoid. How 
 often does simple small-pox become the fearful conflu- 
 ent, or do measles disappear in deadly metastases and 
 exacerbations. How often is congestion of the muscu- 
 lar structures settled to chronic rheumatism of the joints; 
 and the comparatively harmless itch turned into a gland- 
 
1 62 Natures Secrets. 
 
 ular affection, to last through the miserable remainder 
 of life. Ah] yes, medicine does change disease for the 
 worse : but how often to a fatal condition we shall not 
 attempt to enumerate. It is enough to say, that a great 
 part of all the affections mentioned in the medical booiis 
 are ailments produced, changes wrought, disease made 
 by the simples, mixtures and compounds of the * mate- 
 ria medica.' 
 * " Oh! the changes! the changes! 
 
 " "Who can tell of the changes ? "When a patient is 
 full of from ten to forty different kinds of medicine, 
 who can predict the changes ? Who can tell how much 
 of a disease is referable to one kind of medicine, how 
 much to another, and how much to the original affec- 
 tion ? What doctor's prognosis is worth a cent, now-a- 
 days ? Every one of them is so haunted with the super- 
 venings that he can say nothing of the prognosis. ' If 
 the patient can only bear my medicine he will recover/ 
 is the sage conclusion, and the only one warranted ' by 
 professional experience. It is, indeed, true; for ninety- 
 nine hundredths of the primary affections are not dan- 
 gerous, and if the doctor's remedies do not kill, the 
 probabilities are favorable to the patient. 'If the pa- 
 tient can only bear the medicine;' but the 'if is the 
 fearful part of the sentence. The medicines are given, 
 the secondary or drug diseases supervene, one after 
 another, passing on from stage to stage, fearfully and 
 uselessly wasting the vitality at every step, until ' nerv- 
 ous debility sets in,' followed by spinal affection, from 
 which there is generally no recovery, while poisons are 
 given, then the shortest and most common passage is 
 through the typhoid until death ends the struggle. 
 
 " If a person could exist without a liver or lungs, a 
 stomach or an entire intestinal canal, kidneys or brain, 
 skin or bones, there might be some show of reason in 
 
Natures Secrets. 163 
 
 the common practice of dosing, defiling and destroying 
 one organ for the benefit of another. 
 
 "A finger, toe, leg, arm, eye, or even a piece of the 
 jaw-bone may be removed, to save the citadel of life, 
 but nobody expects to live after his liver has been thor- 
 oughly corrupted, after the coats of the stomach and 
 intestines have been destroyed; after the kidneys have 
 become granulated the brain softened to purulence, or 
 the heart or arteries ossified. And yet the medical doc- 
 tors do effect these very results. Calomel is not food 
 for the liver, and can have no other effect upon that 
 organ but to weaken and, by repetition, to destroy it. 
 Antimonial preparations are given to weaken and re- 
 strain the heart's action, and do so through an obstruct- 
 ing, paralyzing presence in the blood and brain, and 
 can have no other effect than to weaken and finally de- 
 stroy the very centers of existence. 
 
 " There is not a doctor under the broad canopy 01 
 heaven who can find anywhere in the natural human 
 system a particle of his cure-alls calomel, antimony, 
 digitalis, opium, squills, sanguinaria, podophyllum, lo- 
 belia, scarnmony, jallop, gamboge, prussic acid, strych- 
 nine, piperine, nervine, iodine, arsenic, alcohol or lager 
 beer. And not one living who can show otherwise than 
 that his drugs and medicines are extraneous, effete sub- 
 stances obnoxious, weakening and destructive to hu- 
 man life. God never made a man from such materials. 
 They were not used in his structure, they are not used 
 in his support; and notwithstanding the energetic, no- 
 ticeable, agonizing protests of nature against them in 
 any shape, the oblivious doctors, with a zeal worthy a 
 better cause, continue to ply their death-dealing art. 
 They may sugar-coat their pills and mix their powders 
 with honey, to disguise the taste and cheat children, but 
 there is no deception in the fitness of things. There is 
 
164 Natures Secrets. 
 
 an unavoidable penalty for every transgression, sugar- 
 cout it as we may." 
 
 It will be seen that Dr. Davenport expresses himself 
 with feeling, as well as with reason and philosophy. 
 This is because he is a man of fine feeling as well as 
 noble principle. Had it been otherwise; had he been 
 destitute of both feeling and principle, then he would 
 have been in the ranks of the allopaths to-day, the dis- 
 penser of poisons the enemy, instead of the friend of 
 the race. But the cold and heartless, who care only for 
 themselves, although knowing that their system of drug- 
 ging is a curse to humanity, continue to practise simply 
 because it is popular and because it pays. To leave the 
 profession of allopathic practice, in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred, is to invite poverty and disgrace. 
 With my two diplomas, one English . and the other 
 American, had I adhered to what are called " orthodox" 
 ideas in medicine, instead of being plagued, as I am, 
 with impudent reporters, sent, no doubt, by the " regu- 
 lar profession" to annoy me with impertinent questions 
 respecting the college in which I graduated, and whether 
 or not I had a diploma, I should probably have been the 
 most popular physician in San Francisco. 
 
 The reader will observe that I am making a square 
 issue with these poison dispensers, instead of trying to 
 dodge and avoid. Yet not one in a hundred, situated 
 as I am, can afford to declare war and carry the hostili- 
 ties right into the enemy's camp, for this reason: the 
 moment a " regular-bred" physician shows any weak- 
 ening on the side of their barbarous pathy, the whole 
 pack set upon him as religionists do upon an apostate, 
 denounce him in the most unmeasured terms, the popu- 
 lace re-echoing their anathemas, until the poor victim 
 soon finds himself bankrupt, not only in purse but in 
 reputation. It is a dread of these things which seals 
 
Natures Secrets. 165 
 
 the lips of ninny an intelligent physician. If strictly 
 honest, but of a timid nature, he silently withdraws 
 from the profession, but contrives to maintain his stand- 
 ing and respectability, or perhaps turns homeopathic. 
 
166 Natures Secrets, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 
 THE POISONEES CONTINUED EVIDENCE OF THEIR EXTORTIONS 
 LAWYERS AND CLERGYMEN CALLED TO ORDER. 
 
 Drug doctors are composed of two principal classes: 
 1. Men of superior minds, splendidly educated, highly 
 accomplished, ambitious, courageous, resolute, but of a 
 nature cold and unfeeling, and although quite deficient 
 in moral stamina, yet so finely endowed with grace and 
 shrewdness as to appear models of all the virtues. They 
 make most excellent surgeons, but are wholly unquali- 
 fied by both nature and school of medicine to act as 
 physicians. 2. Men of medium or inferior caliber, who 
 know nothing outside of the " books," and would nei- 
 ther know nor care whether a medicine would kill or 
 cure, so long as the books authorized its prescription. 
 These men plod along for a lifetime without learning 
 any new thing, save what they read , or gather from the 
 other class. 
 
 It is true that there are honorable exceptions to these 
 two classes, but the exceptions only prove the general 
 rule. Here and there one may be found who will spas- 
 modically cry out against the barbarous system of prac- 
 tice, like those that I have quoted, but very few ever 
 coolly set to work, with heavy siege guns, to storm their 
 old fortifications, as I have been doing for years, chal- 
 lenging them to come before the public and submit their 
 medical theories to test and criticism. The first class 
 know too much to be caught in a position where they 
 
Nature's Secrets. 167 
 
 know they must go to the wall, while the second class 
 barely know enough to keep their mouths shut, as a gen- 
 eral rule, look wise, and if possible, never speak with- 
 out using all the medical and anatomical terms possible. 
 
 If I have been looked upon suspiciously heretofore, 
 what will the poison dispensers say when they see this 
 book ? I confess I am at a loss to imagine what they 
 will do. Were I an obscure physician, with a small 
 practice, or a young man without friends, or pinched 
 with poverty, they would have an easy task to silence 
 and disgrace me. But with my very large and con- 
 stantly increasing practice, I have won a hold upon the 
 affections of not only those whom I have saved from 
 being scientifically poisoned, but their friends and ac- 
 quaintances, so that the community would rise up by 
 the thousand to defend me from any libelous attacks 
 which the " regulars" might otherwise make. I see no 
 alternative for them but to try and laugh it off good- 
 naturedly, as an eminent physician did in an Eastern 
 city, who said: " O, Dr. Euttley is doubtless a well- 
 meaning man, and is certainly quite successful as a phy- 
 sician; but then he is eccentric very eccentric and 
 you know ecentricity is the first approach to insanity." 
 Very well, for argument's sake I will admit my insanity;, 
 but this only involves them in a still greater dilemma, 
 for if an insane man can prove so successful by my sys- 
 tem of practice, what might not be expected if one 
 clothed in his right mind should adopt and practice it ? 
 
 Perhaps the reader may think that I have been stray- 
 ing from my subject; that it was my duty to give spe- 
 cific directions to the mother during gestation, and 
 omit all reference to the drug doctors. If the non-pro- 
 fessional reader does not make some such a remark, 
 there is no doubt but that the professional allopaths 
 will. Therefore I will answer it by an illustration. 
 
i68 Natures Secrets. 
 
 A man was passing his neighbor's barn one evening, 
 when he caught sight of a fellow named Sain Bruce, 
 whom he knew to be an incendiary, trying to strike a 
 match. The man being one who made it a rule to mind 
 his own business, passed on to the house of his neigh- 
 bor, where he made the following remark to the family : 
 
 ' ' Fire is a good servant but a bad master. You 
 should, therefore, always try to keep it in subjection. 
 But should your building get on fire at any time your 
 barn, for instance - remember to keep cool, and first of 
 all, to save the horses and cattle. By way of caution I 
 will also add that if you are not in the habit of wetting 
 the hay and straw outside the barn, you had better com- 
 mence doing so to-night, and the sooner the better." 
 
 Having said this much he flattered himself that he 
 had fulfilled his whole duty, and that if his neighbor 
 .should do as he had advised, then Sam Bruce would 
 certainly be detected and the conflagration avoided. 
 But everybody knows that there was not a sufficient in- 
 ducement accompanying the advice to make any impres- 
 sion upon the minds of his hearers. Consequently his 
 advice w,s unheeded, and the barn was burned within 
 an hour. 
 
 Now, I am in the position of the man who undertook 
 to give advice, yet there is this difference between us: 
 he kept back part of the truth in order not to compro- 
 mise himself, while I propose to tell the trulh unre- 
 servedty . For a person to advise, without at the same 
 time showing a sufficient reason why the advice should 
 be followed, is really an'insult to common sense. Were 
 I to simply inform the public that the drug doctors can 
 do them no good and are liable to do them great injury, 
 without offering proof to substantiate my assertion, no 
 one would heed me in the slightest, while the Sam Bruces 
 in medicine would continue their work of desolation. 
 
Natures Secrets. 169 
 
 Therefore I have not only made ray charges direct, but 
 proved them beyond all controversy. 
 
 I am thus knocking out the props from under Old 
 Allopathy, not from a feeling of malice, but actuated 
 solely by love for humanity. I am trying to teach the 
 philosophy of " How to be Born," and have arrived at 
 that important crisis when, to do my work thoroughly, 
 I must pause to remove a fearful obstruction, namely, 
 Old Allopathy, that may most appropriately be com- 
 pared to a huge serpent, the emblem of their profession, 
 his bright scales shining in beauty and glory, fascinat- 
 ing and attracting the beholder until he approaches 
 within reach. Gracefully, lovingly the monster coils 
 about his victim, strikes home his deadly fangs, and 
 only when too late he learns how cruelly he has been 
 betrayed. I have seen hundreds thus bitten, and for 
 more than thirty years have been vainly warning the 
 people of their danger. Now the time has arrived for 
 declaring Avar, and I shall try to make it a war of exter- 
 mination. 
 
 "We have an imaginary patient who is pregnant, and 
 are anxious that she should give birth to a fine, healthy 
 and intellectual child. In order that she may do this, 
 she must live right, depending upon correct diet, proper 
 exercise, fresh air, bathing, etc. But nine-tenths of 
 the women who become preginnt depend entirely upon 
 the poisonous drugs prescribed by "the family physi- 
 cian/' Like a heathen, educated to worship idois of 
 wood and stone, they have been taught to trust solely 
 and entirely to the doctor, without presuming to even 
 think or reason for themselves. And as the heathen 
 dare not break away from his idols, so the people dare 
 not break awa}~ from the drug doctors. Missionaries 
 tell us that after faiily converting a heathen, it is not 
 uncommon for the poor fellow to be detected secretly 
 
I jo Natures Secrets. 
 
 worshiping his old gods. And so it is with humanity. 
 Convert a man to give up drugs, and you may rely upon 
 him as long as he keeps his health; but let sickness come 
 to either himself or family, and nine times out of ten 
 the first thing he does will be to send for an allopathic 
 physician. 
 
 I have learned these things from many years' experi- 
 ence and observation. I understand the subtlety of 
 this serpent that lies across the path where humanity 
 must travel in order to progress, and know that years of 
 labor will be required to convince mankind of his true 
 character. All the time devoted to making war upon 
 the serpent, my imaginary patient is kept waiting for 
 advice; but the advice would be of no use so long as she 
 has faith in allopathy, for she might be tempted to vio- 
 late my rules, trusting to drugs to act as mediator and 
 savior, making vicarious atonement for her sins. One 
 act of hers, while thus trusting to drugs as a remedial 
 agent for her transgression, might give an impulse upon 
 her child that would prove a source of pain for a life- 
 time. Then, if I were writing this book for only one 
 unregenerate woman, instead of millions, I would sill 
 deem it my duty to pursue my present course in expos- 
 ing the cruelty and barbarism connected with popular 
 poisons ! 
 
 Were I to make a thorough exposition of the horrors 
 and abominations which have been and are daily being 
 committed by this " beautiful serpent," allopathy, whole 
 volumes instead of a few brief paragraphs would be 
 necessary. Therefore I scorn to apologize for the space 
 I am devoting to the subject. 
 
 Philosophers long since laid down the proposition 
 that "a people cannot rise superior to their religion." 
 This, of course, is meant metaphysically; that is, in 
 what pertains to morals, civilization, intelligence, etc. 
 
Nature s Secrets. 171 
 
 To this maxim may be added another, namely: "A 
 people cannot rise, physically, superior to their system 
 of medical practice." Until within a few years, the allo- 
 paths have had full swing in this country, having suffi- 
 cient influence to procure the passage of laws in several 
 States punishing with imprisonment any person who 
 should presume to practise medicine without first obtain- 
 ing a diploma from one of their murder-instructing col- 
 leges. Furthermore, such is their influence over the 
 courts, that they are able to obtain the most unright- 
 eous decisions against the common people. For proof 
 of this assertion we take the following case, copied 
 from the Daily Evening Post, of San Francisco, under 
 date of March 17th, 1875: 
 
 $100 A VISIT ! 
 
 DR. JOSEPH HAINE PAYS A PATIENT FOURTEEN PROFESSIONAL 
 VISITS SHE DIES, AND HE SUES TO RECOVER $1,400. 
 
 A case is on trial in the Twelfth District Court to-day 
 day whereby Dr. Joseph Haine seeks to recover $1,400 
 for fourteen medical visits paid to Mrs. Elizabeth Ann 
 Gordon. The suit is brought against John T. Doyle 
 aod John James Clark, administrators of the estate of 
 Mrs. Gordon, who, after treatment by Dr. Haine, died. 
 Mrs. Gordon lived at Menlo Park, and the doctor's rea- 
 son for charging so high is that to visit the patient took 
 him from his city practice, as he had to leave at 4 P. M., 
 returning the next day at 10 A. M. The answer denies 
 that the services were worth more than $500. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon was the widow of George Gordon, the 
 sugar refinery proprietor, who left an estate amounting 
 to some $90,000 or $100,000. Mrs. Gordon left no chil- 
 dren, and left the estate to her brother. 
 
 Dr. Shorb was called on behalf of plaintiff, and tes- 
 tified that he thought the charges reasonable. 
 
 Dr. Haine testified that he had been the physician of 
 Mrs. Gordon for a long time, and during her lifetime 
 had charged her from $25 to $75 a visit. 
 
 Dr. Dupuytren, physician to the French Hospital, tes- 
 
\J2 Na tuf -es -Secrets. 
 
 tified that he considered $100 a reasonable charge for a 
 single visit to Menlo Park, but for repeated visits he 
 should charge a less rate. 
 
 Dr. Robert Mackintosh testified that he considered 
 $1,400 a reasonable charge for the fourteen visits. 
 
 .Dr. Benjamin Dean, physician to the City and County 
 Hospital, also testified that he considered the charge of 
 Dr. Haine reasonable. Dr. Dean receives $75 per month 
 for his attendance at the hospital; yet he said he would 
 not make visits to Menlo .Park for less than $100. 
 
 Dr. Charles Nuttall corroborated the judgment of the 
 physicians who had previously testified. He had made 
 a visit to San Jose and charged $250, which he finally 
 compromifed for $150. He did not care for the money, 
 but charged on principle. 
 
 Dr. Stillman was called on behalf of the defense. He 
 testified that he didn't know that he was a fair judge. 
 He didn't think any physician received enough. In such 
 a case as the one under consideration he would charge 
 $100 for the first visit and $5 an hour for subsequent 
 visits. If a physician was obliged to lose his office 
 hours he didn't know that the charges were too high, 
 
 March 19th the papers announced that Judge Sharp- 
 stein had given judgment for the full amount, "there 
 being a preponderance of evidence in favor of the plain- 
 tiff!" And how could it be otherwise ? Dr. Haine was 
 required to prove the value of his services by experts; 
 these experts belonged to his school, and had an inter- 
 est in making it popular to exact exorbitant fees. Hun- 
 dreds of men, superior in practical knowledge and gen- 
 eral intelligence to these doctors, might have been put 
 upon oath, and would have testified that ten dollars a 
 visit would have been paying liberally for the time re- 
 quired, even admitting that the doctor's system of prac- 
 tice was founded in reason 3 and that the result had been 
 success instead of death. But had they been summoned 
 by the defense, not one of them would have been al- 
 lowed to testify, because, not being physicians, the law 
 
Natures Secrets. 173 
 
 presumes that they are incompetent to give an opinion. 
 
 It will thus be seen how entirely at the mercy of the 
 "regular-bred physicians" the people still are, notwith- 
 standing the progress which has been made during the 
 last quarter of a century. Not only health, but purse, 
 reputation, and life itself are at the mercy of a class of 
 men highly educated, respected, wealthy and influen- 
 tial, who are ready to testify to the reasonableness of 
 each other's charges, or, if prosecuted for malpractice, 
 to swear that the patient was maimed or killed, as the 
 case may be, according to the best medical authority; 
 and upon this testimony, no matter how many non-profes- 
 sionals testify to the outrageous and murderous treat- 
 ment , the accused is sure to be acquitted. 
 
 The foregoing remarks are intended to be understood 
 as being general in their character, but there is one 
 criticism upon the testimony in Dr. Haine's case, which 
 I feel bound to make, and that is the absurd position 
 assumed by Dr. Dean, who has contracted to proscribe 
 for tlie sick of the whole county, for a period of thirty 
 days, for a consideration of $75, yet he swears that he 
 would not go to Menlo Park, requiring only a few hours 
 time, for less than 100. The inferences from this kind 
 of e wearing are so e isy to be drawn that even a child 
 may comprehend them. In the matter of doctoring for 
 the county there is competition, and this keeps the fee 
 within reasonable bounds. But in private practice there 
 is a tacit agreement not to interfere with each other, but 
 if called upon to decide any issue between allopathy and 
 the people, never to prove recreant to allopathy. The 
 rate here charged and proved to have been " reason- 
 able," was about forty times, or four thousand per cent. 
 greater than Dr. Dean's salary. Usually the people 
 complain if a monopoly charges double the regular rates 
 of fair competition, but in the matter of the doctor's 
 
174 Natures Secrets. 
 
 fee, as appears by this case, " four thousand per cent" 
 extra may be charged, and yet judges are virtually com- 
 pelled to decide in their favor. 
 
 As a whole, this case of Dr. Haine shadows forth the 
 tremendous power which physicians are capable of wield- 
 ing, when even a judge feels obliged, by judicial prece- 
 dents, to sustain them in their exorbitant charges. Con- 
 trast this with other industrial pursuits where time and 
 talent are called in requisition. Take, for instance, the 
 school teacher, who holds one of the most responsible 
 positions in society. Upon an average, male and female, 
 this $100 is just about the salary of each for a month. 
 Now, think of the hours of toil, of trial and of despair, 
 which must be endured daily, for a whole month, and 
 receive no more than Dr. Haine for taking a pleasant 
 ride to Menlo Park, looking at a patient's tongue, feel- 
 ing the pulse, writing a prescription and riding home 
 again. And then, as a most fitting climax for this con- 
 trast, let it be borne in mind that the patient died! 
 
 The reader may now be able to comprehend the Her- 
 culean task which one undertakes whenever he attempts 
 to run a tilt against a combination of medical talent so 
 powerful and so highly respectable. None but an 
 educated physician should ever attempt it, for they 
 must be met on their own plain. Besides, the man who 
 makes war upon them should be of the Martin Luther 
 type, or they will crush him as they would a worm. For 
 my part, I am not vain enough to imagine that I shall 
 be able to overturn their power, nor that a thousand 
 like me could do it in a lifetime. The most that I hope 
 for is to awaken a few and rescue them from falling vic- 
 tims to this relic of a barbarous age. Encouraged by 
 my example, others will do the same, the number in- 
 creasing with each generation, until in time the work of 
 reform will be completed. 
 
Natures Secrets. 175 
 
 As I am taking the part of humanity against " the 
 three learned professions/' and having cited a case to 
 prove how the doctors are imposing upon humanity, it 
 seems only fair that the lawyers shall not be passed by 
 in silence, and therefore 1 copy the following from the 
 San Francisco Daily Post, of March 23d, 1875. Here it 
 will be seen that not only attorneys at law, but those 
 who are entrusted with the execution of the law, and 
 who are the pupils and proteges of lawyers, practise 
 oppression and cruelty: 
 
 " Again it becomes our unpleasant duty to call atten- 
 tion to flagrant but not unparalleled Police Court out- 
 rages. The facts of the case, as gleaned by a Post 
 reporter are these : About ten days ago a man named 
 Spaulding arrived in this city from Humboldt, and after 
 the manner of many rustic visitors celebrated the occa- 
 sion by a wild orgie which culminated in his arrest by 
 N. Hunter, Secretary of the Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals. Mr. Hunter, in virtue of his po- 
 sition, holds a commission as " special" police officer, 
 and fearful that Spaulding might come to grief if al- 
 lowed to run at large, he proceeded to escort him to the 
 City Prison. Not appreciating this kind service of the 
 philanthropist, Spaulding resisted, and it became neces- 
 sary for Mr. Hunter to blow for assistance . The call 
 was answered by Officer Hogan, to whom Mr. Hunter 
 deputed the charge of his prisoner, but accompanied 
 him to the City Prison, where he saw Spaulding safely 
 lodged in a cell, after charges of assault and battery and 
 vulgar language had been entered against him. Mr. 
 Hunter thought nothing further of the affair until 
 several days after, when Spaulding called on him and 
 told a story of alleged legal chicanery, which is sub- 
 stantially as follows: "When brought into the City 
 Prison $45.65 were found in Spaulding's possession. 
 This money was of course taken in charge by the prison- 
 keeper, who registered the fact on his books and subse- 
 quently delivered the amount to the clerk of ihe Police 
 Court. When the news spread, as it invariably does 
 when a solvent prisoner is captured, that a rustic visitor 
 
176 
 
 Natures Secrets. 
 
 with $45. G5 to his account was in durance, the prison 
 wan besieged by prominent members of the shyster pro- 
 fession, anxious for an interview with Spaulding. 
 Among the motley crowd of legal visitors was J . Burke 
 Phillips, w T ho, Spaulding asserts, stated that he had 
 been deputed by friends to defend him. Nothing was 
 said about a fee, and Spaulding alleges that he believed, 
 from the tenor of the urbane counsel's language, that 
 his services were to be given gratuitously. How rudely 
 his mind was disabused of the pleasing allusion is shown 
 by subsequent events. 
 
 When the case was called the following morning in 
 the Police Court the charge of assault and battery was 
 withdrawn, 
 
 AT THE INSTANCE OF THE ARRESTING OFFICER, 
 
 And the charge of vulgar language dismissed on pay- 
 ment of $5. This sum was deducted from the money 
 found in the prisoner's possession. The balance the 
 Clerk of the Police Court handed across the table to 
 Spaulding with the remark: " Here's your money." 
 
 "I guess not," said the learned counsel, Phillips, who 
 had been attentively watc' ing the proceedings, and 
 swooping down at the critical moment he raked the 
 coin into his capacious pockets and departed with the 
 air of a man who had faithfully performed a meritorious 
 deed. 
 
 " It's far smaller than my usual fee," said the lawyer 
 in replv to his client, when the latter had sufficiently 
 recovered from his astonishment to follow him and ask 
 an explanation of his conduct. "You know," he added 
 by way of consolation, "if you dance you must expect to 
 pay the piper," to which trite aphorism the victim sor- 
 rowfully assented, and went off to interview Chief Cock- 
 rill. The fountain head of the force was seated in his 
 easy chair smoking a fragrant Havana, and building 
 airy castles in which the inhabitants eternally dance at- 
 tendance on masked balls. "Ah," said he, when the 
 victim had told his story, "that's strange. There's a 
 mistake somewhere; but I'll send for Mr. Phillips and 
 the officer at once. Yes, sir; let me assure you I'll in- 
 vestigate this thing to the fullest extent of my ability." 
 
Natures Secrets. 177 
 
 And he did, but the examination was not a very search- 
 ing one. The officer disclaimed all knowledge of the 
 aii'iiir. The lawyer claimed that he had acted in accord- 
 ance with the time-honored customs of his profession, 
 and there the matter rested. It was useless for Spani- 
 eling to assert that he had never given the lawyer formal 
 authority to act for him. His money was gone, and it 
 was impossible for him to obtain redress by legal means. 
 Not wishing to inform his family of his escapade, Spaul- 
 ding was in the direst extremity, and but for the timely 
 assistance of some good Samaritan might have experi- 
 enced actual want. Parallel cases are of daily occur- 
 rence in the Police Court. A man is arrested with money 
 in his possession and charged with several offenses. 
 AVhen the case comes up for hearing, however, the offi- 
 cer does not appear against him, and the charges are 
 dismissed on payment of a nominal fine, which is de- 
 ducted from the money found in his possession. The 
 balance goes to but here the reporter stops, and for 
 further information respectfully refers the reader to the 
 arresting officer and the counsel for the defense. 
 
 ANOTHER CASE. 
 
 The apathy of Chief Cockrill in investigating this 
 outrage, the defiant attitude of the learned counsel, and 
 the action of the police officer, may be better understood 
 by a perusal of the following facts, obtained by a Post 
 reporter after the foregoing story was written . 
 
 In the latter part of last January, a young man named 
 Henry Gr. Post, employed as a conductor on the North 
 Beach and Folsom street line of street cars, was arrest- 
 ed at the instance of an eccentric old gentleman, who 
 accused him of having stolen an overcoat from his lodg- 
 ings. An investigation of the case proved that Post 
 had never been inside the door of the lodging house, 
 and was the victim of a most unwarrantable arrest. He 
 was accordingly acquitted, but before leaving the court 
 room gave expression to his just indignation, in lan- 
 guage so forcible that he was promptly rearrested for 
 contempt of court and fined $10, whit h he paid and 
 departed. Last evening a Post reporter, who witnessed 
 the incident, boarded one of the Kearny street cars, 
 
i 7 8 
 
 Natures Secrets. 
 
 and in so doing ran against the identical victim of mis- 
 taken identity. 
 
 The conductor recognized the reporter, and said that 
 the Post was the only paper which did him justice and 
 noticed the fact of his acquittal. 
 
 "I've got," said he, "a dozen copies at home in my 
 trunk, for some one may throw it up some day to me 
 that I was arrested for petty larceny; but as long as I've 
 got this," said he, drawing from his pocket a soiled and 
 battered copy of the precious issue, "that insinuation 
 don't amount to a hill of beans. You see that man," 
 he continued, pointing to a middle-aged man, of rather 
 sour aspect, who was adroitly dodging a swill cart as he 
 crossed the street. 
 
 ' ' Yes/' said the reporter, who recognized in the flee- 
 ing pedestrian a Police Court lawyer. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " and I'm down on him worse than 
 any man living." 
 
 ' You are !" said the reporter, feigning astonishment. 
 " Have 3 r ou any delicacy in explaining your antipathy 
 t* him ?" 
 
 " You know," said the conductor, "I was arrested on 
 a warrant by Officer Harris, and to tell you the truth I 
 was astonished at the kind wa} r he treated me. He rode 
 with me a whole trip until I made my returns at the 
 office, and then we went off to the City Hall. I'd never 
 been arrested before, and I said to myself, 'Well, this 
 ain't the kind of an officer that wants investigating/ 
 but I was green at the business then. Well, when we 
 got down to the entrance to the City Prison, I said: 
 'I suppose we go in here?' C 0h, no/ said he, 'not 
 yet; let's go up here a minute/ and, taking me by the 
 arm, he led me up stairs to an office in the rear of the 
 City Prison. ' This is Judge So-and-so, Mister Post/ 
 says he, ' and you can't have a better lawyer to defend 
 your case/ He then went on to say that I needn't suf- 
 fer the disgrace of being locked up for the night if I 
 only did as the Judge said. I asked him what it was, 
 and after some heinmiug and hawing he came out flat- 
 footed and said if I put up $100 he'd fix it so that I'd 
 get bailed out and besides have a talk with the Judge 
 about lettin' me oil' light 1 told him that I was inno- 
 
Nature 's Secrets. 
 
 179 
 
 cent, and all I wanted was justice. " However," I said, 
 " 111 put up a hundred if you give me a receipt for it." 
 
 "A what?' said the lawyer. ' Do you mean to insult 
 a legal gentleman like me by asking a receipt? Oh, 
 no ! We don't do business in that style. 3 
 
 Then the officer chipped in and said 'twas about time 
 1 made up my mind what to do. I told him I had 
 done so. 
 
 "Well," said he, "what is it?" 
 
 Says I, "I ain't going to put up a d d red." 
 
 "You ain't," says he. "Well, n-n-o-w!" and with 
 that he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me down 
 stairs before I knew where I was. Says he, when we got 
 to the front door, " You'll change your note after you 
 get a taste of the bread and water diet." I told him I 
 didn't think so, and asked him if he wouldn't send for 
 one of my friends. 
 
 " Send for h 1," said he. " You don't know when 
 yov've got a good thing," and without any more parley 
 he lugged me in and locked me up in the dirtiest cell he 
 could find. The rest of the affair you know yourself." 
 
 After having paid my compliments to both law and 
 medicine, perhaps I ought not to slight divinity. Whole 
 libraries might be filled with books written upon the 
 delinquencies of the clergy, but I deem it unnecessary, 
 for the reader can scarcely pick up a newspaper without 
 reading of some clergyman who has been arrested for 
 bigamy, adultery, elopement with a young girl or an- 
 other man's wife, perjury, robbery, murder, and so on 
 to the end of the chapter of crime. But I must notice 
 the demoralizing effect of clerical example upon society. 
 The common people are accustomed to look to the clergy 
 for an example, and when a clergyman seduces and 
 causes the death of a young girl, like Clendening, of 
 Jersey Cit^, or poisons his wife, like Harding, of New 
 Jersey, or whips to death a three-year old son because 
 he would "not say his prayers to his stepmother, like 
 Lindsley, of New York, near Rochester, or debauches 
 
180 Natures Seer eh. 
 
 the wife of his friend, like Henry Ward Beecher, those 
 crimes seem to lose their horrors, and the laity think if 
 the clergy can be forgiven and commit them that they 
 too may have forgiveness. The following extract from, 
 a letter to the Hartford Times illustrates the effect of 
 example upon the people : 
 
 " Brooklyn morals are getting no better very fast. 
 The atmosphere of the Heights seems as fatal to con- 
 jugal happiness as the malaria of a Jersey swamp to a 
 man with a bad liver. Since the beginning of this ter- 
 rible Beecher business things have been going from bad 
 to worse so rapidly that even the reporters of the Daily 
 /Scandal-Tub can hardly keep the run of them. It is 
 crim. con., divorce, separation, alimony, pretty much 
 ever^/ day, and the crop steadily increasing at that. 
 Brooklyn once had a fair reputation, but it is melting 
 away a good deal faster than the January snow. Six 
 divorce cases have been in Court since the Beecher trial 
 began, and all the parties belong to the best society. It 
 is only in good society, as a rule, that marital infelicity 
 runs rapidly to litigation, and husband or wife rushes to 
 Court for release from matrimonial bonds. The rush in 
 Brooklyn has led one of the judges to declare that 
 something must be done to stop it. 
 
 ' c For some time past the custom has been to send 
 suits for divorce or separation before a referee, who gen- 
 erally hears both sides in secret, and it has been found 
 that the secrecy of the examination serves as an induce- 
 ment to dissatisfied couples to seek hasty emancipation. 
 One of the Brooklyn judges referred to this matter, the 
 other day, when a case of the usual kind was before 
 him, and said a change would have to be made. For 
 his own part he thought he would stop sending divorce 
 and separation cases to referees, for the practice plainly 
 led to a great increase of such cases. Undoubtedly it 
 does. If glaring publicity were a certainty in every suit 
 for divorce, husbands and wives who want to get away 
 from each other would not be quite so reacfy to invoke 
 the law. This is the judge's opinion, at all. events, and 
 it seems to be sound and sensible. If things were to 
 keep on as they have been going in Brooklyn for some 
 
Natures Secrets, 181 
 
 months past, divorced couples might even be more 
 numerous then the other sort. Conjugal incompatibility 
 seems to be as epidemic there as diptheria or pneumonia 
 is in New York, and the moral doctors are utterly unable 
 to cure it." 
 
 In order to fully appreciate and comprehend the de- 
 moralization here pictured, the reader must remember 
 that for many years past Brooklyn has been known all 
 over the civilized world as " the city of churches" Add 
 to this the fact that for more than twenty years Henry 
 Ward Beecher, the most able, most eloquent, most dis- 
 tinguished clergyman of his age, has been preaching 
 there, and then the reader can realize the wonderful in- 
 fluence which the clergy are capable of exerting over the 
 masses. But whether that influence is for good or evil, 
 let the facts of the case answer. That the members of 
 Beecher's church, and those who worship there, men 
 and women, have been in the habit of conducting them- 
 selves in a very loose manner, hugging and kissing in- 
 discriminately, is made manifest by the sworn testimony. 
 
 ,Now, admitting that this was all done innocently 
 (which no sensible person believes), still these free-love 
 symptoms are as catching as small-pox. If Beecher and 
 Tilton could kiss each other's wives, why not Smith and 
 Brown ? This is the way people reason, and although 
 men may mean honestly at the commencement, yet, 
 whenever they begin to indulge in this dangerous lux- 
 ury, the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred that they 
 will Beecherize the affair in the end. Then their wives 
 become dissatisfied, and the husbands of the women 
 who Tiltonize lose patience and the community is in an 
 uproar. 
 
 "But," says one, "what have these things to do 
 with the,..gestating woman whom you are trying to in- 
 struct?" Very much, my friend. Every act of life 
 
1 82 Natures Secrets. 
 
 leaves behind it an impress which may be called a "per- 
 sistent reminder." All sensitive persons are affected by 
 it; either for good or evil. The very atmosphere which 
 we breathe is impregnated with these persistent remind- 
 ers, and they influence even strong men. How much 
 more, then, will they affect a delicate woman, especially 
 during that sensitive period. The whole atmosphere 
 of Brooklyn has been tainted with the free-love prac- 
 tices of Plymouth Church for twenty years; then who 
 can deny that it has had Its effect upon children even 
 before birth, since all must admit the influence after 
 birth ? 
 
 The same may be said, too, regarding the outrages 
 practised by doctors and lawyers. The community be- 
 comes excited over the revolting details until the very 
 air seems laden with it. The pregnant mother is affect- 
 ed far more than any one else, and her unborn child 
 receives an impetus for evil that must cling to it through 
 life. They send out a neurena just as palpable as the 
 emanations of musk, one grain of which will continue 
 to scent a room for twenty years. The neurena from 
 the case of Dr. Haine may have influenced half-a-dozen 
 unborn children to become extortioners; an equal num- 
 ber of mothers who read the case of the lawyer cited 
 may have impressed their children to be swindlers, while 
 the number has probably been thousands, in Brooklyn, 
 who have been born masturbators, fornicators, adul- 
 terers, seducers and prostitutes from the suffocating 
 mass of neurena which has emanated from the free-love 
 practices of the pastor of Plymouth Church, because 
 in his sermons he appears so grand and godlike that it 
 seems impossible for him to do wrong. I have a right 
 to speak of all these things, because they do affect the 
 unborn "children most mischievously. 
 
Natures Secrets. 183 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 PEESISTENT REMAINDER NATURE-A-PATHY CONTRASTED WITH 
 
 POISON- A-PATHY VIS MEDIC ATRIX NATURE A. 
 
 In the last chapter I alluded to the " persistent re- 
 mainder" of all things, but did not elaborate upon the 
 idea. It is only within a few years that such a thought 
 found utterance by any one, and st'll more recently that 
 scientists have given it any other attention than to make 
 it a subject of ridicule. But the time is rapidly ap- 
 proaching when scientists and philosophers will teach 
 that the atmosphere is one vast library, on whose im- 
 mortal pages is forever photographed every word that 
 man may speak or woman whisper. A writer in Com- 
 mon Sense, a liberal newspaper published in San Fran- 
 cisco, in discoursing upon this subject, puts forth the 
 following eloquent language : 
 
 " Were our senses such as could receive the impres- 
 sion of all surrounding influences, we would be omnis- 
 cient; as it is, glimmerings through the misty openings 
 in the Spiritual atmosphere startle us with the wondrous 
 meanings of occult philosophy. What is consciousness 
 but the reflection of the surrounding influx and the abil- 
 ity to reproduce from the negatives in our brain the 
 images imprinted there ? Nature is simply a magnifi- 
 cent photograph gallery, in which every pebble, plant, 
 every breath of air, everything everywhere are negatives 
 of their surroundings. 
 
 " Let the bigot burn the books to which he cannot 
 
184 Natures Secrets 
 
 otherwise reply; let anathemas of popes and fools crush 
 thinkers; let civilization take a backward course if it 
 can, and knowledge be lost, yet in spite of them all Na- 
 ture will always remain the same. Nay, while human 
 records have been destroyed, Nature has been keeping 
 her own records for the use of those wise enough to 
 read them, in the far-off ages. Psychometry will yet be 
 better understood; the lost arts will all be restored; the 
 world's history, beyond the power of falsification or sup- 
 pression, will yet be read, as example and warning to 
 the wise and good in the good times coming. 
 
 11 Psychometry is simply the art of memory. Draper 
 says, f lt is one of the functions of vesicular-nervous 
 material to retain traces or relics of impressions brought 
 to it by the organs of sense; hence, nervous ganglia 
 being composed of that material, may be considered as a 
 registering apparatus.' Then by illustrations he demon- 
 strates that a similar register is made upon every thing, 
 and adds: 
 
 " ' A. shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving a 
 permanent trace, a trace which might be made visible 
 by resorting to proper processes. Photographic opera- 
 tions are cases in point. The portraits of our friends, 
 or landscape views, may be hidden on the sensitive sur- 
 face from the eye, but they are ready to make their ap- 
 pearance as soon as the proper developers are resorted 
 to. A specter is concealed on a silver or glossy surface 
 until by our necromancy we make it come forth into the 
 visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apart- 
 ments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether 
 shut out and our retirement can never be profaned, there 
 exists the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of what 
 we have done.' 
 
 " These are not the words of a crazy Spiritualist, a 
 dreamy enthusiast, or superstitious ignoramus, but a 
 man in the van of science, and quoted as reliable au- 
 thority by Prof. Tyndall. 
 
Natures Secrets. 185 
 
 "Now, if we can place ourselves in the 'same rela- 
 tionship to these impressions on external things as we 
 are to the impressions on our brain, the secrets of the 
 whole world are open to our view; but as a rule we are 
 almost insensible to them; in fact, we are very imper- 
 fectly en rapport with our own brain, hence our imperfect 
 memories. With a storehouse full of ideas and impres- 
 sions, we feel ourselves poverty-stricken for want of the 
 key to unlock the treasure cells. The true psyhome- 
 trist may obtain an entrance into our very sanctum sanc- 
 torum, into recesses and chambers forbidden to our- 
 selves, and reveal secrets long since forgotten. The 
 philosophy, therefore, which will show how to read the 
 impressions left on stones by Nature's self, will be a 
 benefactor to humanity, for this attainment will assur- 
 edly lead to the better reading and applying of the im- 
 pressions left on the sensorium of the brain of ourselves 
 and others; then good by hypocrisy, and all hail true 
 lives and natural, when speech will no longer be an art 
 to conceal our thoughts. But not only on walls and 
 stones and brains are impressions left, but on the soft 
 and yielding air, on the psychic elements surrounding 
 us, are left the impressions of thoughts and ideas. Con- 
 tagion flies through the air; pestilence and war psychol- 
 ogize the world; fashions absurd and detrimental to the 
 welfare of mankind seize the public mind; frenzies, re- 
 ligious or political, march steadily on; now it is an 
 age of mechanical invention and scientific discovery, 
 then adventure and reckless daring ; and always as the 
 air is charged with unseen influences, so mankind con- 
 duct themselves. 
 
 " In the well known fact of hereditary transmission 
 we have an example of the wonderful process of Na- 
 ture's photography. In the microscopal germ which 
 constitutes the paternal origin of offspring is contained 
 
i86 Nature s Secrets. 
 
 the father -in miniature. His habits, constitution, dis- 
 eased or healthy, his very thoughts, every thing relating 
 to him is therein contained, and transmitted not only 
 to his children but to generations to come. Peculiari- 
 ties not observed in the child are often observed in the 
 grandchild/' 
 
 Think of these things, and remember that if a strong 
 man, and even things material may be so easily affected, 
 how much easier may a sensitive woman, and how 
 surely will she impress the foetal child. 
 
 In his "Keligionof Geology," Prof. Hitchcock de- 
 clares that "man's angry words sometimes change the 
 very currents of the air." I might cite numerous other 
 authorities in corroboration of the theory of "persist- 
 ent remainder," men whose scientific attainments enti- 
 tle them to the highest respect, bat shall be content to 
 submit my case without offering any further human tes- 
 timony. I prefer rather to cite Nature herself, as illus- 
 trated in the case of a dog who loses his master on 
 Broadway, New York. Every minute a score of per- 
 sons are passing over the very spot where his master 
 trod, yet half an hour behind him the sagacious animal 
 is still capable of detecting the neurena or "persistent 
 remainder" of his master, and of following the trail 
 with unerring certainty. 
 
 Nor is this faculty limited to the dog. All animals 
 possess it in a greater or less degree; man possesses it to 
 a limited extent, but his reasoning faculties being much 
 stronger than his intuitive, he relies chiefly upon them 
 for information. Still, approach him silently while he 
 is asleep, gaze steadily in his face, and he will soon 
 waken. Or, let him be completely absorbed in the solu- 
 tion of a mathematical problem, so much so that he 
 would not hear a call to dinner; now enter his room 
 wholly unobserved; be silent as the grave, and keep 
 
Nature's Secrets. 187 
 
 constantly behind him; in a few minutes he will turn 
 round in an abstracted manner and look at you. Your 
 neurena has come en rapport with him, the information 
 has been communicated to the brain, the brain has willed 
 that the man shall look around, and this has been com- 
 municated to the muscle's, through the nerves. 
 
 In view of all these facts, and that "angry words 
 may change the currents of the air," how important it 
 is that all the conditions of the mother, during gesta- 
 tion, should be free from what might have a damaging 
 impress upon the child. And I might add right here, 
 that even after children" are born, when, like soft wax, 
 they are sensitive to every impression, it behooves pa- 
 rents to be cautious how they allow ther "angry words 
 to change the very currents of the air." But how 
 much more important to the enciente woman, who is 
 photographing upon the sensitive plate of her offspring 
 every shock to her nerves, every emotion of hate and 
 every pang of remorse . 
 
 Is soon as the fact of conception has been 
 established, then all exercise of bridal rites 
 should at once cease; but if the man has been so 
 badly generated himself that he is controled by his 
 passions, he still should strive to control himself 
 at first for at least thirty days, then for forty - 
 days, and so on. After the child has been born, 
 then, in the name of mercy, forbear to molest 
 the mother so long as the child continues to draw 
 its nourishment from the maternal fountain. 
 But if you must resume bridal rites, then wean 
 
i88 Natures Secrets 
 
 the child from the mother at the end of six 
 weeks, and nourish it on good cow's milk, diluted 
 witli one-third water. A child thus lorn will 
 be able to continue continent for sixty days, as 
 easy as you did for thirty, and his child for 
 ninety days, and so on, until in nine generations 
 a man may be produced who would abhor to so- 
 licit his wife during either gestation or lactation. 
 This is the only way to cure masturbation and 
 prostitution. .HJ 
 
 Every man who reads this, however strong his pas- 
 sions may be, if there is still lingering in his heart any 
 love for his wife if he has any pity for his unborn 
 child must feel an inward consciousness that it is his 
 duty to obey the foregoing advice, which I have had 
 printed in bold type in order to emphasize every worct 
 it contains, and impress it upon the mind of the reader. 
 And to aid the man still more, who is anxious to do 
 right, I recommend that he copy the paragraph in full 
 and post it up in his bed-chamber, in some conspicuous 
 place, so that his eyes may rest upon it whenever he 
 enters the room. The advice is worthy to be printed in 
 letters of gold and sent broadcast all over the land. 
 
 And that I may impress this matter still deeper upon 
 the mind of the reader, I will cite some eases in illus- 
 tration, both pro and con. 
 
 Mrs. John Woodbridge, of Madison, Indiana, gave 
 birth to twins, and next morning rose as usual 
 and cooked her husband's breakfast. Of course, there 
 was a reason 'for this, and the direct reason was that 
 parturition was painless ; and why ? What was the 
 
Natures Secrets. 189 
 
 primal cause ? Simply this: Her husband respected her 
 conditions, and she passed the period of her gestation as 
 chastely as the Virgin Mary is represented to have done, for 
 Joseph " knew her not till she had brought forth her 
 first-born son." If we look upon the case of Jesus as 
 historical, what a lesson of wisdom it teaches, showing 
 how superior a child may be when the husband is con- 
 tinent after conception. Viewed as an allegory, it shows 
 that the author understood this law, and in order to be 
 consistent in relating how a demi-god might be born, he 
 deemed it important to state that the mother was chaste 
 during gestation. Other mothers may^escape much of 
 the suffering consequent upon parturition, and also have 
 demi-gods born to them if they will only observe the 
 rules which I am laying down. And I assert without 
 the least fear of a scientific, philosophical, or historical 
 contradiction, that all men and women will be just as 
 pure as Jesus was when the same laws of continence are 
 faithfully followed, and not till then. Preaching and 
 praying can never remedy the effects of nature's vio- 
 lated laws. 
 
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the best generated 
 women in this country, has thought deeply upon this 
 subject, and in a lecture delivered not long since gave 
 forth some common sense ideas so valuable that I make 
 a brief extract: 
 
 " We must educate our daughters to think that mother- 
 hood is grand, and that God never cursed it. And the 
 curse, if it be a. curse, may be rolled off, as man has 
 rolled away the curse of labor; as the curse has been 
 rolled from the descendants of Ham. My mission among 
 women is to preach this new gospel. If you suffer, it is 
 not because you are cursed of God, but because you 
 violate his laws. 
 
 1 ' What an incubus it would take from woman could 
 
Natures Secrets. 
 
 she be educated to know that the pains of maternity are 
 no curse upon her kind. We know that among Indians 
 the squaw does not suffer in childbirth . The squaw will 
 step aside from the ranks, even on the march, and return 
 in a short time bearing with her the new-born child. 
 What an absurdity, then, to suppose that only en- 
 lightened Christian women are cursed. But one word of 
 fact is worth a volume of philosophy; let me give you 
 some of my own experience . 
 
 * ' I am the mother of seven children . My girlhood 
 was spent mostly in the open air. I early imbibed the 
 idea that a girl was just as good as a boy, and I carried 
 it out. I would walk five miles before breakfast, or ride 
 ten on horseback. After I was married I wore my 
 clothing sensibly. The weight hung entirely on my 
 shoulders. I never compressed my body out of its 
 natural shape. When my first four children were born 
 I suffered very little. I then made up my mind that it 
 was totally unnecessary for me to suffer at all. So I 
 dressed lightly, walked every day, lived as much as 
 possible in the open air, ate no condiments or spices, 
 kept quiet, listened to music, looked at pictures and took 
 proper care of myself. The night before the birth of 
 my child I walked three miles. The child was born with- 
 out a particle of pain. I bathed it and dressed it, and it 
 weighed ten and one-half pounds. That same day I dined 
 with the family! Everybody said that I would surely 
 die, but I never had a relapse or a moment's incon- 
 venience from it. I know this is not being delicate or 
 refined, but if you would be vigorous and healthy, in 
 spite of the diseases of your ancestors, and your own 
 disregard of nature's laws, try it." 
 
 I regret that Mrs. Stanton did not state that she was 
 continent during the entire period of gestation, as I 
 feel confident she was, for being a woman of very 
 
Natures Secrets. 191 
 
 superior intelligence, to say nothing about being 
 ''strong-minded/' she would be sure to observe this 
 most important condition . If delicacy restrained her, 
 then I commend to her attention the words of John 
 Stuart Mill, who truthfully says: "The diseases of 
 society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be pre- 
 vented or cured without being spoken about in plain 
 language ." 
 
 But we have been looking at the bright side of the 
 picture; let us now glance at the dark side. An emi- 
 nent lawyer once told me of a case that came under his 
 own personal observation, where, when a child was 
 born, the placenta was found to contain a three months' 
 embryo! Of course it was death to the little innocent 
 just as much as if it had been sacrificed by a profes- 
 sional abortionist. Had the unnatural father been as 
 continent as Joseph, the husband of Mary, is represented 
 to have been, then he would have never had this murder 
 upon his conscience. 
 
 But a case still more remarkable and still more horri- 
 ble occurred in Ohio, some years since. Shortly after 
 the birth of an infant a tumor appeared upon the side 
 of its face and neck, of the kind called "pulsating," 
 suggesting the idea of an aneurism. From day to day 
 and week to week the tumor continued to increase in 
 size until its weight bent the head down upon the 
 shoulder. No inflamation was perceptible, the health of 
 the child continued excellent, and for a time medical 
 men were puzzled. At length, after a critical examina- 
 tion, upon consultation of the leading physicians and 
 surgeons, it was decided that the only hope of saving 
 the life of the child, lay in removing the pulsating 
 tumor; and yet they were not sure but that the carotid 
 artery had dilated there, in which case death w&s sure 
 to ensue. But this consideration would not deter them, 
 
192 Natures Secrets. 
 
 of course. The operation was successfully performed, 
 with but slight flow of blood . But who shall describe 
 their astonishment when they discovered that the tumor 
 enclosed a perfectly formed fcetal child! 
 
 I have but few words to say by way of comment on 
 these horrible cases. Indeed, they need no comment, 
 for of themselves they are whole sermons, overflowing 
 with the awful and terrible. Therefore I will dismiss 
 them with the simple .remark that if there is such a 
 thing as committing "the unpardonable sin/' or sin 
 against the Holy Ghost, it must be that it consists in a 
 husband demanding marital rites after his wife has be- 
 come pregnant. 
 
 Probably a majority of my male readers will protest 
 against this condition of continence, and perhaps some 
 of them will be brutal enough to remark, as I have 
 heard occasionally: " That's what I got a wife for, and 
 I don't care what the doctors say." Monsters like these 
 beget imitations of themselves in their children, and 
 thus the world is filled with the licentious and degraded. 
 I pity such unfortunates and arn advising ihem for their 
 good. To say nothing about the benefits that will arise 
 directly for themselves, improving their physical, intel- 
 lectual, moral and spiritual natures, there will be a har- 
 vest of remote blessings in store for them, in the shape 
 of children superior to themselves, provided they follow 
 my instructions. But let them disobey, and in a spirit 
 of reckless defiance beget their offspring, then they may 
 expect to see them grow up ' ' seven-fold more the child 
 of hell" than themselves, for Nature never permits a 
 stand-still; action is her first law, and every thing is 
 either going forward or backward. 
 
 If the husband has been a masturbator, even in a 
 moderate way only, he will find it much more difficult 
 to be continent, and therefore he should put himself 
 
Natures Secrets. 193 
 
 upon a low diet, sleep on a hard bed with but few 
 clothes on him, and take frequent baths in cold water. 
 He should abstain from all articles of food like eggs, 
 oysters, etc., and cease to use condiments. The volup- 
 tuous and over-heated blood should also be reduced by 
 a certain medical preparation which I have found to 
 work like a charm, and in this way a life of continence 
 for a few months will be found much easier than if 
 nothing is done. But I recommend to all that they be 
 cautious how they consult two classes of physicians, 
 namely, educated quacks and ignorant quacks. These 
 two extremes of the medical profession are filling the 
 land with disease and death. 
 
 The title ' Doctor of Medicine" is derived from the 
 Greek word Therapeucia. Translated, it means "a 
 healer; one who cures the sick; a' doctor of medicine." 
 The title, "Doctor of Laws," was invented in the 
 twelfth century. Inerius, a learned professor of the 
 law at the University of Bologna, advised the Emperor 
 Lotharie II., whose chancellor he was, to create the 
 title, and consequently he was the first on whom it was 
 bestowed. Subsequently the title was borrowed by the 
 Faculty of Theology, and first conferred by the Univer- 
 sity of Paris on Peter Soubard. 
 
 "William Gordecio was the first on whom the title of 
 Doctor of Medicine was bestowed. He received it in 
 the year 1329, from the College of Asti. At this date, 
 1875, diplomas have obtained the extraordinary old age 
 of 54G years, which may be likened to a babe in its 
 swaddling clothes when compared with the Vis Medica- 
 trix Naturea, as practised by the recluses of India tens 
 of thousands of years ago, or the Therapeuts of Egypt, 
 China, Persia, Assyria, etc. The Royal College of Sur- 
 geons (England) was established in the present century. 
 
 There are about five thousand Nature-a-pathic doctors, 
 
1Q4 Natures Secrets. 
 
 or natural healers, in the United States, nearly all of 
 whom are destitute of a medical education. They often 
 cure when the skill and science of all drug treatment 
 has failed. I met a gentleman of large experience, but 
 not an M.D., who saved the life of the venerable Dr. 
 Ashburner, a member of the Koyal College of Sur- 
 geons, England, by his Vis Medicatrix Naturea, after all 
 the skill and science of the regular faculty had most 
 signally failed. But these healers should never attempt 
 to prescribe deadly poisons as remedies, or indeed any 
 medication at all; for, being ignorant of their chemical 
 forces and the results to be expected, they ought in all 
 cases to leave the poisoning business in the hands of 
 educated quacks, where it belongs. But I am not bring- 
 ing any reproach against these Nature-a-pathics, only 
 advising them to let drugs alone. The very name of 
 druggist, and its meaning, should admonish them. 
 Druggist is derived from drug men, which is derived 
 from death men. 
 
 If I have not said sufficient to warn the masses against 
 the drug system, let them note this fact: " Griffith's 
 Dose Book " contains 395 formulas, whose active prin- 
 ciple is calomel, and those who persist in prescribing 
 this deadly poison can point to the graveyards of all 
 nations, where lie their premature dead. These are the 
 awful trophies of a system of medical practice that 
 originated in the dark ages, and has received the seal of 
 condemnation from even its most talented disciples. 
 With the facts of this book before her, I trust that no 
 woman expecting *^ become a mother will ever employ 
 an allopathic physician. 
 
 Prof. Pancost, of Jefferson Medical College, whom I 
 have previously quoted, in his last lecture to the stu- 
 dents of the class for 1869-70, said: "Gentlemen, in 
 your practice you must be very careful in the adminis- 
 
Natures Secrets. 195 
 
 tration of mercury. You will kill enough, with all your 
 care and caution. If you compound poisons as reme- 
 dies when under the influence of liquor or any narcotic, 
 you will kill your patients wholesale.' 1 
 
 This is the dark side of the picture. All must admit 
 its terribleness, and yet I feel that I have utterly failed 
 in picturing the horrors that are everywhere associated 
 with the practice of administering these deadly poi- 
 sons. But there is a brighter side to the picture, and 
 to this I invite attention. The reader must not be im- 
 patient for the instruction bearing directly upon the care 
 of a woman during gestation; that might be given in a 
 few pages. But there are thousands of things requiring 
 whole chapters, and even books, which bear indirectly, 
 and are of the utmost importance to the race. In order 
 to keep the promise implied by the title of "How to 
 Live" as well as " How to be Born," I must attack and 
 demolish Old Allopathy, and having removed the rub- 
 bish, I must next supply something to take its place; 
 for people will be doctored in some way until the time 
 arrives when they can learn better. 
 
 The practice of medicine in the early history of our 
 race was crude and very uncertain, and consisted chiefly 
 in roots, herbs and vegetables. Most of the little medi- 
 cal knowledge was possessed by the monasteries . Mes- 
 mer, a learned M.D., wrested this Vis Medicatrix Natu- 
 rea, or "The Healing Powers of Nature," from the clois- 
 tered life of the monks, and offered it to the medical 
 profession, where it justly belongs. But, alas ! how 
 tardy have the different schools of medicine been in ac- 
 cepting the ne plus ultra of all Therapeutics. Up to 
 the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the barbers 
 controlled the practice of medicine in England ; this is 
 the origin of the three colors of paint on their poles. 
 
 Mineral poisons were first introduced in the cure of 
 
196 Natures Secrets. 
 
 disease in 1493, by Theophrastus Bombastus Paracel- 
 sus, in Switzerland, and the German Eclectic doctors 
 called him and his followers " quacks," from the intro- 
 duction, among other poisons, of quicksilver, or quack- 
 silber the great-grandfather of quackery. T. B. Para- 
 celsus (as he styled himself), while seated in his chair 
 at Basle, Switzerland, burned, with great solemnity, the 
 writings of the great and good Galen, and declared to 
 his hearers that if God would not impart the secrets of 
 physic he was perfectly justified in consulting the devil; 
 and in consultation with his satanic majesty the use of 
 calomel was introduced, and he called it the "vital 
 elixir of life," declaring that by its use men could live 
 to the age of Methusalem ; but the inventor of this 
 dreadful scourge of the race died a vagabond in the 
 forty-third year of his age, with a bottle of his elixir in 
 his pocket. The world would have been better if he 
 had never been born. 
 
 We believe in medical colleges, medical education, 
 and medical books; but medical books, whether written 
 four centuries ago or in the year 1875, are not finalities. 
 The earth is ever unfolding into higher conditions, and 
 mankind must progress with their original mother. We 
 said we believed in medical books. So we do; but we 
 have a much stronger faith in God's own Book the in- 
 imitable Book of Nature. Hence, we will now examine 
 this Book of the Medical Sciences of Nature; for Na- 
 ture is God, and God is Nature. Modern scholars have 
 called it the " Nature-a-pathic Method." The ancient 
 philosophers called it the " Regenerating Fire." 
 
 Let us examine briefly of what it consists. Is it a 
 new development, or was it recognized and practised in 
 the earlier ages of mankind ? The historic page fur- 
 nishes no fact susceptible of clearer proof that the 
 art of healing, by this law of nature, was anciently 
 
Natures Secrets. 197 
 
 practised with varying success, according to the vital 
 polarized physiological vigor of the physicians, until 
 the middle, or dark ages, and whoever will take the 
 trouble to examine the writings of the following and 
 other authors, namely, Josephus, Plato, Pythagoras, 
 Plutarch, Pliny, Plato, Suetonius, Tacitus, A. Prillia- 
 nus, Van Helmont, and the religious books of all na- 
 tions, will there find abundant evidence to prove that 
 long before the Christian era these occult forces were 
 used to heal the sick. 
 
 The people of these times, unable to explain the won- 
 derful curative powers bynatural laws, attributed them 
 to the influence of evil spirits, or the beneficence of the 
 gods. The most successful medical practitioners, and 
 the profoundest philosophers, after having spent their 
 lives in diving into the deepest secrets of nature, ex- 
 ploring all the wonders of science, in searching for 
 remedial agents to cure disease, and experimenting upon 
 both the palpable and imponderable forces and organ- 
 isms, have applied to their investigations the vigor of 
 penetration, the mighty analysis of reason, and the lofty 
 nights of genius They Lave concluded their lives' 
 labors with expressions of disappointment, declaring, 
 with touching ingeniousness, that the science of medi- 
 cine, as it existed in the past, and even to-day, is utterly 
 impotent to cure many diseases they are called on to 
 treat, and I assert that if the world use the polarized 
 vital potential agencies used by nature-a-apathic physi- 
 cians, their failures would be few and far between, for 
 who can limit the infinite possibilities of the spirit of 
 God in mankind. 
 
 This spirit has passed through the ether of space and 
 approached the very footstool of the Throne of God, 
 bringing down to earth the lightning, chaining it not 
 only to his chariot wheels, but to the telegraph, printing 
 
198 Natures Secrets. 
 
 presses, and spanning ocean after ocean, thus making it 
 the servant of man, obeying the behests of his soul like 
 a plaything of childhood. Electricity, magnetism and 
 empyria are the. most subtle and powerful agents man 
 has yet discovered. Quotations from Roman history 
 will illustrate a part of this subject. Mercury, who is 
 enamored of Soias' wife, and is devising a means of 
 getting rid of Sosias for a few moments, says: " Qiiidie 
 ago ilium traetim taugour ut dormiat." ' ' What i f I should 
 touch him, drawing down my finger, that he may go to 
 sleep." Sosia, who overheard him, replies, " Sernaweris 
 mam her ires nonates peruigiaue." " You will preserve 
 my life for I have been watching these three nights." 
 
 Seven years ago a democratic orator in Indiana charged 
 a republican county treasurer with malfeasance in office, 
 and a second time repeated the charge, throwing off so 
 much vindictive electro magnetic empyria force as caused 
 his instantaneous death. Sir David Brewster says : "All 
 bodies throw off emanations in greater or less size and 
 with greater or less velocities. These particles enter 
 more or less into the pores of solid ard fluid bodies, 
 sometimes resting upon their surface, and sometimes 
 permeating them altogether. When feeble, these ema- 
 nations show themselves in images ; when stronger, in 
 chemical changes. These emanations, the great scien- 
 tist has spoken of, are the very essence of all organic 
 forms and vitalities in creation; the attenuation of all 
 refinement, breathing the spirit's atmosphere through 
 the temple of the living God, the body of man, charged 
 with all medical properties proceeding from every un- 
 folding, developing etheralizing order and form, up to 
 man, the superangel of the material universe." 
 
 It is the only thoroughly scientific and searching 
 remedial agent that can, in all cases, be successfully 
 applied to mentally and physically diseased humanity. 
 
Natures Secrets. 199 
 
 This is the most potential remedial agent in the 
 world ; it is a fluid of inconceivable tenuity ; it can 
 neither be demonstrated nor denied; it is a subtle and 
 excessively agile gas or ether in comparison with 
 which caloric is heavy; the ether of space, dense and 
 light, which travels nearly two hundred thousand miles 
 in a second, is slow in velocity when compared to it. 
 Dr. Daly, in his Illustrated Anatomy, declares that f ' the 
 human hand is eminently adapted to impart these ocult 
 healing forces to other bodies." Why is this so ? This 
 is a very pertinent question. Let us examine it from a 
 scientific basis, and we find that an inch square taken 
 from the palm of the hand contains three hundred and 
 sixty per cent, more of vital nervous force than an inch 
 square taken from the heel. Then why curse the hand 
 that soothes sorrow, removes pain and cures disease? 
 Why exclude from the seats of medical learning this 
 grand God-given method of cure? For true medical 
 science is a knowledge of causes; and that system of 
 practising the healing art the best that effects the 
 quickest cures. The London Lancet says: " No physi- 
 cian will seek a circuitous route when he can reach the 
 case by direct means." 
 
 The mental forces must inevitably play a most con- 
 spicuous part in ihe future of medical practice. The 
 mind being confined to the interior man, is not confined 
 to the brain; nor, as Descrate supposed, included in the 
 pineal gland; but it pervades and is interfused through 
 the whole body; it thrills in every nerve, and pervades 
 every fibre. A man does not fill the house he lives in, 
 but the spiritual principle pervades the whole outward 
 organism. Between the mind and the outward organ- 
 ism there is an intermediate and substantial form, called 
 by Paul and Swedenbourg the " spiritual body." Be- 
 tween all discreet creations in the universe there are such 
 
2oo Natures Secrets. 
 
 intermediators, through which influx descends from the 
 higher to the lower, or what means the same, from th$ 
 interior to the exterior, and by means of which, co^nnec- 
 tion is formed and communication is effected; so, be- 
 tween the interior soul and the outward material body, 
 there is such an organism. It spans the discreet chasm 
 between mind and matter; connects the two links in the 
 chain of our being; conjoins the spirit and body into a 
 unity; and through it they mentally act and react upon 
 each other. It is composed of a substance intermediate 
 between pure spirit and matter, a sort of pertium quid, 
 a third something that science has not yet denned, 
 through which the spiritual principle enters the grosser 
 body. And I firmly believe that witbin the vast store- 
 house of nature their lies undiscovered and undeveloped 
 many unseen forces and laws that are available for the 
 cure of diseases. But first and foremost stand the cura- 
 tive powers of the mind, by which I mean not only the 
 mind of the operator but of the patient . Take the 'fol- 
 lowing, from "Paris' Life of Sir Humphrey Davy," as 
 an illustration: 
 
 " In the early parb of his scientific career, Sir Hum- 
 phrey was assisting Dr. Beddoes in his experiments on 
 the inhalation of nitrous oxide, Dr. Beddoes thinking 
 the oxide must be a specific for paralysis. A patient was 
 selected for trial, and placed under the care of Sir H. 
 Davy. Before administering the gas, wishing to ascer- 
 tain the temperature of the palsied man's blood, a small 
 thermometer was inserted under his tongue; the paraly- 
 tic, wholly ignorant of the process to which he was 
 to be subjected, but deeply impressed by Dr. Bed- 
 does with the certainty of its success, no sooner 
 felt the thermometer between his teeth than he con- 
 cluded that the talisrnanic was at work, and, in a burst 
 of enthusiasm, declared that he felt its healing power 
 
Natures Secrets. 201 
 
 through his- whole body. Here was an opportunity to 
 test the influence of the mind on the cure of palsy. 
 The gas was not used, but on the following day the 
 thermometer was again employed with equally marked 
 effects, and at the end of two weeks the patient was dis- 
 missed cured, no remedy of any kind having been used 
 except the thermometer; his faith -had made him whole, 
 not by accident, or by a miracle, but by a physiological 
 law of our being." 
 
 Such an important law, and such historic and benign- 
 ant facts and principles, ought not to be ignored by 
 medical science or theological schools, or legislatures. 
 I could mention hundreds of cures in my own practice, 
 by this vis medicatriv natures, after science, as used by 
 the schools of to-day, had utterly failed. "Where is to 
 be found the statesman who will introduce in our local 
 legislature a bill to found a Chair for the benificent use 
 of this remedial agent in the Pacific Medical College ? 
 "Who among the liberal professors will propose such a 
 Chair ? Such a one would deserve a marble monument 
 higher than that of Bunker Hill; suffering humanity 
 would sound the peans of his praise on earth; angels 
 would place on his head an immortal crown, and God 
 would say, come to heaven's best blessings, thou good 
 and faithful servant. 
 
 The following case corroborates the main fact which I 
 am trying to establish, namely, that the curative power is 
 in the patient himself, rather than in the medicine, or the 
 operator. The medicine may arouse the dormant facul- 
 ties, in which dwell the curative power, as the lash of 
 the driver arouses the slave; or the effect may be pro- 
 duced by the passes of the operator; or the same result 
 may be obtained by an entirely different means, as wit- 
 ness the following: 
 
 A man had been suffering from the rheumatism for 
 
2O2 Natures Secrets. 
 
 fifteen years, for which he could find no cure. One day 
 he went up through the scuttle upon a five-story build- 
 ing, to make some slight repairs. The roof seemed flat 
 enough for him to venture upon, but after passing be- 
 yond reach of the scuttle he discovered that he was 
 slowly sliding towards the eaves. There was nothing to 
 stay his progress, and*more than fifty feet below was the 
 solid pavement. Screaming as only a man can scream 
 when a horrible death stares him in the face, he threw 
 himself flat down, extending his limbs as much as pos- 
 sible, so as to increase the friction and perchance arrest 
 his progress. All his efforts were vain, for he was still 
 sliding slowly down the roof. 
 
 When near the eaves a nail caught in his pantaloons, 
 and he came to a halt. But he dare not move in the 
 slightest degree, so he lay still and waited until some 
 men came, attracted by his cries. A rope was procured 
 and one end made fast around the body of one of them, 
 who took the other end in his hand, while the men at 
 the scuttle held fast the bite, and, descending the roof, 
 tied the spare end around the body of the unfortunate 
 man, when both were drawn up in safety. 
 
 The man who had been so near to death swooned 
 away the moment he was beyond danger. All his facul- 
 ties having been fearfully aroused and exercised, the 
 reaction would be correspondingly great. After a long 
 time the man regained his consciousness, and to his as- 
 tonishment discovered that his rheumatism had entirely 
 disappeared and that he could raise his hand to his 
 head as well as ever, something that he had not done 
 for many years. 
 
 The philosophy of this case is very apparent. While 
 the man was sliding down the roof every energy of his 
 mind was aroused as it had never been before; the mind 
 acted upon the nerves; the nerves acted upon the inus- 
 
Natures Secrets. 203 
 
 
 
 cles, and whatever obstruction existed "was removed and 
 the man healed from the self-same hour. 
 
 In my own practice I have wrought many marvelous 
 cures, so considered, and I will here narrate a few by 
 way of illustration and corroboration. 
 
 An ex-Governor, holding a high position under Gov- 
 ernment at Washington, D. C., whose wife had been 
 suffering for ten months from a total suppression of the 
 catamenia, employed successively the different schools 
 of Allopathy, Homoapathy, Hydropathic, Eclectic, and 
 Electropathic, but all alike failed to effect a cure. 
 At length, the case becoming serious, these " lambs 
 and lions" all met in consultation upon the case, and 
 after due deliberation, reported to the almost frantic 
 husband that "We have done all in our power; we have 
 exhausted all our Pharmacopeias, and now we can only 
 say that your wife mitst die J" 
 
 Like the wail of a broken harp, the agonized husband 
 exclaimed: " If there is nothing within your systems 
 and pathj, is there not something outside of the regu- 
 lar practice that will save her? O, my God ! I cannot 
 give her up ! I will not let her die !" ' 
 
 A second and very brief consultation was held, and 
 to their everlasting credit be it said, they reported that 
 there was one more hope, and, however small, still it 
 was a hope, namely, the NATURE- A-PATHIC. But they 
 frankly admitted that none of them could employ this 
 remedy, as they did not possess the power, but if a mag- 
 netic doctor could be found, perhaps the life of his wife 
 might be saved. These facts were subsequently com- 
 municated to me by the ex-Governor himself. 
 
 Next morning my card appeared in the city dailies 
 as a magnetic healer, and at an early hour tho carriage 
 of the almost despairing husband was at the door of 
 my office, No 6 Louisiana Avenue. I was driven rapidly 
 
204 Natures Secrets. 
 
 
 
 to his residence and implored to do all in mypower to 
 save her life. How many such experiences I have had; 
 called at the last moment, after every pathy had failed, 
 and how often I have sent life and hope where death 
 and despair were ready to hold high carnival . But if I 
 lose one of these cases, after the poison doctors have 
 pronounced it incurable, they charge the whole responsi- 
 bility upon me and my want of skill. 
 
 I found my patient a living skeleton. Truly, death 
 was very near. Faithfully, and with all the powers of 
 my mind concentrated, I applied the healing forces of 
 Nature . On my sixth visit 1 was met at the door by the 
 no longer despairing husband, but with his face beam- 
 ing with delight and happiness, he seized my hand in 
 both of his, exclaiming: 
 
 "God bless you, Dr. Kuttley! My wife is saved! 
 Nature's fountains have been restored! The unmistaka- 
 ble evidence appeared last night 1" 
 
 My fee in this case was $50, which was promptly paid, 
 and an invitation extended to me to always visit him and 
 his family when in Washington. 
 
 The late Bishop Miles, of New York, had suffered for 
 years from anginia pectoris, a disease of the heart, which 
 is characterized by a fatty degeneration of the muscu- 
 lar fibers, and an ossification of the coronary arteries, 
 accompanied with the most excruciating pain. He had 
 twice crossed the Atlantic to consult the Eoyal College 
 of Surgeons, England, after having vainly applied to 
 the most eminent physicians of New York and Philadel- 
 phia. On his applying to me I effected a permanent 
 cure through the healing forces of Nature. Subsequently 
 he preached a sermon in the Methodist Church, at Syra- 
 cuse, N. Y., on his cure, declaring that it was the most 
 successful and scientific system of medical practice on 
 the face of the earth. The unbelieving can see his 
 
Natures Secrets. 205 
 
 letters in my jffiee, corroborating this statement; or the 
 Kev. Adam Crooks, A. M., editor of the Syracuse Wes- 
 ley/an, will certify to the truth hereof. 
 
 Blindness, from paralysis of the optic nerve, is classed 
 as incurable by all schools of medicine outside of the 
 Nature- a-pathic, it being admitted that neither medicine 
 as an uncertain science, or surgery as a certain science, 
 can cure it. 
 
 Mrs. Sleeper, of 429 Brown street, Philadelphia, Pa., 
 had been totally blind, from amaurosis, for eight years. 
 She had been examined and pronounced incurable by 
 J. M. Evans, M.D., formerly Professor of Anatomy in 
 Sterling Medical College (Old School), of Columbus, 
 Ohio, as well as by many eminent oculists . One appli- 
 cation of the Nature-a-pathic treatment restored her sight! 
 Persons who are unwilling to take my word for what 
 may seem so marvelous may readily ascertain the truth 
 qf the case by ap plying to William P. Hibbard, 215 
 North Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia. Mr. Hibbard 
 has been one of the Aldermen of the " city of brotherly 
 love" for many years. 
 
 In the Spring of 18G9 I was called to visit a niece of 
 the Hon. A. G. W. Carter, for seventeen years Chief 
 Justice of the Court of Common Pleas^ Cincinnati, O., 
 and who is now practising law in New York City. I 
 refer to him to corroborate what I am about to state . 
 
 His niece, Mrs. M. W. Gary, now of Jackson, Michi- 
 gan, was so severely injured by the running away of a 
 horse attached to a buggy, that, upon the consultation 
 of six eminent M.D.'s, it was declared that she could 
 not live six hours. Then it was that I was called 
 in great haste. I found several bones fractured, and 
 it was truly a serious case; yet I effected a perfect and 
 permanent cure in only two visits. 
 
 I could give hundreds of cases where I have wrought 
 
2o6 Natures Secrets. 
 
 permanent cures, which seem just as wonderful as these, 
 after the patients have been given up by the most emi- 
 nent practitioners of the various schools of medicine, 
 but neither time nor space will permit. I have also vol- 
 untary testimonials enough to fill a large volume, which 
 have been given me by bishops, judges, clergymen, 
 statesmen, wholesale and retail merchants, and in fact, 
 prominent citizens in every walk in life. QUEKY: Do 
 these remarkable cures take place within range of the 
 Medical Sciences, or is it quackery that cures ? If so, 
 then is it not Medical Science that kills ? I can easily 
 divine the answer of the lay reader, and have no doubt 
 but that the professional reader will declare that it is 
 better to be killed scientifically than to be cured by 
 quackery. 
 
Natures Secrets. 207 
 
 CHAPTEK XIII. 
 
 DISEASES ABE SPIRITUAL THEY REQUIRE SPIRITUAL REMEDIES. 
 
 The case of the man sliding down the roof, men- 
 tioned in the last chapter, opens up a field for 
 thought which has scarcely been explored by professors 
 of the healing art, and therefore demands more than a 
 passing notice. The reader should understand the ex- 
 act modus operandi of this cure; and in order that he 
 may comprehend the subject scientifically, some explan- 
 ations are necessary, because I am of the opinion that 
 he will nowhere find the matter treated in all the works 
 extant upon philosophy, anatomy or physiology. 
 
 Independent of the neurena, this subtle fluid which 
 acts upon the involuntary faculties, which we are con- 
 stantly giving out and receiving, and independent of 
 the circulation of the blood, are these five currents, 
 namely: the electro-ossiffic, the electro-muscular, the 
 electro-nervous, the electro-intellectual and the electro- 
 spiritual. Each one of these currents is an attenuation 
 of the one next beneath it, thus graduating, by connect- 
 ing links, from the animal to the angel; or, like Jacob's 
 ladder, reaching from earth to heaven. The normal 
 revolution of these currents constitute life and health; 
 the abnormal action, or any obstruction, results in dis- 
 ease or death. Now, when obstructed, a cure is impos- 
 sible until the obstruction is removed. The human or- 
 ganism is so constructed that when an obstruction occurs 
 there is a set of involuntary faculties that set to work 
 
208 Natures Secrets. 
 
 to remove the obstruction and repair damages, just like 
 a gang of men on a railroad after there has been a land- 
 slide or an avalanche. 
 
 I must make a brief digression to illustrate the absurd- 
 ity of administering poison, by comparing the poison 
 to a band of loafers who hang around the workers on a 
 railroad, getting in their way and bothering them with 
 foolish questions. They retard the work of repairs far 
 more than they aid. Just so with the poisons taken 
 into the system when there has been an obstruction of 
 one of the five currents. The gang of involuntary fac- 
 ulties, detailed to make repairs, are met with this deadly 
 poison, far more dangerous than the disease. Doubling 
 their diligence, they work like men at a fire, until they 
 become exhausted and call for reinforcement. The 
 whole department is next turned out; that is, all the 
 reserve forces of the system, and a most desperate 
 struggle ensues. 
 
 The poison is taken prisoner and finally banished. 
 The workers have become thoroughly exhausted in ex- 
 pelling the poison, and now demand a little rest before 
 attacking the disease. This crisis is characterized by 
 general prostration, and being so much worse than the 
 disease, the doctor feels the pulse, looks at the tongue, 
 inquires about the bowels, and finally, with an air of 
 great gravity and wisdom, declares that the patient is 
 better. At this stage the experienced physician usually 
 orders gruel, good nursing, and quiet. Left to herself, 
 Nature speedily effects a cure, and the doctor gets all 
 the credit. But at this stage the inexperienced physi- 
 cian continues to ply the drugs, just as the books direct, 
 and soon has a funeral on his hands. Prosecute him 
 for malpractice, and the other doctors, in nine cases 
 out of ten, will swear that he had proceeded regularly, 
 and is therefore justifiable. But to resume. 
 
Natures Secrets. 209 
 
 Sometimes the obstructions are of that character that 
 a sort of paralysis of the involuntary faculties ensues, 
 as in cases of chronic rheumatism, when an electro- 
 muscular ^current is obstructed. (Perhaps the word 
 " torpid," in this case, would be more correct than par- 
 alysis; but I care little about words, save to make my- 
 self understood, and therefore I use as few technicalities 
 as possible.) Now, there is no curative power outside 
 of the action of these involuntary faculties, and when 
 they refuse to act, of course there can be no cure. 
 There are doubtless many nutritious substances that 
 will stimulate them to resume a healthy action, and these 
 substances may be termed "medicines." So, too, a 
 poison may stimulate them to act, but the action will be 
 directed against the poison, not against the disease. 
 
 Aside from something taken into the stomach, exter- 
 nal remedies may be successfully employed to arouse 
 action. The imagination may be so excited as to in- 
 stantly obstruct these five currents, in which case death 
 must be equally instantaneous. On the other hand, 
 the imagination may be so excited as to actually hold 
 the " grim messenger" at bay for days, or even weeks. 
 Or, by a moderate excitement, bread pills may be made 
 to act as a cathartic. Here lies the secret of success 
 with the magnetic healers, who vainly suppose that the 
 curative virtue is in themselves, whereas all they do is 
 to arouse and set to work the involuntary faculties of 
 the patient, and he cures himself. 
 
 The man sliding down the roof was cured by the 
 action of his mind upon the nerves, the nerves acting 
 upon the involuntary faculties and arousing them to 
 action. Very often a new sensation will arouse the 
 faculties when nothing else will. A woman had been 
 bed-ridden for three years, and her physicians were in 
 despair. At length one of them who evidently had 
 
2io Natiires Secrets. 
 
 some intuitional knowledge of these laws, proposed to 
 try the effect of a " new sensation." This was ex- 
 plained to the husband and his consent obtained. Un- 
 der various pretexts every person was sent out of the 
 house save the doctor and his patient. 
 
 Then the doctor drew off his boots, leisurely removed 
 his coat and vest, and was proceeding to unbutton his 
 pantaloons, when the poor lady screamed out to know 
 what he intended doing. Very calmly and deliberately 
 he informed her that there was no person within the 
 sound of her voice, and that he was going to bed 
 with her, at the same time removing his pantaloons. 
 This was too much for endurance. Burning with insult, 
 furious with indignation, she sprang out of bed, and 
 seizing a small dinner-bell, commenced beating him 
 over the head, and actually chased him down stairs. 
 
 You see the " new sensation" did the business. So, 
 too, the man who was sliding down the roof, experienced 
 a "new sensation." Both of these cases demonstrate 
 the absence of a ' ' magnetic current " from the operator 
 to the patient, and since the result may be obtained 
 without any such current, let no person despair on the 
 ground of having "no power." Why, even a wooden 
 man might have the power, provided the patient could 
 be made to think that it was a wonderful magnetic 
 healer in whom he has the fullest confidence, since so 
 much depends upon exciting the imagination of the 
 patient, rather than generating currents from the mag- 
 netizer. 
 
 DIVERSITY 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 OCT 30 1915