NEWS | homepage | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address & What does MUM mean? | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | who runs this museum?? | Amazing women! | the art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | asbestos | belts | bidets | founder bio | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books: menstruation and menopause (and reviews) | cats | company booklets for girls (mostly) directory | contraception and religion | costumes | menstrual cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | facts-of-life booklets for girls | famous women in menstrual hygiene ads | FAQ | founder/director biography | gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux | humor | huts | links | masturbation | media coverage of MUM | menarche booklets for girls and parents | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | olor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | puberty booklets for girls and parents | religion | Religión y menstruación | your remedies for menstrual discomfort | menstrual products safety | science | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | shame | slapping, menstrual | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour of the former museum (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | Words and expressions about menstruation | Would you stop menstruating if you could? | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads More about 19th century attitudes, masturbation, etc: In Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life, by J. H. Kellogg, M.D., 1892 - in Dr. R. V. Pierce's "Spermatorrhea" section of The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser (63rd edition, 1895) - in The Sexual System and Its Derangements, by Dr. E. C. Abbey (1882) - in Kelly's Gynecology, 1928 - Rachel Maines wrote a book about other doctors' masturbating their patients, male and female, as a treatment, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Press, 1999)

The Science of a New Life,
by John Cowan, M. D. (1875, New York, New York, U.S.A.)

Topics in the book excerpted here:
masturbation | woman's rights | diseases: retained menstruation, suppressed menstruation, chronic suppression, irregular menstruation,
painful menstruation, profuse menstruation, vicarious menstruation, menopause, chlorosis

Dr. Cowan, apparently a supporter of women's rights in America - see the section called woman's rights, below, and the endorsement, at bottom, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (whom filmmaker Ken Burns called the most important woman in American history) - wrote a book of advice for people thinking of marrying. As with much 19th-century writing, the prose is florid, but often charming, and laced with quotations and appeals to God. The tone is moral. His views on masturbation seem typical for the age.

Why talk about masturbation? While researching patent medicine pamphlets of the 19th century, I discovered how passionately writers hated the practice and how many afflictions they thought were caused by it - troubles today that no one would dream had such a cause.

I don't understand the origin of this witch hunt to stamp out something most of these writers admit that almost everybody does at one time or another - including probably the writers. The Bible mentions the sin of Onan, who, I believe, withdrew his penis during intercourse and ejaculated outside the vagina. That is not what most people understand as masturbation. But apparently the sin was the failure of sperm to reach the vagina ("spermatorrhea" - "flowing sperm" - was the general term), no matter how that happened. The unwilled emission of sperm while asleep was just as evil, although as you will read, female masturbation was also disdained. As far as I know, that was hard to justify on Biblical grounds, and maybe American Puritanism was the ultimate culprit in both cases.

Dr. Howard Kelly's book Gynecology 53 years later dismisses most of these masturbation terrors that earned quacks fortunes from sometimes terrifying treatments, like pouring undiluted carbolic acid on the clitoris.

I add some sections on menstrual disorders to give you an idea of what passed for medical knowledge.

I trimmed page margins to speed down load.

SarahAnne Hazlewood generously donated this book to the museum.

The tiny statement below his name reads, "Knowledge must precede virtue, for no chance act can be a moral one.We must KNOW in order to DO"  and the words within the wreath read, "OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT"

The two small statements, above and below the face, read (together), "What God, in the might of His wisdom and the greatness of His love, has created, no man or woman need be ashamed to read, talk of, learn and know; for it cannot be that He has so ordered it that knowledge so essential to the well-being of mankind can be destructive to moral purity." Sounds exactly right to me. By the way, the "whiskers" on the girl are an interference pattern caused by my scanner and the lines.

Before books came with dust jackets, publishers printed some praise the book had received on pages in the front or back of the book. The above quote sits among a score of others on pages before the title page.

NEXT
masturbation - woman's rights - diseases: retained menstruation | suppressed menstruation | chronic suppression | irregular menstruation | painful menstruation | profuse menstruation | vicarious menstruation | menopause | chlorosis

NEWS | homepage | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address & What does MUM mean? | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! | the art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | asbestos | belts | bidets | founder bio | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books: menstruation and menopause (and reviews) | cats | company booklets for girls (mostly) directory | contraception and religion | costumes | menstrual cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | facts-of-life booklets for girls | famous women in menstrual hygiene ads | FAQ | founder/director biography | gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux | humor | huts | links | masturbation | media coverage of MUM | menarche booklets for girls and parents | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | olor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | puberty booklets for girls and parents | religion | Religión y menstruación | your remedies for menstrual discomfort | menstrual products safety | science | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | shame | slapping, menstrual | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour of the former museum (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | Words and expressions about menstruation | Would you stop menstruating if you could? | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads

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