The medical, surgical and hygenic treatment of diseases of women : especially those causing sterility, the disorders and accidents of pregnancy and painful and difficult labor / by Edwin M. Hale.

  • Hale, Edwin M. (Edwin Moses), 1829-1899.
Date:
1880, ©1879
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical, surgical and hygenic treatment of diseases of women : especially those causing sterility, the disorders and accidents of pregnancy and painful and difficult labor / by Edwin M. Hale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    CHAPTER II. STATISTICS OF STERILITY. In general, it is stated by Sims and other authorities, that about every eighth marriage is sterile. This is certainly an astonishing statement. In no other age of the world than this could such a state of things exist. From what we can learn from ancient writers, both sacred and profane, sterility was a very uncommon occurrence among the Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Romans, and the nations of Europe. If all the other evidence was lacking, the fact that sterility was considered a disgrace among the nations enumerated above would be sufficient to prove its extreme rarity among their women. In Dr. Duncan's Avork on Fecundity, Fertility and Sterility, we find that in the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, 15 per cent, of all the marriages between fifteen and forty-four years of age are sterile. Dr. Lever (Org. Dis. of Uterus, p. 5) says: It is found that -^, or 5 per cent., of married women are wholly unprolific. Duncan does not ascribe much value to this estimate. Dr. Simpson {Obstetric Works, vol. i, p. 328) says it has been observed that in some portions of Sweden one barren woman is not met with for ten fertile. Frank asserts that only one marriage in fifty is unproduc- tive, but he gives no proof of his estimate. Thompson {Todd's Cyclopedia, vol. ii, p. 478) estimates from a census of two large cities, Grangemouth and Bathgate, that 1 in every 10J married women were sterile. The same author gives the analysis of 503 marriages in the British Peerage, resulting as follows: Among 495 marriages 81 were unproduc- tive, or 1 in 6^ were without any family. Dr. West {Diseases of Women, p. 3) states that he found the general average of sterile marriages among his patients at St. Bartholomew's Hospital to be 1 sterile marriage in every 8.5.