Page:Annie Besant, The Law of Population.djvu/39

 universal practice of the French speaks strongly on the other side.

The preventive check advocated by Dr. Knowlton is, on the other hand, entirely in the hands of the wife. It consists in the use of the ordinary syringe immediately after intercourse, a solution of sulphate of zinc or of alum being used instead of water. There is but little doubt that this check is an effective one, a most melancholy proof of its effectiveness being given by Dr. J. C. Barr, who, giving evidence before the Commission on the working of the Contagious Diseases Act, stated:—"Every woman who leaves the hospital is instructed in the best mode of preventing disease. These are cleanliness injections of alum and sulphate of zinc."

Professor Sheldon Amos, dealing with the same painful subject, refers to this evidence, and quotes Dr. Barr as saying again, "my custom is to instruct them to keep themselves clean, to use injections and lotions." These women are not meant to bear children, they are to be kept "fit for use" by Her Majesty's soldiers.

Apart altogether from this sad, but governmentally authorised, use of this check, there are many obvious disadvantages connected with it as a matter of taste and feeling. The same remark applies to the employment of the baudruche, a covering used by men of loose character as a guard against syphilitic diseases, and occasionally recommended as a preventive check.

The check which appears to us to be preferable, as at once certain, and in no sense grating on any feeling of affection or of delicacy, is that recommended by Carlile many years ago in his "Every Woman's Book." In order that impregnation should take place, "the absolute contact of the spermatozoa with the ovum is requisite" (Carpenter). The ovum passes from the ovary down the Fallopian tube into the uterus; the spermatazoa, floating in the spermatic fluid, pass upwards through the uterus, and fecundate the ovum either in the uterus, in the tube, or in the ovary itself. To prevent impregnation it is then only necessary to prevent this contact. The neck of the uterus, where it enters the vagina, ends with the Os uteri, an orifice varying in shape in different individuals. Through this orifice the male semen must pass in order to fertilise the ovum. To prevent impregnation, pass to the end of the vagina a piece of fine sponge, which should be dipped in