University of Virginia Library

PREGNANCY.

We can trace a certain resemblance throughout; thus a great deal of interest, and I may say of importance, attaches among many tribes to the pregnant state, be it in the jungles of India, in the wilds of Africa, or upon our own prairies. It is to the woman an eventful period of her life, and is appreciated as such by her tribe as important, not only for herself but for all her people. The Andamanese, for instance, are extremely proud of their condition, which in their native state

is of course very evident to any beholder, and if a stranger shows himself in their villages, they point with a grunt of satisfaction to the distended abdomen. Among the Hebrews and other people of ancient times, sterility was a disgrace (Gen. xi. 30; Exod. xxiii. 26; Kotelman), and the mother of many children was a greatly envied woman. Conception was favored, although no laws existed upon the subject, by coitus soon after the cessation of the menses, the act being forbidden only during religious service and upon the days of the high feasts.

Abortions as a rule are not numerous; the African tribes in the main are fond of children, and hence rarely destroy them. Among some of our Indians, especially those in closer contact with civilization, laxer morals prevail, and we find abortion quite frequent; some tribes have a reason for it, on account of the difficult labor which endangers the life of the woman bearing a half-breed child, which is usually so large as to make its passage through the pelvis of the Indian mother almost an impossibility.

In old Calabar, medicines are regularly given at the third month to prove the value of the conception. Three kinds of conception are deemed disastrous: first, if resulting in twins; second, in an embryo which dies in utero; third, in a child which dies soon after birth; and it is to avoid the further development of such products that the medicines are given; the idea being that, if the pregnancy stands the test of these medicines, it is strong and healthy. In case the ovum is expelled, it must have been one of these undesirable cases of which no good could have come. The medicines are first given by the mouth and the rectum, then per vaginam, and applied directly to the os uteri, provided that a bloody discharge follows the first doses. For this purpose they use one of three herbs: a Leguminosa, an Euphorbia, or an Amomum. The stalk of the Euphorbia with its exuding juice is pushed up into the vagina; on the same part of the leguminous plant is placed some Guinea pepper, chewed into a mass with saliva: in a few days the abortion takes place. The measures employed are frequently too severe, as constitutional disturbance, and sometimes death follows. Among Indians and Negroes abortion is now and then practiced if a suckling mother conceives, as they

reason that the living child is the more important and would be harmed by the drain which the new pregnancy necessarily exerts on the strength of the mother.

The seventh month is not unfrequently regarded as dangerous, as many abortions then occur. For this reason, in Old Calabar, the patient is generally sent away, as pregnancy advances, to a country place where she can live quietly and free from the excitement and bustle of the town; and above all where she can be out of the way of witch-craft. A great many superstitions exist among all peoples in reference to this important epoch, more especially among some tribes of the Finns, for instance the Esthonians; one of the most amusing of these ideas is the weekly changing of shoes customary among pregnant women, which is done in order to lead the devil off the track, who is supposed to follow them constantly that he may pounce upon the new-born at the earliest moment.

The same great wish prevails for a boy among savage races as among our own people, even to a much greater extent, and naturally so, as in the male child the warrior of the future is looked for; our own Indians, as well as the Negroes of Africa, have numerous ceremonies by the faithful observance of which they hope to produce the desired sex; but, however interesting they may be, we cannot now enter upon their further consideration.

Here and there signs of pregnancy are carefully observed: in Old Calabar, as well as in the interior of Africa, pregnancy is counted from the suspension of the menses, and the time is reckoned by lunar months; among Sclavonians the appearance of freckles is looked upon as a safe sign of pregnancy.

The care which is taken of pregnant women depends, of course, greatly upon their surroundings and increases with the civilization of the people. We see this best illustrated among the North American Indians: very little or no distinction is made among the nomadic tribes, but as soon as we come to a more sedentary population, such as the Pueblos, or the natives of Mexico, we see that they become more considerate. No over-exercise is permitted, warm baths are frequently taken, and the abdomen is regularly kneaded in order to correct the position of the child. This is also the case in Japan, and whether the diagnosis of a malposition is made

in the early stages of pregnancy or not, it is a fact that the abdomen is subjected to this treatment, and, unquestionably, in many instances, the position is thus rectified. This is done by massage and manipulation among these somewhat more advanced people, whilst the nomadic Indians of the prairie accomplish the same end by hard work and horse-back riding. The great danger in labor, and to the savage woman the one great danger, is a transverse position of the child. This they must use every means to avoid, as with them death is certain if labor is inaugurated with the child in such a position.

I have already described in full the method of rectifying malpositions as practiced in Japan, in my paper on "Posture,'' and will only say that the process, mainly massage, is repeated every morning after the fifth month, the practitioner making the patient stand up and put her arms around his neck. The Andamanese and the Wakamba of Africa, many of the nomadic Indians, and undoubtedly almost all of the women of savage tribes work up to the very hour of labor. Rigby states that he finds the easiest labors, and the best results, when the women work or continue their wonted employments until labor pains are upon them; it always goes worse with those who idle beforehand, with the view of saving themselves and making labor easier. This statement we find constantly verified in our ordinary practice; we know that the working women—and we have many such—who continue their wonted employments until the very moment of delivery, have the easiest labor. It is the lady who is so conservative of her strength and anxious to do everything in her power to promote her health and the welfare of her offspring, who suffers most. At all events we shall not fear evil, and the pregnant woman will fare best in the coming labor, if she will continue as long as possible in the exercise of her usual duties, whatever they may be.

In Mexico, as the old histories tell us, the pregnant woman was forbidden to yield too freely to the desires of the husband, although coitus was indeed ordered to a certain extent, so that the offspring might not prove weakly. In Loango coitus is not forbidden. Some regulations with regard to the act exist among other tribes, and the too free exercise of matrimonial rights is often cautioned against.

The well regulated government of old Mexico was careful of pregnant woman in many ways; the Burmese women wear a tight bandage about the abdomen after the seventh month of pregnancy, to prevent the ascent of the uterus, under the idea that the higher the child ascends in the abdomen the farther it will have to travel in labor when it descends, and hence the more painful the delivery will be. In Japan, the midwife is consulted at about the fifth month, and she then binds the abdomen with a cloth which is not removed until labor begins, it being kept there so that the child should not grow too large. It is the same procedure which is followed in India, although the underlying idea is different, and three times a month the abdomen is rubbed. The Nayer women bathe a great deal during pregnancy, taking good care of body and soul. In fact, the frequent bathing of pregnant women is common also to all the higher castes of India. The Nayer perform a ceremony during the first month of pregnancy, but as it so frequently happens that a woman erroneously considered herself in that condition, this ceremony for the preservation of the pregnant woman against the wiles of the devil is usually delayed until the fifth or even the seventh month; and upon the following morning she very properly drinks the juice of tamarind leaves mixed with water.

Here and there some preparation is made to ease the intensity of the coming labor pains. Upon the isle of Jap, in West Mikronesia, they begin to dilate the os uteri at least one month before delivery is expected; the leaves of a certain plant, tightly rolled, are inserted into the os, moistened by the uterine secretion they distend, and when fully dilated a thicker roll is introduced. They are to act upon the principle of laminaria or sponge tent, slowly dilating the mouth of the womb and making labor more speedy and less painful.

A very pretty idea exists among the Pahutes with regard to the coming of the child; they recognize the approaching time for the addition to their household and tribe, and seek to make preparation for the advent of the young stranger; that is to say, they endeavor to make his journey easy and expeditious with the least possible pain to the mother. Their ideas are crude and fallacious, yet to them sufficiently convincing to be universally practiced. They consider the sojourn of the off-spring

in utero as a voluntary matter, and after a given length of time, say nine moons or the lapse of certain seasons of the year, the child is to be starved out of its maternal quarters as a wood-chuck or other game is to be forced out of its hiding place; hence, for weeks before the expected event a fast begins with the mother, which becomes almost absolute as the time approaches, so that by the end of the allotted period of gestation the fetus will not only be ready, but anxious to come to the world in order to reach the supply of milk which the mother has now in waiting for the child starved in the womb. They of course act on the presumption that the child is nourished by ingestion from the mother. But another reason or object they have in view is, that this treatment, this fasting, reduces the maternal tissue over the genital organs and thus opens a wider door for the exit of the fetus. After this preparation, when labor has actually begun, they regard its phenomena as due to voluntary efforts on the part of the child to leave its inhospitable quarters for exterior life, and everything in their rude philosophy is done to facilitate and help the little fellow along on his journey.

Similar ideas prevail among other peoples as well, and it seems innate to natural man to accord a certain independence to the fetus while in the womb of the mother, and that according to his own will he takes his position in utero and leaves it when he chooses.

The Chinese believe that pregnancy can last two or three years, because the child does not wish to leave the womb; and even in a legal Mussulman treatise it is stated that the maximum term of gestation may attain four or five years. Like the Pahutes, the Chinese lay great stress upon the voluntary action of the child in his departure from the womb; thus the parturient is advised to remain quiet, especially not to lie upon her belly before the head presses upon the perineum; the belief being that the fetus executes every movement voluntarily and by his own force, and every motion of the mother, especially every compression, interferes. A foot presentation is attributed to the fact that the mother has turned upon her belly before the child commenced to make his escape; shoulder and other presentations,

to the fact that the woman has turned upon her belly during the escape.

Even in France the time is not long passed when the voluntary motions of the fetus were spoken of, and when the cause of labor pains and expulsion of the child was looked for in the desire of the fetus to change its condition of life. —(Corre.)

Here and there we find peculiar customs with which the initiation of labor is greeted; in certain Persian villages when the woman feels the first pain the schoolmaster is asked to excuse the scholars, and birds held in cages until then are freed—apparently to afford quiet to the sufferer.

In Morocco five little boys are taken from school and are sent to run through the streets holding a cloth, in the corners of which four eggs are attached, and upon which grown people spit and throw bottles; finally they all come together with kettles and pans, and make a terrible noise to frighten the devil and the bad spirits.—(Corre.)

This is not unlike the noise the Indian medicine man makes in his tent, or the negro relatives about the lying-in couch, to deaden the cries of the patient.