More about women's health, masturbation, etc., in old American texts:
The Science of a New Life, by Dr. John Cowan,
1875 - 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)
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Plain Facts for Old and Young:
Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of
Organic Life, by J. H. Kellogg, M. D. (1892, Burlington, Iowa, U.S.A.)
Mothers should track their daughters' menstrual periods;
American social customs tend to evil; moon-light rides; "fast" girls; rakes
"[I]t is a duty which no mother should neglect, to
inquire into the exact frequency of the [menstrual] periods, the amount
and character of the discharge . . . . if there is pain, it is certain evidence
of something seriously wrong."
"Often enough has the writer met cases in which young
girls of only fifteen or sixteen have been permitted to enter the exciting
whirlwind of social life, and imitating the example of their elders, have
accepted the attentions of young men of whose history they know nothing,
and whose character they were in no way competent to judge."
"Moon-light rides, long evening walks, associations
at parties, picnics, etc., give sly [!] privileges, at first apparently
accidental, but gradually becoming more audacious, and finally, within a
few short weeks or months, the cloak of modesty with which the young girl's
maidenhood had been protected, was torn in tatters, and she lacks but little,
if anything, of having taken all the steps necessary to lead a woman outside
the pale of virgin purity."
"Some young women, like a certain class of young men, imagine that
there is something particularly smart in being fast. A walk, a ride, or
a waltz with some fast young man, perhaps a notorious rake, is an adventure
which has a peculiar fascination."
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