MOTHERHOOD WITHOUT FEAR.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 242, 18 August 1915, Page 1

MOTHERHOOD WITHOUT FEAR.

(By Vance Thompson.)

The all-absorbing events of the la-t days of July prevented the spread of the most joyful message ever sent from the scientist’s laboratory to woman. It was that henceforth she will bear children not in pain and terror, but in gladness. Paris knew of it; the French Academy of Medicine had accepted it, but it got no further. Mr Thompson was then in the city, and to him has fallen the wonderful opportunity of carrying the good news to the men and women of Britain. Merc it is. • » • Attention must be called to the fa» t that the practice here described has nothing to do with the morphine-sco-polamin treatment originating some year c r.go in Freiburg, and which recently his had some measure of exploitation under the popular name of “twilight sleep.” This can be adm’Tiistered properly only in hospitals, and its use in general practice should, and probably will, be forbidden by law. But dcto.icated morphine, without the slightest danger to the mother, causes neither check nor delay, does not interfere with the ne<essary rhythmic muscular contractions, and makes painless childbirth a sci entific certainty. It was in Paris —ten days before the wild and unexpected war broke over F.urope—this article was written ; and at the time there seemed to be no subject in all the world of w ider and deeper significance. It touched the very sources of life. It brought to the women of the world the wonder of

a new certainty that no longer need love be ransomed with pain and terror. And this is what women talked of. They talked of the wonder of painless birth-giving that their children should be born into a world where there was neither pain nor screaming horror. And men talked of it. They talked of the new generation—born without pain into a humanity which should be better and gentler—redeemed from the am ient law of suffering. It was as though a new day had dawned for the human race. Men looked into the eyes of women and were unashamed ; and women looked into men’s eyes and were unafraid. The birth-curse was broken. And I left Paris, and went to the sad hills of Alsace. Then a week, ter days And ..hat I saw was the foul pageant and festival of pain. Painless childbirth? In the ashes of villages, in the burning dust, children were born and died; and the mothers died. Painless birth ? Oh, the ancient curse fell heavy and black on the women of France; and in agony and horror, in blood and a smother of unclean flies, they brought their children to sudden life and more sudden death. Civilisation was blotted out; humanity was sister to the dog. l T ntil the new day breaks What war cannot destroy is the mighty discovery whereof I hive written here. And the glory of generals will pale in the splendour of this conquest of patient scientists. The Creat Discovery. It was Georges Paulin, the distinguished French chemist, who found—after vears of research —the miracu-

lous drug which has saved womankind from the ancient curse. There is nothing new in the use of anodynes in childbirth ; but heretofore the use of morphine and kindred drugs has been dangerous, and often instead of checking the pain, it has served to prolong it. What Monsieur Paulin set out to find was an anodyne which should be harmless, and which should do away with all pain without interfering with the orderly and rhythmic process of birth. Professor Charles Richet and other scientists have long been studying the action of living’ ferments. It was along this line that Monsieur Paulin worked. He took a solution of chlorhydrate of morphine and treated it with a living ferment. The morphine, thus treated, was transformed into a regularly crystallised substance. Officially it is known as morphine desintoxiquee- that is, the toxic qualities are removed —and is distinguished chiefly by its solubility. It is over two years ago that this medicament was discovered. There followed a long series of experiments on animals, carried on by Monsieur Paulin and his collaborator, Doctor Pierre Laurent. These two names should bf written in r\ 'ry woman’s heart—names of a dusty chemist and inconspicuous

young physician. Rabbit and cat and hound, the grosser mammals of the farmyard—these experiments lasted a year. The two dustv scientists did not go, as usually the man of the laboratory gors, into the animal world—seeking for truth it. fragments of skin and strips of quivering flesh, while round him everything wails and moans. What Monsieur Paulin took tbere was

respite from pain. I should like to have word and speei h with that first (rabbit- bred for torture in a laboraknew the* amazement of ;pangless rabbit-birth. Her story go down the ages. \Vbat all these anin/ul experiments Showed was that the new drug, while <t lisujppressed the pains of birth-giv-Jiß* wholly the natural mi|S(Ular activity. Xbis was the solving of the whole problem. Here was a median*: that 3fd -no harm, that did not check or h-inder nature’s way- that did, indeed, leave , nature freer than it had otherwise been —and that did banish and abolish the hideous pain th.it clutched and tortured every female thing. The patient men of science had made the Great Discovery. When the dusty men of the labora tory had tried their new medicine upon the animal world, they took it confidently to the greatest gynecologist in Kurope. 1 have named Doctor Ribe-mont-Dessaigne, accoucher of the Beaujon Hospital and of many others in Paris. The Hundred and Twelvo Mothers. There have been so many attempts to use pain-de.ideners in childbirth. Anyone can tell you all abou. them — the oldest family physician, or the youngest doctor swinging on the tailboard of an ambulance. Morphine, chloral, chloroform, and the like will still the pains of childbirth, but they have the defect of die: king the muscular contractions or at least of diminishing them. It is only in exceptional cases that the sound practitioner resorts to these dangerous pain-deadening methods. Better the pangs, he will tell you, and a safe birth. W ithout enthusiasm, without much confidence. Professor Ribemont-Des* saigne made his first experiment. I wish I could tell you the name of that brave woman who consented to the first trial, for she did consent. In the pauper-thronged hospitals, over which a physic tan of Doctor Ribemont Dessaigne’s standing is as a veritable izar, he might have chosen any pale woman of the people for his experiment. W hat had she know nof it, had death stepped in at the doc* tor’s side and taken her ?, But it was not thus. A woman offered herself. A heroine? I think she was a heroine.

Success, of course -or you had not been reading this page.

The new drug was almost, but not absolutely, poisonless. It killed the pain—or made it merely a tolerable and curious sensation of discomfort. It did not delay or prolong the birthprocess. And it laid no risk upon the child.

With clear eyes the woman looked at her attendants. She was not unconscious. Now and then she drifted away into a pleasant dream and smiled, as though she were listening to a little voice very far off. Even at such times a word, a question, would recall her. She would open her eyes —wide, astonished, happy eyes, with the mother-love in them.

And Professor Ribemont-Dessaigne discovered this: The drug does not act locally, as its inventors fancied from their experimentation that it did; it acts upon the nervous centres and upon the sympathetic nerve. And, above all, he ascertained that it did not in any way modify the rhythmic contractions by v.hich nature sends into the world the little child.

That was one case; it was the first case; and then Professor RibemontDessaigne went down into the b'capitals in Paris. Every bed was filled in the great hall of the Beaujon Hospital. And Professor Ribemont Dessaigne walked there. With him went amazement. For in the great hall, wheie life battled that it might live, there was silence. Not an outcry, not a wail.

“1 went from one woman to another, said Doctor Ribemont-Des-saigne, “and in each and all I observed the birth-process was going on with perfect and rhythmic regularity—without halt or check —and painlessly." And he will tell you that what impressed itself ypon him most was the strange silence —and the smiling faces of women. lie had touched the edge of a miracle. *

One hundred and twelve experiments Professor Ribemont-Dessaigne made (with the aid of his colleague, Doctor Le Lovier), and every case was successful. indeed, there was a sort of reiteration of success, for, though there were but one hundred and twelve mothers, there were one hu .Jred ard fifteen children—three happy, untciiified, unpained mothers bearing twins. And these were chosen cases. They were chosen because they were diffi-

cult, because the birth-pangs seemed intense, because the childbirth halted. All successful. In the long, beneficent history of medicine, I do not see what discovery can rank with this one, which has given womankind joy for sorrow, and laughter in place of bitter cries. Ido not write of this discovery as being in an experimental stage. It has been accepted by the French Academy of Medicine —the date was the third week in July. Surgeons, gynecologists, chemists, doctors of all degrees, have examined, tested, approved. For once, scientific men have been unanimous. What the Babies Think of It. Will you go back for a moment to that strangely silent room in the hospital ? You remember that over it brooded a great silence. No woman shrieked in agony. One and all, the women lay quiet, with drowsy, happy faces. To each the drug had been administered an injection of a cubic centimetre and a half of the liquid miracle. It ac'ed directly upon the nervous! centres; for a minute or two the nerves would jump, and at last settle back into quiet. Then some of the women dozed lightly. Not all of them. Others of them were filled with a kind of ecstatic gaiety. They talked with the nurses, telling of their amazement, for they sensed the rhythmic contractions of birth, but had not the slightest sensation of pain. So they laughed softly to themselves. In eighty-four out of the hundred and twelve cases studied by Doctor Ribe-mont-Dessaigr.w in the hospitals of Paris, the analgestia was ♦’omplete; in twenty-four it was incomplete, but in these latte* aisos the birth-pains were so slight that the voraen ’efused an additional injection, stating it was not worth while. A little pain they did feel, but it was so tolerable they did not wish it away. Thus, the drug docs not act in exactly 'he same way upon each woman. In one case the normal dose produced an analgesia which lasted only for thirty minutes; other injections had to be given. But it was found that, on the average, the effect of one normal injection tasted for ten or twelve hours, wh"h sufficed for t) j completion ot the birth. It should be stated again—and with emphasis—-that the injection of the drug in no way modifies the orderly process of birth.

Her* Jet me quote I)r RibemontDessaigne’s exact words:

“Jn no case was there any bad aftereffects. There was no sign of overexertion ; there was no reaction; there was no fatigue, even; there was none of that moral anguish—that moral breakdown which so often follows childbirth. They had suffered no physical torture —these women. Not in one of them did I discover depression or nervous excitement. 'I hose who bore children in the evening fell quietly asleep, and slept until day instead of passing the usual night of

insomnia.” And what of the c hild ? How came he forth into that silent world ? No shrill cries welcomed him; but he lifted up his voice and announced his presence—howling. What he said was: “Hail, O silent, smiling woman! There’s a new man in the world!” And cried a greeting to her —and to life. Not all of them. Here are the statistics We are dealing, you will remember, with a hundred and fifteen children —new-born men and women. Of these, seventy-seven roared lustily, attesting their perfect health. That was well. This new medicine would be no thing for common universal use if it took away pain (rom the mother only to injure or weaken the child. Seventy-seven shouted lustily. Of the others, twenty-eight came dumb into the world; but the regularity of their heart-beats, the rosy tint, the tonicity c their muscles were ample evidence of sound health. In a little while some of them piped up shrilly, and then slept. Others took an immediate nap—naps not of long Juration, a few seconds, two or three minutes at most —and then howled manfully. There were ten others. These ten new-born men and women preserved a stolid and disquieting silence. So the Professor held them up by the heels. Nine of them broke into yells of indignation. Hut one of them—the stolidest of the hundred and fifteen —looked at the world upsidedown and made no outcr>. Then the omniscient doctor turned the sleepy little head up and blew his breath into the gaping mouth —once, twice, thrice. A satisfying howl answered this last indignity. And the hundred and fifteenth babe screamed a saluta tion to his smiling mother, to Paris, io humanity, to the planet.

In certain cases, then, there is an effect upon the child. In certain cases he comes sleepily into the world. It does not occur in the majority of cases, and the somnolence lasts only a little while. A breath or two can blow it away. Parents, alarmed by the absence of respiration and of immediate cries, need have no real fear. The condition of quiet will not last long in their happy home. A young mother with whom I had word had thought of something which had not occurred to me or to the men of science, it may be. She was looking at her new born man with approbation.

“He did not suffer at all,” she said, confidently and gladly. It seemed a queer thing to say—only a mother would have thought of it —that she herself had not suffered seemed a negligible thing compared to the enormous fact that her man-child had been born without pain. He was a rare historic man —one of the few men who have come painlessly into life. The next generation (it is curious to think of) will be men born (without suffering) of mothers who lay smiling in their narrow, white beds. Will it be a better world? Perhaps it will be a better world.

As succinctly as possible I shall state the case for the new medicament as it was presented by Dr. Albin Ribemont-Dessaignc and accepted by the French Ac ademy of Medicine. The words are weighed and measured with scrupulous exactitude. They represent precisely the opinion of official French science.

1. It is possible to-day, without causing the slightest danger to the mother, to produce an analgesia sufficient to ensure an entirely painless childbirth. 2. This treatment causes neither check nor delay; indeed, it seems rather, in the grea tnumber of cases, to accelerate the process of childbirth. 3. The infants born are, in the proportion of one in three, voiceless—a condiiion which it is perfectly easy to put an end to, and which is, in fact, often advantageous. 4. The after-effects are favourably influenced.

5. It is a scientific certitude that hereafter women may bear children without pain. So far science, speaking with the cold decisiveness of irefully acquired know ledge; and I have tried to look

at the subject as the scientist would like to have one look at it. But whether 1 will or no, my thought goes toward the women who are sleeping tonight in the homes of tlic world. Their sleep must be soft and deep. For the fear is gone —that awful fear of the' new life, which was also the fear of death. For the first time, since that harsh curse was laid upon Eve, love may look into the eyes of love unafraid—stripped of peril. And you—husband, bridegroom, man —does it mean nothing to you ? And you, young lover, looking down into the sweet, Hushed face of the dear eventual mother of your children, does it mean nothing to you ? At least you feel less like a beast.