Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/24

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE

probably an advantage at any rate for you, as by now you might well have been cited before the General Medical Council to answer for your views, a fate which even in these days is apt to be attended with serious results. That your attainments in the limited portion of the field of medicine upon which you have ventured to trespass are adequate for the task you have undertaken few would be bold enough to deny; that further research in this particular corner of the field is desirable you would yourself be the first to admit, for your book is a forcible and thorough-going attempt to supply it.

Anyone who knows the ways and habits of the C 3 population will recall the usual state of the streets after closing time on Saturdays, and if he believes in the preaching of ethics, politics, religion or sexual continence to men and women well filled with "four-ale," all I can say is I wish him well, but the task is hopeless. However, even the C 3 woman has no wish for endless and repeated fecundation with the usual sequel of infidelity, and after about three months' lactation, venereal disease. Even she would welcome your simple and safe methods. Let those who oppose you bear in mind the fate of Calvin after his suppression of Servetus and his book; also let them take to heart the contempt into which the "Holy" Inquisition has fallen since the days of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. Progress is sure but slow, but it is open to fanatics to damage the road as well as the travellers.

There is another reason why I wish you well. Nearly fifty years have passed since I began to read Euripides. A passage in the "Medea" (1. 240-251) has remained rooted in my mind ever since I first read it at school:

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