Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/253

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CHAPTER EIGHT

religious attitude and is bound up with no particular religious creed. Nevertheless, as individuals, medical men and women are apt to a certain extent to be swayed by a religious attitude, and even if they are not, a considerable number of their patients most certainly will be. In connection with Birth Control the religious aspect consciously or unconsciously is of vastly more importance than it would be at present in connection with operative surgery[1] or with the treatment of a straightforward disease like influenza or mumps, for instance, or indeed in almost any other health problem.

In almost all matters appertaining to sex, religion has been involved since time immemorial, because in the olden days the priests, whatever the religion, were the lawgivers in sex hygiene. This, coupled with the mysterious nature of sex, and the intensity of religious emotion aroused by its perversion and thwarting, has maintained to this day a very strong religious atmosphere around the subject of contraception which is in other respects a purely medical and scientific theme. Therefore, it will not be out of place, indeed it is almost necessary, to touch upon some of the religious aspects of

  1. The religious fight over the use of chloroform being a thing of the past (see p. 239).

227