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A DISCOVERY.—

The Phrenological Journal, (published by Messrs. Fowler and Wells,1 no humbugs, by the way), announces in its last issue a discovery whose importance will excuse our seeming indelicacy in giving it a wider publicity:

We are in possession of the knowledge of a physiological law, by the application of which, any female may prevent conception at will, without injury or inconvenience, and without in any way interfering with the conjugal relations. The process is as simple, almost, as the act of willing; but for obvious reasons we cannot publish it. Indigent and sickly married females, who do not desire, and should not have children (and those alone) may apply to us “privately and confidentially.”


Notes:

1. Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811–1896) and his brother-in-law Samuel R. Wells (1809–1887) were practitioners of phrenology, a pseudoscience popular in the nineteenth century. They owned and operated the Phrenological Depot on Broadway, which contained phrenological materials and books and offered phrenological readings. They also operated a printing business and were responsible for printing the expanded second edition of Leaves of Grass (1856). In addition, they published Life Illustrated, The American Phrenological Journal, and The Water Cure Journal. Whitman contributed to both Life Illustrated and The Phrenological Journal[back]

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