"Finally, of the use of intermediate tegumentary coverings, made of thin rubber or gold-beater’s skin, and so often relied upon as absolute preventives, Madame de Stael is reputed to have said, ‘They are cobwebs for protection, and bulwarks against love.’ Their employment certainly must produce a feeling of shame and disgust utterly destructive of the true delight of pure hearts and refined sensibilities. They are suggestive of licentiousness and the brothel, and their employment degrades to bestiality the true feelings of manhood and the holy state of matrimony. Neither do they give, except in a very limited degree, the protection desired. Furthermore, they produce (as alleged by the best modern French writers, who are more familiar with the effect of their use than we are in the United states) certain physical lesions from their irritating presence as foreign bodies, and also from the chemicals employed in their fabrication, and other effects inseparable from their employment, oft times of a really serious nature. “I will not further enlarge upon these instrumentalities. Sufficient has been said to convince anyone that to trifle with the grand functions of our organism, to attempt to deceive and thwart nature in her highly ordained prerogatives-no matter how simple seem to be the means employed-is to incur a heavy responsibility and run a fearful risk. It matters little whether a railroad train is thrown from the track by a frozen drop of rain or a huge bowlder lying in the way, the result is the same, the injuries as great. Oral degredation, physical disability, premature exhaustion and decrepitude are the result of those physical frauds, and force upon our conviction the adage, which the history of every day confirms, that ‘honesty is the best policy.’”"