Discreet Doctoring: Almira Todd as the Rural Abortionist in Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs
presented at the Constance Fenimore Woolson Society Conference
March 2009
In late nineteenth century rural Maine, residents of Sarah Orne Jewett’s fictional small town of Dunnet Landing have one medical doctor to approach for relief of their 1physical ailments. As a shipping community, Dunnet is populated by families separated out of necessity, leading to illness and problems not considered medical by the old fashioned, patriarchal physician. “Love, hate, jealousy, and adverse winds at sea” (4) call for remedies that cannot be found in the doctor’s medical bag. The town minister is without relief for such problems, as the narrator notes, is “cold an’ unfeelin,’ ” (75) and brings only harsh words for counsel. Almira Todd initially seems to be their female counterpart, offering herbal alternatives to their traditional advice, but in The Country of the Pointed Firs, she is more than a third option along with medical treatment and Christian counseling; she is the resident healer of affairs of the heart and the physical consequences thereof.
Almira’s primary area of concern or expertise is the elimination of pregnancies resulting from these affairs. In a shipping community with lonely wives and girlfriends, religious and social rules notwithstanding, comfort in the form of sexual company with available men happened enough to create a need for an understanding and competent abortionist. This need did not arise during Almira’s time, but was there years before, and her mother, Mrs. Blackett, was most likely the provider. When the pair, along with the narrator, travel to the reunion picnic, Mrs. Blackett points out a specific herb to her daughter: “I just saw a nice plant o’elecampane growin back here” (92). Almira probably learned the tricks of the trade at her mother’s knee, as herbalists and midwives have done historically. Almira does not mention books or notes on her remedies, nor does the narrator, which implies that this information is committed to memory through use and passed down orally from generation to generation. Angus McLaren notes that women in rural America traditionally obtained contraceptive information and assistance procuring abortions from other women, herbalists in particular (191).
Jewett makes revealing references to ancient Greeks in the novel, which point to Almira’s position as a caretaker of fallen women. The narrator compares her to Antigone, whose name means “opposed to motherhood,” and in the very beginning, mentions that Almira looks like a “huge sibyl” (8). Sibyls, as prophetesses, had some influence on the future, but the most relevant of these strange women is Medea, who murdered her children to spite her husband. These connections are specific to Almira’s role in the community, and also to the idea that her practices are timeless and have been passed down through generations of women. The narrator remarks that she is like a “renewal of some historic soul” (49) and she is in that she fulfills a need that has existed for centuries and carried out by women like herself. Almira’s connection with ancient Greece carries into her affection for an herb used by them for the same purposes. The attention to pennyroyal is carried so far that Jewett includes it in a chapter title, “Where Pennyroyal Grew.” Elizabeth Ammons claims that pennyroyal is a symbol for “Jewett’s potent midwife of the spirit” (175) and acknowledges the plant’s association with abortion. George Smith believes the use of pennyroyal symbolizes a feminist protest led by Almira Todd in which the “progeny of their resistance to patriarchal domination” (17) are aborted because the women refuse to submit to marriage and male dominance. Ron Welburn focuses on Almira’s romantic past, maintaining that pennyroyal is dear to her because she aborted the child of her first and only love, who could not marry her because she was socially inferior to him. She may have aborted such a child, but the attention to pennyroyal and the importance placed on the gathering of this potent abortifacient throughout the novel reveal a more practical value to Almira and her livelihood. Pennyroyal and the sixteen other plants noted in the story can be linked to treatments for the results of “love, hate, and jealousy;” inconvenient pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, depression, and anxiety. Louis Renza claims that regionalism, specifically in Jewett’s works, amounts “to a kind of genteel evasion of the more complex if not sordid social realities of American society” (44), but the opposite is true. Jewett’s regionalism is particularly interested in the sordid details of American rural life.
Some of Almira’s patients arrive by the front door in broad daylight with nothing to hide, and leave “unadmonished,” but many who suffer come at night in “an air of secrecy” and leave with whispered directions along with their vials of “proper remedies” derived from the “curious, wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd’s garden” (4). The village doctor does not consider her a rival for his position, as she carries out treatments and cures for situations he prefers to ignore because they do not fit in with the expectations he has of his Christian community. They are the uncomfortable results of what might be considered moral, although very human, weakness. On occasion he has to counteract the unfavorable effects of some of her potions, which would then be a medical as opposed to moral or spiritual matter. The Christian church did not approve of abortion during the nineteenth century, but it would not condemn those who gave medical assistance to those suffering the effects of an overzealous attempt at one. A member of the American Medical Association, which pushed for the continued criminalization of abortion during the nineteenth century, marked why the AMA found these civil laws so important at the turn of the century. Rickie Solinger notes that this member insisted that women who did not take responsibility for their sexual activity were “shirking” their duties. Abortion was not a solution, as it undermined the social order that relied on a husband’s control over his wife and family. As a rural physician, the village doctor would not have been held to report such activity to authorities as city doctors would have, and while remaining disapproving of the practice, would have considered them “women’s secrets” and therefore, none of his business. These secrets also included problems that may have been dismissed by a medical doctor but treated as legitimate ailments by a herbalist. Almira states “there’s some herb that’s good for everybody, except for them that thinks they’re sick when they ain’t” (52), so she must consider the emotional and physical problems that reach her door in the middle of the night as true illnesses.
Early in the novel, the narrator remarks upon the distant and late excursions Almira makes, returning home with “both hands full and a heavily laden apron” (12). She is busy gathering materials for her work, specifically, the narrator notes, pennyroyal, lobelia, and elecampane. In the same paragraph, the tansy that grows so well by the schoolhouse is also added to Almira’s collection. According to several sources on herbal remedies, including Culpeper and Sauer, along with Greek drama dating as far back as 400 B.C., pennyroyal is a very potent abortifacient and emmenagogue that brings on bleeding whether or not there is a pregnancy, and so could be called a “cure for interrupted menstruation” in order to avoid the unpleasant truth of the situation. It is still in use for this purpose in some countries, and the Journal of the American Medical Association notes its use, against medical advice, in the United States as recently as the last half of the twentieth century. Lobelia, a sedative, also served at one time as a cure for syphilis, something sailors might have unknowingly brought home to their wives after a long and lonely voyage. Elecampane, the herb noticed by Mrs. Blackett on the way to the picnic, is a reliable emmengogue like pennyroyal, as is tansy, which is stronger and generally considered an abortifacient because of its strength. Both pennyroyal and tansy can be life threatening when taken in large doses or without careful advice. Sweet mary, balm, and lemon balm are of the same plant family and carry the same medicinal properties. Often used as a calming tea, one that Almira brings to the self-exiled Joanna, lemon balm in particular was used to treat genital herpes, another likely import from faithless husbands and lovers at sea. Sweet briar, which is a type of rose, can be used to soothe depression along with urinary tract infections and bladder infections, both of which are often symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease. Another anxiety and depression treatment came from sage, which was also used for menopausal problems and menstrual stimulation, with or without pregnancy. Borage, catnip, and yarrow were all used for their mild emmengogue properties. Thoroughwort, a laxative, was known, like lobelia, to ease syphilitic pain. Labor pains were often treated by wormwood, which would have eliminated the child if taken seven or eight months before that time. Thyme brings on uterine contractions, which would usually result in miscarriage. A narcotic tea used to treat coughs and colds was made with mullein leaves, which Almira lays out to dry, but in mythology, this herb was used in by Ulysses to help him resist the wiles of Circe, and could have been considered a guard against sexual temptations and spells. Most of the herbs noted in the story are listed in many current sources of herbal remedies as those to avoid during pregnancy because of the potential for miscarriage or fetal harm. While many have other properties that made them useful for everyday health problems such as coughs, colds, and fevers, it is not a coincidence that they all serve in some way to relieve the effects of careless sexual behavior.
The recreational activity of sailors was addressed by the American Medical Association in 1874 as a primary cause of sexually transmitted disease import to the United States. “The basic problem . . . men are without women for abnormally long intervals, often under conditions of stress. Their urge to seek female companionship in part is as normal as sex itself . . . the problem is of course associated with that of prostitution in port towns” (Microbes and Morals 278). The AMA, which condemned women for irresponsible sexual behavior, easily excused the same behavior in men and blamed women (prostitutes) for the spread of disease that was passed by the men’s promiscuity. When wives at home strayed from their marital vows, or girlfriends from the promise of the same, they were not afforded the same excuses. After World War I, the World Health Organization continued to treat the problem as an unavoidable job hazard, claiming that “certain mental health aspects arising from the predominately masculine work environment and the long separations from home” were to blame for “health risks not met with by the residential worker” (4). The WHO advocated for free treatment of sailors with venereal disease on an international level, so that men finding themselves afflicted could find medical help in any port. The organization also discussed the need to provide and direct educational and recreational activities to divert the sailors’ attention while on land, so that they might be too preoccupied to fall to the temptations of prostitution or casual encounters. Ship captains, however, often made a point of providing recreation in the form of willing women who came aboard ships while in port and serviced the men at their convenience (Norling 258). The sexual practices among sailors, whether controllable or not, were enough of a health problem to document and discuss during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at an international level.
Wives and girlfriends, left at home, were often aware of their partners’ infidelity, as most had grown up in shipping communities and knew what to expect from marriage with a seafaring man. This preparation, however, did not prevent the emotional distress such relationships were bound to cause. Lisa Norling notes in her introduction to Captain Ahab Had a Wife that in her research she expected to discover women who were the same “capable, commonsensical women” she found in The Country of the Pointed Firs (3). The real women, she claims, were not like these characters at all, but often upset, emotional, and disillusioned by the realities of love. Norling fails to notice the broken relationships that affect two of the women in the novel, Almira and Joanna, both with men who abandoned them for better prospects presumably after having a sexual relationship with them with the understanding that marriage was on the horizon. These women may be capable and commonsensical, but they are also driven by emotion and empathy for the distressing situations a husband or lover at sea might create for women in their community. Almira in particular uses her experience to understand and help other women who have been abandoned for sea tours or afflicted with maladies brought home by their men, whether an actual illness or an unexpected pregnancy from a relationship outside of marriage. Her remedies for venereal disease are less harmful than the ineffective but accepted medical treatment of mercury administration by various and painful methods, which generally led to liver and kidney damage and ultimately death. As the sole proprietor of abortions, a service offered confidentially, she bears the corner on a market that would otherwise leave many women in difficult social and emotional constraints.
When the narrator arranges to leave Dunnet, Almira has parting gifts ready for her to take back to the city. Armed with southernwood and bay, both emmengogues, the narrator is prepared for possible pregnancies that might come before she is ready. Southernwood was also used in love potions, so Almira has given her the means to create a romantic encounter and the remedy for any unwanted results. Jewett, an doctor’s daughter who often prescribed for and sent remedies to her friends and family, would have known the properties and uses of these plants, so their inclusion in what appears to be a quaint story about a quiet New England town is not merely a chance listing of the local flora of the Maine coast. Her choices reflect the nature of Almira’s vocation, and serve to suggest those “unwritable things” that Jewett’s proper upbringing and attention to social rules would not allow her to say directly about private life in rural America.
Works Consulted
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Dare I mention the Indy 500? Can’t stand Helio, and his bawling over his glass of milk was appalling. Have some dignity, man. With Kanaan and Marco Andretti out, the party was over for me. Sure, Danica caught third for AGR, and I was surprised she actually made some passes out there; and John Andretti didn’t do too badly. Marco just can’t catch a break. Speaking of the Indy 500 – there’s only one driver who competed in, and completed, the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca Cola 600 on the same day. Hey, Billy, wanna take a guess?
