Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(1815 - 1902)

"If you suffer, it is not because you are cursed
by God, but because you violate his laws."

Lifelong homeopathist Elizabeth Cady Stanton did not believe in the "primal curse"; but she warned expectant mothers against resort to anaesthetics. Stanton was an outspoken opponent of slavery and a fervent supporter of women's rights. In 1863, she helped found a homeopathic school, New York Medical College for Women. Stanton rejected anaesthesia for the birth of her child, which she delivered herself, and urged other women to do likewise: "how much cruel bondage of mind and suffering of body poor woman will escape when she takes the liberty of being her own physician..."