Robert La Grange. Manhood; or, Secrets Revealed. Philadelphia, 1886.
Louis Jordan, whose anatomical museum was called the Great European Museum by 1886, had paired up with Robert La Grange, who was listed in the Philadelphia directories as a physician. Manhood; or, Secrets Revealed borrows heavily from Jordan’s earlier Philosophy of Marriage and advertises La Grange’s fees for consulting ($5.00). Concerned with male and female reproduction, the text is cloaked in convoluted medicalese, and the book’s modest size and plain covers are also meant to similarly conceal its purpose as a sex book, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the Comstock Law, enacted in 1873, in prohibiting sending obscene literature through the mails and banning the distribution of information about abortion.
