On November 7, 1855, Dr. David Humphreys Storer gave the Introductory Lecture that commenced the term of Harvard's Massachusetts Medical College where Storer was the Professor of Obstetrics and Medical Jurisprudence. The lecture was titled, "Duties, Trials and Rewards of the Student of Midwifery," but the last portion of the lecture also dealt with the sharp increase in induced abortion and with what David Humphreys Storer argued was a direct result, the increase in women's diseases. David Humphreys Storer's son, Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer, is credited as the founder of the "physicians' crusade against abortion," and Horatio repeatedly credited this lecture of his father as the stimulus for his crusade.

The Introductory Lecture was traditionally published as a pamphlet, and this was true for David Humphreys Storer's Lecture, as well. However, at the request of Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, Professor of Surgery at the Medical College, the abortion portion of the lecture was omitted from the pamphlet. Unnecessary abortion was a taboo and controversial topic in 1855, and one reason for suppression was that publication would lead to the condemnation of New England because induced abortion was prevalent. It also was believed that publication would reflect badly on the Medical College and cause fewer students to enroll, reducing the fees students paid directly to their professors.

Although the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal was typically controlled by the Medical College, its editors, William W. Morland and Francis Minot, bravely criticized the medical school faculty for suppressing the anti-abortion segment of the Introductory Address. One passage from their December 1855 editorial on the Introductory Lecture read:
"We referred to the fact that the fair proportions of this Address have been essentially diminished by an omission of certain