gold, has, for a time, dismissed from social consideration the interests of the race and even of the individual, but it must be remembered that this has not been always and everywhere so.  Although in some parts of the world the women of savage peoples work up to the time of confinement, it must be remarked that the conditions of work in savage life do not resemble the strenuous and continuous labor of modern factories.  In many parts of the world, however, women are not allowed to work hard during pregnancy and every consideration is shown to them.  This is so, for instance, among the Pueblo Indians, and among the Indians of Mexico.  Similar care is taken in the Carolines and the Gilbert Islands and in many other regions all over the world.  In some places, women are secluded during pregnancy, and in others are compelled to observe many more or less excellent rules.  It is true that the assigned cause for these rules is frequently the fear of evil spirits, but they nevertheless often preserve a hygienic value.  In many parts of the world the discovery of pregnancy is the sign for a festival of more or less ritual character, and much good advice is given to the expectant mother.  The modern Musselmans are careful to guard the health of their women when pregnant, and so are the Chinese.[6] Even in Europe, in the thirteenth century, as Clappier notes, industrial corporations sometimes had regard to this matter, and would not allow women to work during pregnancy.  In Iceland, where much of the primitive life of Scandinavian Europe is still preserved, great precautions are taken with pregnant women.  They must lead a quiet life, avoid tight garments, be moderate in eating and drinking, take no alcohol, be safeguarded from all shocks, while their husbands and all others who surround them must treat them with consideration, save them from worry and always bear with them patiently.[7]

It is necessary to emphasize this point because we have to realize that the modern movement for surrounding the pregnant woman with tenderness and care, so far from being the mere outcome of civilized softness and degeneracy, is, in all probability, the return on a higher plane to the sane practice of those races which laid the foundations of human greatness.

While rest is the cardinal virtue imposed on a woman during the later months of pregnancy, there are other points in her regimen that are far from unimportant in their bearing on the fate of the child.  One of these is the question of the mother’s use of alcohol.  Undoubtedly alcohol has been a cause of much fanaticism.  But the declamatory extravagance of anti-alcoholists must not blind us to the fact that the evils of alcohol are real.  On the reproductive process especially, on the mammary glands, and on the child, alcohol has an arresting and degenerative influence without any compensatory advantages.  It has been proved by experiments on animals and observations on the human subject that alcohol taken by the pregnant