to do with spiritualism; if her food were not cut straight she would not eat it, and if her mat were not set straight, she would not sit upon it.  She would not look at any objectionable sight, nor listen to any objectionable sound, nor utter any rude word, nor handle any impure thing.  At night she studied some canonical work, by day she occupied herself with ceremonies and music.  Therefore, her sons were upright and eminent for their talents and virtues; such was the result of antenatal training” (H.A.  Giles, “Woman in Chinese Literature,” Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1904).

[7] Max Bartels, “Islaendischer Brauch,” etc., Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1900, p. 65.  A summary of the customs of various peoples in regard to pregnancy is given by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, Sect.  XXIX.

[8] On the influence of alcohol during pregnancy on the embryo, see, e.g., G. Newman, Infant Mortality, pp. 72-77.  W.C.  Sullivan (Alcoholism, 1906, Ch.  XI), summarizes the evidence showing that alcohol is a factor in human degeneration.

[9] There is even reason to believe that the alcoholism of the mother’s father may impair her ability as a mother.  Bunge (Die Zunehmende Unfaehigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen, fifth edition, 1907), from an investigation extending over 2,000 families, finds that chronic alcoholic poisoning in the father is the chief cause of the daughter’s inability to suckle, this inability not usually being recovered in subsequent generations.  Bunge has, however, been opposed by Dr. Agnes Bluhm, “Die Stillungsnot,” Zeitschrift fuer Soziale Medizin, 1908 (fully summarized by herself in Sexual-Probleme, Jan., 1909).

[10] See, e.g., T. Arthur Helme, “The Unborn Child,” British Medical Journal, Aug. 24, 1907.  Nutrition should, of course, be adequate.  Noel Paton has shown (Lancet, July 4, 1903) that defective nutrition of the pregnant woman diminishes the weight of the offspring.

[11] Debreyne, Moechialogie, p. 277.  And from the Protestant side see Northcote (Christianity and Sex Problems, Ch.  IX), who permits sexual intercourse during pregnancy.

[12] See Appendix A to the third volume of these Studies; also Ploss and Bartels, loc. cit.

[13] Thus one lady writes:  “I have only had one child, but I may say that during pregnancy the desire for union was much stronger, for the whole time, than at any other period.”  Bouchacourt (La Grossesse, pp. 180-183) states that, as a rule, sexual desire is not diminished by pregnancy, and is occasionally increased.

[14] This “inconvenience” remains to-day a stumbling-block with many excellent authorities.  “Except when there is a tendency to miscarriage,” says Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 257), “we must be very guarded in ordering abstinence from intercourse during pregnancy,” and Ballantyne (The Foetus, p. 475) cautiously remarks that the question is difficult to decide.  Forel also (Die Sexuelle Frage, fourth edition, p. 81), who is not prepared to advocate complete sexual abstinence during a normal pregnancy, admits that it is a rather difficult question.