To return to the application of science and nature to maternity. A special sentimentality and superstition inherited from the completely savage periods of history cling about this, as about sex. The avoidance of suffering in childbirth is taboo in the Japanese moral code, as it was until recently in Christian morals. Religion has persisted in regarding the female body as unclean when engaged in its most important functions, and purifying it afterwards by special prayers to the Deity.[8] We find this savagery current in Judaism[9] as in Christianity, together with an exhortation to be fruitful and multiply, and therefore to pass through shame and uncleanness as often as we can. It was thought a horror and an outrage when chloroform was used to help us. It is a still greater horror when means are discovered of not having children at all. To this day most doctors and dentists refuse to give an anæsthetic and draw a rotten tooth which is wearing down a pregnant mother’s strength by sleepless nights and days of agony. Yet this can be done with reasonable care and skill. Behind all this there is the mystic belief that somehow or other nature does the work best unaided and unhindered; and this mysticism is rooted in a savage taboo. Life is, indeed, so pertinacious that somehow some of us will survive whatever we do, but this does not seem to me an adequate attitude for the rational mother. [8] See the service for the _Churching of Women_ in the Prayer Book. [9] _Leviticus_, xii, 1–8.