It is notorious that a small, healthy 6-lb baby frequently flourishes better than the heavier infant of 8 or 9 lbs; also that, since the larger baby usually loses weight after birth, its bulk is demonstrably unnecessary at that stage. What then prevents us from adopting what is obviously Nature’s plan—the birth of relatively thin and small babies, through care of the gestating mother’s food? It is obviously only a question of feeding and hygiene, and of ridding the public and the medical profession of a number of absurd prejudices: the rest will necessarily follow if only it be earnestly desired.[9] Footnote 9: As the present chapter is being written, we notice with pleasure that at a conclave of doctors held recently at Bradford, Dr Μ. E. Mackenzie, of Leeds, put a question to the meeting which showed that she is evidently on the track of the reforms we recommend; but we were not surprised to find that the President, Dr J. S. Fairbairn, declared that he did not take her remarks seriously. (See _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 16th, 1924). We feel convinced, from our study of animals, that this is the direction in which inquiry should be directed, for at least it offers some hope of an improvement, whereas the elaboration and more persistent use of artificial aids offers none. Doctors should exert themselves to discover that ideal gestatory diet which will lead to an infant’s being born whose weight is from 6 to 6½ lbs, whose body is lean, whose head is small and not too hard, and who will gain and not lose weight after birth. But we can hardly refrain from adding that, when once these food-conditions are found, medical men are likely to discover that they have much less to do than at present by the bedside of the expectant mother, and that they will then be invited to delegate their duties to someone less learned, less expensive, less pressed for time, and therefore less interested in achieving the result by scientific aids. Dr Eichholz of Kreuznach, writing in the _Frauenarzt_ as early as 1895, outlined a system of dieting which he declared produced the results described above; while Dr Lahmann, who was the first to point out that our aim should be to obtain smaller and thinner babies, with heads less hard at birth, experimented with a diet poor in nitrogen, which he declared was completely successful. According to Lahmann, it is not only excessive feeding and drinking during pregnancy which, owing to the natural greed of women and the sycophantic encouragement of that greed by ignorant doctors, is the universal error, but the excessive eating of foods rich in protein; and he recommends a diet rich in food-salts and poor in meat and cereals, which seems to approximate very well to what one may imagine the food of primitive mankind to have been.