In regard to preventing the “pains and perils” of childbirth, there seems likewise to be some differences of opinion among the water doctors, so called. Some who are, as it were, just commencing the practice, and have more zeal than knowledge in the matter, would have us believe that water almost wholly prevents the pains of parturition and the perils thereof. But there are others who maintain, that do what we will, labor must, as a general fact, be attended with severe suffering; that as a mere palliative of pain at the time of labor, little can be claimed for water; that labors are not, probably, on the whole, shortened by the use of water either before or at the time; that very short labors are not probably, more frequent in the new than in the old way; that very quick labors are not desirable, since experience teaches that they are not so safe as those which are more protracted. It is maintained, too, that say what we may, childbirth is, and must necessarily be, in all civilized societies, a serious thing to enter upon. What woman who has ever passed through this ordeal does not regard it so? and what physician, no matter how old, or experienced, or skillful he may be, does not, every time he enters the lying-in chamber, feel this responsibility to be a great and trying one? Admitting all that can be done by the water-treatment in matters of midwifery, and much, very much, certainly may be—childbirth is yet an agony, and must ever continue so to be. Various other points might be mentioned in which there is honest disagreement of opinion among hydropathists. This must, in the nature of the case, be so. Nor should such disagreements make us enemies toward each other. One thing is remarkable, and speaks volumes for the new method, namely, _the good success that everywhere attends it_. Respecting our third question—Shall we employ a physician on occasions of childbirth? I remark that people should, themselves, be the judges. If you possess the courage that I have seen exhibited among the peasantry of the Silesian mountains of Germany, you may get along almost without an assistant of any kind. There childbirth is looked upon in a light very different from what we see in our own country. If, moreover, you can, by great and continuous effort, arrive at the degree of physical hardihood and strength which is possessed by those vigorous, out-of-door working females to whom I have referred, then you may, as a general thing, get along safely without the aid of a physician. But things are different with us here; we are not to expect that our females will, for generations to come, be as hardy and enduring as the peasant women of many parts of the old world.