FALSE PAINS occur most frequently in a first pregnancy, but most pregnant women have occasional pains, and these become more violent within three weeks of the full time. They may be owing to a disordered stomach, as well as to the action of the uterus; but they usually come on at night, and are liable to be mistaken for labor pains. They are, however, unattended with show; they often change from place to place, perhaps going successively to the hips, loins, lower extremities and abdomen; they come on at irregular intervals, and are at one time violent, at another feeble, and they occasion no dilation of the os uteri; but true pains come on with some regularity, and usually increase in severity. False pains are from various causes, such as fatigue of any kind, especially too long standing, sudden and violent motions of the body, costiveness or diarrhœa, general feverishness, agitation of the mind, or a spasmodic action of the abdominal muscles. It is necessary to adopt the means used for the relief of the pains to the apparent cause, and generally to give an opiate proportioned to the degree of pain, or to repeat in small quantities at proper intervals till the patient shall be composed. PERIOD OF GESTATION. The duration of pregnancy is not always absolutely a certain number of days. The usual term is ten lunar months, or nine calendar months and one week. If we could have correct records of all cases we should probably find that half the cases of pregnancy terminated in labor in the fortieth week, but that in a few instances the term was prolonged to the forty-fifth week and that in as many cases women were delivered of fully developed children as early as the thirty-seventh week. A woman may make her count pretty correctly as follows: She should first note the last day of her being unwell. Let forty weeks from that day be marked in an almanac, and she may expect her labor to come on near that time. It may happen that a woman who never has her menses while she is suckling, may become pregnant and not have a date to count from; but she ought in that case to reckon from the time that she quickens. Although quickening takes place at various periods, she may then consider herself nearly half gone in her pregnancy, and calculate that in four and a half months she will be delivered. A woman may have a show for one or two monthly periods after her gestation commences, but the discharge may be distinguished from the regular menstrual fluid by its being either small in quantity, or by its clotting, and generally by its lasting but a few hours. The woman should reckon from the time when she had her last regular menstruation. PARTURITION.