When the time comes, and it seems to be approaching, that pregnancy, labor, the puerperium and infancy are regarded as crucial periods in the life history, demanding all the preventives and safeguards that all branches of medicine and nursing can offer, these periods will cease to be so enormously destructive of life and health. We cannot build a strong race with sickly and maimed mothers and babies, and we can scarcely have other than sickly and maimed mothers and babies without care. Apparently, then, our national health is in a large measure dependent upon good obstetrics and good obstetrics includes good nursing. Good nursing implies more than the giving of bed baths and medicines, boiling instruments and serving meals. It is more than going on duty at a certain time, carrying out orders for a certain number of hours and going off duty again. It implies care and consideration of the patient as a human being and a determination to nurse her well and happily, no matter what this demands. In carrying on her work, the maternity nurse may be called upon to aid in prenatal supervision and instruction; to prepare for and assist with a delivery, or to give either exclusive or visiting nursing care to a young mother and her baby. These patients may be in a hospital or at home and the home may be of any kind from a palace to a hut or a tenement. The patients may be in a city, a small town, or a rural community, and in the care of doctors whose methods vary widely. But in spite of the diversity of conditions and the fact that no two will be quite alike, the general need of all of these patients will be the same. Their need is care, which includes cleanliness in order to prevent infection; suitable food; fresh air and exercise; regular and sufficient rest and sleep; an equable body temperature; early treatment of complications and correction of physical defects. In short, each patient needs to be watched; needs clean care and to practice the approved principles of personal hygiene from the beginning of pregnancy. This without regard to race, color, creed, occupation, status, or location. It means all maternity patients and their babies the country over. There was a time when the obstetrician first saw his patient in labor or shortly beforehand, and when the care of the baby began at birth or soon afterward. We know what this tardy attention has cost in human lives and suffering.