It will be wiser, therefore, for the nurse to try to picture the process of labor in each instance, and to be guided by a few broad principles that apply to all cases under all conditions, rather than to try to memorize the details of her duties and of the desirable equipment and preparation. The process of labor we have just described. As to the general principles: If there is any time in a nurse’s career when she should give scrupulous attention to establishing and maintaining asepsis, it is during labor, for the patient’s life may, and often does depend upon it. If there is any time when she should be watchful for developments and for symptoms of complications, it is during labor, for again the patient’s life may depend upon this. Her powers of adaptability to doctor, patient and surroundings may be severely tried, for though they all may be infinitely varied, the nurse must invariably be clear-headed and efficient and the adequacy of her service must never fail. The sympathetic insight, which should constantly underlie the work of the obstetrical nurse, will be needed at this crucial time of labor in the fullest and finest and completest sense. This is almost her test as a nurse and as a womanly woman, for she needs to be both, supremely. Perhaps she had better imagine for a moment what this occurrence, that we baldly term labor, may mean to the patient and look at it as nearly as possible from the standpoint of the patient herself. It is one of the most stirring and momentous experiences of her life, particularly if the expected baby is her first child. She is about to realize the sweetest and tenderest of dreams—that of motherhood—cherished throughout nine long months. She is also approaching a period of excruciating pain, and knows it, with her eyes wide open to the possibility of not surviving it; and an event so amazing in its mystery and wonder that to only the most stolid can it fail to be a deeply emotional experience. And so, the young woman, to whom we refer so impersonally as “the patient,” is an intensely personal being at this time, experiencing a number of the most poignant of the human emotions: awe, expectancy, doubt, uncertainty, dread and in some cases fear amounting almost to terror. And through it all her body is being racked and exhausted with pain that grows harder and harder to bear. It is known that the ravaging effects of pain, coupled with great emotional stress, such as fear, worry, doubt, anger or apprehension, upon the physical well-being of surgical patients, is such that death itself may be caused by excessive fear and suffering. Accordingly, many careful surgeons take elaborate precautions to tranquillize a patient who is about to be operated upon, if for no other reason than to increase his chance for recovery.