Strange it is indeed in this world, in which so much scientific and laborious observation has been devoted to all sorts of irrelevant and trivial subjects, that knowledge of the actual processes of our own fertilization and conception and of the extent of the significance to the future generations of the mode and condition of the union of the parents are almost totally unknown to scientists or doctors, and are disregarded by the majority of the public. A recent memoir in the French Academy of Science[1] dealing with statistical figures (going back in France, at any rate, so far as 1853) proves that there does seem to be a definite seasonal influence on the power of conception. Taking the births for the whole year, it is found they are not equally divided throughout the months, but that a notable maximum of births is found in February and March for most of the countries in the northern hemisphere, the actual maximum of births being from the 15th February to the 15th March, and thus indicating that the maximum of conceptions took place between the 5th May and the 5th June. Richet quotes Bertillon as having established the fact that this maximum of conceptions does not depend on the chance that brides like to be married in the spring, because an identical maximum is found in the illegitimate birthrate. Richet gives many tables of figures, and maintains that the maximum corresponds both in the town and in the country, among the rich and the poor, and among the married and the unmarried, and is, therefore, in his opinion, an actual physiological function:-- [1] Charles Richet, “De la Variation mensuelle de la Natalité,” 1916, Comptes rendus Acad. Sciences, Paris, pp. 141-149 and 161-166. C’est que les conditions physiologiques de la maturation de l’ovule et de sa fécondation ne sont pas également favorables dans toutes les periodes de l’année. Par suite d’une ancestrale prédisposition, au moment du printemps, chez la femme, comme chez la plupart des animaux, mais moins nettement que chez eux, la maturation, la chute et la fécondation de l’ovule se font dans des conditions meilleures et plus assurées. The corresponding maximum for the southern hemisphere arises between August and October. This natural tendency to produce children according to the season is, to some extent, altered by the conscious and deliberate control of parenthood, which all the more highly civilized countries now find that their better citizens are exerting.