_Before Birth._--It is a matter of great importance that pregnant women should regulate their lives in accordance with certain elementary rules of hygiene, and for this reason it is urgently necessary that women should be properly instructed in this respect. Syphilis is one of the most potent causes of intra-uterine death and of abortion and premature labour. Everything possible should be done to prevent persons suffering from syphilis practising sexual intercourse, and to protect the fruit of conception from subsequent syphilitic infection. One of the most effective means of prevention would be the abolition of prostitution. Abortion is possible from the very outset of pregnancy, and attempts at its prevention must therefore be taken in hand thus early. In the later stages of pregnancy care should be taken to prevent pregnant women doing any arduous work. The data obtainable from lying-in hospitals show that the vitality of the new-born infant is greater in proportion as a longer time is spent by the mother in the institution prior to delivery. The best course, but one which is at present almost impracticable, from considerations of cost, would be for pregnant women to enter a public lying-in hospital during the sixth month of pregnancy, and to remain there till the time of delivery, doing nothing more than the lighter household duties of the institution. A less radical procedure would be to prohibit pregnant women from working for wages for a certain time--such as eight weeks--before the expected termination of pregnancy. (At the present day, the only restrictions imposed are upon wage-earning by women for a certain period after childbirth, and this prohibition relates only to employment in factories and workshops.) The following are the objections to the enforcement of such a prohibition as has been suggested. (_a_) Administrative difficulties would make it impossible of application except in the case of women employed in factories and workshops. (_b_) The prohibition would force pregnant women, if they received no material compensation, to earn a living, either by prostitution or else by some work--perhaps even more arduous than that which has been forbidden to them--outside the purview of the Factory Acts; in domestic service, as sempstresses, washerwomen, ironers, &c. To-day, in large factories and workshops, the employer pays no attention to the question whether his female employees are or are not pregnant; and other employers than those are disinclined to employ pregnant women at all. Consider, for instance, the case of women servants. To-day, many pregnant women go to work in a factory or a workshop, simply because there is no other employment open to them. (_c_) The prohibition would necessitate the compulsory notification of pregnancy.