Dr. Williams, professor of obstetrics in Johns Hopkins University, and the author of a book on obstetrics which is very valuable, says:[210] "We have used the scopolamine treatment of childbirth in two separate series of cases at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, but in neither series were the results satisfactory, nor did they in any way approach the claims made for the treatment. We expect to do more with it next year." In the fourth edition of his _Obstetrics_, published in 1917, he thinks that the twilight sleep method will fall into disuse, or at least that its use will be restricted to a small group of neurotic patients. From his experience, he says, the method is not adapted for private practice. [210] _Ibid._ Dr. Hirst, professor of obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania, tried the scopolamine treatment in the maternity hospital of the university in about 300 cases at three different times. He tried it first in 1903, but he found that if sufficient morphine is given to abolish pain there is danger of hemorrhage in the mother and of asphyxia in the child. At a meeting of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia[211] Hirst, commenting on a paper by Polak, said: "I am sorry to say I cannot agree with my friend Dr. Polak in his conclusions ... I had to discontinue morphia and scopolamine because there were too many cases of post-partum hemorrhage, too many cases in which forceps had to be used, too many asphyxiated babies. So I am not an enthusiast for 'twilight sleep.'" [211] Proceedings printed in _American Journal of Obstetrics_, May, 1915. Dr. Joseph B. De Lee, professor of obstetrics in the Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, and the author of a book on obstetrics which is now one of the best we have in English, tells us[212] that the impressions he received from studying ten cases of childbirth in Professor Krönig's clinic at Freiburg were "decidedly unfavorable to the method of 'Twilight Sleep.'" In all the ten cases, he testifies, the birth pains were weakened, and labor prolonged--in two instances for forty-eight hours. In three cases pituitrin, which is in itself a dangerous drug to use before the uterus has been almost emptied, had to be given to save the child from imminent asphyxia. In five of the cases forceps had to be used owing to the paralyzing effects of the drug, and all these forceps cases were extensively lacerated. Several of the women became so delirious and violent that ether had to be used to quiet them, with the result that the infants were born "narcotized and asphyxiated to a degree." One child had convulsions for several days. [212] _Ladies' Home Journal._ The complete failure in these ten cases is so obvious as to be a scandal, although De Lee does not say so. He abandoned the use of the method twelve years ago, and in 1913 he visited the maternities at Berlin, Vienna, Munich, and Heidelberg, and found that all had tried the method and had rejected it.