It is distinctly preferable to have it attended to immediately after labor when it is possible, and it is possible in a very large percentage of the cases. The explanation of this is because it is practically painless then, owing to the parts having been so stretched and bruised that they have little or no feeling. If it is left for a day or two and then repaired, it will be more painful, because the parts will have regained their sensitiveness. Another good reason in favor of immediate repair is that a much better and quicker union will take place than if postponed. When a patient is torn, but not to the degree necessary to stitch, it is to her advantage to be told to lie on her back and keep her knees together for twelve hours, thus keeping the torn edges together and at rest, thereby favoring quick and healthy repair of the tear. Some physicians go as far as to bind the patient's knees together so she cannot separate them during sleep. It is the custom of every conscientious physician to request every woman he confines to report at his office six or eight weeks after labor. The reason for this is to find out by examination the character and extent of the lacerations of the mouth of the womb. No physician can tell at the time of labor just how much damage has been done, because the mouth of the womb, at the time of labor, is so stretched and thinned out, that it is impossible to tell. After the womb has contracted to about its normal size, it is a very simple matter for any physician to tell exactly the character and extent of the lacerations. Most of these tears need absolutely no attention; there are a few however that do. This is a very important matter for two very good reasons. 1st. Every woman should know, and is entitled to know, just what [118] condition she is in, because if she has been torn to an extent that needs attention, and is left in ignorance of it, her physical health may be slowly and seriously undermined and the cause of it may not be understood or even guessed at. A woman who becomes nervous and irritable, loses vim and vitality, has headaches, backaches and anemia, and no symptoms, or few, that point to disease of the womb, will suffer a long time before she seeks relief of the right kind, and will be astonished and outraged when she is told that it all results from a bad tear of her womb that she knew nothing about. 2nd. A physician should in justice to himself insist on this late examination, because if a woman is told, at some subsequent time, by another physician that she is badly torn, and she was not told of it by the physician who confined her, she is very apt to form an unjust opinion of his work and to entertain an unfriendly feeling toward him as a man.