A costive state of bowels is one of the most common and, at the same time, troublesome of the diseases of pregnancy. It arises partly from the increased activity which is going on in the womb, and which induces a sluggish condition of the bowels, and partly from the pressure of the now enlarged and expanded womb on the bowels themselves. A confined state of bowels is the frequent source of many serious evils; it therefore behoves the female to be vigilant and guard against it. _First_,—Because, as before stated, pregnancy itself predisposes to constipation. _Secondly_,—Because it is much more easily prevented than removed, when, after several days’ confinement, an accumulation of hardened fæces has collected in the lower bowel. _Thirdly_,—Because such an accumulation may give rise to inflammation of the bowel itself, and, in the earlier months of pregnancy, to miscarriage; and, _Lastly_,—Because, if a female falls into labor with her intestinal canal so loaded, it will of itself be sufficient to render, what would otherwise have been a quick, easy, and safe labor, a long, painful, and difficult one; and may be the cause also of very serious and alarming symptoms some forty or eight-and-forty hours after her labor is over. The first and leading symptom of this affection is a costive or more consistent state than usual of the fæcal excretions, with a less frequent call for evacuation than is customary with the individual when in health. If this is not attended to, and several days, perhaps a week, pass by without the bowels being relieved at all, pain in the head, a foul tongue, and an increased degree of fulness and tension of the abdomen, are experienced. These symptoms are followed, in all probability, by thin watery evacuations, attended with pain, weight, and pressure about the lower bowel; they become frequent; and the female at last, finding that the bowels are not only open again, but even loose, takes chalk mixture. She is not aware that this very looseness is nothing more than increased secretion of the lining membrane of the bowel, caused by the pressure of the accumulated mass of hardened fæces, which it passes and leaves unmoved. The chalk mixture relieves the irritation upon which the looseness depends, but the disease is not removed, and, instead of its being a case simply of costiveness, it has now become one of constipation; an accumulation of hardened stool is distending and irritating, by its pressure, the lower bowel and the womb, and the serious consequences before enumerated may follow.