It has been asserted by some that an infant is born at ten or eleven months because at nine months it has not acquired the growth which is necessary in order to induce the womb to dislodge it. The popular notion is, that a child carried beyond the usual term must necessarily be a large one. Rabelais has reflected this common opinion in his celebrated romance entitled 'Gargantua,' in which he represents the royal giant of that name as having been carried by his mother, Gargamelle, eleven months. When born, the child was so vigorous that he sucked the milk from ten nurses. He lived for several centuries, and at last begot a son, Pantagruel, as wonderful as himself. Such reasoning cannot, however, be seriously maintained, as many children carried longer than nine months have not been more fully developed than some born a few weeks prematurely; and the size of the child has nothing to do with the bringing on of labor, as we shall show hereafter. Protracted pregnancies are caused by a defect in the energy of the womb, induced by moral as well as physical influences. As a rule, a woman who leads a regular life, and observes the physiological laws of her being, which laws it has been our aim to point out, will be confined at the term that nature usually marks out, that is, at the expiration of two hundred and eighty days, or forty weeks, from conception. This brings us to the consideration of the question, HOW TO CALCULATE THE TIME OF EXPECTED LABOR. Many rules for this purpose have been laid down. We shall merely give one, the most satisfactory and the most easily applied. It was suggested by the celebrated Professor Naëgelè of Heidelberg, and is now generally recommended and employed by physicians. The point of departure in making the calculation is _the day of the disappearance of the last monthly sickness_; three months are subtracted, and seven days added. The result corresponds to the day on which labor will commence, and will be found to be two hundred and eighty days from the time of conception, if that event has occurred, as ordinarily, immediately after the last menstrual period. Suppose, for instance, the cessation of the last monthly sickness happened on the 14th day of January; subtract three months, and we have October 14; then add seven days, and we obtain the 21st day of the ensuing October (two hundred and eighty days from January 14) as the time of the expected confinement. This method of making the 'count' may be relied upon with confidence, and only fails, by a few days, in those exceptional cases in which conception takes place just before the monthly period, or during the menstrual flow. CARE OF HEALTH DURING PREGNANCY.