The nourishment taken during pregnancy should be abundant, but not, in the early months, larger in quantity than usual. Excess in eating or drinking ought to be most carefully avoided. The food is to be taken at shorter intervals than is common, and it should be plain, simple, and nutritious. Fatty articles, the coarser vegetables, highly salted and sweet food, if found to disagree, as is often the case, should be abstained from. The flesh of young animals--as lamb, veal, chicken, and fresh fish--is wholesome, and generally agrees with the stomach. Ripe fruits are beneficial. The diet should be varied as much as possible from day to day. The craving which some women have in the night or early morning may be relieved by a biscuit, a little milk, or a cup of coffee. When taken a few hours before rising, this will generally be retained, and prove very grateful, even though the morning sickness be troublesome. Any food or medicine that will confine or derange the bowels is to be forbidden. The taste is, as a rule, a safe guide, and it may be reasonably indulged. But inordinate, capricious desires for improper, noxious articles, should of course, be opposed. Such longings, however, are not often experienced by those properly brought up. It is a curious fact, that the modification in the digestive system during pregnancy is sometimes so great that substances ordinarily the most indigestible are eaten, without any inconvenience, and even with benefit, while the most healthful articles become hurtful, and act like poison. As pregnancy advances, particularly after the sixth month, a larger amount of food, and that of a more substantial character, will be required. The number of meals in the day should then be increased, rather than the quantity taken at each meal. CLOTHING. The dress during pregnancy should be loose and comfortable, nowhere pressing tightly or unequally. The word _enceinte_, by which a pregnant woman is designated, meant, originally, without a cincture,--that is, unbound. The Roman matrons, so soon as they conceived, were obliged to remove their girdles. Lycurgus caused the enactment of the Spartan law, that pregnant women should wear large dresses, so as not to prejudice the free development of the precious charges of which nature had rendered them the momentary depositaries. Stays or corsets may be used, in a proper manner, during the first five or six months of pregnancy, but after that they should either be laid aside, or worn very loosely. Any attempt at concealing pregnancy, by tight lacing and the application of a stronger busk, cannot be too severely condemned. By this false delicacy the mother is subjected to great suffering, and the child placed in jeopardy. The shape of the stays should be moulded to that of the changing figure, and great care should be taken that they do not depress the nipple or irritate the enlarging breasts.