The full evolution of the sexual life brings in its train many dangers to a woman’s life. This appears at first sight from a comparison of the mortality of married women during the period of greatest sexual activity with that of single women of similar age. Between the ages of 20 and 25 years, the mortality of married women is in all races higher than that of unmarried women; and the same is true between the ages of 25 and 30 years, except in France, in which country from artificial causes maternity ceases at a very early age. In Prussia, in the year 1880, of every 10,000 married women, between the ages named, 21 died, of every 10,000 unmarried women, only 2. In Holland, Belgium, and Bavaria, this excess in the mortality of married women continues up to the age of 40 years; whilst in Prussia, from the age of 30 upward, the mortality of married women and unmarried is practically the same. In many countries, the mortality of married women at many ages exceeds even that of unmarried men. This greater comparative mortality of married women is ascribed by _Hegar_ to the satisfaction of the sexual impulse, and this authority believes that the dangers attendant on this function would be manifested yet more clearly if the contrast were made, not between married women and single, but between those habituated to sexual indulgence and those who are continent. We, however, are of opinion, that the satisfaction of the sexual impulse is only harmful to this extent, that it exposes women to the consequences of venereal infection, and also to the risk of numerous puerperal and other diseases of the genital organs. This is proved also by the statistical results of the investigations concerning mortality during pregnancy, parturition, and the puerperium. According to _Hegar_, adding deaths resulting from premature delivery to deaths resulting from delivery at full term, we find the mortality of childbirth in Germany to be about 0.6 per cent.