The hot bath is also effectual for flagging pains that are annoying and worrying, and “seem to do no good.” In such cases the patient takes a long rest after the bath, and real contractions and expulsive efforts may not occur for hours or even days. This gives nature time to overcome all obstacles, and the final termination is more satisfactory. ERGOT AND COHOSH are administered by physicians of all schools for insufficient contractions. These cause violent uterine contractions and great expulsive efforts. If the soft parts are relaxed, labor will be facilitated. If not, great injury may be done. Rupture of the uterus and laceration of the perineum are frequently the consequence. The effects after confinement are liable to be even more disastrous. Among these are violent hemorrhage, puerperal peritonitis which runs a rapid course, cellulitis, milk leg, nervous chills, gathered breasts, etc. These drugs are well understood to be poisonous to any one in a normal state. Surely no reason can be given why a parturient woman may hope to escape their dire effects. Without doubt they lay the foundation for many chronic uterine ailments. Please mark the following, which are only a few of the toxicological symptoms of these drugs taken by a person in health. _Ergot_ induces rigors, pinched, pale countenance, extreme anxiety, great fear of death, violent headache, stupor, loss of voluntary motion, spasmodic jerking, sudden paralysis, debility and fainting, cold, dry, shriveled skin, knotted veins, tongue cold, livid and pale, _vomiting violent_, enlargement and pain in the liver, watery diarrhea, swelling of the limbs with cold surface, _violent_, _cramp-like_, _intermittent pains_ in the pelvis and groin, hemorrhage, congestion of the womb, local gangrene. _Macrotis_, _or black cohosh_, causes weak but rapid pulse, pains in the back with debility, rheumatic pains in the muscles, limbs seem powerless, drawing pains with trembling, great restlessness, headache with soreness of the eyes and of the base of the brain, heat and pain in the top of the head, dimness of vision with objects floating before the eyes, prickling of the skin, cold extremities, bruised feeling all over, dizziness, loss of memory, great nervousness resulting in hysteria, vomiting, leucorrhea, hemorrhage, etc. Both of these drugs are violent in their action and poisonous in the doses usually administered in labor.