It is true that gestation often gives to woman more than ordinary ambition, which may excel her physical strength. With usual health and suitable surroundings, she frequently experiences a mental state of exaltation. She expresses herself as feeling “as if she trod upon air.” Her whole being drinks from the fountain of life. She is brought _en rapport_ with all things divine. She herself is a creator, and is it not divine to create? In this state of exaltation she is no judge of her physical strength. The prudent, watchful husband and loving friends must be her guardians. She must be held in check and admonished of self-interest and the well-being of her child. Otherwise great injuries are likely to be inflicted upon herself and offspring. I am acquainted with a charming old lady, whose seventy-eight summers have left her in possession of health and happiness, as a heritage of a well-spent life. In talking of these things, she says: “Doctor, why is it that my daughters, Jane, Rebecca and Mary Ann, have no powers of endurance? Their father was never sick. My own health and strength have been a marvel to every one. Why! the three girls together cannot do the work I could when I was their age. Girls are no account now-a-days. When I was _like_ for my children, I could get up and milk the cows, churn and make cheese. This was not all; I could take the wool from the sheep’s back, wash, card, spin, weave and make it into garments. I could walk two miles to church. I slept soundly and ate heartily. Why, what would have become of us, if I had been lying about in wrappers and slippers, dosing with drugs as my girls do now?” Bless the heart of the dear old lady! Just _because_ she did all this, her daughters are not her equals in strength. She robbed them of their inheritance, by spending all her vitality in exhausting labor, and vicariously they atone for her wrong-doing. The woman who indulges in the excessive gayety of fashionable life, as well as the overworked woman, deprives her child of vitality. She attends parties in a dress that is unphysiological in warmth, distribution and adjustment, in rooms badly ventilated; partakes of a supper of indigestible compounds, and remains into the “wee, sma’ hours,” her nervous system taxed to the utmost. Although faint, weary and exhausted, the following day is spent in receptions and calls, closing with theater or opera. If abortion is not the result, can any sane woman expect her child under such circumstances to be in possession of vigor and strength? Bounding health is the inheritance of childhood. Woe to the parent who robs it of this inheritance! I was summoned one morning by a Mr. B., a cheery, successful business man, to see his wife. He says: “Doctor, I have exhausted my skill, and must have advice from higher authority.” “What is your diagnosis?”