ILLUSTRATIONS AND EXPLANATION OF PLATES--_See Pocket_. TOKOLOGY. CHAPTER I. PAINLESS CHILDBIRTH. “I know of no country, no tribe, no class, where childbirth is attended with so much pain and trouble as in this country.” Thus replied a traveler who had been many years in foreign lands, upon being interrogated as to the comparative sufferings of savage and civilized women. His occupation and sympathies had brought him into close relationship with all classes of people, and therefore fitted him for an intelligent and discriminating judgment in this matter. Neither in India, Hindostan, China, Japan, the South Sea Islands, South America, nor indeed in any country do women suffer in both pregnancy and parturition as they do in this. Possibly among the higher classes in Europe there may be equal suffering; but the peasantry everywhere is comparatively exempt. The usual testimony of missionaries and travelers is that the squaws of our own Indian tribes experience almost no suffering in childbirth, and the function scarcely interferes with the habits, pleasures or duties of life. I have myself seen a squaw of the Ottawa tribe carrying her pappoose upon her back, strapped to a board, when it was only twenty-four hours old. Mrs. Armstrong, one of the early missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, says: “With native women the labor was not long nor severe; the mother, instead of remaining in bed, arose, bathed in cold water, walked and ate as usual.” Dr. Storer says: “There is probably no suffering ever experienced which will compare, in proportion to its extent in time, with the throes of parturition.” Dr. Meigs says: “Men can not suffer the same pain as women. What do you call the pains of parturition? There is no name for them but _agony_!” It is too true that women _go down to death_ in giving birth to children. Thousands of women believe that this pain is natural and that for it there can be no alleviation. “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children” is thought to be a _curse_ that applies to all women of all time. If this pain and travail is a natural accompaniment of physiological functions--if it is a _curse_ upon women, then why are the rich, the enlightened and more favored daughters of earth greater sufferers than the peasantry, the savage, the barbarian, and those who we call heathen? Is it not possible, by research and comparison, to learn the natural and true mode of life, so that motherhood may, among enlightened people, be relieved from this burden of suffering? May it not prove that our traditions and teachings upon this subject have been altogether erroneous?