“On his arrival he found the house in the utmost confusion, and was told that the child had been born before the messenger was dispatched for the doctor. From the lady herself he learned that, about half an hour previously, she had been awakened from a natural sleep by the alarm of a daughter about five years old, who slept with her. “This alarm was occasioned by the little girl feeling the movements, and hearing the cries of an infant in bed. To the mother’s great surprise she had brought forth her child without any consciousness of the fact. “A lady of great respectability, the wife of a peer of the realm, was actually delivered once in her sleep; she immediately awakened her husband, being alarmed to find one more in bed than there was before. “I have elsewhere mentioned the case of a patient of mine who bore eight children without ever having labor pains. Her deliveries were so sudden and void of sensible effect that in more than one instance they took place under most awkward circumstances, but without any suffering.” Dr. J. King, in his work on Obstetrics, speaks of attending cases where there was no sensation of pain. He found that by placing the hand upon the abdomen, the muscular contractions were distinctly felt, and examination proved the progress of labor, while, excepting a suppressed breath, the patient experienced no change from the ordinary condition. Some very marked cases have come to my own knowledge proving the possibility of painless labor. I attended a neighbor of mine in four different confinements. I never was able to reach her before the birth of the child, although I lived only across the street, and according to her injunctions, always kept my shoes “laced up.” She sent for me, too, at the first indication of labor. There was always one prolonged effort and the child was expelled. The heads of her children were temporarily distorted, showing pliability of the osseous structure. Another lady patron had two children without a _particle of pain_. With the first she was alone with her nurse. During the evening she remarked that she felt weary and believed that she would lie down. She had been on the bed no more than twenty minutes when she called to her nurse, saying: “How strangely I feel! I wish you would see what is the matter,” when to their astonishment the child was already born. Two years later I was summoned to the same lady about ten at night. The membranes were ruptured, but no other visible indication of labor. Investigation revealed dilatation of the cervix and although she soon fell into a quiet slumber, I noticed regular and distinct contractions. The child was born about two in the morning _without any sensation of pain_. I have no doubt that in her previous confinement the contractions went on the same, and if she had been one to mark her symptoms closely, she would have felt them as one feels muscular contractions in the performance of other natural functions.