The cases that have been cited, so far as is known, were persons in excellent health, and some were persons of exceptionally fine and strong constitutions. Dr. Holbrook in his “Parturition without Pain,” says: “Those women of savage nations who bear children without pain live much in the open air, take much exercise, and are physically active and healthy to a degree greatly beyond their more civilized sisters. These instances tend directly to prove that parturition is likely to be painless in proportion as the mother is physically perfect and in a sound condition of health. They certainly tend even more strongly to prove that pain is not an absolute necessity attendant on parturition. “The course of modern scientific investigation, moreover, has gone far to justify a belief that this terrific burden upon humanity can be almost entirely removed, and that the pain can be as completely done away with as the danger and disfigurement from small-pox. At the same time, this immeasurable benefit to humanity cannot be obtained without _proper use of means_, and the continuance of such use for a considerable period. “The doctrine of the ablest thinkers on the subject will be found to agree in this: That it is the previous life of the mother--_the whole of it_, from her birth to the birth of the child--which almost entirely determines what her danger, her difficulty, and her pain during childbirth shall be. Her easy or difficult labor, in fact, is almost entirely her own work. Her conduct during gestation, it is true, is more immediately influential in the result than remoter periods, and bears more greatly upon the future life of her offspring than even upon herself.” Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that he believed that any disease, no matter how virulent, how malignant or how deep-seated, whether it was cancer, consumption or cholera, any disease could be _cured_ if the physician was called in time. But with his wonted humor he added: “There are cases in which the physician should be called at least two hundred years in advance.” With Dr. Holmes, I believe it will take many years to eradicate diseased conditions which are the heritage of this generation, and thus to produce men and women of physical perfection. Science has proven, however, that any woman possessing sufficient vitality to make procreation possible, can do much, even during pregnancy, to alleviate the sufferings of that period, as well as the final throes of travail. Pain and suffering have so long been the customary attendant upon the maternal functions, that many are slow to believe they can ever be alleviated. Painless childbirth is thought to be an impossibility. The reader is begged to lay aside all previous prejudices, and it is believed that when this volume has been thoroughly studied he will be convinced that women in bearing offspring should furnish no exception to the laws of nature, and that pregnancy and parturition may and _ought_ to be devoid of suffering.