people likewise forbade her salty and fatty foods, so that she made do with coconut milk!

The advance of science has done away with these absurdities, and progress has spread through the life of nations, so that every day we hear of a new discovery and a useful invention.

In 1884 Dr. Sänger occupied himself with the cesarean oper-ation, and the year 1888 had scarcely drawn near when the instrument for measuring blood pressure appeared. Its appearance increased the care given the pregnant woman, for it became clear to doctors that blood pres-sure mounts when convulsions or eclampsia occur in the expec-tant mother.

Yet the care of the pregnant woman made no real advance until the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1911 rules for the care of the pregnant woman were laid down in most hospitals of the civilized world, the duties of mid-wives were defined, and special hospitals for expectant mothers were founded.

After the Great War many con-gresses were held in all parts of the world to study this important subject, and the care of the pregnant woman became almost a science standing by itself.

In 1937 the number of maternity hospitals in England alone reached 600; today all the civilized nations have special hospitals for the pregnant woman, in which expec-tant mothers receive the most careful attention.

The renaissance of medicine in the care and delivery of the pregnant woman has been a renaissance of swift advance. Obstetrics and women's diseases have become two connected branches, studied together; and childbirth has been

made easy by the means and methods that modern science has devised. And no wonder — for the nations that concern themselves with expectant mothers, their delivery, and their care are the

living nations that preserve their offspring, since humanity can hope for no good from feeble offspring: upon strong, gifted offspring the march of human civilization depends...