entions will be summarized in this
connection. The favorable claims made for "twilight sleep" are:

1. That eighty to ninety per cent of all women who use this method can
be carried through a practically painless labor.

2. That there is practically no danger to the mother (some degree of
danger to the child is admitted by most of its champions) other than
those commonly attendant on the older and better known methods in
general use.

3. That "twilight sleep," being almost exclusively a hospital
procedure, would result in more women going to the hospital for their
confinement--if it were used more; and would, therefore, tend to bring
about more careful supervision and individual care on the part of the
attending obstetrician.

4. That by lessening the dread of labor and the fear of painful
childbirth, there will probably occur an increase in the birth rate of
the so-called "higher classes of society"--the social circles which
now show the lowest birth rates.

5. That it is of special value in the cases of certain neurotic women
and those of low vital resistance; especially those patients suffering
from certain forms of heart, respiratory, kidney, and other organic
diseases.

6. Some authorities maintain that "twilight sleep" is of value even in
threatened eclampsia, although they admit it tends to produce a rise
in blood-pressure.

7. It is supposed to shorten the first stage of labor--by facilitating
the dilation of the cervix--owing to the painless stretching; although
the majority of its special advocates admit that it lengthens the
second stage of labor, during which the patient must be very closely
watched.

8. That even in those cases where the sense of pain is not entirely
destroyed, the patient seems to possess little or no subsequent memory
of any physical suffering or other disagreeable sensations.

9. That the method is of special value in sensitive, high-strung,
nervous women of the "higher classes," who so habitually shun the
rigors of child bearing--especially in the instance of their first
child.

10. That the action of scopolamin is chiefly upon the central nervous
system--the cerebrum--that it diminishes the perception of pain
without apparently decreasing the contractile power of the uterus;
labor may, therefore, proceed with little or no interruption, while
the patient is quite oblivious to the accompanying pains.

11. That the physical and nervous exhaustion is quite entirely
eliminat