of labor, as we shall show hereafter. Protracted
pregnancies are caused by a defect in the energy of the womb, induced
by moral as well as physical influences. As a rule, a woman who leads a
regular life, and observes the physiological laws of her being, which
laws it has been our aim to point out, will be confined at the term that
nature usually marks out, that is, at the expiration of two hundred and
eighty days, or forty weeks, from conception.

This brings us to the consideration of the question,

HOW TO CALCULATE THE TIME OF EXPECTED LABOR.

Many rules for this purpose have been laid down. We shall merely give
one, the most satisfactory and the most easily applied. It was suggested
by the celebrated Professor Naegele of Heidelberg, and is now generally
recommended and employed by physicians. The point of departure in making
the calculation is _the day of the disappearance of the last monthly
sickness_; three months are subtracted, and seven days added. The result
corresponds to the day on which labor will commence, and will be found
to be two hundred and eighty days from the time of conception, if that
event has occurred, as ordinarily, immediately after the last menstrual
period. Suppose, for instance, the cessation of the last monthly
sickness happened on the 14th day of January; subtract three months, and
we have October 14; then add seven days, and we obtain the 21st day of
the ensuing October (two hundred and eighty days from January 14) as the
time of the expected confinement. This method of making the 'count' may
be relied upon with confidence, and only fails, by a few days, in those
exceptional cases in which conception takes place just before the
monthly period, or during the menstrual flow.

CARE OF HEALTH DURING PREGNANCY.

This subject, the proper management of the health from conception to
childbirth, is worthy of careful consideration. The condition of
pregnancy, though not one of disease, calls for peculiar solicitude,
lest it should lead to some affection in the mother or in the child. For
it ought to be remembered that the welfare of a new being is now in the
balance. The woman has no longer an independent existence. She has
entered upon the circle of her maternal duties. She became a mother when
she conceived. The child, though unborn, lives within her; its life is a
part of her own, and so frail, that any indiscretion on her part may
destroy it. The danger to the child is not imaginary, a