376 MEDICAL SECTION 



to go on working nearly all the time to her confine- 

 ment. He thought it was often better for her to go 

 on working whilst she was suckling the child. That 

 he knew was in opposition to many of the views they had 

 heard that day, but he could not help thinking that nutrition 

 must be allowed to keep its proper place in this subject, 

 and that went very often hand in hand with work, for the 

 fact of a woman working was often the only way of getting 

 nutriment. It was often a serious thing to advise the 

 woman to give up work. He had had a case lately where 

 the superintendent of his school for mothers advised him 

 that a woman was in a much better state of health when 

 she was at work during pregnancy than when she was not 

 working. Another point on which they had gone a little 

 bit astray was on the question of abortion and miscarriage. 

 He was not at all sure that they must look on every abortion 

 and miscarriage as a misfortune. It was very often a pro- 

 tective mechanism on the part of the mother and certainly 

 in cases of syphilis. Where the virus was very active it 

 was better for the mother to miscarry than go the full 

 term and bear the child. He did not think thev oueht to 

 be too hasty in condemning every abortion and miscarriage 

 as a misfortune, and he would like to hear Dr. Van ingen's 

 views on that subject. 



Dr. ADAMSON (Hetton) said he rose with considerable 

 diffidence to add his quota to what was a most interesting 

 discussion. He had lived a strenuous life and taken a 

 part in many confinements and had had charge of all sorts 

 of conditions of women in labour. The first and great 

 thing which struck him was the importance of exercise for 

 the expectant mother. He had always viewed with very 

 great alarm, whatever might be her social position, or what- 

 ever duties she had to perform, the lady who resorted to the 

 sofa and could not be seen out, and worst of all, tEe woman 

 who was ashamed to be seen out because of the evidence of 

 her expected motherhood. With regard to the latter class, 

 the one thing he could not call them was women. He did 

 not recognize such a woman as what he would call a 

 womanly woman. There was no doubt but that the advan- 

 tage of exercise was very great. The probabilities were 

 that the woman who kept about the wife of the workman 

 would have less trouble when her hour of trial came 

 than the woman who gave way to the feeling of lassitude 

 and of unwillingness to move about. He did not forget for 

 a moment that there were many so frail that it was 

 absolutely necessary for them to rest, but even these women 

 ought not to rest continuously if they could possibly avoid 



