ANTE-NATAL HYGIENE : DISCUSSION 431 



within the sphere of practical politics then he thought the 

 proposal was a most beneficial one, and in any case it was 

 a desirable proposal to be made, because no doubt in the 

 near future it was one of those things which must be 

 brought about. 



Dr. KERR, in reply, said he absolutely agreed that it 

 would be very desirable to have a voluntary notification 

 of pregnancy, and he had no doubt that a very considerable 

 proportion of women would come and consult their medical 

 men if it were impressed upon them that it was necessary 

 to do so, but they had always to remember that there was 

 an enormous number of individuals who did not take any 

 care of to-morrow but just lived from hand to mouth 

 as regarded health, and he consequently thought that 

 in order to reach these poor members of the community 

 it was absolutely necessary that something in the nature 

 of an intimation of pregnancy should be made compulsory. 

 He might have referred to several other diseases of 

 toxaemias of pregnancy. They were often very insidious 

 and did not manifest themselves in the grosser form of 

 convulsions or albuminuria, and as a matter of fact a 

 woman during pregnancy should be carefully looked after, 

 certainly from the third or fourth month on. Lastly, it 

 was a matter which concerned women themselves and he 

 had the greatest confidence in placing the matter before 

 women. He had the greatest confidence that if the matter 

 were put before a body of women, and it was explained that 

 it would be greatly to their advantage and greatly to the 

 advantage of their poor sisters to have this intimation of 

 pregnancy, then the wealthiest and the most leisured would 

 immediately say: " We are quite willing that this should be 

 made compulsory, although, of course, on many occasions 

 we wish to keep the matter really to ourselves." He felt 

 certain that one day this intimation of pregnancy would be 

 the law and he hoped the members of the Conference would 

 try and help it forward. 



The following paper by Dr. J. L. Huntington was read 

 by Dr. R. Green. 



