400 



NATURE 



[November 25, 1920 



iredical qualification or obstetrical diploma. These 

 restrictions may not to the author seem to matter 

 much, but they inevitably lessen the value to be 

 assigned to the more strictly medical and ob- 

 stetrical portions of her work. 



For example, on p. 34 Dr. Stopes writes of the 

 tendency for the head of civilised man to get larger 

 and so to make the birth of the babies of the future 

 through "the gateway of pain" (i.e. the mother's 

 pelvis) almost impossible unless Caesarean section, 

 which may have become a racial necessity by that 

 time, is perfected; but on p. 155 she ascribes the 

 survival of more girl than boy babies to the 

 strength of the former, apparently forgetting her 

 conclusions about "the gateway of pain," for 

 surely the heads of the boy babies (who weigh 

 on an average more than the girl babies) are more 

 likely to be compressed injuriously in their exit. 



A careful reading of the whole book leaves the 

 reviewer in two minds whether to praise it on 

 account of the many beautiful and far-seeing 

 thoughts in it and the practical suggestions it 

 contains for the relief of the distresses and diffi- 

 culties of expectant mothers and fathers, or to 

 censure it for the impracticability of many of its 

 recommendations and for the lack of distinction 

 between matters which have been fairly well 

 established and those which are little more 

 than speculations. It is only fair, however, 

 constantly to bear in mind that the appeal 

 of the book is pre-eminently to the "young 

 happy and physically well-conditioned pair who, 

 mating beautifully on all the planes of their exist- 

 ence, are living in married love" (p. 13), and to 

 "middle- and upper-class women" (p. 168). With 

 this group as audience it is less surprising to read 

 that for the man who "desires to have a child 

 who may become one of the master minds " it is 

 wise "to mate himself with the long-young late- 

 maturing type of woman and let her bear that 

 child some time between the age of thirty-five 

 and forty-five." At the same time, even that type 

 of woman within these years is likely to have 

 rigidity of the "gateway of pain" just as 

 any other elderly primipara has, so the ex^ 

 f>ected " master mind " may come to be a 

 still-birth. All the way through her book 

 Dr. Stopes is impeded ,by the confusion of 

 thought which reigns when one group of 

 parents is being advised and another is being 

 scolded. The radiant motherhood which is written 

 about is for the few. This becomes clear when 

 we read (p. 50) that "the ideal way of spending 

 the earlier months of coming parenthood is in the 

 form of an extended honeymoon, in which the 

 couple, travelling slowly, should follow the guide 

 of seasonal beauty," etc. ; that the fertilising union 

 NO. 2665, VOL. 106] 



should take place "on a holiday into wild and 

 inspiring solitudes " ; and that after giving birth 

 to her child the mother " should lie about for the 

 whole of six weeks" (p. 174). 



With two very difficult subjects Dr. Stopes 

 deals in her own way. In the chapter which she 

 calls "The Weakest Link in the Human Chain," 

 she tries to decide the best way of answering the 

 child when he or she asks about sexual and re- 

 productive matters. She cuts the Gordian knot 

 by recommending that "the child's first instruc- 

 tion in its attitude towards its sex-organs, its 

 first account of the generation of human beings, 

 should be given when it is two or three years 

 old " ; and she adds : " A child so tiny wiU usually 

 not remember one word of what was said to it, 

 but the effects on his outlook will be deep." The 

 other difficult question is that of sexual connection 

 during pregnancy. Several of the chapters con- 

 tain very useful advice, and that (the tenth) on 

 the physical difficulties of the expectant mother is 

 full of such ; but is Dr. Stopes aware that at ante- 

 natal clinics these things are being commonly 

 taught to all expectant mothers, sometimes with 

 quite usefully irradiating effects? Not a few ob- 

 stetricians believe that morning sickness and some 

 of the other impedimenta of pregnancy are pre- 

 ventable. 



In other chapters, as has been hinted already, 

 the author reveals a rather extraordinary readi- 

 ness to consider strange stories, such as that 

 Oscar Wilde's character was determined by 

 thoughts which his mother cherished about him 

 whilst she was carrying him in her womb. Some 

 of her suggested remedies for existing evils are 

 sound, although difficult of accomplishment, such 

 as the endowment of motherhood ; but the sterilisa- 

 tion of the unfit by Acts of Parliament might tend 

 to do what she herself condemns so much— the 

 manufacturing of revolutionaries. Her suggestion 

 of a safe method of controlling parenthood by 

 preventing conception is taken for granted in this 

 volume; it was described in detail in an earlier 

 one. 



Roscoe and Schorlemmer's Chemistry. 



A Treatise on Chemistry. By the Rt. Hon. Sir 

 H. E. Roscoe and C. Schorlemmer. Vol. i., 

 The Non-metallic Elements. Fifth edition, com- 

 pletely revised by Dr. J. C. Cain. Pp. XV4-968. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1920.) 

 Price 30S. net, 



IT is forty-three years since the first edition of 

 Roscoe and Schorlemmer s "Treatise on 

 Chemistry " appeared. The volumes on Organic 

 Chemistry have now passed out of general use. 



