Ylll PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION. 



who have strengthened my hands and cheered my 

 heart in my difficult and often discouraging work. 

 A few who most generously aided me at the out- 

 set — William E. Dodge, Sr., of New York, Elizur 

 Wright of Boston, William Hyde of Ware, and 

 President Fairchild of Berea, — have all passed to 

 a higher field of labor. Are there any who will 

 take their places? 



I am also under obligation to many, including 

 physicians, both in our own and other lands, for 

 their testimonies and encouragement. Particularly 

 would I pay my warm tribute of thanks to my 

 good friends, Dr. John Ellis of Xew York and Dr. 

 Charles C. Drysdale, senior surgeon of the Metro- 

 politan Hospital, London, — not only for the val- 

 uable information they have given me, but for 

 their unwearied sympathy and kindness. 



Let me add that it was not at hap-hazard that 

 this book was dedicated to my country-women, and 

 that every year strengthens the conviction that I 

 made no mistake in this. I have seen enough of 

 the effects, on the one hand, not merely of the con- 

 doning, but of the self-complacent approval, of this 

 narcotic barbarian, this insidious but desperate 

 defier of aesthetics, by thoughtless and sometimes 

 frivolous women, and, on the other hand, of the 

 decided and unfaltering stand against it on the 

 part of intelligent, conscientious women, — I have 

 seen enough of all this to convince me a hundred 



