It*is well known that the expectation of life increases with each generation, and this cannot be accounted for only by medicines and improved sanitation. A better knowledge of foods and food values is probably largely responsible for this.
Happily for us all the days are long past (though not so very long when one comes to think of it), when young ladies went into "vapours" and encouraged an interesting pallor. One old lady we knew told us that a sister of hers used to eat raw rice in order to induce this pallor, and a friend used to drink vinegar.
Particular care nowadays is bestowed upon the food and nourishment of jhe ex-ut mother so^that the young afè cared Íor before all the pretties for their layettes are finished, and before the pincushions give their welcome to the Little Darling.
An interesting light upon the treatment of mothers-to-be is revealed in the account. of the care of the Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent, and at the end of the 18th. Century direct heiress to the throne of England. The English physicians of that time insisted upon frequent bleedings of the Princess previous to the birth of her child and in this practice they persisted in spite of the warnings of Stockmar, a German doctor who had no faith in the treatment. The sad results are now history. The Princess, as is too well known, died in childbirth and the child died too. A beautiful monument in St. George's. Chapel, Windsor, marks the sad event, but good rose out of it in the institution of the Princess Charlotte Maternity Hospital, London, which turns out maternity nurses who are sought almost the world over—certainly all over England.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.