inger or utter a word on behalf of the care
and the protection of expectant motherhood.

It is quite true that the question of expectant motherhood has nothing
to do with heredity in the proper sense of that term. We are dealing now
with "nurture," not with "nature," but we are dealing with a department
of nurture which can only be understood when we realize that human
beings begin their lives nine months or so before they are born, and
that the first stage of their nurture is coincident with what we call
expectant motherhood, whilst the second stage of their nurture, normally
and properly, ought to be coincident with what we may call nursing
motherhood.

Let us then acquaint ourselves with the fact, fully established by
experimental and chemical observation, that alcohol given to the
expectant mother finds its way into the organism of the child. Thus, as
we should expect, alcohol can readily be demonstrated in a newborn child
when the drug has been given to the mother just before its birth.

It must be understood that the circulation of the mother and of her
child are each complete and self-contained. They come into relation in
the double organ called the placenta, and it has been exhaustively
proved that this organ is so constituted as in large measure to protect
the child from injurious influences acting upon and in the mother. We
may therefore speak of the placenta as a filter. Its protective action
explains the facts, so familiar to medical men and philanthropic
workers, that healthy and undamaged children are often born to mothers
who are stricken with mortal disease--most notably, perhaps, in the case
of consumption. It becomes a most important matter to ascertain the
limits of the placental power, and by observation upon human beings and
experiment upon the lower animals this matter has been very thoroughly
elucidated of late years. There are many kinds of poison, and many
varieties of those living poisons that we call microbes, which the
placenta does not allow to pass through from the mother's blood-vessels
into those of the child, and which are unable, fortunately for the
child, to break down the placental resistance. On the other hand, there
are certain microbes and certain poisons which readily pass through the
placenta. Conspicuous amongst these are alcohol, lead and arsenic, and
it is especially important to realize that alcohol injures the child not
merely by its own passage through the placenta, but b