while neither is to blame for
development errors and defects.

SUGGESTION AND HEREDITY

Certain fears are suggested to children. For twenty years I lived
under the delusion that I was terribly afraid of snakes--more so than
any other human being; for I was told when a mere child that I had
been "marked with the fear of snakes," that just two months before I
saw the peep of day, my esteemed mother had been terrified by a snake.
Everywhere I went, I announced to sympathizing and ofttimes
mischievous friends, that "I was marked with the fear of snakes and
must never be frightened with them." It is needless to add in passing,
that I was teased and frightened all through my girlhood days. I was a
veritable slave to the bondage of snake-fear. Everywhere I went I
looked for my dreaded foe, expecting to sit on one, step on one, or to
have one drop into my lap from the roof.

The day of deliverance came after marriage, when in a supreme effort
to deliver me from the shackles of fear, the goodman of the house
tenderly, but firmly, maneuvered a morning walk so that it halted in
front of a large plate-glass window of the Snake Drug Store in San
Francisco. Just back of this plate glass, and within eighteen inches
of my very nose, were fifty-seven varieties of the reptiles, big and
small, streaked and checkered, quiet and active. After much
remonstrance and waiting, I came-to--gazed at the markings, beautiful
in their exactness--while slowly the change of mind took place. Faith
took the place of fear, calmness subdued panic, and I was wondrously
delivered from the veritable bondage of a score of years. And so it is
that the mother suffers and then the child suffers, ofttimes a living
death, because of the superstition "I'm marked," while there is ever
present the fear or dread that "something is going to happen, because
I'm different from all other individuals--because 'I'm marked!'"

CHAPTER IV

THE HYGIENE OF PREGNANCY

As soon as a woman discovers that she is pregnant, she should sit down
and quietly think out the plan for the nine months of expectancy.

The cessation of the menses may come as a surprise to her, and for a
while she is more or less confused; she must go over the whole
situation and adjust future plans to fit in with this new and all
important fact. From a large experience with maternity cases, I have
reached the conclusion that the larger percentage of pregnancies do
come as a surprise, and in m