Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/312

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Ædeology. A scientific and popular treatise on Prenatal Influence, the Prevention of Conception, and the Hygiene and Physiology of Generative Life. By Sydney Barrington Elliot, M. D. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 175 Monroe Street. Cloth, $1.50, postpaid.

Nothing among the gloomy signs of the times today sheds a brighter ray of hope than the scientific discoveries in the field of pre-natal influence. It is now an established fact that parents may, to an extent before undreamed of, determine the lives of their children. “It is the right of every child to be well born.” Parents may ignore that right. If they do, the chances are that the child will suffer through life from some physical, mental or moral deformity which might have been prevented. Parents may recognize that right, study the laws of pre-natal influence, and so apply them as to intensify in their offspring every good quaiity they themselves possess, and greatly remedy every defect. If only a majority of our people would do this, the life of the nation would be transformed in a generation.

Dr. Elliot is one of the scientists who have studied these laws of pre-natal influence, and in this book he has done priceless service in so explaining them that all may understand and apply them. One position which he takes deserves special comment. He holds that there should be no chance conception, and as a corollary to this he holds that every married woman should know that there are safe and harmless methods for its prevention. This view will be decried by some, but all who judge conduct by its bearing on the best happiness of mankind, rather than by pre-conceived notions, will heartily commend it.