D URING the past ten years the question of maternal mortality has been given widespread publicity and study. That this campaign, sponsored by lay groups and the profession, has done much to lower mortality rates is unquestioned. Statistics are being compiled by individuals and study groups which report marked reductions in certain causative factors of maternal mortality and point out other factors where further reductions can be expected. The Pennsylvania State Maternal Mort.ality Committee, through its various committees, has done a monumental and worthwhile task in gathering together statewide statistics as to the cause of death in childbirth. Groups have been organized in the various larger cities to study maternal deaths and to determine the preventable factor in ea,ch case and assign the blame for the tragedy to whomever or whatever factor is responsible. If these study groups are worth while in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, why are they not just as worthwhile in smaller communities? The answer is they are, but that certain factors mitigate against their success in the small town, In the first place, in small towns there are few and sometimes not any practitioners who are devoting all their time t,o obst,etrics. It, is too much to expect a busy practitioner, who is doing obstetrics along with a general practice, to be exercised over maternal mortality. He will read about it but promptly consign the a.rticle t,o the waste basket as a fad and continue to do things as he has done them for the past twenty years. In the second place, in the average 200 bed hospital, the obstetric staff is composed of one full-time obstetrician, or none, with several busy practitioners who do general practice plus a large obstetric practice. Interest in a group discussion of fatalit,ies in this hospital is difficult to arouse and difficult to maintain. The meetings are poorly attended and the physicians will not speak their minds because of the fear of arousing the ire of their fellow practitioners. In other words, the physicians in a small town know each other too well to give or take honest criticism. In the third place, the average small hospital has a series of deliveries too small to embrace all the complications, and cases suitable for study occur too infrequently to maintain interest in a regular meeting. The study is sporadic and soon dies a natural death. Maternal mortality is a subject that must be kept continually before the profession if any good is to come of an organized study group.