Conclusionof theSecondandLast Part.

Nature, if her expulsive efforts are but, in due time, and when requisite, gently and skilfully seconded by the hands alone, will do more, and with less pain than all the art of the instrumentarians, with their whole armory of deadly weapons. The original and best instrument, as well as the antientest, is the natural hand. Asyet no human invention comes near it, much less excells it: and in that part it is that the women have incomparably and evidently the advantage over the men for the operations of midwifery, in which dexterity is ever so much more efficacious than downright strength.

And, indeed, let every requisite faculty for the assistence of lying-in women be well considered, and the resulting determination cannot but be, that in the common labors, where the men themselves are either simple by-standers or receivers of the child, or operate with the hand only, they are the very best of them, not comparable to a common midwife, and in those cases, in which they pretend the use of instruments necessary, hardly better than the worst one. So that, not less than justly speaking, they are not receivable, either as substitutes, or even as supplements to midwives.

Theart of midwifery then, in its management by women, carries with it, in the recommendation of order, modesty, propriety, ease, diminution of pain and danger, allthe marks of the providential care of Nature. It is imaged by the incubation of a brood-hen, assiduously watching over her charge, and tenderly hatching it with her genial heat. Whereas the function of this art, officiated by men, has ever something barbarously uncouth, indecent, mean, nauseous, shockingly unmanly and out of character: and, above all, of lame or imperfect in it. It strongly suggests the idea of the chicken-ovens in Egypt, kept by a particular set of people, who make a livelihood of the secret, which they, it seems, ingross of that curious art of hatching of eggs by a forced artificial heat: a practice, which, like the other refinements of dungbeds for the same purpose, or that of committing the rearing or education of the chickens to[44]“cocks, tocapons, or toartificial wooden mothers,” may sound indeed vastly ingenious; but besides the numbers that perish the victims of those experiments, many of the productions of such methods of hatching are observed to be maimed, wanting a leg or a wing, orsome way damaged or defective. The comparison breaks indeed in that, at least, the grown hens themselves escape damage, which is not often the case of mothers under those heteroclite beings the men-midwives; or, if they do escape, it is no thanks to those operators, but to the prevalence of Nature over their pragmatical intervention, so fit only to disturb, thwart, or oppose her effects, and in every sense to deprive the unhappy women that trust them of her common benefit.

Butwhile superior considerations of humanity so justly intercede for the mothers, while I strenuously contend for the preference to be, without hesitation, due to the mother over the child, especially in that dreadful dilemma, where one must be sacrificed to the safety of the other; supposing such a dreadful alternative ever to exist, which I much doubt, or at least, not to exist so often as it is rashly taken for granted, and even then, where the effects do not always follow the resolution taken thereon, since, though the child is always certainly lost, the mother is far fromalways saved, when, by a judicious preventiveness in practice, neither of them might perhaps have been so much as in jeopardy; while, I say, I plead for the preferable attention to the mothers, I hope no mothers will think me the worse intentioned towards them, for giving the lives of their children the second place in my tender concern for the safety of both.

Andsurely never was a time, when children more required the intercession of humanity in their favor. Mothers can speak for themselves. But the poor infants, so often precluded, by violence, from the pity-moving faculty of their own cry, have nothing but the cry of Nature to plead for them. A cry, the listening to which is prevented by those vain imaginary terrors, inspired by designing Art in the service of Interest, through which Nature is seduced to act against herself, and deliver herself up to her greatest enemies.

Inshort, one would imagine, that all the rage of cruelty was unchained, and let loose against especially those tender innocents, born or unborn.

Amongthe poor, particularly as to those infants cast upon the public charity, a barbarously premature ablactation, under a pretext so easily foreknown to be as false as it is fatal, of bringing them up by hand for cheapness-sake, has destroyed incredible numbers.

Amongthe rich, or those able enough to pay for the learned murder of their offspring, how many of their children, even before they have well got hold of life, in this, literally speaking as to them, iron age, encounter their death or wounds, stuck in the brain by a crotchet, or crushed by a forceps, to say nothing of their being now and then ingeniously strangled in the noose of a fillet!

Andthose horrors proceed unchecked and unexploded, and in what a nation? a nation, that values herself upon the distinction of profound thinking: a nation that, besides that interest she has in common with all other well-governed nations, to protect and promote population, stands,be it said, in that true spirit of justice, which as much disdains to pay a fulsome compliment, as good sense ever will to receive it, moreover eminently distinguished above them all, for producing a race of natives, one would think could hardly be too numerous, since they are the most remarkable in the known world for courage, for personal beauty, and for many other liberal gifts of Nature, among which surely not the least is, that inborn spirit of liberty, to which they owe the honorable acquisition of so many additional advantages.

Canit then be too strongly recommended to the women especially, at least, to examine whether their notion of superior safety under the hands of a man, in their lying-in, bears upon the solid foundation of Nature, or merely on the treacherously weak one of a delusive opinion? an opinion that owes its existence to fears cruelly played upon, and turned to account by designing Interest. If those then of them who are under the force of prejudice, or governed by habit, or by both at once, would, on a point that concerns themselves and children sonearly, assume liberty enough of mind to shake off the dangerous yoke, they would undoubtedly find it better and safer to listen to that salutary instinct of Nature so authorized by reason, which inspires them with that repugnance to submit themselves in the manner they must do that submit themselves to men-midwives, who have the impudence to call that repugnance a “false modesty:” as if that Modesty could not be a true one, a foolish one I am sure it could not be, that should murmur at being so cruelly sacrificed to such a bubble’s bargain as it is, by those innocents, who, over-persuaded by a deceitful promise of more effectual aid, too often embrace a torturous and a shameful death, for which, to add ridicule to horror, they are expected to pay their executioners larger fees than to one of their own sex for a more decent, a more safe, and always a less painful delivery.

Maythe women then, for their own sakes, for the sake of their children, cease to be the dupes, sure as they are to be in some measure the victims of that scientificjargon, employed to throw its learned dust in their eyes, and to blind them to their danger or perdition! may they, in short, see through that cloud of hard words used by pedants, whose interest it is to impose themselves upon them: a cloud, which is oftener the cover-shame of ignorance, than the vehicle of true knowledge, and perhaps oftener yet the mask of mercenary quackery, than a proof of medical ability!

Asto the writings of the men-midwives especially, I dare aver, that, though there may be here and there some very just theoretic notions, borrowed from able physicians and surgeons, nothing is more contemptible than most of their practical rules; what is tolerable in them being most probably got from midwives, but so disfigured with their own absurd sophistications, that I should heartily pity any woman, subjected to have her labor governed by such, as should have no better guidance than their ridiculous instructions.

Thenit is that a sensible woman would, in defence of her own life, or of any lifethat she holds dear to her, in the case of needing the aid of midwifery, view with equal disdain, with equal horror, either the rough manly[45]he-midwife, that inthe midst of his boisterous operation, in a mistimed barbarous attempt at waggery or wit, will ask a woman, in a hoarse voice, “if she has a mind to be rid of her burthen,” or the pretty lady-like gentleman-midwife, that with a quaint formal air, and a gratious smirk, primming up his mouth, in a soft fluted tone, assures her, and lies all the while like a tooth-drawer, that his instruments will neither hurt nor mark herself nor child but a little, or perhaps not at all. (See p. 448.)

Thislast character, if less brutal than the other, is not perhaps the least dangerous, since the practice being at bottom the same, pregnant consequently with thesame mischief, the gentleness of the insinuation gives the less warning, and paves the way for the admission of a handling not the less rough for the smoothness of the address. But is there any such thing as polite murder? is mischief the less mischief for being perpetrated with an air of kindness? well considered it is but the more provoking. The male-practitioners then are not quite in the wrong, to presume as they do upon the weakness of the women’s understanding, since they can so grossly pass upon them their needless cruelties, under so inconsistent and false a color as that of a tender compassion. Thus to all the rest of the shame to which they put them, they add that of so palpable an imposition in that flimsy cover of the mean interest, which is so probably the real motive at bottom of their taking up a function, to which they were never called by Nature, nor by any necessity, unless, perhaps, of their own.

Inthe mean time, the truth is, that, in vain, would the men, by way of sparing the women the terror of their masculine figure, upon those delicate occasionsof officiating, and to appear the more natural in the business, aim at an occasional effemination of their dress, manner and air. They can never in essentials atone for their interested intrusion into an office, so clearly a female one, that, if but only as to the manual discharge of it, not even the qualifying them for the opera, would, perhaps, sufficiently emasculate them.

Here, confessing my just apprehensions of not having fulfilled the promise of my title-page; there will not, I hope, to that reproach of my deficient powers in the performance, be added the undeserved ones of vanity or injustice in the design or conduct of my feeble essay.

Foras to vanity, or any presumption, on my part, of any thing so weak, so unauthoritative as my representation, having any chance to remove the abuses, not however the less existent for that incapacity of mine to remove them, my knowledgeof the world would alone defend me from so ridiculously wild a thought. I am but too well aware of the tenaciousness of especially false prejudice in most minds, where it has once gained entrance, and with whom prepossession is ever eleven points of the right. I have then purely had in view the discharge of that duty, incumbent on every member of human society, to oppose such errors as appear to be pernicious to the good of it. In that light I have beheld the growing practice of the instrumentarians, and in that sincere belief I have hazarded the publication of my sentiments, without surely pretending to any authority over the opinion of others. That I chearfully leave to every one’s reason, who is capable of reason. And to write for others than the rational, would be only labor deservedly lost.

Asto injustice, I am, at least, clear of that of partiality to my own sex. I grant and lament as much as any one the incompetency of but too many of the midwives. The number of such cannot be too little. But then would the banishing them out of the practice be preferable to the havingthem better taught, especially since there is nothing but what is so much worse to put in their room, men and instruments? What occasion too for such a dangerous extremity? For as the deficiency is evident, so are the causes: which are not only the want of sufficient care in the training and education of women to this profession, but the actual discouragement, which must grow every day greater and greater, by the encroachments of the instrumentarians, whose plea for supplanting them will be consequently strengthened by that alarming scarcity of capable midwives, which themselves will have so much contributed to create. These being then the principal causes, and well known to be so, the remedies are not obscure, nor hard to attain.

A goodeducation especially is of great importance, to accomplish what Nature has already gone so great a way in, by her giving in many respects to the women such a superior aptitude for the business. Capable midwives would much help to form good female pupils; and the lying-in hospitals especially might be made highly usefulto so desirable an end. But surely as to the practical part of midwifery in these hospitals, it ought not to be under the direction of men, whose interest it should be, only to form the women so deficiently, as that themselves might be the less unnecessary; to form them, in short, more for their own service, than for that of the public. That temptation being removed, the female-practitioners could not receive too respectfully from the surgeons lectures or instructions, any lights in anatomy relative to their theoretic proficiency. But to nothing should they be more constantly and effectually excited, than to perfect themselves in the manual operation; and indeed, in general, so to capacitate themselves for their function, as to prove and establish the perfect inutility of all instruments whatever. Nor will it be a difficult task for a woman to acquire a superiority in her hands to the most boasted of those unnatural substitutes. This is the true way of laudably disarming the instrumentarians, and of thereby depriving them of the only shadow of a pretence they have for supplanting the women, and invading the female province, of which invasion it is so probable, thatnot the cause they plead, but the pay they squint at, is the real motive.

Asto the discouragement of proper women from applying themselves to the profession, it can only cease by the concurring of those, on whom the choice out of either sex occasionally depends, to restore things to their antient channel: and that will in course, for their own sakes, follow on their ceasing to be imposed upon by the false pretences of the men-practitioners. But this is a point upon which I am too much a party to be heard, though even as no more than an advocate, and much less as a judge. All I shall then presume to say is, that I very readily leave the decision of the question to Reason, that inward oracle in every one’s breast; an oracle, which, in a cause so interesting to human Nature, can never return a false answer, where consulted by those who deserve to find the truth by sincerely seeking it, with a firm design to sacrifice to it the poor vanity of defending a prejudice, or any other interest of the passions. And surely there can hardly exist a point of more capital importanceto Society, than the determining, what however one would imagine not very difficult to determine, on which side in this profession of midwifery particularly, the superiority of auxiliary power may be expected, on that, where there is evidently a great deal of Nature, assisted with a little but a competency of Art, or on that, where what there is of Art is most barbarously abused, and without any Nature at all.

The END.

1. Exod. Chap. vii. and viii.

2. Diod. Sic. Herodotus.

3. The Commentator on Boerhave’s Lectures, vol. V. p. 252. or §. 694. says, “At Paris women are taken into the Hôtel Dieu, fifteen days before their lying-in, at the public expence, so that the business of midwifery can be no where better learn’d.”

4.It is evidently this universal influence of theUterusover the whole animal system, in the female sex, that Plato has in view in that his description of it, which Mr. Smellie (introd.p. 15) callsoddandromantic,from his not making due allowance for the figurative stile of that florid author. Thus the diffusion of the energy of theuterus,Plato calls its“wandering up and down thro’ the body.”A power of activity which, towards conquering the otherwise natural coldness of the female constitution, nature would hardly give to theuterusmerely to excite in women a desire, sanctified under due restrictions, by her favorite end, that of propagation, if she had not, at the same time, endowed that uterus with an instinct, beneficial by its influence in the preservation of the issue of thatdesire.And the real truth is, that there is something that would be prodigious, if any thing natural could be properly termed prodigious, in that supremely tender sensibility with which women in general are so strongly impressed towards one another in the case of lying-in. What are not their bowels on that occasion? It may not be here quite foreign to remark, in support of the characteristic importance of theuterusor thewomb,that in the antient Saxon language the wordManorMonequally signified one of the male or female sex, asHomoin Latin. But for distinction-sake the male was calledWeapon-man,(not however for any offensive weapon orinstrumentin midwifery;) and the femaleWomb-man,or man with anuterus:from whence by contraction the wordwoman.

5. Smellie. Treatise of midwifery, p. 339.where it appears, that the above dress is reserved for a man-midwife’s masquerade-habit in private practice, before ladies, not to frighten them; whereas to the poor women in hospitals his looking like a butcher, is it seems necessary, with bases and an apron; thesteelof course.But if it is not too presumptuous for me to offer solearneda gentleman as the Dr. a hint of improvement for his man-practitioner’s toilette, upon these occasions, I would advise, for the younger ones, a round-ear cap, with pink and silver bridles, which would greatly soften any thing too masculine in their appearance on a function which is so thoroughly a female one. As to the older ones, a double-clout pinned under their chin could not but give them the air of very venerable old women.

6.If a man happens by great chance to have long taper fingers, it is a circumstance so uncommon, that it is proverbially said of him, “He has raremidwife’sfingers.”Nor was it quite unhumorously observed of one of the founders of the sect of instrumentarians in England, remarkable for a raw-boned coarse, clumsy hand, that no forceps he couldinventof iron or steel, being more likely to hurt than his fingers, he had, at least, that excuse for recommending instruments.

7.A la veritêMauriceauraporte cette mort inopineê à uneCause occulte,puisqu’il dit expressement que“ce fut un de ces fortes de malheurs de la destinée que toute la prudence humaine ne peut pas eviter.”C’est aussi l’opinion dela Motte.Levret, p. 272.

8. Levret, p. 269.

9. This will doubtless be laid hold of as one proof, that midwives have, in cases where they are puzzled, been forced to have recourse to men-practitioners: but I have no where said, there were not some midwives unequal to their business. The sequel will shew, that this most probably was one of them, and the case was not much mended by the assistent she called in. A little more patience, though I confess there is some room to think it in this so long lingering case excusably exhausted, would have prevented the murder of the child: but as the concomitant circumstances are not specified, I cannot pretend to determine that point. All I shall say is, that there is not hardly one case in a thousand, in which nature does not know her own time best, and does not take it kindly to be hurried. It has been known, that sometimes the quickest deliveries have been the most fatal, and the most liable to sudden death, by consequent hemorrhages.

10.Dr.Smelliehas himself(p. 403.)ranked among the causes of sudden death to women by violent floodings after delivery the following one; “if in separating theplacentatheaccoucheurhasscratchedortorethe inner surface or membrane of thewomb.”But if unpared nails, or the rough hands of a man, may cause such a dreadful accident, what may not be dreaded from iron and steel instruments, blindly thrust into parts of a scarce less tender texture than the apple of the eye? But of that more hereafter.

11. Levret’s words, p. 279.

12.It is among the smaller mischiefs done to the mother, that I here mention my having not unfrequently seen ruptures brought on by the practice of men-midwives, upon patients in other lyings-in, precedently to the one in which I attended them. These ruptures I have sometimes been able to remedy by good management in my laying them.

13. “Let theforcepsbe unlocked, and the bladecautiouslydisposed under the cloaths, so as not to bediscovered”. Smellie, p. 272.

14. See Smellie, p. 307.

15. Smellie, p, 291. “When the head presents, andcannotbe delivered by the labor-pains; when all thecommon methodshave been used without success, the woman being exhausted, and all her efforts vain; and when the child cannot be delivered without suchforceas willendangerthelifeof themother, because the head is too large, or thepelvistoo narrow: it then becomes absolutely necessary to open the head, and extract with the hand, forceps, or crotchet. Indeed this last method formerly was thecommonpractice when the child could not beeasilyturned, and is still in use withthosewho do not know how to save the child by delivery with theforceps: for this reason their chief care and study was to distinguish, whether theFœtuswas dead or alive; and as thesignswereuncertain, the operation was often delayed until the woman was in the most imminent danger; or when it was performed sooner, the operator was frequently accused withrashness, on the supposition that the childmightin time have been deliveredaliveby thelabor-pains: perhaps he was sometimes conscious to himself, of thejusticeof thisimputation, although what he had done was with anuprightintention.”—This last indeed would be too uncharitable not to grant.

16. Smellie, p. 255. “In this case, we find,byexperience, that, unless the woman has someVERY DANGEROUS SYMPTOM, the head will in time slidegraduallydown into thepelvis, even when it is toolargeto beextractedwith thefilletorforceps, and the child beSAFELYdelivered by thelabor-pains, althoughslowandlingering, and the mother seemsweakandexhausted, provided she be supported with nourishing and strengthening cordials.” Now in this Dr. Smellie is very right; his wrong consists in not making this conclusion more extensive, as that of his fellow-practitioners too often does, in fancying or exageratingdangerous symptoms: whereas for once that nature really occasions them, they are incomparably oftener the effects of the operator’s own mispractice: this observation I cannot, for the truth and importance of it, too often repeat.

17. In honor to truth, be it here noted, that a few, and very few indeed of the midwives, dazzled with that vogue into which the instruments brought the men, to the supplanting themselves, attempted to employ them, and though certainly they could handle them at least as dextroussly as the men, they soon discover’d that they were at once insignificant and dangerous substitutes to their own hands, with which they were sure of conducting their operations both more safely, more effectually, and with less pain to the patient.

18. At this day archbishop of Cambray.

19. By this interest, with respect to the mis-government of the infants that fall upon the parish, I do not mean such a personal interest, as that the super-intendants of the charity put a single farthing into their own private pockets, out of the savings, by the with-holding or grudging a proper provision for the children, but merely the interest of a parish, or the public, in so false and inhuman an article of parcimony. A consideration which, if that were possible, renders it the more inexcusable from the temptation being so much the less.

20. I have somewhere read, that brutes have not been insensible of this effect, on suckling animals, though even of so different a kind from their own, that the most mortal enmity naturally existed between them: such was the instance, transmitted from Pensylvania, of a cat so softened towards a rat, by having accidentally given suck to it amongst its own kittens, that it forbore exerting towards it its usual hostility to that species.

21. The candid reader will please to observe, that in giving up so much as I do of the argument from the prevalence of fashion, I do not give up a little: since I might justly oppose to it the instances of our Royal Family, in which we see so many happily living and florishing monuments of the midwive’s capacity.Accoucheurshad, I presume, nohandin delivering the greatest Lady in this kingdom. The men-midwives will perhaps treat this as trifling. But what will they say to so victorious a proof in favor of the female-practitioners, as that taken from themselves, who, for the most part, were obliged to the midwives for their ushering them into that world, of which they are so much the light and ornament; and out of which world they are rather not so gratefully employed in driving those, by whose function they were helped into it?

22. Pray remark the following directions for thechoiceof a midwife, from Dr. Smellie, p. 448.“She (the midwife) ought toavoidALLreflectionsuponmen-practitioners, and when she finds herselfat a loss, candidly have recourse to their assistence: on the other hand, thisconfidenceought to beencouragedby themen, who, when called, instead of openly condemning her method of practice (even though it should beerroneous) ought to make allowance for the weakness of the sex, and rectify what is amiss, without exposing her mistakes. This conduct will as effectually conduce to the welfare of the patient, and operate as a silent rebuke upon the conviction of the midwife, who, finding herself treated so tenderly, will be moreapttocallnecessary assistence on future occasions, and to consider theACCOUCHEURas aMAN OF HONORand aREAL FRIEND. These gentle methods will prevent that calumny, which too often prevail among the male and female practitioners; and redound to theADVANTAGEof both: for noACCOUCHEURis soperfect, but that he may err sometimes, and on such occasions he must expect to meet with retaliations from those midwives whom he may have roughly used.”

22. Pray remark the following directions for thechoiceof a midwife, from Dr. Smellie, p. 448.

“She (the midwife) ought toavoidALLreflectionsuponmen-practitioners, and when she finds herselfat a loss, candidly have recourse to their assistence: on the other hand, thisconfidenceought to beencouragedby themen, who, when called, instead of openly condemning her method of practice (even though it should beerroneous) ought to make allowance for the weakness of the sex, and rectify what is amiss, without exposing her mistakes. This conduct will as effectually conduce to the welfare of the patient, and operate as a silent rebuke upon the conviction of the midwife, who, finding herself treated so tenderly, will be moreapttocallnecessary assistence on future occasions, and to consider theACCOUCHEURas aMAN OF HONORand aREAL FRIEND. These gentle methods will prevent that calumny, which too often prevail among the male and female practitioners; and redound to theADVANTAGEof both: for noACCOUCHEURis soperfect, but that he may err sometimes, and on such occasions he must expect to meet with retaliations from those midwives whom he may have roughly used.”

23. As the story is told in Hyginus, it should seem that the practice of midwifery at Athens, was, on a season interdicted to the women, who, by a fixt resolution to die rather than submit to be delivered by the men, procured from the Areopagus the repeal of that statute, and the saving from imminent condemnation one Agnodice, who had dressed herself in men’s cloaths, to elude the cognizance of the law. The great practice she had obtained by this means had alarmed the physicians, who thereon accused her as a seducer of the women: against which she easily defended herself by a declaration of her sex. But this brought her under the penalty of the law against women exercising the midwife’s profession. The story imperfectly related in Hyginus, at the same time that it does honor to the modesty of the Athenian women, that is to say, if modesty is not, according to the men-midwives, a false honor, gives room to suspect, that the midwives themselves had perhaps occasioned the promulgation of so absurd a law. It is well known, thatin those antient times, there were for female disorders women-physicians in form. Perhaps their encroachments on the province of the men, by exercising the art of physic in general, might make a restraint necessary, which was only so far faulty as that the remedy was in this, as it often is in other cases, carried into extremes. I would no more justify the women overstepping their proper sphere of employment into that of the men, than I would the men sinking into that of women. They are both reprehensible, both dangerous, but assuredly, the last must be the most ridiculous.

24. It is from this principle, that, with so fair a field for raillery, often not the least forcible of arguments, I have, against those who are such advocates for the use ofanatomyinmidwifery, abstained from laying any stress on the famous imposition of the Rabbet-woman of Godalmin, upon professors of anatomy. I am so far from attacking anatomy, that I aver, every good midwife ought to knowenoughof it to assist her practice. This would not however constitute her an anatomist, nor is it requisite that she should be one.

25.“Il faut d’abord placer convenablement la malade, c’est-à-dire, sur le bord de son lit; les cuisses élevées et écartées, les pieds rapprochés des fesses, et maintenus en cette situation par des aides dont on soit sûr.”Levret,Utilité du nouveau forceps courbe, p. 161.

26.“Si on s’arrêtoit au précepte général, leforcepsseroit un instrument de pure spéculation et non de pratique.” Lev. p. 161.

27. The termimaginaryis here far from an unjust one, and why should not the honor of a deliverance, effectuated by Nature, be as well given to a being of flesh and blood as to a stone? The virtue of theætites, or Eagle-stone, has currently passed for abridging the pains of labor, and accelerating parturition. A French consul in Egypt, ordered one of those stones to be tied to his wife’s thigh, who was in a lingering labor. The stone in this case, more innocent than probably a man-midwife would have been, who would have used means to hurry the birth, or perhaps have gone to work with hisforcepsat least, suffered Nature quietly to go her own pace. What was the consequence? The lady was soon after happily delivered, which there is no doubt but she would equally have been if a brick-bat had been tied to her thigh. But Nature lost the thanks so justly due to her: the stone ran away with all her merit; and this case was added to the catalogue of the miraculous operations of the stone. In how many cases might it be said, that the stone here represents the man-midwife, if to the stone it was not so much more innocent and less dangerous to have a recourse?

28. See La Motte, p. 646, of the quarto edition, Leyden.

29. See La Motte, p. 262. lib. v. chap. 2.

30. If thesebestoperators had been examined touching their opinion of midwives; they would most probably have told you, they were a parcel of poor insignificant ignorant creatures.

31. Dr. Smellie seems to countenance this practice, where he says, p. 232. “We have already observed, (p. 229)that if there is no danger from a flooding, the woman may be allowed to rest a little, in order to recover from the fatigue she has undergone, and that the uterus may in contracting have time to squeeze and separate the placenta from its inner surface.”

32. It is but fair to observe, that M. De la Motte, (Obs. 248) instances, from Peu, two patients perishing by the midwife’s trusting to the pure actings of Nature in this very case.

33. Dyonis in his Treatise, book III. ch. 12. Mauriceau, book II. chap. 14.

34. This instrument was once as much in vogue, as can be supposed of a time, when instruments were not so common as they are now. But how much torture in vain must it have given before it was discovered, that “so far from answering thesupposedintention of it, namely, to extend the bones of the Pelvis; it can serve no other purpose than that ofbruisingorinflamingthe parts of the woman.”Smellie, p. 296.Possibly the more modern instruments, which have supplanted this now exploded one, under the notion of improvement, will, in time be found to be liable to as just objection. But in the mean while what lives must be lost, what tortures endured, in the experiment! How many will have been the victims, women and children!

Possibly the more modern instruments, which have supplanted this now exploded one, under the notion of improvement, will, in time be found to be liable to as just objection. But in the mean while what lives must be lost, what tortures endured, in the experiment! How many will have been the victims, women and children!

35. Even this very Mauriceau allowed, by his brother practitioner M. De la Motte, to have been an excellent man-midwife, is however very justly animadverted upon by him for his weakness in giving into such nonsense, as prescribing histeric medicines by way of hastening the delivery. His capital receipt was the juice of a Seville orange in an infusion of Sena. Let any one imagine, what an effect such a laxative potion must have on a woman, commonly rather wanting to have her strength recruited by proper restoratives, than diminished by purges, on so senseless a view. But how many other instances might be brought of these same most learned men-midwives, making almost as pitiful a figure in the character of physicians, as they must for ever do in that of manual practitioners of our art! Even the works of Daventer, who has such glimpses of true theory, prove him not uninfected with a spice of quackery. This is generally speaking so true of the men-dabblers in practical midwifery, that one would imagine the extension of that meanness of theirs, in putting their nose into such a function, even to their collateral profession, whatever it be, of physician, surgeon, chemist or apothecary, was the revenge of Nature, for the outrages of their pretended art upon her.

36. Page 249, of his treatise of midwifery.

37. That is to say, if he touched the woman at all with it, and did not sometimes, at least,make believethat he delivered her with it though Nature alone should have done the work. Sure I am that that piece of quackery in him of pretending to hide the instrument, might justify such a suspicion, of a less guilt however than that of really applying an instrument insignificant to any purpose but that of torture in vain.

38. How few are there such? consequently how great the danger of such instruments, even if they were good for any thing, to be introduced intocommonpractice?

39. As the practice of midwifery is, properly speaking, under no regulation, may not this be too often the case?

40. If any one doubts of this, he, in order to settle his opinion, needs but to peruse the instructions given by Levret, and other instrumentarians, for the use especially of the forceps. He will find such obscurity, such intrepidity of practices upon flesh not their own, as would make one shudder. The very cautions againstlocking ina part of the uterus between the blades of the instrument, prove the existence of a danger no caution can scarce answer for its being able to avoid. What do you think of young or unskilful practitioners thrusting up instruments atRANDOMinto such a place? yet Dr. Smellie, p. 288, expressly tells you, there is a case in which “The forcepsMUSTbe introduced at random.” This however may give the practitioner boldness, that whatever is his fault, the poor woman it is that is sure to suffer for it, and how cruelly!

41. “The forceps may be introduced with greateaseandsafety, like a pair ofartificial hands, by which the head is verylittle(if at all)marked, and the woman veryseldom tore.” Smell. p. 257.

42. In this case of a monster of two heads, which happens so rarely as that it might almost be reputed null or of no consideration,once more, it is neither a midwife’s business, nor even of one of the common men-practitioners of midwifery. Application should be instantly made to one of the best and ablest surgeons procurable, for reasons too obvious to need specification.

43. Smellie, p. 248.

44. See Reaumur’s art of hatching domestic fowls, &c.

45. If any of my readers imagine that I have, in my objection to the men-midwives, exagerated matters, I intreat of them to consider the following quotation from amale-practitioner, from Daventer, who endeavoured, as much as Nature would allow him, to be a good midwife, however he fell short of it. These are his own words translated, from p. 11. of the French quarto edition.“Can any thing be more shocking to the mother, and to those about her, than to see a man in liquor, scarce knowing what he is about, divested of all compassion, of all sentiment of humanity, his handsarmedwith aknife, acrotchet, apairofpinchers, or otherhorribleinstruments, come to theASSISTENCEof a woman in agonies, begin, for his first attestation of skill, bywoundingthemother, then go on todestroythechild, bring it away piece-meal, with exquisite tortures to the woman, and, after all, grumble in the notion, that he could not be PAID enough for such a fine spot of work? had not such better at once take on to bebutchersorhangmen, than treat thus the image of God, and render the profession odious?”Have I any where said any thingSTRONGERthan this? Daventer, however, certainly did not mean by it to insinuate, thatallmen-midwives answered intirely this description; no, nor I neither. But leaving the brutality out of the question, the mischief and mercenariness of them all differ perhaps in no very considerable degree. Please to remark in the following quotation, theDOCTRINEand practice of that famousman-midwifePeu. “He determines himself, without much ceremony, to thebreakinga child’sarmor athigh, when heimaginesthisoperationwill facilitate the delivery, and that, on thePRINCIPLEof its beingeasy, to repair suchdamagesofnew-borninfants. For the same reason the luxation of a jaw-bone gives him no scruple.” (Translator of Daventer’s Preface.)

“Can any thing be more shocking to the mother, and to those about her, than to see a man in liquor, scarce knowing what he is about, divested of all compassion, of all sentiment of humanity, his handsarmedwith aknife, acrotchet, apairofpinchers, or otherhorribleinstruments, come to theASSISTENCEof a woman in agonies, begin, for his first attestation of skill, bywoundingthemother, then go on todestroythechild, bring it away piece-meal, with exquisite tortures to the woman, and, after all, grumble in the notion, that he could not be PAID enough for such a fine spot of work? had not such better at once take on to bebutchersorhangmen, than treat thus the image of God, and render the profession odious?”

Have I any where said any thingSTRONGERthan this? Daventer, however, certainly did not mean by it to insinuate, thatallmen-midwives answered intirely this description; no, nor I neither. But leaving the brutality out of the question, the mischief and mercenariness of them all differ perhaps in no very considerable degree. Please to remark in the following quotation, theDOCTRINEand practice of that famousman-midwifePeu. “He determines himself, without much ceremony, to thebreakinga child’sarmor athigh, when heimaginesthisoperationwill facilitate the delivery, and that, on thePRINCIPLEof its beingeasy, to repair suchdamagesofnew-borninfants. For the same reason the luxation of a jaw-bone gives him no scruple.” (Translator of Daventer’s Preface.)

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