An address to British females on the moral management of pregnancy and labour, and some cursory observations on medical deportment

TO BRITISH FEMALES ON THE MORAL MANAGEMENT OF PREGNANCY AND LABOUR, AND SOME CURSORY OBSERVATIONS ON MEDICAL DEPORTMENT. SUGGESTED BY The Death OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCESS CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA OF WALES.
WITH A VINDICATION OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’S PHYSICIANS, SIR RICHARD CROFT, DR. BAILLIE, AND DR. SIMS.
By WILLIAM COOKE,
SURGEON-ACCOUCHEUR.
“To enjoy Happiness is a great blessing:—to confer it, a greater.”
LONDON: PRINTED FOR E. COX AND SON, ST. THOMAS’S STREET, BOROUGH.
1817.
J. M‘Creery, Printer, Black-Horse-Court, London.
From the first intimation of the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte, the general sensation heightened daily, till the climax was completed on the melancholy day of interment. Within this interim it was scarcely possible, without a surreptitious effort, either to speak or think on any other topic.
The prevalence of this acute sensibility—the daily intelligence of consecutive evils—and the relief obtained by fixing the attention on some specific object, gave origin to this pamphlet.
Whatever belongs to moral agency, as well as to the preceptive and practical portions, is the result of previous observation; and for them the Author solicits no other concession than is due to the circumscription of his plan. The style and arrangement he is aware are exceptionable. He pleads in extenuation that the address is extemporaneous:—suggested by a high degree of social feeling with his interesting countrywomen, and under circumstances that forbade the delay which much emendation would have occasioned.
Should it be imagined that the specification of certain incongruities is too severe, the Author solicits credence for an assurance that he has exclusively referred to the excrescence and not the character. There is not an individual in the world whom he has intended to deride.