Hippocrates is the first who discovered that wonderful secret of killing the child, and bringing it away piece-meal from the mother’s womb. He advises it, in the manner taken notice of by Dr. Smellie, in his introduction, (page 10. & seq.) I do not know whether it is from that branch of practice that he adopts him for “the father of midwifery” (p. 4.) but, what is certain is, that Galen, and all the successors of Hippocrates, till towards the end of the last century, exactly followed his method of not delivering women in hard labors, but by the means of murderous instruments. I shall not here detain myself with rehearsing the long legend Mr. Smellie gives us of all the authors who have written on this subject to the time of Ambrose Paræus; time when to the progresses made by the midwives of the Hôtel Dieu at Paris in the art of midwifery, it was owing, that the surgeons, guided by their superior lights, made some greater progress towards perfection.
That the reader however may not suspect me of exaggeration, or over-straining points, I request of him to suspend his judgment, to have the patience to hear me out to the end, and he will find, that I have here advanced nothing but what in the sequel stands clearly and manifestly proved.
Objection the Fourth.
In a word, the manual operation of midwifery is an art, a science, and as such consequently more competently to be professed by men, than by women. It is making the art cheap, say the moderns, to allow the practice of it to women.
ANSWER.
I agree with you in the first part of your objection: but I absolutely deny the consequences.
There are women, who, besides the gifts received from nature, are improved by study, by reading, and experience, who succeed much more easily than men in the practice. To say the truth, nature has, in this point, been even lavish to the women, for this art is a gift innate to them.
I will however own, that not all women indistinctly are proper for this business; that there must be natural dispositions cultivated by art; that a purely speculative knowledge is not sufficient; that there are required good intellects, memory, strength of body and mind, sentiments, some taste, and practice joined to theory; so that when I say that the women are born with dispositions for this art; this can only be understood in general, and relatively to the men, among whom those dispositions are more rare, because they are less natural to them in this branch.
Would it not be a sort of blasphemy against the divine providence to maintain, that what God has placed and left in possession of the women, was fitter for the men? the attentive, beneficent, and tender manner with which he governed his people elect, obliges us to believe that he omitted nothing of what was necessary or advantageous to it; since he regarded that people as his own particular dominion and appendage; honoring it with his presence, like a master in his dwelling-house, or a father in his family. He had taken pleasure in the forming and instructing it from its infancy. He put the women in possession of the art of midwifery, he blessed, approved, and recompenced the midwives. It is but just, that men should hear and keep silence where God speaks. They may think themselves happy, to learn from him the true secrets of nature, and not from those pretended doctors who abandon the rules of truth to cleave to themselves; who, instead of her, present us with a phantom of their own creation, who, in short, would make us the worshippers of their dreams and imaginations.
The women have for them the authority of God, who has declared himself in their favor; they have for them the authority of men from one pole to the other, who have in all ages made use of the female ministry in this art. Such a plurality of votes has surely some claim to prevalence, especially, since it is founded upon the natural order of things, upon truth and reason supported by experience. This experience we have on our side: none can deny it, without denying self-evidence.