[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. Accoucheurs had, I presume, no hand in 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 the choice of a midwife, from Dr. Smellie, p. 448.
“She (the midwife) ought to avoid ALL reflections upon men-practitioners, and when she finds herself at a loss, candidly have recourse to their assistence: on the other hand, this confidence ought to be encouraged by the men, who, when called, instead of openly condemning her method of practice (even though it should be erroneous) 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 more apt to call necessary assistence on future occasions, and to consider the ACCOUCHEUR as a MAN OF HONOR and a REAL FRIEND. These gentle methods will prevent that calumny, which too often prevail among the male and female practitioners; and redound to the ADVANTAGE of both: for no ACCOUCHEUR is so perfect, 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, that in 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 of anatomy in midwifery, 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 know enough of 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.