[8] Ex-Maitresse Sage-Femme, Surveillante-en-chef de l’Hospice de la Maternité et de la Maison Royale de Santé et de l’Administration Generale des Hôpitaux et Hospices Civils de Paris; Docteur en Médecine de l’Université de Marbourg, &c. &c. &c.
[9] Since this was written we have ascertained that a Charity, called the “Royal Maternity Charity,” has existed for a century in London. “It was instituted, 1757, for the gratuitous delivery of poor married women at their own habitations. The patients are attended in their lying-in by skilful and well-taught midwives, (of whom there are now thirty-five), under the watchful superintendence of appointed physicians, by one of whom the midwives are first carefully instructed at the charge, and expressly for the service of this charity; and, being located in various parts of the metropolis, and not restricted, in the exercise of their profession, to the patients of the Charity solely, though such patients are, at all times and without exception, to have the preference, their services are available to any other persons, who, either from choice or necessity, may be desirous of employing a midwife instead of a medical man; and as these occasions are not rare, some of the midwives having from fifteen to twenty private patients per month, it is not among the least of the advantages incident to the establishment of the Royal Maternity Charity that it is the means of keeping up a class of respectable, intelligent midwives for such emergencies.”—Prospectus of the Royal Maternity Charity, office 17, Little Knight Rider-street, Doctors’ Commons, London.
[10] “It must be acknowledged that, although the function of midwife belongs to the healing art, it was never intended to be exercised by men.”—Roussel, page 217.
“It is incompatible with the general infirmities of human nature to expect that the medical profession, exercised as it is for the daily means of maintenance, can be filled with men of science, with philosophers, or even with honourable gentlemen, while the greatest number are remunerated according to the quantity of drugs they craftily sell at random, as pretended antidotes, and others follow the business of mere nurses, with all the pomp and state of academic learning.”—“On Health,” by Sir Anthony Carlisle, F.R.S., late President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Surgeon of the Westminster Hospital. 1841.
[11] “Others, many others, less industrious, have been amusing and facetious. It is not long since I stood by the bed of a lady, who, between every pain, was making merry in talking with the nurse; and, the moment after the head and no more was born, commenced giving me an amusing account of one of my patients, a relative of hers, whose ailments, she assured me, arose from inattention to my rules of diet.” (!!)—Roberton, Physiology, &c., page 459.
Oh, Roussel, how prophetic were your words!
[12] Roussel, p. 222.
[13] Female physicians were still known at Rome in the time of the Emperors, according to this verse of Martial,
“Protinus accedunt medici medicæque recedunt.”—Hecquet.
[14] Olympias, Sotira, Salpe, Laïs, all cited by Pliny, and many others of whom distinguished authors make mention.—Hecquet.