Midwifery and the diseases of women

by Joel Shew

I wish, therefore, to be understood, that I speak in strong terms against the foolishness of the cry we so often hear against man-midwifery. On the other hand, too, let it be understood, that I never have and never shall object to female midwives; the more of them the better, if they become properly qualified, and women choose. I know something of the benevolence, sympathy, kindness, and assiduity of woman in her care of the sick. We attend a man at a New York boarding house, lonely in the world, without wife or children, or brother or sister to console him in the day of his disease. Death lays hold of him in the morning, and takes away his senses, and all the long day, as he still breathes on, with the cold sweat upon him, the women of the house gather about him, watching anxiously, tearfully, for the last death agony to come. All this have I witnessed, here in this city of New York; and far be it from me to withhold from WOMAN any share which it may be her duty or privilege to perform in that noblest of earth’s callings, the attendance of the sick.

I do not, however, wish to conceal the fact, that I do not believe woman will ever, as a general thing, in any well-regulated society, practice the healing art. I give her all credit for her purer and more devoted sympathy with the sick, for her kindness and benevolence, as well as for her capability of acquiring science. But I do not believe that it is her mission to pursue that toilsome and life-wearing calling, which requires, oftentimes, the exercise of all the sterner faculties and powers, mental and physical, of the stronger sex. In the city of Paris, women, so far as I am acquainted, have had equal medical privileges to those of men; and yet the great proportion of medical practice is done by the latter.

In referring to the following letters it will be seen that I have presented some very striking facts illustrative of the effects of water in childbirth. But it may be asked—Do you have no unfavorable cases in water-treatment? I answer, yes. A few months ago it was my lot to advise a most worthy lady, of active and industrious habits, in this city, in her third pregnancy, and to attend her in childbirth. Owing to mal-position of the child, the face presenting forward instead of backward, as it should, to answer to the wider part of the pelvis, the labor was a very severe and protracted one. She suffered incomparably more than she had in both her former confinements. Expecting to have to resort to the use of instruments, I went for them late in the night; but before returning nature had done her own work. The child’s head, however, was dreadfully misshapen in consequence of the wrong presentation, and the result was, it soon had a sort of convulsions, which, after some weeks of suffering, carried it off.

Another sad case, too, has happened while I am preparing these letters for the press. A most estimable lady of this city, in whom I had for years felt a deep interest, and who was one of the most devoted friends the Water-Cure has ever had, was for the third time pregnant. She had probably always been scrofulous, and a good deal subject to disease. She had, moreover, an old rupture, which at this time was so bad she could not sit up. Such, at least, was her state, for the most part, during the last three or four months she lived. She became very weak, and at about the end of the sixth month of her period she sank. I had not the whole charge of her case, it is true, toward the last, for she was willing, at the most urgent solicitation of her friends, to resort to means which I could not approve of. My candid opinion is, that she would have died, whatever treatment might have been pursued.

If my words are to be believed, it will be seen that I have very great confidence in the Water-Cure. But if I know my own heart, I would in nowise overstate the truth; nor would I knowingly, for my right hand and my left, say that which would mislead either myself or my readers, or make us presumptuous toward that Being who alone can sustain us, and whose paternal care is ever over us, giving us every thing we have—mercy, blessing, and health.

I have not in the following letters spoken particularly of the treatment of spinal disorders. The subject is a most fruitful one, upon which a volume might be written. You are already, many of you, aware of the fact, that almost all of the young ladies who attend boarding-schools nowadays are more or less crooked in the spinal column. The ill hygienic management they receive from birth onward at home, and their too great confinement in schoolrooms, too often badly ventilated, renders the young and growing body of the girl too feeble to maintain itself in its proper position. The brain is likewise too much drawn upon in the mental exercises, which also causes debility of the bodily structures.

In after-life, as well, we see among females a great deal of complaining nowadays in regard to the spine. How few of the sex, indeed, do not, sooner or later, suffer with some form of spinal infirmity! True, in many cases the difficulty at the vertebral column is only sympathetic with some other disorder, as of the womb, stomach, bowels, etc. Yet spinal disease, in some of its protean forms, is a very common complaint.

In all cases of this kind, the water-treatment will be found an invaluable remedy; not that all can be cured—for that is not possible by any earthly means—but as a remedy for either cure, prevention, or palliation, water is the greatest of all remedies for spinal disease. In multitudes of instances, when the patient cannot walk, the new method proves an effectual one. In other cases, palliation is all that can be hoped for.

In multitudes of instances of so-called spinal disease, all that is needed is to establish the general health. Patients have often wondered how it is that by simply pursuing a course of general treatment the local part becomes so much benefited. The reason why a weak spine is often cured without any special applications to the part, appears evident when we consider that the local weakness is merely symptomatic of the general health.

J. S.