CHAPTER V.

"----Mine honour's such a ring:

My chastity's the jewel of our house,

Bequeathed down from many ancestors;

Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world

In me to lose."

Mrs. Jameson, in her admirable essay, "The Communion of Labour," most

truly observes--"That some departments of medicine are peculiarly suited

to women, is beginning to strike the public mind." Again, in her "Sisters

of Charity," she quotes the following words of the late Dr. Gooch:--"Many

will think that it is impossible to impart a useful knowledge of medicine

to women who are ignorant of anatomy, physiology, and pathology. A

profound knowledge, of course, would not, but a very useful degree of it

might--a degree which, combined with kindness and assiduity, would be far

superior to that which the country poor receive at present. I have known

matrons and sisters of hospitals with more practical tact in the detection

and treatment of disease than half the young surgeons by whom the country

poor are commonly attended."[55]

"Perhaps," says the author of "Women and Work," "there is no profession

which so calls for women as that of medicine. Much suffering would be

saved to young women if they had doctors of their own sex, who, with

friendly counsel and open speaking, would often prevent many forms of

severe disease by attending to first symptoms."

Elizabeth Blackwell,[56] one of those noble women who, braving the servile

conventionalisms of the world, with right and reason, morality and

religion on their side, have triumphed over prejudice and bigotry, by

firmly establishing themselves as female physicians[57]--in "an appeal on

behalf of the medical education of women," after referring to the

establishment and opening of medical schools for women in Philadelphia,

Boston, and other towns of the United States, in the nine years since "the

first woman was admitted as a regular student to a medical college, and

graduated with the usual honours," says:--"In all these places public

opinion has expressed itself heartily in favour of the action of the

colleges. The majority of the female graduates have entered upon the

practice of their profession, and many of them have already formed a

large and highly respectable practice. The intense prejudice which at

first met the idea of a female doctor, is rapidly melting away. If further

evidence were needed of the vitality of the new idea, and its adaptation

to a real want in the community, it might be found in the character of the

practice which has come to those physicians now most firmly established.

Intelligent, thoughtful women, of calm good sense, who appreciate the wide

bearing of this reform, and foresee its important practical influence,

have been the first to employ the new class of physicians in their

families, and encourage them with their cordial approbation."

Dr. Dickson says, in "The Destructive Art of Healing:"--"One of the

greatest obstacles to the progress of medical truth in England, is the

employment of surgeon-apothecaries as midwives--almost entirely

monopolizing the practice of medicine by the influence which they have

gained over the minds of our women; these people will countenance no

physician who does not prescribe large quantities of useless, and too

frequently deleterious medicine.

"The ladies of this country should take a lesson from the American ladies,

who not only prefer midwives of their own sex, but actually employ female

physicians. Female modesty and morality alike require that the diseases of

women should be attended to solely by women; and all through the United

States you now meet with regularly-bred female physicians, most of them

having the degree of M.D. from a university, and many of them being in the

enjoyment of large and lucrative practice.

"We have the pleasure of an acquaintance with Mrs. Dr. Longshore--she is a

lady possessing a strong and original mind, close powers of perception and

reasoning, and a thorough medical education. As a practical anatomist she

has few superiors, even among practitioners of the 'sterner mould.' Mrs.

Dr. Longshore is 'a Friend,' and her whole character is marked by the

excellencies of the 'Friends,' or Quakers, as they are called. Placid,

thoughtful, observant, full of sympathy, and governed by an active

benevolence, she delights in doing good. Her practice is large, rapidly

increasing, and generally successful, and she is devoutly attached to her

noble profession....

"Medicine and midwifery are both domestic arts; woman is all but born a

doctor. Ladies of England, think of this. Hitherto you have left the field

of 'labour' to men who would be better employed with your distaffs and

spindles. Mothers of England, you have a mission--fulfil it; proclaim to

your daughters that the birth of a child is not a surgical operation, but

a natural process; and that there is no case of parturition so difficult

that may not be better managed by a well instructed woman than by a man,

whose very presence in the sick chamber disturbs the uterine action, and

causes the greater number of difficulties that occur in such cases."

"In a country like England, to clear away a given folly is too often,

unfortunately, only to make room for some other folly equally egregious.

This, in our day, has been the case with medicine. Just as a considerable

number of physicians had come to adopt my own view of the true

constitutional origin of diseases, up sprung a class of people who will

have it, that in the majority of female complaints, at least, there must

ever be more or less of _local wrong_, which no possible constitutional

treatment can cure! Whispering mysteriously the words 'engorgement,'

'tumour,' 'inflammation,' 'ulceration of the _os_,' 'version,' and

'retroversion'--phrases for the most part invented for the mere purpose of

striking panic into the hearts of families who must ever be in the dark

_here_--these men straightway confine the patient to her couch--in which

unnatural position they keep her for months, and, if possible, for years

together--during which they subject her to the most odious treatment;

performing, with speculum, caustic, and other dangerous appliances, the

most daring and indecent operations....

"By the people to whose practices I have just alluded a woman is told all

possible and impossible things--things the most frightful that imagination

can conceive--to cure which, forsooth, she must lie on her back for

months. And if this oracular sentence be enforced by two or more of their

number, acting in consultation--anglice in _collusion_--the weak creature

believes accordingly. From that moment she is the dupe and the victim of

the most unprincipled scoundrels, many of whom, by mixing up religion with

their medical cant, contrive to bring some of the richer class of women to

such a state, that they become annuities to those impostors throughout the

greater part of their most unnatural and most miserable lives....

"If, in common with these medicines, then, every medicinal force will

produce its own peculiar _local_ effect, _when swallowed by the mouth_,

why, in the case of 'uterine disease,' of all others, should any woman

submit to the local application of any remedy that cannot be used thus

without the odious manipulations of the persons whose conduct every right

mind, when properly instructed, must deprecate?

"But, as a matter of fact, these manipulations, so far from curing any

disease of the womb or its appendages, have actually set up in the sound

structure a very large share of the possible diseases for which these

people pretend to apply them; and some of the disorders thus set up too

frequently cease only with the life of the victim. Men of England! if you

only knew what your wives and daughters needlessly--mark that

word!--_needlessly_ experience at the hands of those ruthless cheats, your

brows would burn with shame and indignation. How such brutality as these

creatures practise ever came to pollute our shores, is one of the miracles

of the times. A proper feeling in the minds of our women should have

preserved them from the humiliation and torture to which they have been

subjected; while Englishmen of all ranks should have united, long ere

this, to expel from the land the sordid wretches who first introduced the

grossness and indecency of the hospitals of Paris to the houses and

hearths of a too-confiding nation!"

Again, the Author of "Physic and its Phases" brands these counterfeit

professors with infamy in racy and vigorous verse:--

"Men, are you men--who lead such hybrid lives,

Who, being surgeons, sink into midwives?

If with the sex you seriously would vie,

Why not the distaff and the spindle try?

Throughout the Orient, Arab, Turk, and Jew

On such occasions, never send for you;

Not even the Nubian, by the harem door,

Dare show his face, until the birth is o'er.

Talk of the sanctity of married life--

Nation of fools! who thus degrade the wife!

At such a moment, when the feminine mind

Shrinks from the succour of her nearest kind,

Could you do worse, were she a courtezan,

Than to her chamber introduce a man?

No longer left to woman's gentle care,

Travail is now her terror everywhere.

* * * *

Once in the sick room, with an eye to fees,[58]

Tales they get up of uterine disease;

Disease, the realms of Physic never knew,

Till 'speculating Simpson' gave the cue;

And, working thus on woman's weaker nerves,

They raise whatever ghost their purpose serves.

Then, not the young alone, but graver dames,

Fooled by mere phantoms with un-English names,

Endure 'examinations'--Ladies, speak!

Do these not shock the soul and blanch the cheek?

Surprise comes first--next horror, ill disguised,

But soon to worse some get familiarized!

For what will trusting woman not believe

And bear, when 'scientific men' deceive?

With no suspicion of the game these play,

Their tales of terror haunt her night and day.

Now she dreads 'tumour,' now 'occlusion,' now

'Version' she talks of, with a 'why' and 'how.'

Reasons, of course, and numberless occasions,

Have these quick rogues for their 'manipulations.'

But who--immortal truth!--can justify

The frightful means they locally apply?

Caustics, that keep their patients always ill,

Yet ever ready to indorse their skill;

While abscess, ulcer, haemorrhage itself,

Attest what men may CAUSE for love of pelf.

Note the result--whatever the pretext,

In soul, at least, the woman is unsexed;

Words that of yore would make her forehead flush,

She now blurts out to men without a blush!

Heavens! how can husbands, fathers, brothers lend

Their countenance to such an odious end!

In all the _animal_ kingdom, where or when

Were such things needed--tell us, Englishmen!

Of 'base chirurgery' let the world take heed,

For this is base chirurgery indeed!"

Dr. Ewell, in the introduction to his _Letters to Ladies_, says:--

"The serious object of my present solicitude is to wrest the practice of

midwifery from the hands of men, and transfer it to women, as it was in

the beginning, and ever should be. I have seldom felt a more ardent desire

to succeed in any undertaking, because I view the present practice of

calling on men, in ordinary births, as a source of serious evils in

child-bearing; as an imposition upon the credulity of women, and upon the

fears of their husbands; as a means of sacrificing delicacy, and

consequently virtue; and as a robbery of many good women of their proper

employment and support.

"Several observing moralists have remarked that the practice of employing

men-midwives has increased the corruption among married women. Even among

the French, so prone to set aside the ceremonies between the sexes, the

immorality of such exposures has been noticed. In an anecdote of Voltaire,

it is related, that when a gentleman boasted to him of the birth of a son,

he asked who assisted at the delivery; to the answer, 'a man-midwife,' he

replied, Then you are travelling the road to cuckoldom! The acutely

observing historian of nature, Count Buffon, observes, virginity is a

moral quality which cannot exist but with purity of heart. In the

submission of women to the unnecessary examinations of physicians,

exposing the secrets of nature, it is forgotten that every indecency of

this kind is a violent attack against chastity; that every situation which

causes an internal blush is a real prostitution....

"But the opposition, the detestation of this practice cannot be so great

in any husband as among some women. The idea of it has driven some to

convulsions and derangement; and every one of the least delicacy feels

deeply humiliated at the exposure. Many of them, while in labour, have

been so shocked at the entrance of a man into their apartment, as to have

all their pains banished; others, to the very last of their senses,

suffering the severest torments, have rejected the assistance of men. To

be instrumental in relieving one of this truly interesting class, will be

a heavenly consolation to all who can be alive to the pleasures of serving

the virtuous."

Dr. Beach, in his work on Midwifery, has the following:--

"Who shall officiate in parturition? In consequence of the practice which

prevails in the present day, this has become a grave question. The

physician contends, with much zeal, that it is his province to officiate.

Females, he alleges, are incompetent; and these assertions of physicians

have influenced the minds of females to such an extent, that they are

forcibly impressed with the belief that there are no others competent; and

when it is proposed to many women to employ a midwife, they appear to

shrink with horror, and many even suppose that in trusting themselves to

the most accomplished female accoucheur, they jeopardize their lives....

"The physician takes it for granted, and even boasts, that if he can

attend one single case of midwifery in a family, he has _for ever after_

secured their patronage; so that both interest and prejudice operate as

obstacles and barriers to any improvement or change in the practice; and

although the most fearful consequences have (occurred), and are still

daily occurring, modern females cling to this unnatural practice.

"Notwithstanding, however, the existence of the above obstacles, we are

well assured that females, if rightly qualified, are not only as fully

capable as men, but are even more so; and, therefore, the most valid and

conclusive reasons may be assigned why a reformation should take place in

this department of the practice. What more conclusive than the fact of the

actual attendance of women in child-birth in all nations, previous to the

sixteenth century; and the attestation of competent persons during the

first century of man-midwifery to the fact, that not half so many fatal

cases occurred before as after the innovation. And, in the first

settlement of this country (America), when females[59] attended

exclusively on such occasions, it was as rare a fact to hear of a woman

perishing in child-birth, as it is now to hear of an Indian or an animal

perishing in labour, who are delivered by the unaided powers of nature."

A letter, addressed by Sir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the College

of Surgeons, to the late Sir Robert Peel, on the attempt by some members

of the medical profession to legalize man-midwifery, is well worthy of the

perusal and consideration of our readers. The letter appeared in the

_Times_ newspaper, and raised a ferocious howl from the men-midwives; but

the ever gullible British public looked upon the affair as a mere medical

question in which it had no concern, and the howl carried the day against

reason, morality, and truth:--

"SIR,--The high ministerial station which you deservedly occupy, must

often expose you to the various kinds of applications respecting the

condition and management of our national institutions, and also to

personal or partial interference about their several real or pretended

interests. In all such instances you must perceive the fairness and the

ultimate advantage of preferring direct information from the respective

constituted authorities, of requiring advice from rival institutions upon

doubtful measures, and of regarding with jealousy the private

communications of interested individuals. It is, however, reported that

you are, at this time, beset upon the subject of introducing an ordeal for

licensing men-midwives, by certain members of the London College of

Surgeons, and that you are urged by popular men (whose wisdom and

disinterestedness may be questioned) to favour their scheme with your

powerful influence.

"As the prevalent vice of avarice may have some share in this professional

movement, it is fit that you and the public should be acquainted with the

probably concealed effects of granting the solicited privileges; and, for

the reasons already given, I am induced to address you through the press.

"Man-midwifery has only been practised in England during the last hundred

years, and it was introduced as a French fashion. From the beginning it

has been strongly opposed on the score of its indecency, by many

distinguished and scientific medical men; and also, because the birth of

mankind appears to them to be a purely natural process, so wisely ordered,

that it very rarely demands any other aid than experienced mothers can

safely give. Even so late as the illustrious mother of his present

majesty, that exemplary Queen was personally attended by good Mrs. Draper,

without difficulties or misadventures; whereas the contrary result, under

male management, in the fatal affair of the Princess Charlotte and her

infant, will be long remembered.

"If it should be asked why so many professional men addict themselves to a

degrading vocation, it may be answered, that the practice of man-midwifery

leads to unlimited power in every family, and thence to lucrative ends.

Women, naturally timid, and ignorant of their own structure, are

peculiarly exposed, during the most important office of their existence,

to the persuasions or menaces of more knowing persons, and they are thence

easily made to believe, that the natural and wholesome delays and pains of

childbed are within the controul of medical or surgical art--an assumption

which is too generally acted upon, and with unvarying evil consequences;

because it is a violation of the ways of nature. Men-midwives have

continually alleged that ignorant women practitioners commit many fatal

mistakes, and now they present similar objections against unlicensed men.

If, as I believe, the safeguards of child-bed are amply provided for by

nature, and that not one instance in a thousand calls for any other help

beyond what any moderately experienced woman can give, why are we to

license adventurers, who may seek notoriety by desperate acts, often

involving manslaughter--operative acts, the moral propriety of which is

very doubtful, and the time and the methods for performing them still

subjects for rancorous disputes? But the present affair is not respecting

the utility of men-midwives, but the impropriety of empowering any special

corporate medical body to coerce the rest; to further impede

female-midwives in a becoming duty, and to deprive delicate women of that

great resource of self-respect. Already the prevalence of man-midwifery

has driven country surgeons and apothecaries to adopt this humiliating

office, and the number of women practitioners has been thence so reduced,

that paupers are in many places delivered by apprentice boys under sixteen

years of age. The Royal College of Physicians in London, who rank the

highest for learning and decorum, have lately rescinded their admission of

licentiates in midwifery, whether for considering the practice as

derogatory to a physician, or as an overweening privilege towards females

and children, is not avowed; but it seems that no London physician,

educated at Oxford or Cambridge, has yet condescended to be a man-midwife.

The Royal Colleges of Surgeons in London, in Dublin, and in Edinburgh,

have likewise hitherto renounced every connexion with man-midwifery.

"The teachers of midwifery are indiscriminately doctors and surgeons; but

at this moment the majority of lecturers and superintendents of lying-in

charities are physicians, while a multitude of legally appointed

sub-physicians (styled apothecaries) are equally entitled, with the other

classes of the faculty, to establish tribunals for examining and licensing

candidates for man-midwifery, if they should deem it expedient. Finally,

it may be noted, that the different classes of men-midwives have never yet

agreed among themselves to adopt a common ordeal for certifying the

qualifications of their calling, and you may be assured, Sir, that many

worldly interests will rage against the establishment of any monopoly of

this kind in any single institution, because man-midwifery is the covert

way to medical fortunes. If, however, the greediness of a few individuals

should expose this subject to free discussion, and the judgment of married

men and modest women should be copiously awakened, perhaps the general

custom of employing women may be again resorted to, and their competent

instruction publicly enforced.

"It is said, that our changeable neighbours at Paris are already tired of

their fashionable freak; and when our countrywomen reflect, that not one

in ten thousand of their sex throughout the globe allow of the presence of

a man during the rites of child-bed, they may acquire courage, and unite

their efforts to replace the routine of midwifery among themselves. I will

not offend you and the public by any observations upon the outrageous

stories collected on this occasion, to prove the violent and fatal

injuries committed by unlicensed men-midwives, because I think the

privilege sought for would increase those evils.

"With the greatest respect, I have the honour to be, your very obedient

Servant,

"ANTHONY CARLISLE.

"_Langham-place_, Feb. 19."

"In a recent number of the _North British Review_ appeared an excellent

article on 'The Employment of Women;' under the head of women doctors, the

writer says: 'But the something practical--where is it?' We believe that a

great deal, which is very practical, is scattered over this article. But

we have still some further suggestions to offer. Not very long ago, a

statement 'went the round of the papers,' to the effect that there were

already eight diplomatized female physicians practising in Boston (U. S.),

and that there were thirty-eight students in the Female Medical College.

'Whenever,' says an American writer, 'there are sufficient data to

establish the truth (now little if at all disputed in America), that

child-birth is freed from its worst difficulties and dangers when the

unnatural presence of men is dispensed with, the medical and surgical care

of women and children will pass into the hands for which nature designed

it.' There would appear to be nothing very unreasonable in this, but, on

the contrary, something extremely rational and hopeful. But see how the

facts stated above are received by the faculty in England. The leading

medical journal of this country thus comments upon them:--

"'Female physic thrives apace in America. At Boston, where Columbia gave

birth to the young Constitution, which is now sowing its wild oats

broadcast, there is a female medical college, numbering thirty-eight

students. A grant of government money has also been voted towards

establishing a similar institution at New York. This is to be under the

immediate superintendence of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., late of St.

Bartholomew's, with a bevy of those spinsters mentioned by Shakespeare as

free "maids who weave their threads with bones" for anatomical

demonstrators.

"'At Boston, moreover, there are eight doctoresses with diplomas in full

practice. We suppose some of these female physicians are married, and this

involves a great social mystery of which we have as yet received no

account. When the Mrs. M.D.'s are attending to patients in their boudoirs

of consultation, or pointing out pathological nicknacks in their

anatomical drawing-rooms, or going their rounds with stethoscopes in their

bonnets, what are their husbands doing? Do they superintend the

perambulators, or are these hitched on to the professional broughams of

their mammas? Is it a part of the husband's marital duty to manage the

nursery--in short, to attend to the domestic affairs generally? Perhaps

matrimony is ignored altogether. Indeed, we do not well see how a

conscientious doctoress could promise to love, honour, and obey a husband

who might order her to give her patients a dose of strychnia all round.'

"Surely this is not the way to deal with so grave a question. Argument

must be wanting, or the sneer would not be resorted to by so distinguished

an authority. The same questions as are here put might be employed also to

write down any description of independent female labour. When women go out

to teach drawing or music, or when they attend to shops, or make caps and

bonnets, gowns or mantles, what, it may be asked, are their husbands

doing? Attending to their own business, if they have any, or living on

their wives' earnings, Mantalini-like, if they have not. We do not mean to

say that there are no practical difficulties in the way of the effectual

working of this scheme. Objections will readily suggest themselves; but

they are not insuperable objections. All women may not be fit for such

work. But all men are not fit for it. Many women will lack the necessary

amount of nerve; but many men lack it also. In difficulty and danger women

have great presence of mind. They are often calm and collected where men

are unhinged and unbalanced, and incapable of exertion. Women have more

tenderness and more patience, and they must necessarily understand many

female ailments better than men. They will always have one great advantage

over male practitioners--female patients will be more unreserved in their

communications to them. Many women have been sacrificed to their

delicacy--to their repugnance to state fully their ailments to

men-doctors; perhaps even to call them in until it is too late. Let such

objections as these be fairly balanced against those which may be adduced

against female practitioners, and let us calmly consider the average

result.

"We do not pretend to know, under the existing order of things in Great

Britain, what proportion of children are annually brought into the world

without the assistance of any male practitioner. But we know that in

humble life it is very common to employ only a nurse or midwife. And we do

not believe that, under such circumstances, more dangerous cases of

parturition occur than where men are professionally employed. But if such

were the case, if the number of deaths or injuries were proportionately

greater, no argument could be derived from the fact against the employment

of educated and diplomatized women. If, in the present state of things,

accidents arise from the absence of men, it is not on account of the sex,

but on account of the ignorance of the practitioner. The same amount of

knowledge, as indicated by the diploma, existing in both cases, we cannot

help thinking that the advantage, in most cases, will be on the side of

the female attendant.

"We might pursue this subject much further; but time and space have alike

narrowed to a small compass, and we have by no means exhausted our notes.

In the early part of this paper we have touched on the subject of nurses,

but rather in connexion with amateur than with professional labour. Many

women of a better kind might find profitable employment in this path of

life; and if licenses, or diplomas of an inferior class, indicating a

certain amount of medical and physiological knowledge, were granted to

them, the business would not be beneath the adoption of women of birth and

education. _But here again, perhaps, the jealousy and selfishness of men

would step in and thwart our efforts; for the presence of such educated

nurses would often render it wholly unnecessary to call in a regular

practitioner at all."--North British Review_, No. LII. page 333.

"Among the highly civilized and numberless ladies and women of China[60]

and the East," says Sir Anthony Carlisle, "ordinary matrons are

universally employed in the sanctuary of child-birth: and they would

revolt with horror from any proposal to admit the presence of a man." This

statement, coming, as it does, from such a high authority, when inveighing

against the needless outrage upon the modesty of women, which we commit by

the employment of men-midwives, cuts from under them the argument of the

interested professors of "the art," who would have us believe, that

British women, from the peculiarities of the climate, and a high state of

civilization, are more liable to accident and danger in the parturient

state, than the women of those countries in which the _fashion_ of

man-midwifery is unknown.

Even Roberton, one of themselves, is compelled to admit, that any argument

based upon climatic influence is fallacious, and easily capable of

disproof, for he says, in his apology for the study of midwifery as a

science:--"In reply to such a statement as this (Sir Anthony Carlisle's),

it has been common to argue that, in warm countries, the parts concerned

in admitting the passage of the child are so relaxed, that labour becomes

comparatively easy; and that hence we are to account for the nonemployment

of accoucheurs. This is a very false view of the subject. In warm

countries, whose inhabitants live after the same manner as ourselves,

parturition is in no degree easier than it is here. In the town of Sierra

Leone, so near the equator as latitude 8 deg. north, we are assured by Dr.

Winterbottom, who resided there, that having been present at a number of

labours, they in every respect resemble those of women in the same

situation of life in England. "I have met," says he, "with instances in

England where the foetus was expelled with more ease than I ever knew it

to be at Sierra Leone."...

"The prophetical writings of the Old Testament furnish many allusions to

painful parturition. The Jews inhabited a warm climate; and yet, were we

to judge of parturition among them from the frequent reference the

prophets make to it in figures and similes, when predicting the sufferings

to be produced by impending judgments, we should conclude that in no

people was nature's sorrow more severe. Thus, Jeremiah, the coming

miseries of Judah passing before his vision, exclaims:--'I have heard a

voice as of a woman in travail, and the _anguish_ as of her that bringeth

forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion that bewaileth

herself, that spreadeth her hands.' A multitude of passages containing a

similar allusion might be cited. In the historical part of the Scriptures,

too, there is incidental mention of several cases in which parturition

proved fatal. So much for the relaxing influence of a warm climate! a

notion which, like various others respecting the influence of climate on

the human system, is at variance with facts."

Among the myriad peoples inhabiting the vast Continent which, in the

aggregate, we term India, men-midwives are unknown. There have been, no

doubt, attempts made by Europeans to introduce the abominable custom, but

we believe, excepting in some of the towns most frequented by them,

without any considerable success. As the inhabitants of Tahiti, and the

isles of the Pacific, once the abode and very Paradise of nature in her

glorious perfection, have found to their cost, so we fear in all other

portions of the world's surface, where our boasted civilization has set

its foot, the evils which accompany its progress invariably take

precedence, and largely preponderate over its advantages. Wherefore

should we add to the primal curse fulminated against woman, irrespective

of locality or race, "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," a far

greater one in the ruin of her modesty, by the introduction of man into

the sanctuary hallowed by his absence from the beginning of the world. O

ye fine ladies of England, who talk so glibly of all the virtues, and

blazon your moral excellencies before the nations! if ye will not take

example from the highly civilized and numberless ladies and women of China

and the East, learn from the poor savage, in whom, though doomed to the

lowest grade of earth's inhabitants, there yet glows fresh from Heaven,

like a pure star gleaming through the night of heathenism, that loveliest

attribute of woman--modesty. Over that mysterious rite which God has

confided to the female sex, the rude, wild, cruel, ignorant, uncivilized,

naked, idol-worshipping natives of New Holland, throw a veil impenetrable

to man. Roberton says, page 480, "Among them (the New Hollanders) a man is

not permitted to approach where parturition is going on." There are,

however, rare and beautiful exceptions to that accursed fashion which now

so debases the women of this country; for we have undoubted authority for

stating that "there are ladies, and ladies of rank, titled ladies, who

would not let a man near them." In these bright examples propriety still

finds a refuge; in their chaste minds the light of reason and refinement

shines with a fair and unsullied ray amidst the gloom of apathetic

indecency, which shrouds in its cold and clammy cerements so many of their

sex. All honour to those true-hearted women who so proudly uphold their

native modesty, their sex's loveliest charm, above the rank pollution

which, in these sensuous and degenerate days, infects the sanctuary of

marriage.[61]

Among the Jews, the peculiar people, guarded and preserved so wondrously

by the Providence of God, from the day that Israel went down into Egypt

with three score and ten souls, until they had multiplied "as the stars of

the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore," no such

violation of decency was permitted or required to insure the fulfilment of

God's promise to Abraham. We learn that females were regularly authorized

and appointed as midwives, for the Sacred writings give us the names of

two of them: "And the King of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of

which the name of the one was Shiphah, and the name of the other Puah: and

he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see

them upon the stools: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be

a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not

as the King of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive. And

the King of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye

done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive? And the midwives

said unto Pharoah, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women;

for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and

waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God,

that He made them houses." We know also that there were physicians in

those days, for "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm

his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel." Now, it is most certain

that if the great protecting power of the Jews--the father of his people,

had deemed it necessary or proper, for the safety of mothers or of

offspring, to afford any assistance beyond that which nature and the

midwife supplied, it would have been so ordained, and as surely mentioned

by the great historian and leader of the Israelites, or by some other of

the sacred writers; but of this there is no sign whatever, and we must,

therefore, infer that this innovation was not so much as thought of by the

Jews, highly civilized and vicious people as they were, and that it was

reserved for us, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, to permit

such a scandalous breach of decorum as the prostitution of our wives to

the impure touch of a _man_-midwife. Roberton says, in his Apology--"But

an objector will ask, cannot a matron practise these expedients? and if

so, where is the use or propriety of such a class as men-midwives? I

reply, doubtless a matron may practise many of the expedients referred to,

if they have been taught her. It is of the value of midwifery as a

science, originating with and practised by men, compared with matron or

uncultivated midwifery, of which I have been speaking. A certain

proportion of instructed female midwives in a community may, for aught I

know, be a benefit." Let the reader mark, learn, and inwardly digest these

words! Here is the admission of an accoucheur of the present day,

confirming the words of Roussel, and the many other authorities whom we

have quoted, as to the fitness of women for the practice of the expedients

necessary in midwifery, and, further, a most important acknowledgment, as

coming from one of his class, that females, properly instructed as

midwives, would be a benefit to society. To be sure they would! Who doubts

it? And is there not enough of wealth, and energy, and right feeling in

England to say--We will that there shall be in every community properly

instructed midwives; we will that there shall be organized, in all our

great towns, schools of midwifery for the instruction of women,[62] who

shall go forth from them fully competent in "nine hundred and ninety-nine

cases out of every thousand," to perform that office which is now, from

their sex, so indecently performed by men. The instruction of midwives has

nothing of novelty in it: women are so instructed in the Dublin Lying-in

Hospital, at this day, and we believe[63] that they are so instructed at

Manchester and in London; they "walk the hospital," as the term is, for

six months, and at the end of that time they receive a "diploma;" but

there is a jealousy on the part of the accoucheurs, who fear, naturally

enough, that their trade (a very lucrative one[64]) might be injured if

these women should assume too much responsibility, and the consequences of

this jealousy[65] are injurious to the full and complete instruction and

competency of the "nurses."[66]

These nurses are very much in the power of the accoucheurs, for it is

principally through the latter's recommendation that they obtain

employment, at least among the upper classes, and the evils which arise

from this state of things are fatal to the interests of morality. _The

nurse is afraid to act without the man-midwife_, not because she is

incompetent, for she has walked the hospital and has her diploma of

efficiency, but because it essentially concerns the _man_-midwife to play

the principal part, in order that the belief in the necessity for his

presence and _assistance_ should not, by any act of hers, be shaken; such

is their jealousy on this head, that we have known the man-midwife, on

arriving too late to be present at the birth, roundly rate the nurse of

his own appointment for not having sent for him sooner, although the case

was of the most ordinary description, and great additional ease of mind

and general comfort were experienced by the patient, through the absence

of the doctor.[67]

The nurses in their six months' training at the hospital learn much,

however, that is useful to them in their own after-practice, for many of

them are employed by the humbler classes from motives of economy, and we

would fain believe of delicacy also. Through one of these nurses we have

learnt the frightful indignities to which the poor hospital patients are

sometimes subjected. A difficult case of labour, as it is termed, occurs,

the wretched victim is stripped naked, candles are placed around the bed,

and the students assemble in crowds, perched on ladders and benches, to

watch the progress of the labour, and the manipulations of the operator. O

God! that in a Christian land, in our boasted Britain, priding herself on

her civilization and proprieties, such orgies, which would raise a blush

amidst the rites of devils, should disgrace the name of science!

We have said that women are admitted as pupils at the Lying-in Hospital in

Dublin, and that after a six months' probation they obtain a diploma: but,

as they are never permitted to operate in any but ordinary cases, it

cannot be intended that their education should obviate the necessity for

the employment of accoucheurs. Now we would suggest, that instead of this

partial instruction they should be afforded ample opportunity for

acquiring a perfect knowledge of the expedients necessary for overcoming

the difficulties of their profession; that, instead of dismissing them at

the end of six months, they should be retained until they are sufficiently

instructed to be able with confidence and facility to undertake those

extreme cases which are now reserved to men. No man of intelligence, who

reflects on this subject, will for a moment doubt that where nicety of

touch and delicacy of handling are required, the female organization is

more perfectly adapted for them than that of men; and when we consider the

delicate duties to be performed in midwifery, we cannot but think (and the

thought will find an echo in the minds of thousands) that woman, and woman

alone, is both morally and physically fitted for the office.[68] It may

possibly be urged by the men-midwives, that, if they were to be deprived

of their ordinary practice, and to be superseded by women, in all cases

of labour in which no extraordinary difficulty presented itself, they

would not be so well prepared to operate when accident might call for

their interference. We may in all justice reply, what is that to us? see

ye to that; are we to prostitute our wives to your impure touchings,

"manipulations," tentatives, and experiments, in nine hundred and

ninety-nine needless cases, in order to afford you the requisite

experience for the thousandth? We trow not; and the science of surgery

must indeed be at a low ebb if, when occasion requires, there are not to

be found men of that noble profession who could undertake with success any

needful operation.

In former times the difficulties in certain cases of parturition, which

are now trumpeted forth by the writers on man-midwifery "with all the pomp

and state of academic learning," were easily overcome by discreet and

experienced women, who, although innocent of physical, classical, or

mathematical science, knew full well how to operate when necessity called

for their intervention. We find the following passage in Albertus

Magnus:--"Whence it is to be known that in some women there is greater

suffering than in others, because in some it happens that the foetus

sometimes presents a hand, and sometimes a foot, all which are hurtful.

Then the midwives carefully thrust back the foetus, and hence great pain

is produced, so that many women, unless very robust, are weakened even to

death," &c. Then, after describing the effect of an accident which

sometimes occurred even with the more appropriate assistance of the female

hand, but which[69] _if the truth was known_, since the invention of

instruments has probably been of much greater frequency, he continues:

"Then discreet midwives use a certain ointment, anointing the vulva,

because the womb is often injured and wounded in the vulva, and therefore

it is necessary that discreet women and experienced in this operation

should be employed in delivery.[70] But this I have learnt from some

women, that when the foetus presents its head in the outlet, then the

business fares well, because then the other members follow without

difficulty, and an easy labour is the result."[71]

To the casual reader who has the curiosity to wade through the filthy and

disgusting details of the ponderous tomes on obstetricity, for the most

part garnished with engravings at which "purity must blush and

licentiousness may gloat," and who incontinently pins his faith upon the

dogmas thereof, it will seem absolutely incomprehensible how unit after

unit, of millions on millions numberless, who have peopled earth,

contrived to see the light, from the days of our general mother Eve, until

that happy hour when first "obstetric science" flashed upon the world, and

by its magic touch scattering the dreams of a primeval curse, vouchsafed

its "art" to teach poor feeble ineffectual nature how to act.

One result of the frightful tissue of imaginable and unimaginable horrors

contained in these books, is that almost every woman in the upper and

middle classes believes that the chances are ten to one in favour of a

"cross birth;" the nurse, instead of relieving her fears, rather confirms

them, and on the strength of that understanding which always prevails

between the nurse and the _man_-midwife, she takes care to impress upon

the sufferer, wrought up to a pitiable state of nervous excitement, that

nothing but the beastly manipulations of the "doctor" can render the

labour successful.

Women, while suffering under the severe pangs of parturition, most

frequently lose much of that natural delicacy belonging to the sex, and at

the moment when terror and anxiety overrule every other feeling, the

_man_-midwife approaches, and offers to the trembling victim that

disgusting insult, the examination _per vaginam_; an inquest both morally

and physically injurious to the patient, and utterly needless, from the

information previously obtained by the female attendant.

Furthermore, these men well know that "one fool makes many," and that the

more they are able to convince the public of the dangers and difficulties

of child-birth, the more sure are they of an unfailing trade in the

practice of _man_-midwifery. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_, and

when they had successfully achieved one generation of patients, the rest

was easy; all henceforward was plain sailing; the mothers, despite the

qualms of outraged delicacy, once convinced that their safety had been

dependent on the skill of the _man_-midwife, the daughters, as a matter of

course, followed in their wake; the idea, if perchance it occurred, of the

indecency of the act, being promptly set at rest by the recollection that

their mothers had done the same. Thus a kind of freemasonry is established

between the _men_-midwives and women, which, from its very nature, cannot

be free from gross impropriety, and is sometimes attended with most

pernicious consequences, of which the husband is kept in entire

ignorance.[72] It is a common occurrence in ordinary life to see the

_man_-midwife seated as a guest at your dinner-table, or as a morning

visitor in your wife's drawing-room, who perhaps but a few weeks before

may have informed himself both by _touch_ and _sight_ of all the inmost

secrets of her person, who knows as well as you do yourself every hidden

charm which she possesses. Faugh! the very thought is gall and wormwood,

and outraged delicacy demands instant and eternal redress.

Sir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the Royal College of Surgeons,

assures us that child-birth, like parturition in the lower animals, is

purely a natural process, the safety of which Divine Providence has most

wisely secured; and consequently that it is always mischievous to tamper

with pregnant women, under the pretence of hastening, easing, or retarding

their delivery. Roberton, in allusion to the above, says--"If this be

correct, it follows of course that midwifery is no science, but a

presumptuous fraud."[73] Again he says, "Admitting, as I do, not that

ninety-nine in a hundred, but that a large proportion of labours, say

nineteen out of twenty, would terminate well under the eye of an

intelligent nurse, were they left _solely_ to the energies of nature,"[74]

&c.; and again, "I have admitted that a considerable proportion of labours

would do well, unaided, under the eye of a nurse," &c.[75] Dr. Johnson

says--"The ordinary treatment of women in child-bed is irrational,

indefensible, and most preposterously foolish. Nothing can be more absurd.

Childbirth is not a disease! It is simply the performance of a natural

function, like eating, drinking, &c., yet we treat it as though it were

some formidable and dangerous malady. Dr. Conquest, a London accoucheur of

repute, says--'Child-birth is that natural process by which the womb

expels its contents, and returns to the condition in which it was

previously. I call it a natural process; and in my opinion no sentiment is

more pregnant with mischief, than the opinion which almost universally

prevails, that this process is inevitably one of difficulty and danger. I

am well aware that some degree of suffering is connected with child-birth;

and this applies equally to the whole animal creation, whether human or

brute, though the former suffer more than the latter, _because the habits

of brutes are less unnatural_. That the suffering of women during

child-birth is referrible, in a great degree, to their artificial habits

of life, and not to their form and make, is evident from a variety of

circumstances. History, in all ages of the world, establishes this

position. What made the striking difference between the ancient Hebrews

and Egyptians, of whom it is said: "The Hebrew women are not as the

Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives

come in unto them?" What, I would ask, made the marked difference in the

labours of these two classes of women, but the plain, simple, and

industrious habits of the Hebrews, as contrasted with the effeminacy, and

luxurious living of the Egyptians? Look into more modern history, and you

will see the same fact established again and again. I could mention

innumerable proofs, but a few must suffice.

"'The celebrated traveller, Bruce, says, that the Abyssinian women retire

by themselves, and go through the process of child-birth with so much ease

and expedition, that they do not confine themselves a day after labour,

but return to their usual occupations immediately.

"'The same simplicity, expedition, and freedom from danger, attend this

natural process amongst the natives in most parts of Asia, Africa, the

West Indies, and America, where the mode of living among the natives is

more simple and abstemious, and their occupations and general habits more

laborious, than in more civilized countries.

"'The Moorish women have no midwives, but are usually alone at the time of

delivery, lying on the ground under an indifferent tent. They will even

travel, on the same day, a distance of fifteen or twenty miles.

"'In Morocco the women suffer so little, that they frequently go through

the duties of the house on the day after their delivery, with the child on

their back.

"'One respectable traveller assures us, that with the native Africans

labour is so easy, and trusted so entirely to nature, that no one knows of

its existence till the woman appears at the door of the hut with the

child.

"'Another, equally respectable, tells us, that as soon as an American

Indian woman bears a child, she _goes into the water and immerses it and

herself_.[76] One evening he asked an Indian where his wife was: he

replied: "I suppose she has gone into the woods to set a trap for birds."

In about an hour she returned with a new-born infant in her arms, and

holding it up exclaimed: "Here, Englishman, here is a young warrior!" Were

it necessary, many more instances might be brought forward. But it has

been said, this occurs only in warm climates, where the heat relaxes the

parts concerned in parturition. This objection is not consistent with

truth, for the natives of Livonia, and the savages of North America,

retire to some private place, and return immediately after their delivery

to their customary work; and the Greenlanders do all their common business

just before, and very soon after their labour, and a still-born or

deformed child is seldom seen or heard of among them. Still further to

establish the assertion that human parturition is not necessarily a

process of danger, we know that in this country servant girls, who become

illegitimately pregnant, very often absent themselves for an hour or two,

and, after giving birth to a child, return to the discharge of their

household duties immediately.[77] It is, therefore, obvious that the

difficulty and danger that so often attend child-bearing in civilized

society,[78] are attributable, principally, to _unnatural customs and

habits of living_, in which, women, in this and other countries, indulge

from their infancy,[79] and which operate by preventing the constitution

from acquiring its proper firmness and vigour, and by producing a weak,

feeble, and irritable state of body, &c.'" Dr. Johnson adds: "This is the

language of Dr. Conquest--a metropolitan accoucheur physician of much

eminence--a man who, from the long and successful practice of his

profession, has deservedly acquired wealth and distinction--a man,

therefore, who can afford to be honest--a man who, unlike Archdeacon

Paley, can afford to keep a conscience. With those, therefore, who put

their trust in authority rather than in the light of their own

reason--that is to say, with nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of

every thousand--the opinions of such a man as Dr. Conquest cannot fail to

have more than ordinary weight."[80]

In the foregoing pages we have sought to place before our readers, in the

clearest light, the opinions of Roussel and other eminent men, touching

the practice of man-midwifery; opinions the force and truth of which,

based as they are upon principles of the purest morality, and the sound

doctrines of physical science, cannot be controverted or denied. We have

shown that the Royal College of Physicians, so lately as the year 1827,

designated the practice of _man_-midwifery as "an art foreign to the

habits of gentlemen of enlarged academical education," and one which might

safely be entrusted to discreet matrons. We have, in confirmation of these

opinions, quoted the sentiments expressed by Sir Anthony Carlisle, late

President of the College of Surgeons, who styles the boasted "art" "a

pretence," and accoucheurs "mere nurses." We have proved, by the admission

of men-midwives themselves, that the great majority of cases of midwifery

would do well under the eye of a nurse, and that skilled midwives would be

a benefit in every community. We have before our eyes the example of

France with her schools of midwifery; and against the arguments and

dispassionate opinions of men of the highest rank in the medical

profession, mooted as they have been at various times, and in different

countries, yet all tending to the same conclusion, we find absolutely

nothing but the self-interested doctrine of an anomalous class[81] of

medical men, whose policy it is, for the furtherance of their own selfish

views, to decry the powers of nature, and to abrogate the employment of

females in the sanctuary of child-birth; a doctrine which suffers its

disciples, regardless of all delicacy, and in defiance of the contempt of

their professional brethren, to prey upon the weakness and natural

timidity of the sex, and with presumptuous indecency to arrogate to

themselves duties proper only to women; a doctrine which, while it deals

an irreparable blow[82] at the very heart of every family, threatens with

destruction virtue, modesty, and honour.

Husbands, fathers, countrymen, THINK OF THESE THINGS!

We do most heartily believe that if, unbiassed by the self-interested and

fraudulent assertions of quackery and empiricism, you would exert your own

reasoning powers on the question, the doom of this abuse would soon be

sealed. But as, in many another usage which men individually admit to be

blots in that high state of civilization to which we have advanced, our

apathy overcomes our desire for their correction, and we let them pass;

so, because this wrong has forced its prostituting influence through the

length and breadth of the land, magnified and sustained as it is by the

terrorism of treatises, and the artistic display of its abettors, despite

the warnings of our consciences, we yield ourselves to its guidance, we

dare not lift up the veil which conceals its abominations, and even fear,

cowards that we are, to question its privileges, privileges which a

"damned custom" has accorded; privileges the very thought of which should

make the blood curdle in our veins with disgust and horror! For if we for

a moment reflect upon the precepts laid down in the indecent farragos of

"obstetric science," and further upon the fact, that these precepts are

invariably carried into effect, whenever the "patient" can be induced to

submit to the outrages therein enjoined, we must acknowledge that in all

such cases purity itself can oppose no effectual barrier to these

insidious assaults, and that modesty must fly from the chamber when the

_man_-midwife crosses its threshold.

O hateful, horrible thought! that the young bride, radiant with joyous

innocence, and love's glowing fantasies, "beautiful exceedingly," and pure

as fair, must in a few short months, in blind obedience to a spurious

custom, yield herself to the pollution of a stranger's _touch_, and banish

for ever from her husband's soul that dear delicious dream, entirety of

possession!

This is no exaggerated picture, no overstrained description of that mortal

stain which rends into very shreds the charm of delicacy; but a simple

truth, a terrible reality, not to be glozed over by the fallacious

reasonings of frigid philosophy. O men! if you have the souls of men, if

one drop of the old chivalrous blood of your ancestors yet palpitates in

your veins, if you have not irrecoverably bowed down to the idol custom,

if mammon, lust of gain and power, with all the fell catalogue of vicious

inclinations, have left but one cell unoccupied in your heart's mansion,

if you yet hold woman to be the fairest, purest, best of the Creator's

works; oh! let the cry of "out damned spot," rise heavenward from every

home in the United Kingdom; let sacred purity once more assert her rights,

let nature's illimitable powers do their work unaided, undefiled by the

sordid infamy of charlatanism, and future generations shall gratefully

invoke unnumbered blessings on the memory of those who saved the daughters

of England from the curse of a cruel degradation.

THE END.

Footnotes:

[1] "In the midst of our apparent material prosperity, let some curious or

courageous hand lift up but a corner of that embroidered pall, which the

superficial refinement of our privileged and prosperous classes has thrown

over society, and how we recoil from the revelation of what lies seething

and festering beneath!" _Mrs. Jameson's_ "_Communion of Labour_," pag. 20.

[2] Anno 1663. Vide Roussel, Systeme Moral et Physique de la Femme, ed.

1855, p. 224, and Astruc, Maladies des Femmes, t. vii.

[3] This surgeon was most probably a person named Chison, of whom Count

Bussi Rabutin relates the following anecdote:--"Meanwhile Madame de Crequi

went to seek Madame on the day which she had appointed for their party to

St. Cloud. She there met Chison, who had come to see one of Madame's girls

who was ill; he is La Valiere's medical man, and is facetious and witty;

after he had learned the complaint of the young lady, Cheer up, said he to

her, I have remedies for all, even for lovers' hearts. Ho! G---- G----!

replied Madame, teach me them directly, for ten or a dozen that I have,

whom I should like to cure, provided it costs me only a few garden herbs.

Ha, Madame, replied he, it costs me much less than herbs, it costs me

nothing but words. In fine, Chison, who sacrificed everything for the

entertainment of Madame, related to her how the king had sent to him to

inquire, and that he had demanded, with extreme emotion, whether

Mademoiselle de la Valiere could really survive, and if her leanness was

not a bad symptom. And what was your answer? replied Madame. What, said

he, can your highness be in doubt? I assure you that I promised him, with

as much boldness, the prolongation of her years, as if I had a letter from

Heaven. I spoke as a philosopher of life, and death, and destinies; it

needed nothing (when I saw the joy of the king) but to have promised him

an immortality for the girl. True, G----, cried Madame; what secret charms

has the creature to inspire so great a passion? I assure you, replied

Chison, that it is not her body which supplies them."--_Hist. Am. des

Gaules. Amours de la Valiere_, page 430.

The "witty and facetious" Chison spoke with a certainty which experience

alone could give; he had doubtless attended La Valiere in her

"confinement." Do such conversations ever occur now? There is nothing new

under the sun; what has been will be, and the laureate, not without

reason, sings in Maud:--

"Yonder a vile physician blabbing

The case of his patient."

[4] Alison's History, page 111, vol. i.

[5] Ibid. page 180, vol. i.

[6] Alison's History, page 217, vol. i.

[7] Astruc, des Maladies des Femmes.

[8] Ex-Maitresse Sage-Femme, Surveillante-en-chef de l'Hospice de la

Maternite et de la Maison Royale de Sante et de l'Administration Generale

des Hopitaux et Hospices Civils de Paris; Docteur en Medecine de

l'Universite 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 medicaeque recedunt."--_Hecquet._

[14] Olympias, Sotira, Salpe, Lais, all cited by Pliny, and many others of

whom distinguished authors make mention.--_Hecquet._

[15] _Stevens' Man-Midwifery Exposed._

[16] Hecquet says: "The provinces at a little distance from Paris still

find this custom very revolting."--_De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher

les Femmes_, page 8.

[17] "In labours strictly natural, terminating after a few hours of

moderate suffering, scientific midwifery is passive; its interference

extending only to the division of the funis."--_Roberton._

[18] Lives there a man who would believe that the strongest passion which

nature has implanted in the human heart is altogether dead in the

_man_-midwife, that he is in fact emasculated by his profession, although

"not necessarily an old woman?" It is far otherwise, and many of these

gentry have the organ of philoprogenitiveness strongly developed.

[19] By "_le toucher indiscret_," as the French term this hateful

indecency.

[20] We are informed that in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital neither nurses

in training as midwives, nor male students, are permitted to operate in

any case of difficulty. We are not aware if this remark applies to the

London hospitals and similar institutions in other parts of the kingdom,

but we have little doubt that in this respect the practice is the same in

all. It is not easy to understand how, under these circumstances, either

nurses or students can acquire much, or indeed any, knowledge for

discrimination. It is most painful to reflect that any experience which

these persons may ever possess, must of necessity be gained after they are

let loose upon the world, at the sacrifice, it may be, of life, or at

least of moral and physical suffering, and injury to those patients who

are the unfortunate objects of their first essays.

[21] Letter from the Royal College of Physicians to the Secretary of State

for the Home Department, dated May 2nd, 1827, in reply to a memorial from

the Obstetric Society.

[22] No; because "unmarried females" have not themselves endured these

outrages, and still retain a modesty which is born in every woman, and,

therefore, might possibly re-animate in the patient feelings which,

howsoever natural, beautiful, and holy, would mar "the doctor's process."

[23] "Generally, indeed, no _active_ assistance is necessary until after

the birth of the child," &c. _See ante, Ramsbotham ipse._ "And another

reason is, that such patients have been spared the ill effects arising

from vaginal examinations," &c.--_Treatise on Midwifery._ Hardy and

M'Clintock. Page 9.

"We here feel ourselves obliged to inform women that those persons whom

they employ in this kind of examination deceive them by affecting a

knowledge which they do not possess. All information derived from 'touch'

is very uncertain."--_Roussel Systeme Moral et Physique de la Femme. Chap.

sur la Grossesse._

[24] Has the doctor first informed the husband of the necessity for this

_vaginal examination_? Has he, before entering the patient's chamber, or

at least before he dared to make such "a request" to her, gained the

husband's confidence by candidly and honestly explaining the indelicate

nature of the usages which his "art" permits him to adopt?

[25] See Roussel, _ante_.

[26] There is a maxim prevalent with accoucheurs, and the hellish aphorism

is treated as a jest among them, that a woman will usually desire to

patronise, upon all subsequent occasions, the man-midwife who has once

introduced his finger _per vaginam_.

[27] A foul delusion, promoted and encouraged by the doctor, and the

midwife, at his instigation, well knowing, that in nine hundred and

ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, nothing else would induce a woman to

submit to so gross an indecency.

[28] "It has been said that women delivered under circumstances where they

had no assistance, generally escape laceration; now this is not

universally true; but supposing that it were, it admits of this easy

explanation: namely, that inasmuch as these females are almost always

involuntarily subjected to the deprivation we have mentioned, they

naturally use their utmost endeavours to retard the birth of the child

when they feel the head in the vagina, in the hope of aid reaching them

before the critical moment of delivery; and another reason is, that such

patients have been spared the ill effects arising from vaginal

examinations, &c."--_Extract from Treatise on Midwifery, by Drs. Hardy and

M'Clintock_, page 9.

Let the reader compare these observations with those of Dr.

Ramsbotham--"look on this picture and on that,"--and then he will be

astonished, not at the difference of opinion between the men-midwives, but

at the fact that women do so frequently escape the terrible consequences

of all this interference with the laws of nature.

[29] As if nature would not of herself direct the position most likely to

facilitate delivery.

"Who ever found the eagle dead upon her eyrie, or the she-wolf in her

lair?" and would the doctor have us believe that while giving to man

dominion over every living thing, thus recognizing his physical as well as

mental superiority, and greatly multiplying the conception of woman, God

had forgotten to instruct her in a faculty which he gave in perfection to

all the lower animals?

[30] Roberton, Physiology, &c., page 425.

[31] An instrument called the speculum matricis was, however, in use at

the beginning of the last century, and is mentioned in the Bibliotheca

Anatomica, 1712.

[32] The Speculum; its moral Tendencies. By a Fellow of the Royal College

of Surgeons. London: Bosworth & Harrison.

[33] Vide Ramsbotham, _ante_.

[34] "It was to the midwives that they applied, in the first ages of the

Church, to be assured of that fidelity which Christian virgins had vowed

to their state of chastity. But, if the Fathers found fault from the time

when Christian females were thus exposed to the judgment of their own sex;

if they discovered in this practice something shameful and infamous, of

what criminality would they not have taxed the attempt of men at the

present day, who, in like cases, are not ashamed to deprive the midwives

of this employment."--_Hecquet, De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les

Femmes_, page 7.

[35] O ye adepts in chloroform, take heed to your ways, and O ye fools,

who submit to be made _dead-drunk_ under its influence, beware lest a

worse thing happen unto you!

"It would be absurd to suppose that the cases of sudden death from

chloroform constitute the full measure of the mortality. How few even of

these are generally known or reported. Hardly any in private practice; and

now, even in hospitals, they are concealed. It is well known to the

frequenters of the London hospitals, that, in the same week in which the

recent death from chloroform at St. Thomas's occurred, another took place

in another hospital, but which did not become the subject of judicial

inquiry. Humanity, and the character of the profession, demand that the

whole subject should be investigated anew."--_Medical Times and Gazette._

[36] Roussel, page 177, de la Grossesse.

[37] Maladies des Femmes, t. v., p. 375.

[38] Roussel, de l'Accouchement Naturel, page 208.

[39] "It is a common notion, that the brute enjoys great advantages,

compared with woman, in the act of parturition, from the position and

configuration of its pelvis. Is not this groundless? In the first place it

is said that the oblique axis of the brim, in woman, is less favourable to

the descent of the foetal head than the axis of the brim in the brute,

which is parallel with the spine. But the physiologist knows, that

ordinarily in woman, just before the commencement of the labour pains, the

uterus slowly, and without pain, descends by a mechanism, which Sir C.

Bell has so beautifully described in his memoir on the muscularity of that

organ; and that thus a small segment of the foetal head becomes engaged

in the brim, and in the position most favourable for passing, before the

uterine pains commence. The truth is, the obliquity of the axis of the

brim is, in general, _no disadvantage or impediment whatever_. In the

second place, it is urged, that the great size of the human foetal head

occasions incomparably more difficulty than the sharp-pointed, small head

of the brute foetus. For this there is equally no foundation. The size

and figure of the human brim are as well fitted to give passage to the

large head of the child, as the brim of the brute pelvis to allow the

entrance of the comparatively smaller head of the foetal brute, &c., &c.

Still looking at the figure of the human foetus, and comparing it with

that of the foetal brute, some may be inclined to imagine,

notwithstanding what has been said, that the brute will pass with far

greater facility than the child; such was my own opinion till I subjected

the point to the test of experiment. We are not to think, but to try, as

John Hunter advises," &c.--_Roberton, Physiology, &c._, p. 247.

[40] _L'Histoire General des Voyages._

[41] "During pregnancy the squaw continues her usual avocations, and, even

in its most advanced state, she neither bears a lighter burthen on her

back, nor walks a shorter distance in a day, than she otherwise would. If

on a march she feels the pains of parturition, she retires to the bushes,

throws her burthen from her back, and, without any aid, brings the infant

into the world. After washing in water, if at hand, or in melted snow,

both herself and the infant, she immediately replaces the burthen upon her

back (weighing, perhaps, between sixty and one hundred pounds), secures

her child upon the top of it, protected from the cold by an envelope of

bison robe, and thus hurries on to overtake her companions."--_James'

Narrative of Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains._

[42] "The Samoeides are a tawny, squat, miserable race of pagan savages,

subjects of the Russian empire. They are found along the Frozen Sea, on

the European side of the Jugorian Mountains, east of these on the River

Oby, and elsewhere on the vast shores of Siberia. According to Tooke, they

are mature at a very early age," &c.--_Roberton_, quoting _Tooke's Russian

Empire_, vol. ii. p. 286.

[43] "The truth is, that when the pregnant will submit to prepare

themselves for what is before them, will be temperate in their eating,

regular in their hours for sleep, and for exercise daily in the open air,

a considerable proportion may secure benign labours. It is the sedentary

and luxurious who oftenest suffer severely in parturition," &c.

&c.--_Roberton's Notes on Pregnancy_, p. 460.

[44] Roberton has a remark to the same effect.

[45] "The beasts ca't manipulated."--_Shepherd on the Phrenologists,

Noctes Ambrosianiae_, vol. ii. p. 21.

[46] "The calling of 'accoucheur' does not appertain to men. It is with

them nothing but a usurpation, or a rash experiment, founded upon the

timidity of women, who believe that, by this unworthy submission, they

insure their lives; and upon the credulity of husbands, who, by this

dangerous condescension, imagine that they more surely preserve their

wives."--_Hecquet, De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_, page

9.

[47]

"Ubi non est mulier, ibi ingemiscit aeger."

Where woman is not, there the sick man groans.

[48] "At the time when this work was published, there had appeared a

catechism, in which M. Dufot, a physician, who was the author of it,

proposed to himself to instruct the midwives in the country, and he set

forth in a manner clear, exact, and perspicuous, the principles of the art

of midwifery. It would be desirable that these ideas, which are sufficient

for their purpose, should be disseminated; they would prepare the public

to do without the help of men in an office where their agency seems

necessarily to compromise morals. This object, to which some men only gave

the attention which it deserved, is doubtless the one which has urged some

intendants to occupy themselves in the instruction of midwives. We learn

from the _Gazette de France_, of 25th September, 1776, that the dame

Ducoudrai, commissioned and pensioned by his Majesty, had, by the care of

M. Fontette, chief magistrate (intendant) of Caen, organized more than a

hundred and fifty midwives in two public courts which she had held. That

example, without doubt, will not be lost on the provinces; whatever the

price of knowledge may be, it is in such close contiguity to the

temptation to abuse it, that I dare hardly put up any prayers for my

country. In all the County of Foix, where I was born, deliveries are

intrusted to women of the lower order, who never have the least idea of

anatomy, and with whom the whole art is reduced to some practical and

traditionary customs. But they display zeal, patience, and uprightness,

while the others apply themselves to nothing but the glitter of a

scientific phantom, and the former cannot but succeed the best. I remember

to have seen but one woman perish, in my little town, from the

consequences of labour. It is true that, contrary to custom, she had been

delivered by a man. The event was so distressing, that they had every

cause to believe that nature reprobated such a fatal innovation."

[49] Here let us illustrate the truth of Roussel's observations, by a

statement of facts which have occurred in our own day:--The _Portafoglio

Maltese_ (October, 1856), in describing the frightful effects of a late

earthquake in Candia, gives the following:--"In one case a woman was

discovered alive under the fallen ruins. She had been miraculously

preserved by a beam falling in such a manner as to leave a small space,

where she remained eight days without food before being discovered. During

this time she gave birth to a child, which was also alive. Another woman

was being delivered when the earthquake commenced; the husband and three

women who were attending her fled. On the husband returning after the

panic was over, on removing the ruins of his house, he found his wife with

her child in her arms alive in a corner of one of the rooms, which had

only partly fallen in. During the awful moment she had been safely

delivered."

[50] "While such are the prominent vices and defects of the poor, vices

and defects of a different kind, but no less offensive to morality, are

found among the rich. Sensuality and excess, selfishness, evil speaking,

want of charity and kindness abound. All these are obstacles to moral and

philosophical progress. Upon what can we rely to counteract them? Upon the

force of civilization? Twice have its powers been tried and found wanting.

In the days of Augustus Caesar, when order had been established and

prosperity revived, when Virgil and Horace flourished at Rome, and the

vast provinces of the Roman Empire were blest with peace and tranquillity,

everything seemed to promise a long duration of happiness. But the

Christian Apostle and the Pagan Satirist alike prove all was hollow and

delusive. Vice increased, knowledge decayed, power vanished, and soon

everything portended the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Again, in

the eighteenth century of our era, civilization had reached a very high

point. That century, enlightened above all its predecessors, which enjoyed

the literature of the age of Louis XIV. in France, and of Queen Anne in

England, when Racine, Moliere, Boileau, La Fontaine, Dryden, Pope,

Addison, and Swift were read and admired; when Newton's philosophy was

established; when La Voisier, and Black, and Cavendish had advanced

chemistry to a science, and Watt had, by his improvement of the steam

engine, rivalled the invention of the printing press, seemed, in its

course, tending to the happiness of nations. But before that century

ended, revolutions tearing up the foundations of society, wars desolating

all the nations of Europe, bore sad testimony to the mistake that had been

made. What was that mistake? The nature of man is so prone to evil that a

strong restraint is required to keep down his bad passions, and subdue his

vicious inclinations. He requires, likewise, some special incentive to

good. The legislators of antiquity sought that restraint upon evil, and

that incentive to good, in powerful institutions guarded by sanctity of

manners. It was thus that Sparta and Rome were led to virtue. But these

institutions perished when manners no longer supported them."--_Lord John

Russell._ Lecture delivered at Exeter Hall, on the Obstacles which have

retarded Moral and Political Progress, November, 1855.

[51] "I know that our philosophy, always abounding in singular maxims,

pretends, contrary to the experience of all ages, that luxury forms the

glory of states; but after having forgotten the necessity of sumptuary

laws, will she yet dare to deny that good manners are essential to the

duration of empires, and that luxury is diametrically opposed to good

manners?"--_Rousseau Discours_, p. 67.

[52] "It was (says M. Astruc) at the first delivery of Mademoiselle de la

Valliere, and for the safer keeping of the secret. It was feared that the

presence of a midwife in the palace, where suspicion reigned already,

would furnish fresh food for the malign curiosity of the courtiers; to

impose on them they made use of a surgeon whose practice attached him to

the court. For the rest, it cannot be denied that there have been, in

every age, men who studied or taught the art of midwifery. We have

treatises on midwifery of very ancient date, written by physicians.

Surgeons, while exercising themselves in other surgical operations, did

not neglect that of midwifery. But the habitual and daily custom of

delivery was never established as it is at present; they interfered only

in difficult cases, where it was believed that an experienced operator was

required."

[53] There is a work of M. Hecquet, entitled _De l' Indecence qu'il y a

aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_.

[54] "There are, nevertheless, women, even now, whom it would be

impossible to induce to be delivered by men. We speak not of those

localities where this employment is confided to women, but in towns, where

men-midwives are more in vogue. There is, it is said, a great Queen in

Europe who has an accoucheur of whom she never makes use. Women deliver

her, and the _man-midwife_ is in the ante-chamber, as a witness of the

tribute yet paid to a custom which had been renounced."

We fear that, in these "days of advance," even Majesty itself has

succumbed to the prevailing fashion.

[55] "Sisters of Charity," page 75.

[56] "While Miss Nightingale is showing the world the great good to be

achieved by ladies devoting themselves to the sick and suffering in

hospitals, there is a lady in Paris who has actually worked her way to the

title of M.D. The lady in question is Dr. Emily Blackwell, daughter of the

late Mr. Samuel Blackwell, of Bristol, and has, it appears, a sister

practising in New York, as a regular physician, armed with the authority

of a diploma. Dr. Elizabeth, like Dr. Emily, completed her medical studies

in Paris. To the latter lady the Paris hospitals have been freely opened,

and Dr. Emily Blackwell has followed the clinical lectures of Jobert de

Lamballe, Huguier, Casenove, Guersaint, and Blanche; and on the Register

of the great hospital of the Hotel Dieu may be seen the first woman's name

ever entered, as a medical student, on its books. The intense earnestness

with which the lady doctor labours to make herself perfect mistress of

those branches of the art which chiefly concern women and children, has

not only overcome prejudice, but made her a favourite with her able

instructors, who have been brought to say, that there can be no more

objection to the presence of ladies in hospitals, practising as

physicians, than to nurses. Baron Sentin, one of the Physicians in

Ordinary to the King of the Belgians, has invited Dr. Emily Blackwell to

visit the great women's hospital at Brussels."--_Daily News._

[57] A respected correspondent has communicated to us the following

extract from a recent paper:--"There are not far from twenty of them, and

several of them are in excellent business. They confine themselves

generally to midwifery, and the diseases of their own sex. Their success

in the former branch tends to establish them firmly in families. The

number will probably be gradually on the increase, since they are

beginning to be employed in the neighbouring cities of Charlestown,

Cambridge, Roxbury, and adjacent towns, much more than formerly."

Among these female physicians the Misses Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell,

natives of Bristol, are justly celebrated. See an interesting sketch of

the life of Miss Emily Blackwell in the _Englishwoman's Review_, June,

1857.

[58] A correspondent has kindly communicated to us the following "ower

true" tale of humble life:--"A poor girl, married, at the age of sixteen,

to a youth not much older than, and equally poor with, herself (so

impoverished are they), fell in labour of her first child. She was living

with her father and mother, and he with his, for they were too poor to

keep house, and her father was an old man and paralyzed, and both

generations, on both sides, were as poor as was possible, consistently

with living at all. Nevertheless, the wife's mother, having known better

days, was ambitious of having her daughter attended by a doctor, and,

during her pregnancy, had, by one device or another, scraped together the

sum of half a guinea--the doctor's fee--which was laid up in store--an

uneasy possession, in the meantime, for the poor mother, whose pressing

occasions often tempted her to break in upon it. Labour, at length, coming

on, late at night, as usual, the chosen doctor was sent or rather gone

for, and came. The girl was in considerable pain, but the doctor, after

the usual examination, declared his services to be, for the present,

unnecessary. The doctor, however, was not so occupied with his patient but

that he was observed, by her mother, to cast sundry glances around the

forlorn and desolate apartment, as if doubtful of his fee. It is but

justice to the apartment to state that it fully warranted the doctor's

suspicions. The doctor, however, not being wanted, as he said, went home,

leaving it to be understood that he would come again. Not coming, a long

time having elapsed, and the labour becoming urgent, the mother went to

the doctor's house (this was the third time that, full of trouble, she

traversed a mile of windy streets at midnight). Her application to the

knocker was answered from the window by the doctor's wife, who stated that

her husband was in bed, and meant to stay there unless his fee was paid

down. In vain the poor woman urged that the fee was ready, pleading

besides her daughter's extremity. 'No,' was the reply, 'if not paid then

and there the doctor would not stir.' This being simply impossible, the

poor woman again sought her home, which, by this time, was a scene of

pain, terror, and confusion. And now, instead of the 'usurper,' the 'true

prince' was first thought of in the person of an old woman in a

neighbouring court, who was well spoken of, and, by her timely aid, the

long protracted labour was at length terminated for the moderate fee of

five shillings. So the girl did well, the mother saved five shillings and

sixpence, and the doctor remains a _respectable man_!!"

[59] Dr. Stevens mentions, that Dr. Gregory took from a gravestone in "the

old burying ground" in Charlestown the following inscription:--

"Here lyes interred the body of Mrs. Elizabeth Phillips, wife to Mr. John

Phillips, who was born in _Westminster_, in Great Britain, and

commissioned by John, Lord Bishop of _London_, in the year 1718, to the

office of a midwife, and came to this country in the year 1719, and, by

the blessing of God, has brought into this world above 3,000 children."

An obituary notice in the _Boston Liberator_ of 1845, runs thus:--

"Mrs. Janet Alexander died in Boston, September 15, 1845, after an illness

of nearly four months, aged 61 years. She was a native of Scotland, and

was instructed in the theory and practice of midwifery by Dr. James

Hamilton, the celebrated professor of Midwifery in the University of

Edinburgh. She received her diploma from him in 1817. She arrived in

Boston in November, 1819, and commenced the exercise of her profession on

the ensuing Christmas day; and for a period of more than twenty-five

years' practice among the most intelligent and respectable portion of the

community, was most singularly successful, having NEVER, IN ANY INSTANCE,

LOST A PATIENT."

[60] "We may, with tolerable safety, estimate the present population of

the Chinese Empire as between 350,000,000, and 400,000,000 of human

beings. The constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the

complete absence of immigration into China, is striking evidence of the

redundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly

confined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookein, representing

together a population of probably from 34,000,000, to 35,000,000, I am

disposed to think, that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from

these provinces alone, is located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of

Siam it is estimated that there are at least 1,500,000 Chinese, of which

200,000 are in the capital (Bankok). They crowd all the islands of the

Indian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census, there are

136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom

without one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California

and other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the

Sandwich Islands, to the Western Coast of Central and Southern America,

some have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British

West Indies has been considerable; to the Havannah greater still. The

annual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and

20,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China."--_Sir

John Bowring._

[61] "Notwithstanding all our affectation of superior delicacy, and our

reprehension of the coarse manners of our ancestors, we suspect that they

would have been shocked at the idea of the _indelicate_ and _unnecessary_

presence of a man in the sanctuary of the lying-in room."--_Plea for

Physicians, Fraser's Magazine_, March, 1848.

[62] "An institution such as I have in my mind, should be a place where

women could obtain a sort of professional education under professors of

the other sex,--for men are the best instructors of women;--where they

might be trained as hospital and village nurses, visitors of the poor, and

teachers in the elementary and reformatory schools," &c.--_Mrs. Jameson's_

"_Sisters of Charity_," page 116.

[63] Roberton says, "In speaking of the small mortality in child-bed among

the poor, I limit my remark to those of this community (Manchester), who

have long had the advantage of being attended chiefly by midwives

carefully trained and educated in connexion with our Lying-in

Charity."--_Pag._ 437.

[64] We have heard that the almost incredible sum of five hundred guineas

has been paid as a fee to one of the fashionable "ladies' doctors:" and

that another caused it to be understood that he would not take a less fee

than fifty guineas, whereupon the number of patients soliciting his

attendance increased a hundred fold.

[65] We know a case in point, where a lady was anxious to engage a midwife

who had been recommended to her as perfectly competent to perform her

office without the intervention of the _man_-midwife, but the latter would

not hear of this, and insisted on the substitution of one of his "own

nurses." It is easy to perceive the reason of this manoeuvre. Had the

original midwife attended, she would have undertaken the operation, and

the importance of the _man_-midwife would have been materially lessened.

The lady's delicacy and comfort were not of sufficient weight to

counterbalance this consideration. _Ex uno disce omnes._

[66] "In 1848 sixty-one mothers died to every 10,000 children born alive.

Since that year the mortality has progressively declined, as follows:--58,

55, 53, 52, 50, down to 47 in 1854. This is a gratifying result, and there

can be no doubt that by further care and skill, especially by training up

a class of educated nurses, the deaths in child-birth may be largely

reduced from their present high number, 3009."--_Medical Times and

Gazette._

[67] So far from the presence of a _man_-midwife being a source of

consolation or assurance to the sufferer, as Dr. Ramsbotham alleges, we

have it on the authority of a lady, the mother of many children, that on

three occasions, when the "doctor" _was not present_, her labours were

much easier, and in all respects more thoroughly natural and happy in

their results; than on those in which the _man_-midwife officiated; and

further, _that the very ring of the bell announcing the arrival of the

hated accoucheur has frequently "put back" the pains of labour_.

[68] Before we laugh at this short-sighted folly and cruelty, which

supposes that the interests of the two sexes can possibly be antagonistic,

instead of being inseparably bound up together, we must recollect that we

have had some specimens of the same feeling in our own country, as, for

instance, the opposition to the female school at Marlborough House, and

the steady opposition of the inferior part of the medical profession to

all female practitioners. That some departments of medicine are peculiarly

suited to women, is beginning to strike the public mind. I know that there

are enlightened and distinguished physicians both here and in France who

take this view of the subject, though the medical profession as a body

entertain a peculiar dread of all innovation, which they resist with as

much passive pertinacity as Boards of Guardians and London

Corporations."--_Mrs. Jameson's_ "_Communion of Labour_," p. 40.

"When educated gentlemen set an example of selfishness and exclusiveness,

it is only to be expected that the working classes should follow it, and

so the greed of man is the degradation of woman."--_North British Review_,

No. 52, p. 837.

[69] "According to Osborne's testimony, instruments are used _dangerously_

in parturition, _one thousand one hundred and seventy-six times_ in every

twelve hundred cases; and the same author, in his reprobation of Denman's

culpable and inconsiderate introduction of them into practice, makes this

memorable remark: 'I must believe that he must have forgotten THE MANY

UNHAPPY EFFECTS which have come from their use to our mutual knowledge,

even when they had been in the hands of very experienced and skilful

men.'"--_The Author of_ "_The Death-blow to Man-midwifery_," quoting

_Osborne's_ "_Essays_."

[70] "The conduct of medical men in all former ages proves still farther

that which we would establish (that the profession of man-midwife is

repugnant to nature). If they required information on the state of their

female patients, it was to the midwives they applied. The midwife,

therefore, passed for the eye of the doctor, because it was through her

ministration that he assured himself of what he neither committed to his

own examination or to that of another man."--_Hecquet_ "_De l'Indecence

aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_," page 6.

[71] Albertus Magnus de Secretis Mulierum. _Ed. Amst._ 1662, p. 85.

[72] The _man_-midwife usually intimates his wish to make the examination

_per vaginam_, through the medium of the nurse of his own recommendation,

and should the patient, struck with the daring impropriety of his request,

desire to inform her husband of the infamous proposal, the nurse dissuades

her by saying, that "husbands are not supposed to understand these

things," and that she will probably destroy both her own life, and that of

her child, by refusing to submit to it! After this the accoucheur soon

triumphs, the examination is effected without further remonstrance, and

the victim is irretrievably entangled in his insidious toils.

[73] Roberton, Apology, page 470.

[74] Roberton, page 486.

[75] Ibid. page 489.

[76]

"The moon had gathered oft her monthly store

Of light, and oft in darkness left the sky,

Since Monnema a growing burthen bore

Of life and hope. The appointed weeks go by,

And now her hour is come, and none is nigh

To help; but human help she needed none.

A few short throes, endured with scarce a cry,

Upon the bank she laid her new-born son,

Then slid into the stream, and bathed, and all was done."

_Southey's Tale of Paraguay._

[77] See Roussel, _ante_.

[78] What will the men-midwives, with all their precautionary humbug, say

to this?

"On the 3rd of June, 1857, at Moradabad, amid the terrors of mutiny, the

wife of Captain M. B. W----, Bengal Native Infantry, gave birth to a son,

and on the same day, with all the officers and their families, escaped to

Nynee Tal, a hill station distant about sixty-five miles, which they

reached in safety on the 5th instant at 11 a.m. They fled with only the

clothes on their backs, having been plundered of

everything."--_Correspondent of the Times._

Well might this English lady exclaim with the Indian mother, "Here,

Englishmen, here is a young warrior!"

[79] There cannot be a doubt that the habit of wearing stays is as

injurious to the internal organization of women as it is to their external

form. Physiologists are well aware of this, yet European women are so

enslaved by custom, that we see them tightening up their daughters, from

very infancy, in a framework of iron and bone, until their bodies assume

the shape which the corset-maker chooses, instead of that which nature, in

the perfection of her knowledge, would bestow.

[80] Diseases of Women, by E. Johnson, M.D.

[81] "The most natural proof that, in the first ages of the world, the

_man_-midwife (accoucheur) was unknown, is, that there is no word

whatsoever in the mother or original tongues to signify this profession in

a man, whereas that which signifies a midwife (accoucheuse) is found in

all languages."--_Hecquet de l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les

Femmes_, p. 1.

[82] Let any man who disputes this position peruse the case of

D----against D----, in Robertson's Reports of Cases in the Ecclesiastical

Courts, a terrible picture of conjugal contention and wretchedness in high

life, all clearly attributable to the accoucheur, who insisted upon the

husband leaving the lying-in chamber, and influenced the wife, fatally for

her husband's peace and her own, to concur in his exclusion. A more

flagrant instance of medical presumption and insolence could not readily

be found.

"Here then," says Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, in his judgment, "is the clue

to everything that subsequently took place--an end of all that happiness

and comfort which might have been expected to attend the union between

these parties."

The archives of the law would afford the inquirer many a fearful example

of similar evils consequent on the unnatural and sinful practice of

man-midwifery.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these

letters have been replaced with transliterations.

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

The following misprints have been corrected:

missing "be" added (page 24)

transposed lines correced (pg 62)

"instrustrument" corrected to "instrument" (page 63)

"aros" corrected to "arose" (Footnote 11)

"Pitsburgh" corrected to "Pittsburgh" (Footnote 41)

"surgica" corrected to "surgical" (Footnote 52)

The mismatched quotation mark in footnote 68 is presented as in the

original text.

Hyphenation inconsistencies have been retained from the original.