{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34436/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34436","id":"gutenberg_34436","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34436","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Health & Medicine","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Midwifery -- Popular Works","Midwives","Obstetrics"],"text":"Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttps://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  HINTS TO HUSBANDS:\n  A Revelation of\n  THE MAN-MIDWIFE'S MYSTERIES.\n\n\n  BY GEORGE MORANT,\n  LATE GRENADIER GUARDS.\n\n\n                     \"Sit you down,\n  And let me wring your heart, for so I shall,\n  If it be made of penetrable stuff;\n  If damned custom have not brazed it so,\n  That it be proof and bulwark against sense.\"\n\n\n  Third Edition,\n  REVISED AND ENLARGED.\n\n\n  LONDON:\n  SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.,\n  4, STATIONERS' HALL COURT.\n  1857.\n\n\n\n\n  TO THE\n  HUSBANDS & FATHERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,\n  AND TO THOSE HONOURABLE MEN OF THE\n  MEDICAL PROFESSION,\n  WHO REPROBATE AND CONDEMN\n  THE UNNATURAL CUSTOM OF MAN-MIDWIFERY,\n  AS AN OUTRAGE ON THE MODESTY OF WOMEN,\n  AND DEROGATORY TO THEIR OWN VOCATION;\n  AND TO ALL WHO HAVE\n  HEARTS TO FEEL AND COURAGE TO COPE WITH\n  THIS ENORMOUS WRONG,\n  THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED BY\n\n  THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe two-fold object which we desire to attain in the following pages, and\nto which we earnestly entreat the attention of our readers, is the\nexposure and amendment of a vast social evil, which we have reason to\nbelieve has, to most reflecting men, become well nigh intolerable. It will\nbe obvious that to bring this evil, with effect, to the bar of public\nopinion, we must probe it to the very core, and fearlessly unveil and drag\ninto the light its indecent mysteries. In so doing we shall doubtless\nincur the censures of those easy-going people who agree with the poet\nthat--\n\n  \"Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise;\"\n\nwho, like the bird of the desert, by hiding their heads deem their bodies\nout of danger; who, dead to all the generous sympathies which elevate man\nabove the brute, would reduce the minds of others to their own dull and\ndreary level of stolid inanity; of those prudent persons who, closing\ntheir eyes to the lightning flash and their ears to the vollied thunder,\nsneak through the world by any side-path sooner than encounter a\ndifficulty foot to foot and hand to hand; and, without pretending to any\nextraordinary knowledge of the human heart, we fear, of the majority of\nthose women who have already sacrificed their modesty at the altar of\ncustom; and, above all, of that class whose presumptuous charlatanism we\ndesire to lay bare. But for all this we care not one jot, provided the\nmists of imposture be dispelled, and our countrywomen rescued from the\ndisgrace and degradation of an odious system, which, originating in a\ndissolute age, has since been promoted and encouraged by self-interested\nempirics, and sanctioned by indifference, credulity, and error.\n\n\n\n\nHINTS TO HUSBANDS, &c. &c.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n  \"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,\n  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\"\n\n\nThe practice of _man_-midwifery is one among the noxious weeds which the\nrank luxuriance of civilization has produced, and since its introduction\nit has thriven with unrestrained vitality and ever-increasing strength,\nuntil at length it spreads its Upas shadow far and wide over our land, and\ntreacherously, mysteriously, and silently distils the poison of its\npresence deep into the sanctuaries of domestic life. Reader, we will make\nplain to you the nature and polluting influence of this redundant growth\nof luxury and vice; and then, with God's help, may you, and tens of\nthousands of your fellow-men, swear by all things holy, just, and good,\nthat the hallowed purity of home shall never more be blighted by its\ndeadly shade.\n\nWe are accustomed to speak of ourselves as of a highly moral people; and\nof our manners, habits, and customs as superior to those of other\nnations; and of our capital as the most civilized city in the world;\n\n  \"But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind,\n  When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word?\n  When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex like swine,\n  When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie;\n  When chalk, and alum, and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,\n  And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.\n  And sleep must lie down armed, for the villanous centre-bits\n  Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights.\n  While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps as he sits,\n  To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimsoned lights.\"\n\nOh, but, say you, these are not flaws in the crystal, but mere specks upon\nthe mirror, which a little careful polishing may remove with ease. See the\npropriety, order, and decency of our households; our noble sense of\njustice, right, and honour; our strict observance of religious duties; the\nchaste and modest demeanour of our women; and beholding these things, who\nshall say that we are not a moral people?\n\nTo the unreflecting and casual observer, mere outward semblance would\nappear to justify and confirm this character of our society. Nevertheless\nthere is, beneath the surface of this seeming health, a loathsome canker,\neating into the very vitals of home life![1] and we ourselves are sapping\nthe very foundations of morality, and insulting and outraging the most\nprecious feelings of those whom we should love best and cherish most upon\nearth, by subjecting them to a usage which first robs them of their\nbirthright, modesty, and then deadens, and finally destroys, all\nperception of their loss; while \"moral England,\" under the delusion of a\nfalsely termed necessity, endures, and even fosters a pollution, which\nFrance, to her honour, now repudiates and abhors!\n\nBelieving it to be a fact that ninety-nine men in every hundred are\nignorant of the extent of the outrages to which their wives submit, when\n\"attended\" by a _man_-midwife in their \"confinements,\" we shall, in this\nessay, endeavour to clear up the mystery which envelopes the proceedings\nof this class of practitioners, showing by extracts from their own\ntreatises what their \"process\" is; and having afterwards placed before our\nreaders the opinions and arguments of able and scientific men against such\nan utter subversion of propriety, we shall, with confidence in the\nresult, leave the question to be decided by the strong voice of public\nopinion whether this pernicious custom, indecent and degrading as all will\nadmit it to be, shall longer disgrace our country.\n\nThe spirit of evil, though not, as in Eden,\n\n  \"Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,\n  Assaying by his devilish art to reach\n  The organs of her fancy,\"\n\nyet, under another shape, was still at his old work at the time when,[2]\ninstead of the ordinary midwife, whose presence would have given rise to\nscandal, a surgeon[3] was summoned to attend the delivery of Mademoiselle\nde la Valiere, mistress of Louis XIV., for so powerful was the effect of\nfashion in these dissolute times, that, soon after the first examples had\nbeen given by persons whose rank and condition enabled them to brave\npublic opinion, the Parisian ladies of fashion, throwing aside the veil of\nmodesty, which had from the earliest ages, and in all countries, enjoined\nfemale attendance, followed the precedent of this abandoned woman, and the\npractice of _man_-midwifery soon became general in the French capital.\n\nThe historian well and truly describes the state of society in those evil\ndays, and how the manners of the age became, year by year, more lost to\nvirtue, dignity, and honour, until at length all the better feelings of\nhuman nature, even religion itself, became a by-word and a mockery amidst\nthe chaos of the Revolution. \"The ante-chambers of Versailles were daily\nbesieged by crowds of titled, yet needy supplicants, who eagerly sought\nemployment, favour, or distinction from the king's ministers or his\nmistresses, and mandates issued from them were obeyed without a murmur\nfrom Calais to the Pyrenees. What, then, was it which, in a country so\nprofusely endowed with the riches of nature, and inhabited by a race of\nmen so brave, so active, and so enterprising, has led to a convulsion\nattended with the unspeakable horrors of the French Revolution? The answer\nis to be found in the previous state of the country, and the general\nperversion of the national mind; in the oppressions to which the people\nwere subjected, the vices by which the nobles alienated them; the\ncorruptions by which morals were contaminated; the errors with which\nreligion was disfigured; the extent to which infidelity had spread.\"[4]\n\"Corruption, in its worst form, had long tainted the manners of the court\nas well as the nobility, and poisoned the sources of influence. The favour\nof royal mistresses, or the intrigues of the court, openly disposed of the\nhighest appointments, both in the army, the church, and the civil service.\nSince the reign of the Roman emperors, profligacy had never been conducted\nin so open and undisguised a manner as under Louis XV. and the Regent\nOrleans. From the secret memoirs of the period, which have now been\npublished, it is manifest that the licentious novels, which at that time\ndisgraced French literature, conveyed a faithful picture of the manners of\nthe age.\"[5]\n\n\"It is difficult to treat of this subject (times of Louis XV.) without\ndisclosing particulars at which purity may blush, or on which\nlicentiousness may gloat; but general observations make little impression\non the mind even of the most reflecting reader, if not attended with a\ndetail of facts which proves that it is well founded; and one authentic\nexample of the manner of the court and aristocratic circles in Paris,\nanterior to the Revolution, will produce a stronger conviction than whole\nchapters of assertion. All that we read in ancient historians, veiled in\nthe decent obscurity of a learned language, of the orgies of the ancient\nBabylon, was equalled, if not exceeded, by the nocturnal revels of the\nRegent Orleans, the Cardinal Dubois, and his other licentious\nassociates.\"[6] Such is a faithful picture of the manners and vices of the\nage and country in which the custom of man-midwifery took its rise. Here\nand there a bright star shone out, the brighter for the blackness of that\nhideous night: men of the highest order of mind did all that great\neloquence and vigorous thought could do to stay the strong and turbid\ncurrent of pollution which threatened to overwhelm the human race, and\namongst these great spirits of the past, the physician Roussel, in a work\nremarkable for the delicacy of its sentiments, the force of its satire,\nand the strength and power of its language, endeavoured to turn the\nattention of his countrymen to the indecency of the practice which was\nfirst adopted in the harlot De la Valiere's chamber.[7] In some measure he\nsucceeded; but who can wonder if, in that vicious age, his eloquence had\npassed unheeded, and the delicacy of his sentiments had been scoffed at\nand derided by the charlatans of the day, in a city where adultery was the\nfashion, and marriage but a cloak for vice. The causes which then\nprevented the writings and counsels of these eminent men from taking full\neffect upon the public mind, no longer exist; and, accordingly, in that\nvery Paris, where, in former times, amidst such scenes of vice and\nprofligacy as the historian describes, the immodest practice originated,\nhas since sprung up an agitation against it, which is increasing day by\nday. Colleges, both metropolitan and provincial, have long been\nestablished for the instruction of _females_ in the obstetric \"art,\" and\nmany of those women, who have been educated in them, possessed such\ntalents and intelligence that the treatises written by them have become\nthe acknowledged text books of the French medical world.\n\nMadame Boivin[8] in the dedication of her \"Memorial de l'Art des\nAccouchements,\" 4me ed., says:--\"Moved and affected by the painful cries\nwhich mothers, victims of barbarity and ignorance, caused to be heard from\nfar, the Government hastened to reply to them by establishing a practical\nSchool of Midwifery within the Lying-in Hospital: from all parts were\nsummoned, _not men but women_, to come and assist at the lectures of the\nmost eminent professors of surgery and medicine.... Already a great\nnumber have, from this fertile source of instruction, derived the\nknowledge and the qualities necessary for the exercise of an art so\nimportant in its results to the population of the kingdom and the\nhappiness of families.\" In the preface to the above treatise, 4me ed., p.\n10, we read the following allusion to the practice on this side the\nchannel; \"Thus you will find in this edition some novel remarks ... on\ncertain cases of difficult labour, and on the operative process practised\nin these cases, so brutally treated by practitioners beyond sea, and in a\nmanner so simple and so happily different by us, especially at the School\nof Midwifery in Paris.\"\n\nAnd what are we about in \"moral England,\" all this time? Where are our\ncolleges of instruction, to which we have summoned \"_not men but\nwomen_\"--our _Hospices de la Maternite_,[9] wherein and whereby we may\npreserve the modesty of our women? Where is the voice to cry shame upon\nthe custom which introduces men into the sacred precincts of the marriage\nchamber to perform offices which are, by nature, the duty of women\nalone?[10] Shall it be said that two thousand years ago the Romans\npossessed a higher sense of moral feeling than we do now? Roussel says,\n\"The principal reason which, among the ancients, forbade the belief that\nthe duty of aiding delivery could be proper to any but women--excepting\nin cases of very rare occurrence, where every consideration might\nnecessarily yield to a pressing danger--was the grand interest of manners.\nThis was an object to which ancient Governments had always special regard.\nThey knew morality to be the foundation of all legislation, and that good\nlaws would be made in vain unless good morals insured their execution. The\ncruelty of Archagathus' surgical operations drove the doctors from Rome.\nShe banished also from her bosom the Greek philosophers and orators who\nwere accused of having introduced and cultivated the taste for the arts\nand vices of Greece. She would surely not have permitted, for any length\nof time, the existence of an art, which, practised by men, would, under\nthe specious pretence of utility, threaten the sanctuary of marriage, and\nwhich, striking a blow at the chief safeguard of families, would next\nattack the mainsprings of the state; an art which, with power to alarm the\nmodesty of women, would soon leave them without a blush,[11] and cause\nthem to lose even the recollection of that severe virtue which had\nmerited the respect and veneration of the Romans, and which of old had\nbeen the principle of the grandest revolutions. Cato, always careful to\nprotect the hearts of the citizens from corruption, would never have\npermitted their wives, when presenting children to the republic, to\ntarnish the boon by a forgetfulness of the first of all decencies.\"[12]\n\n\"The Greeks,\" says Dr. Stevens, \"invariably employed women; Phanarete, the\nmother of that distinguished man, Socrates, was a midwife. Hippocrates\nmakes mention of them; and Plato speaks somewhat extensively of midwives,\nand explains their duties.\" \"We have reason to believe,\" says Dr. Denman,\n\"that the obstetric art was altogether in the hands of women, _the natural\ndelicacy of females having reluctant recourse to the professional aid of\nthe other sex_.\"\n\nHecquet says, \"The Greeks, moreover, had their female physicians, as we\nperceive by the words [Greek: akestrides] and [Greek: eatrinai], which\nhave been preserved to us.\"\n\n\"Such was the chasteness of the times, that lithotomy on the female\nsubject was practised by one of their own sex. At Athens the positive\nenactments of the land were inefficient to overcome their scrupulous\nmodesty. It is said the Athenian doctors procured a legal enactment\ntransferring the practice of midwifery to themselves; but at the very\nattempt the women rose _en masse_, and declared _they would die rather\nthan submit to such an outrage_ upon common decency.... The Romans[13]\nalso employed women only. Pliny, in his _Natural History_, speaks of\nmidwives,[14] explains their duties, and mentions some of great\nreputation. According to Roman law, midwives were recognized as a distinct\nclass in society, and enjoyed certain rights and immunities in common with\nthe medical profession.\"[15]\n\nWe have shown, on the testimony of medical writers, that the practice of\n_man_-midwifery was introduced in France, or rather in Paris, for it was\nnever generally adopted in the provinces,[16] so early as the end of the\nseventeenth century; but more than a hundred years elapsed before the\nunnatural and debasing custom became fashionable in England: and we find\nthat late in the eighteenth century it was considered so objectionable,\nthat few persons, excepting in those rare cases where danger was imminent,\never permitted \"a medical man\" to usurp the duties of the midwife: and it\nis only within the last fifty years that _man_-midwifery has prevailed in\nthese kingdoms. Indeed Dr. Ramsbotham, in 1845, in the preface to his work\non obstetric medicine and surgery, alludes to the difficulty which it\nwould appear had not even then been entirely got rid of, in overcoming the\nvery natural aversion of women to the regulations of midwifery practice as\nlaid down in the many swollen and prurient treatises on the \"pretended\nart.\"\n\nNothing appears more extraordinary, or more opposed to all our\npreconceived notions of propriety, than that this _man_ should bustle into\nthe marriage chamber, our holy of holies, with so much privileged\nassurance, and that the world should look upon the affair with such\nperfect indifference. But we suppose that his presence is a necessary\nevil, and the whole proceeding quite a matter of course, in which\n\"sensible people\" see no harm whatever; _honi soit qui mal y pense_. Some\nsuch train of ideas may have been suggested by the arrival of Dr. A. B. or\nC., M.D. and accoucheur, whom you, perhaps, still young in the world's\nways, have summoned, you know not why, but that you had been told, it may\nbe by your wife's mother, that it was absolutely necessary to engage a\nfashionable \"ladies' doctor\" to \"attend\" your first born's introduction\ninto the world; in fact, you began to have grave doubts whether it would\nbe possible for the child to arrive without the doctor; (you may have\nsince ascertained, much to the chagrin of A. B. or C., M.D. and\naccoucheur, that such an event is not altogether beyond the circle of\nprobabilities.) You have also hired a \"month nurse,\" _recommended by the\ndoctor_ as an experienced and skilful woman, in every way fitted for her\noffice. The critical moment approaches; in a state of nervous excitement\nand anxiety you are advised to retire to the drawing-room, which, like a\nfool, you do. From time to time you are assured that all is going on as\nwell as possible, and at length you are gratified by the intelligence that\nyou are a father. You are, of course, utterly ignorant of all that has\nbeen done, what the nurse's share of duty may have been, and what the\ndoctor's, although you have perchance a sort of vague and undefined\nsuspicion that you were wrong in leaving all that you held dearest in the\nhands of a stranger, and that stranger a _man_, at a moment when she, the\nloved one, required your presence to comfort, console, and strengthen her\nin the hour of trial. Nor would your ignorance be enlightened, unless, as\nwe did after years of credulity and miserable evasion, you catechise the\ndoctor. Then will break upon you, in all their horrible reality, the\nindignities to which you have subjected her for whom you would have given\nlife itself, the purest of the pure, the idol of your love, the very\nessence of your being, your heart of hearts! Then, indeed, will you\nrepent, when it is all too late, your folly in trusting to the candour of\nDr. A. B. or C., M.D., and the actual crime which you have committed in\nnot acquainting yourself, _while there was yet time to prevent it_, with\nthe \"process\" by which the _man_-midwife pretends to improve upon the\nall-powerful machinery of nature, and the infinite wisdom of nature's God.\n\nIn the bitterness of your thoughts you may, perhaps, venture to question\nthe doctor's mode of proceeding, upon the supposition that the nurse,\nhaving been recommended by him as a skilful and competent person, should\nalone have _actively_[17] interfered, when you may be truculently told\nthat he was not there \"only to stand by and make reports;\" or that \"an\naccoucheur is not necessarily an old woman;\" that \"there are no\nfeelings;\"[18] that \"the first thing he always does, when he comes to the\nbed-side, is to make _an examination per vaginam_!\" with other\nobservations equally harrowing to the sensibilities of a husband.\n\nWhat shock so terrible to a man who, rejoicing in the delightful sentiment\nof a wife's purity, discovers that all he held dearest and most sacred,\nall which he would shield from profanation with the last drop of his\nlife's blood, has been invaded by the presence, and _violated by the\nactual contact_ of the _man_-midwife? The doctor may be a sober, discreet,\noily man, of staid appearance, and a very pattern of propriety; or he may\nbe a vulgar, low-bred person, in his leisure consorting with those of a\nsimilar bent; or\n\n  \"Yonder a vile physician, blabbing\n  The case of his patient...;\"\n\nor he may be a tippling, jovial fellow, who at some roystering party is\nalways called on for \"a good song,\" sure to have as its theme wine, love,\nand woman,--for accoucheurs are mortals like other men; or he may be some\ntyro in \"the art,\" just let loose from his course of walking the\nhospitals, strong in syphilitic cases, and with all the recollections of a\nyoung surgeon's life fresh upon him: nevertheless, whatever he be, _the\nvery inmost secrets of your wife's person_ are known to him,[19] the veil\nof modesty has been rudely torn aside, and the sanctity of marriage exists\nbut in the name.\n\n        ----\"Such an act,\n  That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;\n  Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose\n  From the fair forehead of an innocent love,\n  And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows\n  As false as dicer's oaths: oh, such a deed,\n  As from the body of contraction plucks\n  The very soul, and sweet religion makes\n  A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow;\n  Yea this solidity and compound mass,\n  With tristful visage as against the doom,\n  Is thought-sick at the act.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\"O shame! where is thy blush?\"\n\n\nIt now becomes our most painful but necessary task to explain what that\n\"process\" is to which we have alluded, by giving some extracts from one of\nthe principal works on midwifery, and in the very words of the treatise,\nto prove the gross outrages to which women are obliged to submit when\n\"attended\" by these male practitioners. Nothing but a sense of the\nenormity of this monster evil would induce us to contaminate our pages by\nthe introduction of such garbage; but we are well aware that \"general\nobservations make little impression on the mind even of the most\nreflecting reader, if not attended with a detail of facts which proves\nthat it is well founded; and one authentic example will produce a stronger\nconviction than whole chapters of assertion.\"\n\nEXTRACTS FROM DR. RAMSBOTHAM'S OBSTETRIC MEDICINE AND SURGERY.\n\n\"_Duties of the Medical Attendant under Natural Labour._\n\n\"From the knowledge which the foregoing pages will afford of the\nbeneficence displayed by nature throughout the processes of\nutero-gestation and labour, and of the admirable contrivances adopted by\nher to overcome difficulties and avert dangers, it will be evident that,\nin a very large proportion of cases, the duties of the obstetrician must\nbe few and simple. Generally, indeed, no _active_ assistance is necessary,\nuntil after the birth of the child; all that is required of the attendant\nbeing, that he should remain an observant, though unofficious spectator of\nthe process, ready to exert himself with promptitude and energy on the\nfirst accession of any alarming symptoms, but equally or more ready to\nallow the changes necessary for the completion of nature's object to\nproceed, uninterrupted by any meddlesome interference; for no maxim in\nobstetric science is of more universal application than that unnecessary\n'assistance,' rendered with a view of expediting the termination of the\ncase, or shortening the sufferings of the patient, is not only useless,\nbut in the highest degree injurious, and directly calculated to defeat its\nown end.\n\n\"Let it not be supposed this declaration includes the admission, that a\npartial acquaintance with the obstetric branch of medicine is sufficient\nfor the safe practice of the profession; for although, in thirty-nine\ncases out of forty, little is required to be done beyond protecting the\nextended structures from injury, separating the child, and extracting the\nplacenta from the vagina after its total exclusion from the uterine\ncavity; still, in the fortieth danger may occur, only to be arrested by\nthe promptest, the most decisive, and most judiciously directed help.\n\n\"Much knowledge[20] is necessary to discriminate the kind of cases in\nwhich assistance is proper, and determine the time at which that\nassistance ought to be employed, as well as the mode of its application.\nIt is this which distinguishes the scientific from the ignorant\nobstetrician; it is this important knowledge on which the life, the future\nhealth and comfort of many a parturient woman must depend; which,\nnevertheless, has been held in such low estimation by some members of the\nprofession, as to be thought unworthy of cultivation by the scientific and\nliterary mind; unfit to be possessed by men of respectable station in\nsociety; and the adaptation of which knowledge to practice has been\ncharacterized, in an official document under the seal of the highest of\nour medical corporate associations, as 'an art foreign to the habits of\ngentlemen of enlarged academical education.'[21] In the same communication\nit is asserted, 'that the most successful practice of midwifery requires\nno such laborious preliminary study as is necessary for the practice of\nmedicine, else discreet matrons, and plain uneducated men in the country,\nwho frequently arrive at great notoriety in this calling, would not\nacquire that credit which they often attain.'... nor, perhaps, are we\ngenerally expected to regulate the number of individuals to be present,\nthough we may be called upon occasionally to exercise our authority in\nthis respect. The only persons whom I would willingly admit are the nurse\nand some female married friend, the mother, or other near relation, or an\nintimate acquaintance, to act as _confidante_ to the sufferer, into whose\nsympathizing ear she may whisper all her apprehensions and distresses, and\nfrom whom she may receive those numberless comforts and sustaining\nconsolations of which she stands so eminently in need. Unmarried females\nare neither the most fit companions for the patient, nor the most useful\nassistants to the practitioner.[22]\n\n\"On being ushered into her chamber, we may engage her in some general\nconversation, which will give us an opportunity of observing the\nfrequency, duration, strength, and character of the pains; and our conduct\nmust be framed according. Should they be of trifling importance, we may\ncontent ourselves with giving some ordinary directions and retire from the\napartment. But if they are returning with frequency and activity, we must\nnot allow much time to elapse before we require to make an examination PER\nVAGINAM.[23] An objection may be raised by the patient to the necessary\nexamination being then instituted, under the idea that _no assistance_ can\nbe rendered her so early in the labour. As I would regard the feelings of\na parturient woman in a degree only secondary to her safety, I would by no\nmeans insist on putting her to this inconvenience, unless I thought it\nquite indispensable. But as much valuable information may be gained by\nthis first examination, and as it is highly desirable to obtain that\ninformation during the progress of the first stage, it is right firmly,\nbut gently, to urge its propriety. It is seldom, indeed, that she will not\naccede to the recommendation of her medical attendant, provided he\npossesses her confidence, and conveys his request with becoming\ndelicacy.[24]\n\n\"Much knowledge must be acquired during the first vaginal examination. It\nis, first, whether the woman be pregnant;[25] secondly, if she be in\nlabour; thirdly, whether the membranes have ruptured, or are still entire;\nfourthly, how the child is presenting; fifthly, how far the labour is\nadvanced; and, sixthly, the state of the os uteri, vagina, and perineum,\nin regard to their distensibility.... She should be also covered by a\nlight counterpane, or a blanket and a sheet. In this position (lying on\nher left side, with the nates brought to the edge of the bed) _the vaginal\nexamination_ is to be conducted in the following manner:--The attendant,\nsitting rather behind her, and having anointed the two first fingers of\nhis _right_ hand, with some unctuous substance, mostly in readiness, is to\nplace them on the labia externa; then gently separating these organs, he\nmust introduce the first finger into the vagina,[26] in the direction of\nits entrance, which is backwards and upwards: or he may take the perineum\nas his guide, and insinuate his finger within the genital fissure\nposteriorly, close to the fourchette. Having introduced it as high as he\nconveniently can, he must pronate his wrist, so that the junction of the\nfirst and second finger shall fit in under the symphysis pubis. In this\nway he will be able usually to reach the os uteri without difficulty.\nShould that organ, however, be situated so high that he cannot perfectly\ncommand it, rather than remain in ignorance of its condition, and of the\npresentation of the child, he may introduce the first two fingers of his\nleft hand, and as these may be passed higher within the pelvis, they will\ngive a greater facility for inquiry.\n\n\"These examinations are commonly made during the urgency of pain; and this\nhas given rise to the phrase of 'trying a pain.' It is, however,\ndesirable, on many accounts, that we should not introduce our finger up to\nthe os uteri at the time when the uterus is acting strongly, because then\nthe membranes are protruded into the vagina, and if we press against them\nat that moment, we may, probably, rupture the cyst, and lose its influence\nin the after progress of the labour. Besides, it is impossible, under such\nprotrusion, to ascertain the presenting part of the foetus with\nprecision, because of the quantity of water which is then interposed\nbetween our finger and its person.\n\n\"Nevertheless, as it is expected that we should examine while the uterus\nis in action--and, indeed, as in many cases the patient would not allow us\nto pass our finger at all, were it not for the belief that we can 'assist'\nher--and that only in the time of pain, it is necessary that we should\nrequest her to inform us when there is a return, and take that opportunity\nof introducing our finger within the external parts. Having gained this\nadvantage, we must allow it to remain inactive in the vagina while the\npain continues; and upon its cessation, which we have seldom any\ndifficulty in ascertaining, we may direct it up to the os uteri.\n\n\"_Frequent examinations should not be made during the first stage of\nlabour._\n\n\"We can do no good by such a practice after we have once gained the\ninformation we require. We cannot facilitate the descent of the child; we\ncannot dilate the parts; but we may do a great deal of injury, for we\ndenude the vagina of that soft relaxing mucus which is designed by nature\nto protect it; and we, moreover, run the risk of destroying the integrity\nof the membranous cyst. We may, therefore, predispose the parts to\ninflammation, and retard the dilatation of the os uteri itself. As,\nhowever, it is a common idea among women that, under each examination,\nmaterial assistance is rendered,[27] we shall frequently be urged, during\nthe first stage, especially if the labour be rather slower than usual, to\nremain in close attendance on the patient's person; and these\nsolicitations are generally advanced with a degree of fervency, that it\nappears the extreme of cruelty not to accede to.\n\n\"Should this be the case, the finger may be introduced from time to time,\nwith the greatest care and gentleness; more to pacify the patient's mind,\nand assure her she is not neglected, than with any other view beyond that,\nand also watching the progress of dilatation. The more rigid the parts\nare, the more do they require the softening influence of the natural\nsecretion, and the more careful must we be to preserve it.... In about an\nhour ... we may see her again, and we may then, if we think it right, make\nanother examination, to ascertain that the labour is proceeding\nsatisfactorily.\n\n\n_Duties during the Second Stage._\n\n\"The second stage of labour having commenced, we are summoned to the\npatient's room, if we have been absent, and told that 'the waters have\nbroken.' She is most likely found reclining on the bed, and, probably, the\npains are more urgent than they were before; or, perhaps, they are\nsomewhat suspended. We now require to make another examination, because it\nis possible that the head may have fully entered the cavity, and may be\nsoon expelled. Finding it low in the pelvis, finding the os uteri almost\nentirely dilated, the membranes broken, and the pains strong and coming\non frequently, it is right not to leave the room; but unless the perineum\nis somewhat on the stretch, we need not yet take our post exactly by the\nbed-side. But as soon as the head has come to press upon the external\nparts--particularly when it has made its turn, and is beginning to extend\nthe structures at the outlet of the pelvis, it becomes our duty to take\nour seat by the bed-side, and never to move from our position till the\nchild has passed. This we do to protect the perineum, in order to prevent\nlaceration.[28]\n\n\"_For the purpose of supporting the perineum_ we sit rather behind the\npatient, and apply the palm of the left hand--guarded, for the sake of\ndelicacy, cleanliness, and convenience, with a soft napkin--steadily and\nfirmly against the perineal tumour. I have already mentioned that the\nthighs must be drawn up towards the abdomen, and the legs bent a little\nback upon the thighs, and the whole person lying on the left side; and the\npatient is usually placed so that her feet may rest against the\nbed-post.[29]\n\n\"We render the shoulders also another fixed point, so as to steady the\nupper part of the body, by tying a long napkin, or a round towel, to the\nsame bed-post, and desiring her to hold it in her hand. We tell her, when\nthe pain comes on to press with her feet against the bed-post, and pull\ngently at the towel, cautioning her against straining violently. The\nconsequence is she so fixes her person as to render it almost impossible\nfor her to jump away suddenly, or to recede to any distance from us.\nIndependently of this little manoeuvring, when the head is in any\ndegree extending the vulva the nurse must be required to raise the right\nknee to some distance from the other, by which means the thighs are\nseparated, and an increased facility given to the exit of the head through\nthe external parts, as well as some control exerted over the patient's\nmovements.... After having examined the uterus through the parietes of the\nabdomen, we must make an internal examination, more perfectly to assure\nourselves in what way the placenta is disposed of. Twisting the funis\numbilicalis around the first two fingers of the left hand, and bringing it\nto its bearing, we pass the first finger of the right hand, previously\nanointed, into the vagina, as in a common examination. If the placenta be\nentirely _in utero_, which, as just remarked, is most commonly the case\nimmediately after the child's expulsion, we shall either not be able to\ntouch it at all, or if it be within reach, we shall only detect a very\nsmall portion of it; we may just feel it offering itself at the os uteri;\nbut we cannot surround its volume, nor can we probably discover the\ninsertion of the funis.\n\n\"_Removal of the Placenta._--There is no part of natural labour which\nrequires so much judgment as the conduct of the third stage; for the\nslightest mismanagement of the placenta may be productive of most serious\nmischief, by converting a perfectly natural into a most dangerous and\ncomplicated case. As long, then, as the placenta remains _in utero_, so\nlong we must wait, within a certain limit--provided there be no\nflooding--for those contractions which are to expel it from the uterus\ninto the vaginal cavity, &c.; while we are thus watching, we shall most\nlikely be informed of the return of uterine action, by the woman\ncomplaining of two or three comparatively trifling pains affecting the\nback and loins. As it is probable that under these pains the placenta may\nhave somewhat descended, another examination may then be made _per\nvaginam_ to satisfy ourselves on this point, &c.\n\n\"The removal of the placenta from the vagina is easily effected. Twisting\nthe funis umbilicalis two or three times around the first and second\nfinger of the right hand, we draw it down in a line tending towards the\ncoccyx, and receive it in the left, placed under the perineum; or we may\nintroduce the two first fingers and the thumb of the left into the vagina,\nembrace the mass between them, squeeze it as we would a sponge, and slowly\nextract it....\n\n\"Having perfectly satisfied ourselves on this point, we may a second time\ntake away the napkins soiled with the accumulated discharges, and envelope\nthe lower part of the patient's person in others that are warm and dry.\nThree will be sufficient: one must be partially slid under the left hip;\nanother may be placed over and around the right hip; and the third carried\nbetween the thighs, directly on the vulva, &c....\n\n\"Some practitioners adapt the bandage themselves, and apply it immediately\nafter the placenta has been removed. I think it preferable, in common\ncases, to leave this duty to the nurse; and that it should not be put on\nuntil the body linen of the patient is shifted; because, in the first\nplace, it appears to me more desirable that perfect quietness should be\npreserved until the first changes in the uterus consequent upon labour are\neffected, that no disturbance may interrupt their progress; and, in the\nsecond, I cannot help thinking that there is something highly indelicate\nin its being applied by a man--much more so, indeed, than any of the\nduties we are ordinarily called upon to perform under natural labour. It\nis of most service when next the skin. It must be sufficiently broad to\nreach from the pubes almost to the ensiform cartilage; and it cannot be\nproperly adapted unless the abdomen be quite uncovered. In addition, I\nwould remark that the nurse must know very little of her duties, if she\ncannot draw a properly contrived bandage round the person, and give it the\ndue degree of tightness without incurring danger.\"\n\nThe reader of the preceding extracts will have observed that they begin\nwith a panegyric on the extraordinary powers of nature in adapting means\nto an end; which, nevertheless, the author forthwith proceeds to qualify,\nas if he had admitted too much, in giving nature credit for the due\nexecution of her own work, and her capability for enforcing her own laws,\nby enlarging on the profound and scientific knowledge required in the\nman-midwife, the opinion expressed by the Royal College of Physicians to\nthe contrary notwithstanding; and in effect impiously detracting the\ninfinite power and wisdom of God, \"who created man in his own image, in\nthe image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God\nblessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply.\"\n\n\"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.\"\n\nAfter descanting on the inutility, and even positively detrimental effects\nof _active_ interference in natural labour, he warms with his subject,\nand, in the course of the three stages by which he limits and defines the\noperations of nature in introducing man into the world, enjoins, in\nlanguage horribly disgusting from its technical obscenity, an amount of\ngrossly indecent interference, only to be measured by the credulity and\nendurance of his miserable patient. If the maxim of non-interference which\nhe inculcates holds good, he deceives and wrongs his patient to a most\nshameful extent, by permitting and encouraging the delusion that by these\nvaginal examinations he can render her \"assistance,\" or mitigate the\nsufferings which nature has ordained; and we assert, without fear of\ncontradiction, that the man who should dare to practise upon the weakness\nof women in such a manner, and at a moment when they are least able to\nresist his solicitations, deserves the severest condemnation. In all this\nfoul tissue of verbiage descriptive of the practice in natural labour\nthere is nothing which a _female_ attendant of the most ordinary\nintelligence could not accomplish with the greatest ease, and yet the\nnurse, who is generally a well instructed midwife, is scarcely mentioned\nat all, and her duties appear to be confined to a trivial and unimportant\nafter-operation, which the conscientious and sensitive doctor deems an act\nof far greater indelicacy than those eight times repeated _examinations\nper vaginam_, and other contact with the patient's person, so sedulously\nprescribed, and which, in truth, appear to constitute the whole \"art,\" so\nfar as the treatment of natural labour is concerned. One more extract will\nmore than suffice to show the nature of this abuse, which we fear is, from\nits daily increasing power and influence upon the female mind, becoming\nmore and more difficult of cure; but which, when considered in all its\nhideous bearings, should arouse even the most callous and indifferent to a\nsense of its criminality, and cause the hearts of all who reverence\nmodesty in woman to swell with righteous indignation at the insults which\na vile custom has mercilessly heaped upon the sex:--\n\n\"She now, at length, submitted to an examination _per vaginam_, which I\nmade from behind, as she stood erect by the bed. The finger failed at\nfirst to reach the os and cervix uteri, until, on pressing upwards, as far\nas possible, I found the uterus lying transversely, the os higher than the\nbody, pointing to the right side, and the body of the uterus lodged in the\nleft side of the pelvis, near the groin, where it seemed to be firmly\nfixed. I now made her kneel on the bed, with the head low, so as to\nelevate the nates, and cautiously tried through the rectum, as well as\n_per vaginam_, to raise the uterus from its position into the median line,\nbut without success. An attempt on the following day was with no better\nresult.... After the interval of a month, I made another examination _per\nvaginam_, also of the nipples, and found no change in either. After the\ninterval of another month I found the nipples and areolae precisely as at\nfirst; but, to my great satisfaction, the uterus had nearly righted itself\nin position, and the body of it was rounded and plainly enlarged. The\nlady also hinted a suspicion that she had quickened.\"...\n\n\"In this instance my suspicion of pregnancy (which at first was very\nslight) rested on the interruption of menstruation alone. The health\nimproved from the time of quickening, and the pregnancy went on. I may add\nthat I have no doubt the latero-version of the womb occurred at the period\nof the miscarriage;... and that its righting itself, at length, was the\nconsequence of its increasing bulk.\"[30]\n\nSuch is the practice of man-midwifery! We observe that, in this revolting\ncase, the disgrace, the shame, the infamy of the poor patient was endured\nin vain, and that after all the tentatives, and \"manipulations,\" and\nexperiments, so perseveringly repeated by the accoucheur, without any\nbeneficial result whatsoever, nature alone was the true physician.\n\nWe will conclude this chapter of horrors in the strong and earnest\nlanguage of the late Sir Anthony Carlisle, with the conviction that his\nburning words will go right home to the hearts of those who may not\nhitherto have given a thought to this fearful violation of the rights of\nnature.\n\n\"The woman who sacrifices her modesty to fashion, her person to\nindignity, and her husband's honour to the sneers and contempt of her male\nmidwife, is below contempt. She is a disgrace to her sex!\n\n\"It is my firm opinion that the practice of man-midwifery compromises the\ncharacter and morality of our country. It is demoralizing to society, an\ninsult to virtuous women, and a foolscap to men. If not checked and\nabolished, the pretensions to female modesty, and a respect for the\ndecorums of society, will eventually be altogether excluded from the\nfemale character.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n  \"Such devils would pull angels out of heaven,\n  Provided they could reach them; 'tis their pride;\n  And that's the odds 'twixt soul and body-plague!\n  The veriest slave who drops in Cairo's street,\n  Cries, 'Stand off from me,' to the passengers;\n  While these blotched souls are eager to infect,\n  And blow their bad breath in a sister's face,\n  As if they got some ease by it.\"\n\n\nIf the reader views with disgust and horror the above rules of ordinary\npractice in _man_-midwifery--and what man is base enough (save an\naccoucheur) not so to regard them?--these feelings will be intensified a\nthousand-fold by the contemplation of the latest invention[31] of\n\"obstetric art.\" We allude to the SPECULUM. The adoption of this\ninstrument, as we are informed, is now becoming general; and its\nemployment plunges its wretched victim, woman, down into the lowest deep\nof infamy and degradation. We will not pollute our pages by describing its\nmethod of action; suffice it to say, that, to the sense of _touch_,\ncommon to all midwifery practice, is added, in its application, that of\n_sight_; exposure the most complete of all which modesty, even in the most\nabject of races, invariably conceals.\n\n\n[Illustration: G. Morant. Inc.\n\nTHE SPECULUM]\n\n\nIn confirmation of our own view of this most villanous invention, we will\nconvict its advocates by the testimony of distinguished members of their\nown profession. The denunciations of the speculum, by these\nmorally-courageous men, addressed, for the most part, solely to their\nfellow-practitioners, shall now go forth to be read and pondered on by\nevery reflecting Englishman who may chance to open these pages.\n\n\"We have already exposed, with our utmost vigour, the improper practice\nwhich Drs. Ashwell and Lee so strongly condemned. All we said on that\noccasion we repeat now.... To employ it (the speculum), as it is rumoured\ncertain persons in London have employed it, to attract notice, and place\nthemselves prominently before the public--to use it merely as a means of\npersonal advancement--in fact, _to gain practice_--is a crime against the\nlaws of morality, and treason against professional honour.\n\n\"The erroneous and one-sided opinions, which the advocates for the\nindiscriminate use of the speculum hold, prove how little they have\npresented to themselves the true facts of the case. Dr. Locock, who made\nthe startling assertion that delicacy ought not to be considered in\nmatters of disease, and was both for and against the speculum, said, that\nhe looked into the vagina as he would into the throat. True enough, so far\nas _he_ simply is concerned. He would look into the vagina as an ordinary\nmatter of business, and think _only_ of what, in the course of business,\nit might be necessary to do there. But would the _woman_ regard it in this\nphilosophical light? Is it the same to _her_ whether her tongue is pressed\ndown with a spatula, or her vagina distended with a speculum? Is _her_\nmoral state to be left out of account altogether, and are we to treat the\nmost sensitive organ in her frame as if it was so much inert matter, whose\ngreat use was to be cauterized?\n\n\"We do not hesitate to say, that no man, who regards properly his science\nand himself, can ever use this instrument without feeling that he is\n_driven_ to it; that other means have failed, and that it has become\nnecessary to adopt additional modes of investigation and of cure. And if\nit appear from the inquiries which will, doubtless, now be made--that the\nnecessities for its employment have been knowingly exaggerated by its\nadvocates, no condemnation can be too severe for so great a breach of\nscientific honour.\"--_Medical Times_, 8th June, 1850.\n\n\"Dr. Marshall Hall describes in the _Lancet_ a new form of hysteria,\nconnected with and caused by the abuse of the speculum. In his preliminary\nremarks, alluding to the manner in which the charge of indecency was\nreceived by one of the speakers at the late meeting of the\nMedico-Chirurgical Society, on the ground of the non-necessity of the\nexposure of the person, he says, 'But if there be no exposure of the\nperson, is there, at first, no wounding of the feeling, and is there\nafterwards no deterioration and blunting of those feelings by the repeated\ndaily or weekly use of the speculum vaginae in the virgin, and in the very\nyoung, even amongst the married?' He declares that there is such\ndeterioration, and that the female who has been subjected to such\ntreatment is not the same person, in delicacy and purity, she was before.\nDr. Marshall Hall's declaration on this point is fully confirmed by the\nresults of experience. The consequences of the abuse of this practice are,\nindeed, lamentable. Dr. Hall says he has known cases of the most revolting\nattachment on the part of the patients to the practice and the\npractitioner. The current of the ideas becomes hypochondriacally directed\nto the organs of generation. The very mind is poisoned. A new and\nlamentable form of hysteria is induced. The patients become reserved, and\nmoody, and perverse, and speak unintelligibly in broken sentences; the\npeace and happiness of the family are broken up; subjects are discussed on\nthe domestic hearth which ought never to be mentioned except in the sick\nroom--words which wound are spoken, and thoughts which are derogatory are\nexpressed by others, perhaps by the male, members of the family. Dr. Hall\nmentions cases in which the speculum has been repeatedly employed, and had\ninduced this sad, wretched state, and yet no uterine disease existed. He\nbelieves the cases in which the young, and especially the unmarried, are\nafflicted, so as really to justify the use of the speculum, to be rare,\nand the cases in which the injection of a solution of nitrate of silver,\nby the patient herself, may not take the place of the application of this\nvaluable remedy in substance by the hand of the practitioner, to be rare\nindeed. We heartily thank Dr. Marshall Hall for this additional blow at\n'the pollution.' It is greatly to his credit.\"--_Medical Times_, 15th\nJune, 1850.\n\n\"I have no doubt that I was one of a considerable number, who, at the last\nmeeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (a meeting which will\nlong be memorable in its annals), wished to express their sentiments on\nthe subject of the use of the speculum vaginae, without having what they\ndeemed a perfect opportunity. I regret that the discussion was not\nadjourned to another evening.\n\n\"I think the profession deeply indebted to Dr. Robert Lee for bringing\nthis question forward for discussion. It is not one of mere medical or\nsurgical treatment, but of medical and public ethics; and I confess myself\nastonished at the light manner in which a vaginal examination was spoken\nof by one of the gentlemen present at the Society. I think the challenge\nof Dr. Bennet should have been accepted at once, and that a committee\nshould have been, and should now be, appointed to test the existence, or\nthe non-existence, of the thousand and one 'ulcers,' or 'abrasions,' of\nwhich so much has been said of late.\n\n\"The gentleman to whom I have alluded above, huffed the idea of indecency\nin making a vaginal examination. There need be no exposure of the person\nof the patient. Surgeons make no scruple about an examination of the\nrectum (as if the two examinations could, morally speaking, be compared).\nBut, if there be no exposure of the person, and if the examination of the\nrectum be frequently made, is there, at first, no wounding of the\nfeelings? and is there afterwards no deterioration and blunting of those\nfeelings by the repeated daily or weekly use of the speculum vaginae in the\nvirgin, and in the very young, even amongst the married? I loudly\nproclaim that there is such deterioration, and that the female who has\nbeen subjected to such treatment is not the same person, in delicacy and\npurity, that she was before.\n\n\"I have known cases of the most revolting attachment, on the part of such\npatients, to the practice and to the practitioner. I have known them to\nspeak of the 'womb' and of the 'uterine organs' with a familiarity which\nwas formerly unknown, and which, I trust, will, ere long, be obsolete. The\ncurrent of the ideas becomes hypochondriacally directed to these organs.\nThe very mind is poisoned. A new and lamentable form of _hysteria_--I had\nalmost said of _furor uterinus_--is induced, with this aggravation, that\nthe subject of distress is either concealed by the greatest effort, or\nexplained at the expense of virgin or female modesty.\n\n\"There is a case of 'poisoned mind' in the male sex, induced by the quack\ndoings of the day, relative to the existence of impotency, which all of us\nmust have treated and deplored. A similar case of 'mental poisoning' is\nnow being induced in the other sex, by the frequent, constant, and undue\nreference, on the part of the profession, to the condition of the 'uterine\norgans.'\"...\n\n\"One poor, miserable patient comes to me weekly, thus afflicted. She has\nbeen treated by the speculum and the caustic for months, as an out-patient\nat University College Hospital. I sent her to Dr. Robert Lee twice. Twice\nthat gentleman examined, and declared that there was _no_ uterine or\nvaginal disease. Meanwhile the miserable patient's mind is absorbed by\nthis ideal malady, and the peace of her husband's home is destroyed.\n\n\"I sent another patient to Dr. Robert Lee a few days ago (whom I had never\nseen) under similar circumstances, but moving in a different rank of life.\nThe same opinion was given, the miserable patient suffering dire\ndisappointment!\n\n\"I recently attended a poor curate's wife, who had come to London for\nmedical aid, at, as I suppose, great inconvenience. During my short\nattendance, this patient was constantly urged by a friend, a titled lady\n(the aristocracy always take the lead in quackery), to send for her\nphysician, who is a strong abettor of the speculum. The course which\nfollowed may be imagined, and need not be described. A case of more\ncomplicated misery for a husband cannot well be conceived. A sickly wife,\nafflicted with uterine hypochondriasis, set upon by a titled advocate of\nthe uterine quackery, with straitened resources.\n\n\"The advocates of the speculum speak of cases which had resisted the\nefficacy of the usual general and local treatment, and which yielded to\nthe use of the speculum and the caustic. I have seen cases in which, the\nspeculum and caustic having been employed--and unduly employed, as I\nbelieve--the patient remained more miserably afflicted in mind and body\nthan ever, and this the effect of that treatment. Whether the former\nsupposition be as well founded as the latter, I will not presume to\ndetermine; but I believe the cases in which the young, and especially the\nunmarried, are afflicted, so as really to justify the use of the speculum,\nto be rare, and the cases in which the injection of a solution of nitrate\nof silver, by her own hands, may not take the place of the application of\nthis valuable remedy in substance, by the hand of the practitioner, to be\nrare indeed.\n\n\"I will not advert even to the epithets which have been applied to the\nfrequent use of the speculum by our French neighbours, who are so skilled\nin these matters; but I will ask, WHAT FATHER AMONGST US, AFTER THE\nDETAILS WHICH I HAVE GIVEN, WOULD ALLOW HIS VIRGIN DAUGHTER TO BE\nSUBJECTED TO THIS 'POLLUTION'? Let us, then, maintain the spotless dignity\nof our profession, with its well-deserved character for purity of morals,\nand throw aside this injurious practice with indignant scorn, remembering\nthat it is not mere exposure of the person, but the dulling of the edge of\nthe virgin modesty, and the degradation of the pure minds of the daughters\nof England, which are to be avoided.\" _Dr Marshall Hall in the 'Lancet.'_\n\nDr. Dickson, an eminent medical reformer, and accomplished surgeon and\nphysician, formerly on the staff, and now, and for many years past, in\nextensive practice in London, says:--\n\n\"But of all the medical quackeries that have sprung up in these times,\nnone can compare with the infamous _speculum_ treatment of certain members\nof the faculty, who confine their practice principally to females. No\nmatter what may be the woman's real complaint--a cough, pain of the side,\nor anything else--she is at once assured that it proceeds from 'disease of\nthe womb.' A pretended examination must, forsooth, be gone through, which,\nin every case, is made to confirm the dishonest assurance given in the\nfirst instance. The patient is forthwith victimized, week after week, and\nmonth after month, with a host of operations, for a disease which, in the\nbeginning, at least, never existed at all, but which is very soon brought\non artificially by the horrible appliances of men, who ride in their\ncarriages, by this daily and hourly outrage to the constitutions and the\ndecency of our women.\"--_The Forbidden Book_, vol. ii. page 195.\n\nAgain, in the same work, appears the following letter, under the head of\n\"Obstetric Quackery in Edinburgh:\"--\"SIR,--The members of the Town Council\nof Edinburgh are the patrons of the University. Most of them are known to\nbe conscientious men, and keenly alive to all that can affect the honour\nand the usefulness of the institution over which they preside. It appears\nextraordinary that they should have remained so long unacquainted with the\nleprosy which has infected some of the professors; or that they should not\nhave summarily driven these persons from the chairs they were polluting,\nwhen the fact was discovered.... It is to him (Dr. Simpson) that we\nchiefly owe the infinitely more dangerous and disgusting quackery in\nmidwifery, which rages like a pestilence in London, and in every town and\nvillage throughout the empire, and in some of our most distant colonies.\nOn the present occasion, it may be sufficient to enumerate the proceedings\nto which I allude: To Dr. Simpson we owe the invention of the dangerous\nweapon called the uterine-sound or poker--pessaries which have justly been\ndesignated infernal and impaling uterine machines, to cure retroversions\nwhich never existed; instruments for pumping the uterus, to excite\nmenstruation; and the proposal to rub its inner surface with lunar\ncaustic, for the same purpose. To him we owe the hysterotome, for slitting\nopen the os uteri, to cure sterility; and to his efforts, more than any\nother individual, we are indebted for the profligate use of the speculum\nwhich has prevailed, and the practice of destroying the os and cervix\nuteri with caustic potash. To Dr. Simpson we owe the attempt to revive the\nbrutal practice of turning in cases of distortion of the pelvis; of\nattempting to substitute the Caesarian operation for the induction of\npremature labour; to him we owe the attempt to subvert the established\npractice in placental presentation, by extraordinary statistic tables;\nand, lastly, we owe to the genius of the Professor of Midwifery in the\nUniversity of Edinburgh, the baby-sucker! Are these specimens of what the\n_Edinburgh Monthly Journal_ for this month calls 'the simple treatment\ntaught and practised in Edinburgh, and which, if adopted in London, would\nreduce many practitioners from comfort to starvation?' We may well excuse\nthe members of the Town Council if they are not so dexterous in\n_harliquinade_ as the University Professor.--I am, Sir, your obedient\nServant, ISAAC IRONS, M.D. Sept., 1851.\"\n\nWe now proceed to quote the words of \"a Fellow of the Royal College of\nSurgeons,\" which appear in a pamphlet entitled, \"The Speculum: its Moral\nTendencies.\" We believe the author to be very well known, both as a writer\nin the medical periodicals, and as a skilful and accomplished surgeon. He\nsays--\"Were fame and fortune, however, the only results, were the public\nsimply gulled, there would be nothing in its consequences to take this\nimposition out of the ordinary category. But, unfortunately, this is not\nthe case. The practices of these men leave results of a far more serious\nand lasting character, not to be sought for amongst material things, but\nin the lowered and loosened state to which it is rapidly bringing the\nmorality of the country.\n\n\"This is a strong assertion, but not stronger than the facts that support\nit. The profession is well aware of the baleful tendency of the\nproceedings of these men, whilst they deplore their inability to prevent\nor to expose them. Scarcely a member of it whom you meet but has a tale to\ntell of their practices, which, if made public, would bring the mighty\nfrom their seats; but there is too much indecency involved in the\ndisclosure to allow of its publicity. Thus are they doubly hedged; _their\ndiploma checks suspicion, whilst the nature of their performances secures\nthem secrecy_.\n\n\"To believe in the necessity for this constant and general use of the\nspeculum, is to admit a sad deterioration in nature itself. Either this,\nor that anterior generations were great sufferers without being aware of\nit. Perhaps, like the Spartan boy they endured in silence, rather than\nbetray a want of courage, or, what was more laudable, a want of delicacy.\n\n\"But I do not believe in this. I believe the workmanship of the Creator to\nbe as perfect now as of yore, and that the modern and multitudinous\ndisorders attributed to the uterine system are wicked inventions put forth\nto sanction unnecessary interference. Why, if we are to believe these men,\nthere is scarcely a patient who applies to them that is not suffering from\none or the other of these numerous affections. The womb, with them, is so\ninvariably out of order or out of position, that disease and dislocation\nare more constant than its normal conditions. Young or old, married or\nsingle, whatever their age, whatever their condition, the same opinion,\nthe same treatment, varied only in the selection of the instrument. No\nmatter what the complaint, or what the ailment, the _fons et origo mali_\nis declared to be the uterus....\n\n\"Nor are these practices confined to the high priests in these temples of\nimmorality; faith in their professions now pervades a large portion of\nfemale society; like the flame in a stubble field the mania has spread,\nthe convert quickly becomes the proselyte, and the consequence is, that\nsome men, in the general practice of our profession, are induced to shape\ntheir treatment less by the nature of the complaints, than the suggestions\nof their patients....\n\n\"The result of this can be easily imagined; unskilfulness is associated\nwith fraud. The Speculum is brought into play, and startling are the\nrevelations made by its glittering wall. Alarmed or amused, no matter\nwhich, the patient is secured, and remains long enough under treatment to\nfamiliarize her with indecency, and to enable the practical hand of the\nneophyte to attain the _tour de maitre_, both in handling the instrument\nand the fee....\n\n\"Then again, these uterine complaints, contrary to the laws that govern\nlocal affections, are made to assume an almost epidemic character, for it\nis by no means uncommon to hear that several members of the same household\nare under treatment, as they call it, at the same time....\n\n\"But besides those whom I have mentioned as abusing the Speculum, there\nare others, who, more honest, yet not less dangerous, are, unconsciously\nperhaps, contributing their share to this work of demoralization; I mean\nthat portion of the profession who, unable to form opinions for\nthemselves, are ready at all times _jurare in verba magistri_, adopting\nany practice, provided the example be set in high places.... with these\nmen one would like to deal charitably; but the best of motives must not be\nallowed to compensate the consequences of dangerous acts; THEY MUST NOT BE\nALLOWED TO JEOPARDISE THE MODESTY OF THE SEX, SO LONG THE PRIDE AND THE\nPROPERTY OF ENGLAND.\n\n\"That an instrument, capable in its application of such wide-spreading\nmischief, should possess some compensating good, some power whereby\ndiseases, hitherto obscure and intractable, should be compelled to render\nup the morbid secrets on which they rest, and to take their place amongst\ncurable disorders, was to have been expected, and had this been so, the\ncase would stand far differently....\n\n\"But unfortunately this is not the case; the diseases here alluded to,\nthough obnoxious to its application, instead of being benefited are\nmaterially aggravated by its use; take, for instance, the scirrhous\naffections, in these cases its use is not only inefficacious, but\npositively injurious--it only adds torture to torment....\n\n\"Driven, then, from the field of real disease, these advocates of the\nSpeculum are obliged to invest with a false character ailments that the\nprofession has hitherto regarded as too trifling to admit of any save the\nsimplest treatment.... The Speculum has been greatly extolled as the means\nof conveying appliances immediately to the parts affected. But it must not\nbe forgotten that the effects of local remedies in constitutional\naffections are short-lived in the extreme, or that those can hardly be\ncalled remedies, that are notoriously so slow in their operation, as to\nleave it doubtful whether they have not, after all, been robbing time of\nthe merit of the recovery.\n\n\"That the profession is silent on these abuses is, in my opinion, to be\ndeplored. Such silence may arise from the fear that the denunciation of\nthem would tend to lower it in the estimation of the public, more than the\ncontinuance of the abuses themselves. Yielding to none in the desire to\nuphold the dignity of my order, I must say that I share in no such\napprehensions. The public in return for the confidence they repose in us,\nhave a right to such protection, and if they find that it has been\nwithheld, that, in a mistaken solicitude for our own interests, we have\nneglected theirs, they will bind us all up in one common withe together,\nand the diploma, though it may still indicate the man of science, will\ncease to insure us the position of gentlemen.\"[32]\n\nThe last extract which we shall give appears in the _Lancet_, a periodical\nwhose very title is behind the age, indicative of professional bigotry, a\nrecord of antiquated fallacy and prejudice. The tide must surely be on the\nturn, or the exposure of these speculumizing villainies would never have\nbeen permitted to grace its columns:--\n\n\"On the use of the speculum in the diagnosis and treatment of uterine\ndiseases, by Dr. Robert Lee, the author referred to the tabular statement\nof 220 cases of real and imaginary disease of the uterus, published in the\n38th volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, and presented in a\nsimilar tabular form the details (of) eighty additional cases, which had\nsince come under his observation. Of the 300 patients forty-seven were\nunmarried, one had barely completed her eighteenth year, several were\nunder twenty, and the majority under thirty years of age, and were\nsuffering from hysteria, leucorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, or some nervous\naffection of the uterus, without inflammation, ulceration, or any\nstructural disease or displacement of the organ. In Case 256 the patient\nhad been told that the womb was prolapsed and much ulcerated, and an\ninstrument had been introduced for six weeks, with an aggravation of all\nthe symptoms. The hymen was found so perfect on examination that it was\nimpossible to reach the os uteri without using an unjustifiable degree of\nviolence. On the ground of morality, and on every other ground, he could\nsee no defence for the employment of the speculum in these forty-seven\ncases. Of the 300 patients seventy were barren, and the sterility was not\nremoved, nor the other symptoms relieved in a single instance. SEVERAL OF\nTHESE INDIVIDUALS SPOKE WITH HORROR AND SHAME OF THE TREATMENT TO WHICH\nTHEY HAD BEEN SUBMITTED. A considerable number of the cases were suffering\nfrom cancerous disease, in all of which the symptoms seemed to have been\naggravated by the treatment. In Case 236 the character of the disease was\nunmistakable, but after an examination with the speculum a favourable\nprognosis had been given, and the actual cautery employed for months, and\nhopes of recovery held out to the last. The author expressed his\nconviction that neither in the living nor in the dead body had he ever\nseen a case of simple ulceration from chronic inflammation of the os or\ncervix uteri; and to apply the term to states of the os uteri in which the\nmucous membrane or, as it is termed by some, the basement membrane, is not\ndestroyed by ulceration, was an abuse of terms calculated only to deceive\nand mislead the members of the medical profession, from whom the truth has\nbeen carefully concealed. The speculum emanates from the syphilitic wards\nof the hospitals at Paris, and _it would have been better for the women of\nEngland had its use been confined to those institutions_.\"--The _Lancet_,\nJuly 25, 1857.\n\nSuch is the language of earnest, honourable men, who have dared to dispel,\nby the light of true philosophy, the fog of \"scientific\" rascaldom--that\nempiric haze so desolating, so destructive to the inwrapped and blinded\npublic. Few will deny that there are, in the foregoing extracts,\nsentiments which do honour to their authors, and revelations for which\nsociety should feel the deepest gratitude.\n\nWere we to relate the numbers of weak and deluded creatures who, upon the\nslightest pretext, submit to this accursed rite, it would appear\nincredible. We know that one fashionable pretender to peculiar skill in\nthe diagnostics of uterine affections, has boasted of five such\nexaminations in one family in a single day! and that another has spoken of\nthe exposure of _fifty_ women to his professional gaze in the same space\nof time. These are facts--horrible, but undeniable, facts! \"O shame! where\nis thy blush?\" O woman! where is thy vaunted modesty, in a country tainted\nby such unspeakable and hideous mysteries, permitted--nay, tacitly\nencouraged--as they are, under the hypocritical guise of scientific\ndiscovery, and the pretended mitigation of human ills? Is it possible\nthat in this age, and in this our land, men should be found so utterly\ninsensate, so beggared of all feeling, so lost to all the chivalry of\nmanhood, that, with this libidinous iniquity made patent, they would not\narise, and, in one mighty and overwhelming surge of execration, crush its\nperpetrators, and abolish this obscene invasion of marital rights. No!\nperish the thought! The azure blood, which throbbed and pulsated in the\nBritish heart in those far off days of the second Richard, when the\nindecent outrages of the poll-tax gatherers lashed the people into fury at\ntheir daughters' wrongs, still runs in the veins of Englishmen; and we\nwill not believe that the halo of purity, which made the homes of \"merrie\nEngland\" the watchword of our sires, can have departed for ever from those\nof their descendants.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n  \"The chariest maid is prodigal enough,\n  If she unmask her beauty to the moon;\n  Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes;\n  The canker galls the infants of the spring,\n  Too oft before their buttons be disclosed;\n  And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,\n  Contagious blastments are most imminent.\n  Be wary, then, best safety lies in fear.\"\n\n\nWe have already, in the foregoing pages, quoted the words of Roussel, a\ncelebrated French physician of the last century, whose delicate and\nsensitive mind revolted at the indecency of the practice which had then\nbut lately been adopted in his country; and before we proceed to quote\nmore largely from the same author, we think it proper that our readers\nshould be made acquainted with the character of the man who so lovingly\nexerted his great talents to release his countrywomen from the gross\nthraldom of designing charlatans and empirical impostors.\n\nDr. Cerise, in the account of Roussel prefixed to the edition of the\nPhysical and Moral System of Women, published in Paris, 1855, says: \"Among\nthe celebrated physicians that France has produced, a great number have\ndistinguished themselves not only by their erudition, but still more by\nthe elegance of their language, by the elevation of their sentiments, by\nthe profundity of their conceptions; their names belong to letters and\nphilosophy, as much as to medicine. Roussel is a member of that glorious\nfamily of Petits, Bordeus, Vicq-d'Azyrs, Cabanis, Aliberts, which, at the\npresent day, is honourably represented by two writers, Pariset and\nReveille-Parise. Through them medicine is not only a useful, but it is\nalso an agreeable science.\n\n\"Let us hope, that so illustrious a family will not become extinct, and\nthat descendants worthy of it will faithfully keep alive the sacred fire,\nperpetually threatened by the freezing breath of scientific materialism.\n\n\"Roussel was born at Ax, in the department of Ariege, in 1742. His\neducation, commenced in that town, was finished at Toulouse. His taste for\nmedical study manifested itself early. He betook himself to Montpellier,\nwhere he profited by the scientific lectures of Lamure, Venel, and\nBarthez. These medical studies completed, he was desirous of further\ninstruction, and came to Paris. He closely allied himself with Bordeu.\nThis physician, according to the expression of Alibert, was too\nillustrious to be happy; the friendship of Roussel consoled his vexations;\nbut Bordeu soon died, and Roussel had the melancholy commission to\npronounce his funeral elogy. We are assured that love was the genius of\nRoussel. \"He was still very young,\" says his biographer, \"when this\nsentiment was awakened in his soul; it was then that his inspired\nimagination began to meditate on the tastes, the manners, the passions,\nand the habits of women, and that he made a constant study of their\nphysical constitution, and of the moral attributes which they derived from\nit. He soon arranged the fruits which he had collected, and composed a\nbody of science interesting as its subject.\n\n\"Thus was written _the Physical and Moral System of Woman_. This treatise,\nwhich agreed in its development with a title so imposing, has remained\nsuperior to all those which have been written upon woman, without\nexcepting the remarkable work of M. Virey, which failed, perhaps, in\neclipsing that of Roussel, solely from its severer method and more\nscientific manner of treatment. He soon undertook another treatise,\nintended to serve as a pendant to the former. This new treatise, entitled\nthe _Physical and Moral System of Man_, was not completed, which, judging\nfrom what he had published, is much to be regretted. He caused to be\ninserted in the journals of the day, _An Essay on Sensibility_; _An\nAccount of Madame Helvetius_; a short dissertation, entitled, _Historic\nDoubts on Sappho_; some remarks '_On the Sympathies_.' He had commenced a\nlengthened work on Stahl, the celebrated head of the medical college,\ncalled _Animist_, but this work remained unpublished; he reviewed the work\nof Madame de Stael, upon the Affinities of Literature with Social\nInstitutions; he applied himself to combat the doctrine of the indefinite\nperfectibility of the human spirit, developed by Condorcet, in one of his\nmost remarkable writings. The problem was then proposed in terms such as\ncould not afford any satisfactory conclusion--as yet the science of\nhistory did not exist. He wrote upon the right of making a will, which he\nregarded as inviolable and imprescriptible; he addressed public\nexhortations to political electors, to remind them of their duties and of\ntheir rights; he admired the institutions of Lycurgus, and published a\ndissertation on the government of Sparta. It is thus that the empire of\ncircumstances under which France at present exists dominates over all\nminds. Roussel, yet meditating with a tender partiality upon the physical\nand moral constitution of woman, could not resist descending into the\narena of political discussion. Thanks to the moderation of his character,\nhis voice, in the midst of revolutionary storms, was hardly understood,\nand his existence was not disturbed.\n\n\"Roussel loved retirement and unaffected manners. Traits of a charming\nsimplicity are related of him. Alibert congratulating him one day on the\nmarriage of one of his brothers, suggested that he should follow his\nexample and marry. 'I assure you,' replied the irresolute bachelor, 'that\nthis idea often occurs to me, but one must go before the priest, before\nthe magistrate--there is no end to the affair.' There are persons for whom\npleasing and indefinite fantasies have a charm which they love to prolong;\nthey seem to dread a real happiness which might deprive imagination of its\nmost smiling visions. Roussel was one of these persons. He was smitten\nwith a violent passion for a young and beautiful person whom he had\nrestored to health. Happy, doubtless, in secretly bearing a cherished\nimage in his heart, he refrained from giving utterance to his thoughts.\nOne day it was announced that this person was going to be married. 'Ah,'\ncried he, '_I am so grieved; I could not have believed it_;' and he shed\nabundant tears of regret. He was often sorrowful; in one of these fits of\nmelancholy, he ran at midnight to a physician of his acquaintance--'My\nhead turns,' said he; 'I feel myself very ill. I am come to you to implore\nyour attention.' Imbert reassured him, and calmed his alarmed\nimagination. The two friends engaged in conversation, and Roussel forgot\nhis malady.\n\n\"Roussel was good; benevolence, a quality so precious to a physician, was\nin him lovely and expansive. When he suffered, study was an asylum for his\ngrief, a refuge for his afflicted spirit. He found in the joys of the mind\na defence against the sorrows of the heart. His internal agitations\ndissipated themselves thus without gall and without bitterness. His\nexcellence was proof even against evil days. He lived poor, but the\naffectionate and delicate hospitality of a respectable family never\nallowed him to perceive it. He could, thanks to the care of M. Falaize,\nneglect, quite at his ease, both his affairs and his fortune, exercise his\nprofession with the confident and noble freedom so agreeable to elevated\nminds; meditate without interruption upon Plato, Plutarch, and Rabelais,\nand withdraw himself, without peril, from those petty torments which\nimpose themselves under the name of social proprieties. A perfect courtesy\nwith him was marvellously allied to good nature a little rough, and which\nwas not without a dash of mischief. Roussel no more sought honours than\nfortune. He refused the offer of an honourable employment, made to him by\nthe Great Frederic. He failed, however, to be called to the legislative\nbody. He wanted only two votes. Powerful friends had designed him for the\nTribuneship. He declined that honour, urging the weakness of his voice,\nand his timidity. Roussel was timid through excess of modesty.\n\n\"Roussel was endowed with a delicate constitution. He had been suffering\nmore than usual for many days, when he quitted Paris to retire into the\ncountry, to M. Falaize, near Chateaudun. Enfeebled by prolonged\nsufferings, he soon yielded to the attack of a fever which raged\nepidemically in the neighbourhood. He sank under it the second\ncomplementary day of the year X. (1802), aged about sixty years. Roussel\nhad possessed devoted friends; those who survived him remained faithful to\nhis memory. Alibert recorded his life with touching eloquence. He did\nmore; he collected his principal writings, of which some were disseminated\nin the journals, and published an edition of his works.\"\n\nThis account of Roussel, brief as it is, will suffice to inform our\nreaders that he was no ordinary man, and that, from his learning, and long\nexperience as a physician, his opinions and reflections upon \"the\npretended art\" of man-midwifery are entitled to the greatest respect.\nThose who would ridicule his sentiments, and treat his arguments as false\nand visionary, and his ideas as antiquated and unsuited to the taste and\nadvancement of the present day, are those who, from mean and despicable\nmotives of self-interest, would confirm the vicious system which Roussel\nhas denounced, and, while destroying woman's modesty, would erect their\nown fortune on its ruins.\n\nTowards the end of the preface to the Physical and Moral System of Woman,\nwill be found the following sentences, which we would commend to the\nserious consideration of every man whose sense of decency has not been\naltogether obliterated, and whose mind still retains any of those finer\nfeelings, which God, when he made man in his own image, implanted in the\nhuman breast. \"It is not the same, perhaps, with the abuses introduced by\nthat art, almost unknown among the ancients, which, under the pretence of\nassisting nature in producing man, itself sometimes prevents his seeing\nthe light, in attempting to do that which she unaided could more\neffectually perform; which enervates in woman, by effeminacy and the\nneedless lengthening out of precautions, the instinct, which alone puts\nthem in a condition to do without it. In fine, which, by a usage, as\nindecently as unreasonably repeated in men's attendance upon women,\nenfeebles, and at length annihilates the sentiment which most adorns the\nsex. I have made some reflections upon this pretended art in the chapter\nwhich treats of natural labour.\" Again, in the chapter on pregnancy,\nRoussel speaks trumpet-tongued, not only against the indelicacy, but of\nthe absolute inutility of those digital examinations _per vaginam_ now in\nvogue, and so dogmatically prescribed in the text books of midwifery.\n\n\"As the instant when a woman conceives does not manifest itself in her by\nany well characterized expression, and the consequences of this act remain\nfor some time concealed by a thick veil, that spirit of unrest which\nordains that man, dissatisfied with the present which he may enjoy, should\never press on towards that future, which he perhaps shall never see,\ninduces him to seek with eagerness the as yet hidden signs of pregnancy,\nand to question nature long before she deigns to speak. Men might, in this\nrespect, spare themselves the torments of needless impatience, since it\ncan neither accelerate nor retard its object. It would be much more in\norder to wait patiently until the natural signs themselves announce\npregnancy, than that the tentatives by which it is pretended they are\nanticipated should annoy women weak enough to submit to them, without\nthrowing any more light on the motive which suggests a recourse to them.\n\n\"These tentatives are the work of a shameless charlatanism, which\nsolicits them, and which disports itself with chastity and decency, to\nestablish its empire upon the ruins of a virtue to which the sex owes its\nown most solid foundations.\n\n\"We here feel ourselves compelled to inform women, that those whom they\nemploy at this kind of trials deceive them, in affecting a knowledge which\nthey do not possess. All information derived from _the touch_ is very\nuncertain. The concurrence of external and obvious signs can alone be\nreckoned on; such as the increased size of the abdomen, the swelling of\nthe bosom, preceded by qualms, nausea, and suppression of the menses. But\nthe most decisive of all, by the actual avowal of all men-midwives, the\nsole indubitable proof consists in the movements of the infant, which make\nthemselves felt towards the fourth month of pregnancy. Thus women can\ninform themselves better than any one whether they are with child, and the\nmen-midwives, who are forced themselves to acknowledge this, ought to\nerase from their treatises on midwifery the nonsensical rules which they\ngive upon _the touch_.[33] To give an idea of the solidity and wisdom of\nthese rules, I need cite but one, taken from a work of one of the most\ncelebrated men-midwives. 'When one is called on,' says he, 'to examine a\ngirl by _the touch_ for some suspicion of pregnancy,[34] one ought at\nfirst to introduce the finger with caution, for fear of deflowering her,\nif she was not so.' Is not this the very climax of absurdity to be\nwilling, upon the simple suspicion of an evil which, perhaps, is\nimaginary, to produce a real injury, to expose one's self, for the sake of\nknowing whether a girl had committed a fault, to the rendering more easy\nto her all those which she might commit in future, by destroying the prime\nbulwark which in her opposes itself to vice; in fine, to deflower a girl\nin order to discover whether she had lost her virginity?[35] And unhappily\nagain for the rule, the means which it points out are insufficient to\nattain the desired information. It is from time alone that this revelation\nmay be expected. Three or four months of patience will enlighten you more\nthan can this dangerous practice, the disgraceful essays of which are\nworse than the doubts that they would dissipate. Although the\ninconveniences of this practice are not so considerable for women as for\ngirls, we would never do them the injustice to suppose, that it would not\nbe painful for them to consent to an examination which ought to humiliate\nthem in their own eyes, and which must sometimes render them contemptible\nin the eyes of others: they should free themselves from this torturing\nceremony, though there was no other reason for it than its inutility for\nthe object which induces them to submit to it.\"[36] Again, in the chapter\non natural labour, Roussel says:--\n\n\"Final causes, which some philosophers would banish as a barren principle\n(which is perhaps true in natural philosophy), are in medicine the\nfoundation of the most solid truths, which the ancients, and above all,\nHippocrates, have transmitted to us. They have perhaps supposed that it\nwas too trite and too commonplace to think that the Creator, who presided\nat the formation of our bodies, had made the mouth to eat, the eyes to\nsee, and the ears to hear. We know not if it required much effort and\nsubtle reasoning to divest them of the first ideas of common sense, but it\nseems to us, that they who reject altogether final causes discard perhaps\nas much truth as those who have most misused them, for it must be owned,\nthat certain writers have made a strange use of them. Not to travel out of\nthe subject which occupies us, we may quote M. Astruc,[37] who alleges\nthat the coverings of the foetus, in engaging themselves at the same\ntime with it in the orifice of the womb, serve to line that passage, and\nto defend it against the bruisings of the foetus, and _the fingers of\nthe midwife_. To suppose that nature, in arranging the objects which\nshould assist delivery, had contemplated the awkwardness of male and\nfemale midwives, is to impute to her a foresight which unhappily would be\nonly too necessary, but that she had little for the errors that we are\nable to commit. She has done all for the best in our favour, so much the\nworse for us if we mar her work. _It must be_, said the same author,\n_that its face (of the foetus) was turned from the side of the os\nsacrum, to prevent its nose from being crushed by the bones of the pubes,\nand that it might not be suffocated by the waters of the amnios_. A child\nthat had been living nine months in water to be suffocated, when passing\nout of it, by a few drops! O Astruc! have you well considered this?\n\n\"Without, then, ascribing to nature frivolous fears, or confining her to\ndetails which she disdains, we may reasonably believe that after having\nalloted to different organs destined to aid in generation, the\nmodifications most suitable to the conception of the child, and its\npreservation during pregnancy, she would afford those also which should,\nwith the least inconvenience, effect its exit from the maternal\nbosom.\"[38]\n\nAfter describing the process of nature in parturition, Roussel goes on to\nsay:--\"O Rubens! I leave to your pencil the care of expressing that\ntouching state in which the last impressions of abated pain still tinge\nthe serenity of purest joy; where the melancholy, caused by sufferings now\nterminating, is not yet effaced by the most delightful sentiments which\ncan animate the soul; where the dread of losing life, natural enough in\nsuffering, gives place to the delicious pleasure of having presented it\nto a new being. But wherefore must it be, that this state is the price of\na train of inconveniences, and a gradation of suffering often\ninsupportable; and why are we here compelled to envy the kinds of animals\namongst which pregnancy is without embarrassment, and delivery almost\nwithout a pang, or at least exempt from the sad or fatal consequences\nwhich so often follow it in the human species? It would, nevertheless, be\nwrong to tax nature with injustice.[39] We yet find races in whom her\nprimitive impress has never been effaced by the abuses of a refined\nsociety, and amongst whom women enjoy nearly the same privileges as the\nfemales of animals.\n\n\"The women of the Ostiaks, it is said,[40] never have any uneasiness about\nthe time of their delivery, and take none of those precautions which\nEuropean effeminacy renders almost indispensable. They are delivered\nwherever they may happen to be without any inconvenience; they, or the\npersons who assist them, plunge the new-born infant into water or snow,\nand the mother returns immediately to her ordinary occupations, or\ncontinues her march, if on a journey.[41] As these people dwell in the\nvicinity of the Samoeides,[42] between the fifty-ninth and sixtieth degree\nof north latitude, they do not fail to attribute this vigorous\nconstitution to the severity of the climate.\n\n\"Meanwhile, in the same history, we read that the wives of the dwellers in\nthe island of Amboina, towards the third degree of south latitude, are in\nthe same category; and the author or compiler of that history, in\nreporting the fact, discovers the cause of it in the heat of the climate,\nwhich renders women's members supple and capable of accommodating\nthemselves with ease to the labours of parturition. One may perceive from\nthis how versatile are the explanations obtained from _cold_ and _heat_,\nand how, in the jargon of mechanicians, causes altogether opposite can\nserve with more vraisemblance than actual truth for proof of the same\neffect. We repeat again, the effect of manners and custom is not often\nenough considered. In all climates nature has given both to man and brute\nthe faculties necessary for fulfilling the functions of life with ease.\nThe former has very often perverted their use, believing that\nluxuriousness, precautions, and an abundance of all things could supply\ntheir place.\n\n\"Without seeking for examples beyond those to which we shall refer, we\nmight disabuse ourselves of so dangerous an error, if we would compare,\nwithout prejudice, even in our own climate, the women in the rural\ndistricts with those resident in towns. The former, having their attention\ncontinually diverted by their necessary occupations, often find themselves\nin the middle of their pregnancy almost without perceiving it, and this is\nalready a great deal gained. This novel state, without changing anything\nin the course of their health, or in their way of living, obliges only\nsome preparations more necessary for the infant than for themselves.\nArrived at the end of the ninth month (as they are never in a hurry to lie\nin) they do not aggravate the troubles which accompany this function by\nthe anxieties of vexatious expectation. Nature sometimes surprises them in\nthe midst of the rustic employments in which they are occupied during\ntheir pregnancy, and which only prepare them the better to support those\nof labour. Finding in them healthy organs and a calm mind, she operates\nwithout obstruction, and, in consequence, delivers them with less\nsuffering and more celerity.[43] The consequences of labour, which are, to\nthe majority of women in towns, in part a real malady, and partly a kind\nof etiquette and convention, which subjects them, during a fixed period,\nto the regimen of sick persons, when they have ceased to be so, are almost\nnothing to women in the country. Nature, having neither caprice nor excess\nto combat in them, only occupies herself for their re-establishment; and\nas they yield nothing to custom or opinion, they enjoy as much as possible\nthe favours of nature. They have not time to crawl methodically, during\nmany weeks, from their bed to a sofa; they have almost always that courage\nwhich increases their powers, and which necessity sometimes gives even to\nwomen resident in towns. Among these even it is by no means rare to see\nthe wives of poor workmen, who walk to a midwife at the moment of\nparturition, and who return the next day free and exempt from accidents,\nwhich the woman of higher rank does not always escape, in the midst of the\nstudied precautions which are taken on her account; their condition in\nlife does not permit them to be inconvenienced for more than three or four\ndays. It seems that nature gives us powers in proportion to the necessity\nthat we have to make use of them. We have known a young girl who found the\nmeans to conceal from her parents the humiliating signs of her weakness,\nand the operation which relieved her from it. As her pregnancy was not\nlegitimate, she had not the right to be an invalid.[44]\n\n\"As for most women in towns, and above all those of the upper classes,\ninstead of courage capable of annihilating the sentiment of evil, all\nconcurs to nourish a pusillanimity in them, which renders it more vivid.\nThe eager curiosity with which they endeavour to find out whether they are\npregnant, the new regimen to which they submit themselves when they are\ndeclared to be so, the preparations, the anxieties, the alarms, real or\nfeigned, which reign around them, the number of persons who besiege them,\nthe inaction to which they are condemned, should give them a frightful\nidea of their state, and would seem to deprive them of the ability to\nmake use of their proper powers, and so to render them of no effect. The\nfeebleness and inertia of their minds, passing to their organs, cannot but\ndispose them to a stormy pregnancy, and prepare them for a painful and\nsometimes fatal labour. The instinct which watches for the preservation of\nour lives, which knows so well how to manage its resources in the most\nserious evils, must weaken and lose itself amidst the throng of succours\nwith which the patients are sometimes overwhelmed. What could it have to\ndo when so many are acting for it?\n\n\"Delivery is an animal function which, in all likelihood, nature had no\ndesire to render a disease. This function exercises itself almost without\npain and without danger in the brute. In all places where the means of\nassisting it have never been reduced to art, women have ordinarily labours\nless severe and more fortunate than in those localities which swarm with\naccoucheurs and midwives. Whence comes this distinction, if it is not from\nthe difference of manners and methods of treatment in the one and the\nother, or from the abuse which, in the latter places, is made of a\npretended science?\n\n\"If the delicacy which results from a luxurious and inactive life renders\nthe movements of the womb more painful, we should attribute the\nirregularity which renders them sometimes fatal to the mother and the\nchild, to a disordered sensibility, which is excited by attempts almost\nalways ill-directed, and almost always executed by mischance. It is in\nthis disturbance that the infant assumes those disadvantageous positions\nof which the accoucheurs and midwives unquestionably exaggerate the\ndanger, to put a higher value on their 'manipulations;'[45] but which, in\neffect, render the delivery longer and more laborious: disturbance\nmaintained and augmented by the embarrassment which the presence of a\nnumber of persons, some dear, others odious, some unknown, who in general\nfill the chamber of a woman in labour, must naturally produce, BY THE\nTORMENTS OF A MODESTY TOO LITTLE REGARDED, by an air of importance too\nmuch affected, which the assistants, and others who are to operate, throw\nover the affair in which they are engaged. All these objects must excite a\nvariety of sentiments in the woman, which, by distracting her mind,\nnecessarily disturb the organic action of the parts which should perform\nthe delivery. Happy is it, if too presumptuous accoucheurs and midwives do\nnot, by their precocious tentatives, solicit in her a nature which is not\nyet prepared to engage itself, precipitate its movements, and consequently\nabort the fruit which they ought to await, weary the parts already too\nmuch irritated, and rendered too sensible by the orgasm and tension which\nthey have suffered, and hurry both mother and child into inevitable ruin.\n\n\"Women who have the good fortune not to be annoyed by numerous attendants,\nand in whom nothing discomposes nature, are seldom subject to those\ncatastrophes which, very far from bringing discredit on the operator, who\nis often the cause of them, only make him appear the more necessary.\nNature, when she works alone, knows so well how to combine and graduate\nher action that she does that only which she ought to do. Ah! why should\nshe not with ease accomplish an operation for which she has foreseen, and\nwell prepared everything? Why should she not succeed in extracting with\nfacility from the centre of the womb, from an active, flexible, and very\nvigorous organ, a body which is familiar to it, and which, from its form\nand consistence, cannot much injure the parts which it touches? Why should\nshe be embarrassed in bringing to light an infant whose situation is so\nnear the outlet through which it is to issue, she whom we have sometimes\nseen conducting, without accident, pointed or sharp-edged bodies through\nthe windings of the urinary ducts, and the tortuous folds of the long\npassage of the intestines? There are, besides, operations which she loves\nto execute in silence and in secret. This delicate instinct manifests\nitself even in some species of animals, which never fulfil certain\nfunctions in presence of witnesses, and fly from the gaze of man to\nperform them. Delivery, from its nature, and from all the circumstances\nwhich characterize this function, is one of those which, in the human\nspecies, requires most especially to be covered with a veil. It cannot be\ndoubted that they would assist her in a way the most efficacious, if the\nnumber of persons in attendance on a woman in labour was limited to two or\nthree of her most intimate friends, who, by a gay and lively manner,\nshould divert her from her sufferings, or by their confident appearance\npacify her apprehensions; and to a midwife, whose presence of mind,\npatience, reserve, and protection should be a guarantee for her\ntranquillity. It is not to be doubted, I say, that a woman would be by\nthose means more effectually succoured than by the tumultuous assistance\nof a number of persons, sorrowful, aghast, impatient, whose multiplied and\noften mis-directed attentions magnify in her imagination the evil which\nshe must endure, and the danger which she fears, and above all by the\nawful appearance of a man ever ready to operate, always armed with\nsuspicious instruments, and to be dreaded from his sex.\n\n\"It must be owned that although the midwife's function belongs to the\nhealing art, it was not intended to be exercised by men.[46] The character\nof this function, the small amount of knowledge which it requires, the\nentire and absolute confidence which persons of the same sex must\nnaturally have in each other, in fine, everything demands for it the\nagency of women; this employment seems their proper existence; they\npossess all the advantages necessary to fulfil it with success. We know\nwith what address and with what dexterity their hands, small and supple,\nglide and insinuate themselves everywhere without annoyance, capable of\npenetrating to the very source of the evil without augmenting it, and\nconveying the remedy to the part diseased, without awakening, by the act,\npangs which had been allayed.\n\n\"It is these precious talents, as well as that delicate attention capable\nof divining the wants which there is not strength to express, and that\nenlightened sensibility which knows how to regard the very caprices of the\ncomplaint, which gave rise to the proverb, honourable to the sex, that\nwheresoever there is a suffering being, his sighs summon woman to console\nhim.[47]\n\n\"They will tell us that long and serious studies, to wit, physics,\nmechanics, and even mathematics, are necessary to insure skill in the art\nof midwifery. Eh! where is it that they have not introduced, especially of\nlate, physics and mathematics? All that which is material; all that which\nis within the jurisdiction of the senses, belongs, without doubt, to\nphysics and to mechanics: one could not move a step, one could not lift a\nstraw, without its being done by the laws of physics; but every one\nperforms these mechanical operations, as the Bourgeois gentleman did\nprose, that is to say, without suspecting it. There are natural mechanics\nwith which not only all men, but even all animals are acquainted without\nhaving studied them. All perform actions, without having been trained to\nthem, wherein sparkle the most subtle mechanics; all know of themselves,\nand without previous practice, how to assume the most convenient postures\nwhich their different wants demand. Those who compose treatises on\nmidwifery describe at great length the position which a woman ought to\ntake during labour, and that which is proper for the accoucheur. The legs\nof this latter, say they, ought to describe an angle of _forty-five\ndegrees_. An operator, to give lustre to his art, may well appeal to that\nof mechanics and geometry; but he ought not to say that it is above the\ncapacity of women. The sole difference which exists, perhaps, between them\nis, that a woman, in abandoning herself to her natural dexterity, in\nliberating herself from the constraint of a fixed position, and in\neffecting the movements which circumstances require, rather than those\nwhich the rule demands, will go about the work better than the man-midwife\ngravely moored (_affourche_) at his _angle of forty-five degrees_.\n\n\"The art of midwifery, stripped of regulations, useless or of little\nmoment, and of the frivolous finery wherein it has been arrayed, reduces\nitself to a very small number of simple principles,[48] easy to attain,\nand most suitable to the capacity of women. They soon learn what are\nthose faulty positions which the infant may take in the womb: what are\nthose which they may rectify; and those which, not being remediable, leave\nnothing to the address of the operator but the wise resolution to\ndiminish, as much as possible, their inconveniences.\n\n\"Again, it must be considered, that those principles are not to be\napplied, excepting in cases wherein nature, insufficient in herself,\ndemands the assistance of another's hand; for, by the avowal of\naccoucheurs themselves, natural labour, which is and ought to be the most\ncommon, can conduct itself without the intervention of art. We may then\nconclude, with certainty, that accoucheurs who 'manipulate,' who\ninstrumentalize us much as they can, most frequently do it without\nnecessity, and from this cause are prejudicial to the success of the\noperation. We may also, in that way, reduce to their just value the\nexaggerated details which they give of pretended obstacles which they have\nhad to overcome, of the address and dexterity which was necessary to\nsurmount them; details which seem intended to show that the delivery had\nbeen their work, or that, at least, much of it was theirs, and very little\nnature's own.[49]\n\n\"Either, in the time of the Greeks, women were delivered with greater ease\nthan now, or they judged better than us of the true degree of influence\nthat the midwife or the accoucheur possesses in this function. By the\nappellation which they gave to their midwives, it appears that they\nlimited them to the duty of cutting the umbilical cord; they called them\n[Greek: omphalotomoi], umbilical cord-cutters. The females of animals\nperform this operation with their teeth; and as the umbilical cord can in\ntheir case do without a ligature, there are authors who doubt whether it\nis as essential in man as many persons pretend. There are observations for\nand against it. This is not the place to discuss this question; but we\nbelieve that they may much deceive themselves if they look upon the\numbilical cord as a simple continuation of the vessels of the child or of\nthe mother, and not as a fragment of affinity which only serves, for a\ncertain time, as a point of communication established between the mother\nand the infant, that nature retains so long as she requires it, but which\nshe leaves to decay, and fall away, when it is no longer useful to her.\nAfter the delivery she contracts, compresses, and closes up the part of\nthe infant to which it adheres; and by intercepting the blood and the life\nwhich gives it subsistence, she soon causes it to wither and dry up,\nwithout any prejudice to the child.\n\n\"Although the easiness of the art of midwifery might have been, among the\nancients, a motive for intrusting it to women, they also doubtless had a\nregard for natural propriety, which suggested that the infant, on coming\ninto the world, should be received into the hands of a midwife, to pass\ninto those of a nurse, and from the hands of the nurse into those of a\ngoverness, who should prepare him to receive from men a masculine\neducation. A repository so weak and so delicate would perhaps have found,\nin the rough and unbending kindness of the latter, aid less adapted to its\nstate; it required a gentle and yielding support, knowing how to be pliant\nas itself, the better to defend it. In fine, the care of infancy is the\ndestination of women; it is a task which nature has assigned them. It is\nwoman who must bear the infant during nine months in her womb; _it is\nwoman who ought to facilitate the means of its exit_; it is woman who\nshould furnish the first nourishment which it requires; in fine, it is\nwoman who should keep watch over the first developments of its organs and\nof its mind, and prepare it for the lessons which should elevate it to the\ncondition of man. But the principal reason which, among the ancients,\nforbade the belief that the duty of aiding delivery could be proper to any\nbut women, excepting in cases of very rare occurrence, where every\nconsideration might necessarily yield to a pressing danger, was the grand\ninterest of manners.[50] This was an object to which ancient governments\nhad always special regard.[51] They knew morality to be the foundation of\nall legislation, and that good laws would be made in vain, unless good\nmorals insured their execution. The cruelty of Archagathus' surgical\noperations drove the medical men from Rome. She banished also from her\nbosom the Greek philosophers and orators, who were accused of having\nintroduced and cultivated the taste for the arts and vices of Greece. She\nwould surely not have permitted, for any length of time, the existence of\n_an art which, practised by men, would, under the specious pretence of\nutility, threaten the sanctuary of marriage_, and which, striking a blow\nat the chief safeguard of families, would next attack the mainsprings of\nthe state; an art which, _with power to alarm the modesty of women, would\nsoon leave them without a blush_, and cause them to lose even the\nrecollection of that severe virtue which had merited the respect and\nveneration of the Romans, and which of old had been the principle of the\ngrandest revolutions. Cato, always careful to protect the hearts of the\ncitizens from corruption, would never have permitted their wives, when\npresenting children to the republic, to tarnish the favour by a\nforgetfulness of the first of all decencies. All nations were sufficiently\nagreed, up to the middle of the last century, never to admit the agency of\nmen in delivery. M. Astruc[52] alleges that it was not until 1663 that\nthey began at court to make use of a man-midwife, and this was, say they,\non one of those occasions when honour in danger takes counsel but from the\nperplexity which misleads it, and violates one part of its rules to save\nthe other. Who would believe it? It was shame which compelled recourse,\nfor the first time, to men. A king, who knew the force of example on the\nthrone, and who wished to conceal his weaknesses, and to be tender of the\ndelicacy of her who shared them, believed that he could not place in\nbetter hands an interest so dear. It is thus that Jupiter sometimes\nconfided to the inferior gods, rather than to the goddesses, his\nembarrassments, and the care of concealing from the eyes of Juno the\nfruits of his infidelities. Whatever it might be, _unquestionably it was\nnot in a tranquil moment that a woman could, for the first time, make up\nher mind to abandon herself to the mercy of a man to deliver her_. The\nfirst examples having been given by those persons whose rank and condition\ncarried opinion with them, the usage of men-midwives is since extended\nand spread with that rapidity which is common to all inventions of\nluxury, although even physicians[53] are themselves forced to expose its\ninconveniences.\"[54]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n  \"----Mine honour's such a ring:\n  My chastity's the jewel of our house,\n  Bequeathed down from many ancestors;\n  Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world\n  In me to lose.\"\n\n\nMrs. Jameson, in her admirable essay, \"The Communion of Labour,\" most\ntruly observes--\"That some departments of medicine are peculiarly suited\nto women, is beginning to strike the public mind.\" Again, in her \"Sisters\nof Charity,\" she quotes the following words of the late Dr. Gooch:--\"Many\nwill think that it is impossible to impart a useful knowledge of medicine\nto women who are ignorant of anatomy, physiology, and pathology. A\nprofound knowledge, of course, would not, but a very useful degree of it\nmight--a degree which, combined with kindness and assiduity, would be far\nsuperior to that which the country poor receive at present. I have known\nmatrons and sisters of hospitals with more practical tact in the detection\nand treatment of disease than half the young surgeons by whom the country\npoor are commonly attended.\"[55]\n\n\"Perhaps,\" says the author of \"Women and Work,\" \"there is no profession\nwhich so calls for women as that of medicine. Much suffering would be\nsaved to young women if they had doctors of their own sex, who, with\nfriendly counsel and open speaking, would often prevent many forms of\nsevere disease by attending to first symptoms.\"\n\nElizabeth Blackwell,[56] one of those noble women who, braving the servile\nconventionalisms of the world, with right and reason, morality and\nreligion on their side, have triumphed over prejudice and bigotry, by\nfirmly establishing themselves as female physicians[57]--in \"an appeal on\nbehalf of the medical education of women,\" after referring to the\nestablishment and opening of medical schools for women in Philadelphia,\nBoston, and other towns of the United States, in the nine years since \"the\nfirst woman was admitted as a regular student to a medical college, and\ngraduated with the usual honours,\" says:--\"In all these places public\nopinion has expressed itself heartily in favour of the action of the\ncolleges. The majority of the female graduates have entered upon the\npractice of their profession, and many of them have already formed a\nlarge and highly respectable practice. The intense prejudice which at\nfirst met the idea of a female doctor, is rapidly melting away. If further\nevidence were needed of the vitality of the new idea, and its adaptation\nto a real want in the community, it might be found in the character of the\npractice which has come to those physicians now most firmly established.\nIntelligent, thoughtful women, of calm good sense, who appreciate the wide\nbearing of this reform, and foresee its important practical influence,\nhave been the first to employ the new class of physicians in their\nfamilies, and encourage them with their cordial approbation.\"\n\nDr. Dickson says, in \"The Destructive Art of Healing:\"--\"One of the\ngreatest obstacles to the progress of medical truth in England, is the\nemployment of surgeon-apothecaries as midwives--almost entirely\nmonopolizing the practice of medicine by the influence which they have\ngained over the minds of our women; these people will countenance no\nphysician who does not prescribe large quantities of useless, and too\nfrequently deleterious medicine.\n\n\"The ladies of this country should take a lesson from the American ladies,\nwho not only prefer midwives of their own sex, but actually employ female\nphysicians. Female modesty and morality alike require that the diseases of\nwomen should be attended to solely by women; and all through the United\nStates you now meet with regularly-bred female physicians, most of them\nhaving the degree of M.D. from a university, and many of them being in the\nenjoyment of large and lucrative practice.\n\n\"We have the pleasure of an acquaintance with Mrs. Dr. Longshore--she is a\nlady possessing a strong and original mind, close powers of perception and\nreasoning, and a thorough medical education. As a practical anatomist she\nhas few superiors, even among practitioners of the 'sterner mould.' Mrs.\nDr. Longshore is 'a Friend,' and her whole character is marked by the\nexcellencies of the 'Friends,' or Quakers, as they are called. Placid,\nthoughtful, observant, full of sympathy, and governed by an active\nbenevolence, she delights in doing good. Her practice is large, rapidly\nincreasing, and generally successful, and she is devoutly attached to her\nnoble profession....\n\n\"Medicine and midwifery are both domestic arts; woman is all but born a\ndoctor. Ladies of England, think of this. Hitherto you have left the field\nof 'labour' to men who would be better employed with your distaffs and\nspindles. Mothers of England, you have a mission--fulfil it; proclaim to\nyour daughters that the birth of a child is not a surgical operation, but\na natural process; and that there is no case of parturition so difficult\nthat may not be better managed by a well instructed woman than by a man,\nwhose very presence in the sick chamber disturbs the uterine action, and\ncauses the greater number of difficulties that occur in such cases.\"\n\n\"In a country like England, to clear away a given folly is too often,\nunfortunately, only to make room for some other folly equally egregious.\nThis, in our day, has been the case with medicine. Just as a considerable\nnumber of physicians had come to adopt my own view of the true\nconstitutional origin of diseases, up sprung a class of people who will\nhave it, that in the majority of female complaints, at least, there must\never be more or less of _local wrong_, which no possible constitutional\ntreatment can cure! Whispering mysteriously the words 'engorgement,'\n'tumour,' 'inflammation,' 'ulceration of the _os_,' 'version,' and\n'retroversion'--phrases for the most part invented for the mere purpose of\nstriking panic into the hearts of families who must ever be in the dark\n_here_--these men straightway confine the patient to her couch--in which\nunnatural position they keep her for months, and, if possible, for years\ntogether--during which they subject her to the most odious treatment;\nperforming, with speculum, caustic, and other dangerous appliances, the\nmost daring and indecent operations....\n\n\"By the people to whose practices I have just alluded a woman is told all\npossible and impossible things--things the most frightful that imagination\ncan conceive--to cure which, forsooth, she must lie on her back for\nmonths. And if this oracular sentence be enforced by two or more of their\nnumber, acting in consultation--anglice in _collusion_--the weak creature\nbelieves accordingly. From that moment she is the dupe and the victim of\nthe most unprincipled scoundrels, many of whom, by mixing up religion with\ntheir medical cant, contrive to bring some of the richer class of women to\nsuch a state, that they become annuities to those impostors throughout the\ngreater part of their most unnatural and most miserable lives....\n\n\"If, in common with these medicines, then, every medicinal force will\nproduce its own peculiar _local_ effect, _when swallowed by the mouth_,\nwhy, in the case of 'uterine disease,' of all others, should any woman\nsubmit to the local application of any remedy that cannot be used thus\nwithout the odious manipulations of the persons whose conduct every right\nmind, when properly instructed, must deprecate?\n\n\"But, as a matter of fact, these manipulations, so far from curing any\ndisease of the womb or its appendages, have actually set up in the sound\nstructure a very large share of the possible diseases for which these\npeople pretend to apply them; and some of the disorders thus set up too\nfrequently cease only with the life of the victim. Men of England! if you\nonly knew what your wives and daughters needlessly--mark that\nword!--_needlessly_ experience at the hands of those ruthless cheats, your\nbrows would burn with shame and indignation. How such brutality as these\ncreatures practise ever came to pollute our shores, is one of the miracles\nof the times. A proper feeling in the minds of our women should have\npreserved them from the humiliation and torture to which they have been\nsubjected; while Englishmen of all ranks should have united, long ere\nthis, to expel from the land the sordid wretches who first introduced the\ngrossness and indecency of the hospitals of Paris to the houses and\nhearths of a too-confiding nation!\"\n\nAgain, the Author of \"Physic and its Phases\" brands these counterfeit\nprofessors with infamy in racy and vigorous verse:--\n\n  \"Men, are you men--who lead such hybrid lives,\n  Who, being surgeons, sink into midwives?\n  If with the sex you seriously would vie,\n  Why not the distaff and the spindle try?\n  Throughout the Orient, Arab, Turk, and Jew\n  On such occasions, never send for you;\n  Not even the Nubian, by the harem door,\n  Dare show his face, until the birth is o'er.\n  Talk of the sanctity of married life--\n  Nation of fools! who thus degrade the wife!\n  At such a moment, when the feminine mind\n  Shrinks from the succour of her nearest kind,\n  Could you do worse, were she a courtezan,\n  Than to her chamber introduce a man?\n  No longer left to woman's gentle care,\n  Travail is now her terror everywhere.\n\n         *       *       *       *\n\n  Once in the sick room, with an eye to fees,[58]\n  Tales they get up of uterine disease;\n  Disease, the realms of Physic never knew,\n  Till 'speculating Simpson' gave the cue;\n  And, working thus on woman's weaker nerves,\n  They raise whatever ghost their purpose serves.\n  Then, not the young alone, but graver dames,\n  Fooled by mere phantoms with un-English names,\n  Endure 'examinations'--Ladies, speak!\n  Do these not shock the soul and blanch the cheek?\n  Surprise comes first--next horror, ill disguised,\n  But soon to worse some get familiarized!\n  For what will trusting woman not believe\n  And bear, when 'scientific men' deceive?\n  With no suspicion of the game these play,\n  Their tales of terror haunt her night and day.\n  Now she dreads 'tumour,' now 'occlusion,' now\n  'Version' she talks of, with a 'why' and 'how.'\n  Reasons, of course, and numberless occasions,\n  Have these quick rogues for their 'manipulations.'\n  But who--immortal truth!--can justify\n  The frightful means they locally apply?\n  Caustics, that keep their patients always ill,\n  Yet ever ready to indorse their skill;\n  While abscess, ulcer, haemorrhage itself,\n  Attest what men may CAUSE for love of pelf.\n  Note the result--whatever the pretext,\n  In soul, at least, the woman is unsexed;\n  Words that of yore would make her forehead flush,\n  She now blurts out to men without a blush!\n  Heavens! how can husbands, fathers, brothers lend\n  Their countenance to such an odious end!\n  In all the _animal_ kingdom, where or when\n  Were such things needed--tell us, Englishmen!\n  Of 'base chirurgery' let the world take heed,\n  For this is base chirurgery indeed!\"\n\nDr. Ewell, in the introduction to his _Letters to Ladies_, says:--\n\n\"The serious object of my present solicitude is to wrest the practice of\nmidwifery from the hands of men, and transfer it to women, as it was in\nthe beginning, and ever should be. I have seldom felt a more ardent desire\nto succeed in any undertaking, because I view the present practice of\ncalling on men, in ordinary births, as a source of serious evils in\nchild-bearing; as an imposition upon the credulity of women, and upon the\nfears of their husbands; as a means of sacrificing delicacy, and\nconsequently virtue; and as a robbery of many good women of their proper\nemployment and support.\n\n\"Several observing moralists have remarked that the practice of employing\nmen-midwives has increased the corruption among married women. Even among\nthe French, so prone to set aside the ceremonies between the sexes, the\nimmorality of such exposures has been noticed. In an anecdote of Voltaire,\nit is related, that when a gentleman boasted to him of the birth of a son,\nhe asked who assisted at the delivery; to the answer, 'a man-midwife,' he\nreplied, Then you are travelling the road to cuckoldom! The acutely\nobserving historian of nature, Count Buffon, observes, virginity is a\nmoral quality which cannot exist but with purity of heart. In the\nsubmission of women to the unnecessary examinations of physicians,\nexposing the secrets of nature, it is forgotten that every indecency of\nthis kind is a violent attack against chastity; that every situation which\ncauses an internal blush is a real prostitution....\n\n\"But the opposition, the detestation of this practice cannot be so great\nin any husband as among some women. The idea of it has driven some to\nconvulsions and derangement; and every one of the least delicacy feels\ndeeply humiliated at the exposure. Many of them, while in labour, have\nbeen so shocked at the entrance of a man into their apartment, as to have\nall their pains banished; others, to the very last of their senses,\nsuffering the severest torments, have rejected the assistance of men. To\nbe instrumental in relieving one of this truly interesting class, will be\na heavenly consolation to all who can be alive to the pleasures of serving\nthe virtuous.\"\n\nDr. Beach, in his work on Midwifery, has the following:--\n\n\"Who shall officiate in parturition? In consequence of the practice which\nprevails in the present day, this has become a grave question. The\nphysician contends, with much zeal, that it is his province to officiate.\nFemales, he alleges, are incompetent; and these assertions of physicians\nhave influenced the minds of females to such an extent, that they are\nforcibly impressed with the belief that there are no others competent; and\nwhen it is proposed to many women to employ a midwife, they appear to\nshrink with horror, and many even suppose that in trusting themselves to\nthe most accomplished female accoucheur, they jeopardize their lives....\n\n\"The physician takes it for granted, and even boasts, that if he can\nattend one single case of midwifery in a family, he has _for ever after_\nsecured their patronage; so that both interest and prejudice operate as\nobstacles and barriers to any improvement or change in the practice; and\nalthough the most fearful consequences have (occurred), and are still\ndaily occurring, modern females cling to this unnatural practice.\n\n\"Notwithstanding, however, the existence of the above obstacles, we are\nwell assured that females, if rightly qualified, are not only as fully\ncapable as men, but are even more so; and, therefore, the most valid and\nconclusive reasons may be assigned why a reformation should take place in\nthis department of the practice. What more conclusive than the fact of the\nactual attendance of women in child-birth in all nations, previous to the\nsixteenth century; and the attestation of competent persons during the\nfirst century of man-midwifery to the fact, that not half so many fatal\ncases occurred before as after the innovation. And, in the first\nsettlement of this country (America), when females[59] attended\nexclusively on such occasions, it was as rare a fact to hear of a woman\nperishing in child-birth, as it is now to hear of an Indian or an animal\nperishing in labour, who are delivered by the unaided powers of nature.\"\n\nA letter, addressed by Sir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the College\nof Surgeons, to the late Sir Robert Peel, on the attempt by some members\nof the medical profession to legalize man-midwifery, is well worthy of the\nperusal and consideration of our readers. The letter appeared in the\n_Times_ newspaper, and raised a ferocious howl from the men-midwives; but\nthe ever gullible British public looked upon the affair as a mere medical\nquestion in which it had no concern, and the howl carried the day against\nreason, morality, and truth:--\n\n\"SIR,--The high ministerial station which you deservedly occupy, must\noften expose you to the various kinds of applications respecting the\ncondition and management of our national institutions, and also to\npersonal or partial interference about their several real or pretended\ninterests. In all such instances you must perceive the fairness and the\nultimate advantage of preferring direct information from the respective\nconstituted authorities, of requiring advice from rival institutions upon\ndoubtful measures, and of regarding with jealousy the private\ncommunications of interested individuals. It is, however, reported that\nyou are, at this time, beset upon the subject of introducing an ordeal for\nlicensing men-midwives, by certain members of the London College of\nSurgeons, and that you are urged by popular men (whose wisdom and\ndisinterestedness may be questioned) to favour their scheme with your\npowerful influence.\n\n\"As the prevalent vice of avarice may have some share in this professional\nmovement, it is fit that you and the public should be acquainted with the\nprobably concealed effects of granting the solicited privileges; and, for\nthe reasons already given, I am induced to address you through the press.\n\n\"Man-midwifery has only been practised in England during the last hundred\nyears, and it was introduced as a French fashion. From the beginning it\nhas been strongly opposed on the score of its indecency, by many\ndistinguished and scientific medical men; and also, because the birth of\nmankind appears to them to be a purely natural process, so wisely ordered,\nthat it very rarely demands any other aid than experienced mothers can\nsafely give. Even so late as the illustrious mother of his present\nmajesty, that exemplary Queen was personally attended by good Mrs. Draper,\nwithout difficulties or misadventures; whereas the contrary result, under\nmale management, in the fatal affair of the Princess Charlotte and her\ninfant, will be long remembered.\n\n\"If it should be asked why so many professional men addict themselves to a\ndegrading vocation, it may be answered, that the practice of man-midwifery\nleads to unlimited power in every family, and thence to lucrative ends.\nWomen, naturally timid, and ignorant of their own structure, are\npeculiarly exposed, during the most important office of their existence,\nto the persuasions or menaces of more knowing persons, and they are thence\neasily made to believe, that the natural and wholesome delays and pains of\nchildbed are within the controul of medical or surgical art--an assumption\nwhich is too generally acted upon, and with unvarying evil consequences;\nbecause it is a violation of the ways of nature. Men-midwives have\ncontinually alleged that ignorant women practitioners commit many fatal\nmistakes, and now they present similar objections against unlicensed men.\nIf, as I believe, the safeguards of child-bed are amply provided for by\nnature, and that not one instance in a thousand calls for any other help\nbeyond what any moderately experienced woman can give, why are we to\nlicense adventurers, who may seek notoriety by desperate acts, often\ninvolving manslaughter--operative acts, the moral propriety of which is\nvery doubtful, and the time and the methods for performing them still\nsubjects for rancorous disputes? But the present affair is not respecting\nthe utility of men-midwives, but the impropriety of empowering any special\ncorporate medical body to coerce the rest; to further impede\nfemale-midwives in a becoming duty, and to deprive delicate women of that\ngreat resource of self-respect. Already the prevalence of man-midwifery\nhas driven country surgeons and apothecaries to adopt this humiliating\noffice, and the number of women practitioners has been thence so reduced,\nthat paupers are in many places delivered by apprentice boys under sixteen\nyears of age. The Royal College of Physicians in London, who rank the\nhighest for learning and decorum, have lately rescinded their admission of\nlicentiates in midwifery, whether for considering the practice as\nderogatory to a physician, or as an overweening privilege towards females\nand children, is not avowed; but it seems that no London physician,\neducated at Oxford or Cambridge, has yet condescended to be a man-midwife.\nThe Royal Colleges of Surgeons in London, in Dublin, and in Edinburgh,\nhave likewise hitherto renounced every connexion with man-midwifery.\n\n\"The teachers of midwifery are indiscriminately doctors and surgeons; but\nat this moment the majority of lecturers and superintendents of lying-in\ncharities are physicians, while a multitude of legally appointed\nsub-physicians (styled apothecaries) are equally entitled, with the other\nclasses of the faculty, to establish tribunals for examining and licensing\ncandidates for man-midwifery, if they should deem it expedient. Finally,\nit may be noted, that the different classes of men-midwives have never yet\nagreed among themselves to adopt a common ordeal for certifying the\nqualifications of their calling, and you may be assured, Sir, that many\nworldly interests will rage against the establishment of any monopoly of\nthis kind in any single institution, because man-midwifery is the covert\nway to medical fortunes. If, however, the greediness of a few individuals\nshould expose this subject to free discussion, and the judgment of married\nmen and modest women should be copiously awakened, perhaps the general\ncustom of employing women may be again resorted to, and their competent\ninstruction publicly enforced.\n\n\"It is said, that our changeable neighbours at Paris are already tired of\ntheir fashionable freak; and when our countrywomen reflect, that not one\nin ten thousand of their sex throughout the globe allow of the presence of\na man during the rites of child-bed, they may acquire courage, and unite\ntheir efforts to replace the routine of midwifery among themselves. I will\nnot offend you and the public by any observations upon the outrageous\nstories collected on this occasion, to prove the violent and fatal\ninjuries committed by unlicensed men-midwives, because I think the\nprivilege sought for would increase those evils.\n\n\"With the greatest respect, I have the honour to be, your very obedient\nServant,\n\n  \"ANTHONY CARLISLE.\n      \"_Langham-place_, Feb. 19.\"\n\n\"In a recent number of the _North British Review_ appeared an excellent\narticle on 'The Employment of Women;' under the head of women doctors, the\nwriter says: 'But the something practical--where is it?' We believe that a\ngreat deal, which is very practical, is scattered over this article. But\nwe have still some further suggestions to offer. Not very long ago, a\nstatement 'went the round of the papers,' to the effect that there were\nalready eight diplomatized female physicians practising in Boston (U. S.),\nand that there were thirty-eight students in the Female Medical College.\n'Whenever,' says an American writer, 'there are sufficient data to\nestablish the truth (now little if at all disputed in America), that\nchild-birth is freed from its worst difficulties and dangers when the\nunnatural presence of men is dispensed with, the medical and surgical care\nof women and children will pass into the hands for which nature designed\nit.' There would appear to be nothing very unreasonable in this, but, on\nthe contrary, something extremely rational and hopeful. But see how the\nfacts stated above are received by the faculty in England. The leading\nmedical journal of this country thus comments upon them:--\n\n\"'Female physic thrives apace in America. At Boston, where Columbia gave\nbirth to the young Constitution, which is now sowing its wild oats\nbroadcast, there is a female medical college, numbering thirty-eight\nstudents. A grant of government money has also been voted towards\nestablishing a similar institution at New York. This is to be under the\nimmediate superintendence of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., late of St.\nBartholomew's, with a bevy of those spinsters mentioned by Shakespeare as\nfree \"maids who weave their threads with bones\" for anatomical\ndemonstrators.\n\n\"'At Boston, moreover, there are eight doctoresses with diplomas in full\npractice. We suppose some of these female physicians are married, and this\ninvolves a great social mystery of which we have as yet received no\naccount. When the Mrs. M.D.'s are attending to patients in their boudoirs\nof consultation, or pointing out pathological nicknacks in their\nanatomical drawing-rooms, or going their rounds with stethoscopes in their\nbonnets, what are their husbands doing? Do they superintend the\nperambulators, or are these hitched on to the professional broughams of\ntheir mammas? Is it a part of the husband's marital duty to manage the\nnursery--in short, to attend to the domestic affairs generally? Perhaps\nmatrimony is ignored altogether. Indeed, we do not well see how a\nconscientious doctoress could promise to love, honour, and obey a husband\nwho might order her to give her patients a dose of strychnia all round.'\n\n\"Surely this is not the way to deal with so grave a question. Argument\nmust be wanting, or the sneer would not be resorted to by so distinguished\nan authority. The same questions as are here put might be employed also to\nwrite down any description of independent female labour. When women go out\nto teach drawing or music, or when they attend to shops, or make caps and\nbonnets, gowns or mantles, what, it may be asked, are their husbands\ndoing? Attending to their own business, if they have any, or living on\ntheir wives' earnings, Mantalini-like, if they have not. We do not mean to\nsay that there are no practical difficulties in the way of the effectual\nworking of this scheme. Objections will readily suggest themselves; but\nthey are not insuperable objections. All women may not be fit for such\nwork. But all men are not fit for it. Many women will lack the necessary\namount of nerve; but many men lack it also. In difficulty and danger women\nhave great presence of mind. They are often calm and collected where men\nare unhinged and unbalanced, and incapable of exertion. Women have more\ntenderness and more patience, and they must necessarily understand many\nfemale ailments better than men. They will always have one great advantage\nover male practitioners--female patients will be more unreserved in their\ncommunications to them. Many women have been sacrificed to their\ndelicacy--to their repugnance to state fully their ailments to\nmen-doctors; perhaps even to call them in until it is too late. Let such\nobjections as these be fairly balanced against those which may be adduced\nagainst female practitioners, and let us calmly consider the average\nresult.\n\n\"We do not pretend to know, under the existing order of things in Great\nBritain, what proportion of children are annually brought into the world\nwithout the assistance of any male practitioner. But we know that in\nhumble life it is very common to employ only a nurse or midwife. And we do\nnot believe that, under such circumstances, more dangerous cases of\nparturition occur than where men are professionally employed. But if such\nwere the case, if the number of deaths or injuries were proportionately\ngreater, no argument could be derived from the fact against the employment\nof educated and diplomatized women. If, in the present state of things,\naccidents arise from the absence of men, it is not on account of the sex,\nbut on account of the ignorance of the practitioner. The same amount of\nknowledge, as indicated by the diploma, existing in both cases, we cannot\nhelp thinking that the advantage, in most cases, will be on the side of\nthe female attendant.\n\n\"We might pursue this subject much further; but time and space have alike\nnarrowed to a small compass, and we have by no means exhausted our notes.\nIn the early part of this paper we have touched on the subject of nurses,\nbut rather in connexion with amateur than with professional labour. Many\nwomen of a better kind might find profitable employment in this path of\nlife; and if licenses, or diplomas of an inferior class, indicating a\ncertain amount of medical and physiological knowledge, were granted to\nthem, the business would not be beneath the adoption of women of birth and\neducation. _But here again, perhaps, the jealousy and selfishness of men\nwould step in and thwart our efforts; for the presence of such educated\nnurses would often render it wholly unnecessary to call in a regular\npractitioner at all.\"--North British Review_, No. LII. page 333.\n\n\"Among the highly civilized and numberless ladies and women of China[60]\nand the East,\" says Sir Anthony Carlisle, \"ordinary matrons are\nuniversally employed in the sanctuary of child-birth: and they would\nrevolt with horror from any proposal to admit the presence of a man.\" This\nstatement, coming, as it does, from such a high authority, when inveighing\nagainst the needless outrage upon the modesty of women, which we commit by\nthe employment of men-midwives, cuts from under them the argument of the\ninterested professors of \"the art,\" who would have us believe, that\nBritish women, from the peculiarities of the climate, and a high state of\ncivilization, are more liable to accident and danger in the parturient\nstate, than the women of those countries in which the _fashion_ of\nman-midwifery is unknown.\n\nEven Roberton, one of themselves, is compelled to admit, that any argument\nbased upon climatic influence is fallacious, and easily capable of\ndisproof, for he says, in his apology for the study of midwifery as a\nscience:--\"In reply to such a statement as this (Sir Anthony Carlisle's),\nit has been common to argue that, in warm countries, the parts concerned\nin admitting the passage of the child are so relaxed, that labour becomes\ncomparatively easy; and that hence we are to account for the nonemployment\nof accoucheurs. This is a very false view of the subject. In warm\ncountries, whose inhabitants live after the same manner as ourselves,\nparturition is in no degree easier than it is here. In the town of Sierra\nLeone, so near the equator as latitude 8 deg. north, we are assured by Dr.\nWinterbottom, who resided there, that having been present at a number of\nlabours, they in every respect resemble those of women in the same\nsituation of life in England. \"I have met,\" says he, \"with instances in\nEngland where the foetus was expelled with more ease than I ever knew it\nto be at Sierra Leone.\"...\n\n\"The prophetical writings of the Old Testament furnish many allusions to\npainful parturition. The Jews inhabited a warm climate; and yet, were we\nto judge of parturition among them from the frequent reference the\nprophets make to it in figures and similes, when predicting the sufferings\nto be produced by impending judgments, we should conclude that in no\npeople was nature's sorrow more severe. Thus, Jeremiah, the coming\nmiseries of Judah passing before his vision, exclaims:--'I have heard a\nvoice as of a woman in travail, and the _anguish_ as of her that bringeth\nforth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion that bewaileth\nherself, that spreadeth her hands.' A multitude of passages containing a\nsimilar allusion might be cited. In the historical part of the Scriptures,\ntoo, there is incidental mention of several cases in which parturition\nproved fatal. So much for the relaxing influence of a warm climate! a\nnotion which, like various others respecting the influence of climate on\nthe human system, is at variance with facts.\"\n\nAmong the myriad peoples inhabiting the vast Continent which, in the\naggregate, we term India, men-midwives are unknown. There have been, no\ndoubt, attempts made by Europeans to introduce the abominable custom, but\nwe believe, excepting in some of the towns most frequented by them,\nwithout any considerable success. As the inhabitants of Tahiti, and the\nisles of the Pacific, once the abode and very Paradise of nature in her\nglorious perfection, have found to their cost, so we fear in all other\nportions of the world's surface, where our boasted civilization has set\nits foot, the evils which accompany its progress invariably take\nprecedence, and largely preponderate over its advantages. Wherefore\nshould we add to the primal curse fulminated against woman, irrespective\nof locality or race, \"in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,\" a far\ngreater one in the ruin of her modesty, by the introduction of man into\nthe sanctuary hallowed by his absence from the beginning of the world. O\nye fine ladies of England, who talk so glibly of all the virtues, and\nblazon your moral excellencies before the nations! if ye will not take\nexample from the highly civilized and numberless ladies and women of China\nand the East, learn from the poor savage, in whom, though doomed to the\nlowest grade of earth's inhabitants, there yet glows fresh from Heaven,\nlike a pure star gleaming through the night of heathenism, that loveliest\nattribute of woman--modesty. Over that mysterious rite which God has\nconfided to the female sex, the rude, wild, cruel, ignorant, uncivilized,\nnaked, idol-worshipping natives of New Holland, throw a veil impenetrable\nto man. Roberton says, page 480, \"Among them (the New Hollanders) a man is\nnot permitted to approach where parturition is going on.\" There are,\nhowever, rare and beautiful exceptions to that accursed fashion which now\nso debases the women of this country; for we have undoubted authority for\nstating that \"there are ladies, and ladies of rank, titled ladies, who\nwould not let a man near them.\" In these bright examples propriety still\nfinds a refuge; in their chaste minds the light of reason and refinement\nshines with a fair and unsullied ray amidst the gloom of apathetic\nindecency, which shrouds in its cold and clammy cerements so many of their\nsex. All honour to those true-hearted women who so proudly uphold their\nnative modesty, their sex's loveliest charm, above the rank pollution\nwhich, in these sensuous and degenerate days, infects the sanctuary of\nmarriage.[61]\n\nAmong the Jews, the peculiar people, guarded and preserved so wondrously\nby the Providence of God, from the day that Israel went down into Egypt\nwith three score and ten souls, until they had multiplied \"as the stars of\nthe heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore,\" no such\nviolation of decency was permitted or required to insure the fulfilment of\nGod's promise to Abraham. We learn that females were regularly authorized\nand appointed as midwives, for the Sacred writings give us the names of\ntwo of them: \"And the King of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of\nwhich the name of the one was Shiphah, and the name of the other Puah: and\nhe said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see\nthem upon the stools: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be\na daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not\nas the King of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive. And\nthe King of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye\ndone this thing, and have saved the men-children alive? And the midwives\nsaid unto Pharoah, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women;\nfor they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.\nTherefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and\nwaxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God,\nthat He made them houses.\" We know also that there were physicians in\nthose days, for \"Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm\nhis father, and the physicians embalmed Israel.\" Now, it is most certain\nthat if the great protecting power of the Jews--the father of his people,\nhad deemed it necessary or proper, for the safety of mothers or of\noffspring, to afford any assistance beyond that which nature and the\nmidwife supplied, it would have been so ordained, and as surely mentioned\nby the great historian and leader of the Israelites, or by some other of\nthe sacred writers; but of this there is no sign whatever, and we must,\ntherefore, infer that this innovation was not so much as thought of by the\nJews, highly civilized and vicious people as they were, and that it was\nreserved for us, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, to permit\nsuch a scandalous breach of decorum as the prostitution of our wives to\nthe impure touch of a _man_-midwife. Roberton says, in his Apology--\"But\nan objector will ask, cannot a matron practise these expedients? and if\nso, where is the use or propriety of such a class as men-midwives? I\nreply, doubtless a matron may practise many of the expedients referred to,\nif they have been taught her. It is of the value of midwifery as a\nscience, originating with and practised by men, compared with matron or\nuncultivated midwifery, of which I have been speaking. A certain\nproportion of instructed female midwives in a community may, for aught I\nknow, be a benefit.\" Let the reader mark, learn, and inwardly digest these\nwords! Here is the admission of an accoucheur of the present day,\nconfirming the words of Roussel, and the many other authorities whom we\nhave quoted, as to the fitness of women for the practice of the expedients\nnecessary in midwifery, and, further, a most important acknowledgment, as\ncoming from one of his class, that females, properly instructed as\nmidwives, would be a benefit to society. To be sure they would! Who doubts\nit? And is there not enough of wealth, and energy, and right feeling in\nEngland to say--We will that there shall be in every community properly\ninstructed midwives; we will that there shall be organized, in all our\ngreat towns, schools of midwifery for the instruction of women,[62] who\nshall go forth from them fully competent in \"nine hundred and ninety-nine\ncases out of every thousand,\" to perform that office which is now, from\ntheir sex, so indecently performed by men. The instruction of midwives has\nnothing of novelty in it: women are so instructed in the Dublin Lying-in\nHospital, at this day, and we believe[63] that they are so instructed at\nManchester and in London; they \"walk the hospital,\" as the term is, for\nsix months, and at the end of that time they receive a \"diploma;\" but\nthere is a jealousy on the part of the accoucheurs, who fear, naturally\nenough, that their trade (a very lucrative one[64]) might be injured if\nthese women should assume too much responsibility, and the consequences of\nthis jealousy[65] are injurious to the full and complete instruction and\ncompetency of the \"nurses.\"[66]\n\nThese nurses are very much in the power of the accoucheurs, for it is\nprincipally through the latter's recommendation that they obtain\nemployment, at least among the upper classes, and the evils which arise\nfrom this state of things are fatal to the interests of morality. _The\nnurse is afraid to act without the man-midwife_, not because she is\nincompetent, for she has walked the hospital and has her diploma of\nefficiency, but because it essentially concerns the _man_-midwife to play\nthe principal part, in order that the belief in the necessity for his\npresence and _assistance_ should not, by any act of hers, be shaken; such\nis their jealousy on this head, that we have known the man-midwife, on\narriving too late to be present at the birth, roundly rate the nurse of\nhis own appointment for not having sent for him sooner, although the case\nwas of the most ordinary description, and great additional ease of mind\nand general comfort were experienced by the patient, through the absence\nof the doctor.[67]\n\nThe nurses in their six months' training at the hospital learn much,\nhowever, that is useful to them in their own after-practice, for many of\nthem are employed by the humbler classes from motives of economy, and we\nwould fain believe of delicacy also. Through one of these nurses we have\nlearnt the frightful indignities to which the poor hospital patients are\nsometimes subjected. A difficult case of labour, as it is termed, occurs,\nthe wretched victim is stripped naked, candles are placed around the bed,\nand the students assemble in crowds, perched on ladders and benches, to\nwatch the progress of the labour, and the manipulations of the operator. O\nGod! that in a Christian land, in our boasted Britain, priding herself on\nher civilization and proprieties, such orgies, which would raise a blush\namidst the rites of devils, should disgrace the name of science!\n\nWe have said that women are admitted as pupils at the Lying-in Hospital in\nDublin, and that after a six months' probation they obtain a diploma: but,\nas they are never permitted to operate in any but ordinary cases, it\ncannot be intended that their education should obviate the necessity for\nthe employment of accoucheurs. Now we would suggest, that instead of this\npartial instruction they should be afforded ample opportunity for\nacquiring a perfect knowledge of the expedients necessary for overcoming\nthe difficulties of their profession; that, instead of dismissing them at\nthe end of six months, they should be retained until they are sufficiently\ninstructed to be able with confidence and facility to undertake those\nextreme cases which are now reserved to men. No man of intelligence, who\nreflects on this subject, will for a moment doubt that where nicety of\ntouch and delicacy of handling are required, the female organization is\nmore perfectly adapted for them than that of men; and when we consider the\ndelicate duties to be performed in midwifery, we cannot but think (and the\nthought will find an echo in the minds of thousands) that woman, and woman\nalone, is both morally and physically fitted for the office.[68] It may\npossibly be urged by the men-midwives, that, if they were to be deprived\nof their ordinary practice, and to be superseded by women, in all cases\nof labour in which no extraordinary difficulty presented itself, they\nwould not be so well prepared to operate when accident might call for\ntheir interference. We may in all justice reply, what is that to us? see\nye to that; are we to prostitute our wives to your impure touchings,\n\"manipulations,\" tentatives, and experiments, in nine hundred and\nninety-nine needless cases, in order to afford you the requisite\nexperience for the thousandth? We trow not; and the science of surgery\nmust indeed be at a low ebb if, when occasion requires, there are not to\nbe found men of that noble profession who could undertake with success any\nneedful operation.\n\nIn former times the difficulties in certain cases of parturition, which\nare now trumpeted forth by the writers on man-midwifery \"with all the pomp\nand state of academic learning,\" were easily overcome by discreet and\nexperienced women, who, although innocent of physical, classical, or\nmathematical science, knew full well how to operate when necessity called\nfor their intervention. We find the following passage in Albertus\nMagnus:--\"Whence it is to be known that in some women there is greater\nsuffering than in others, because in some it happens that the foetus\nsometimes presents a hand, and sometimes a foot, all which are hurtful.\nThen the midwives carefully thrust back the foetus, and hence great pain\nis produced, so that many women, unless very robust, are weakened even to\ndeath,\" &c. Then, after describing the effect of an accident which\nsometimes occurred even with the more appropriate assistance of the female\nhand, but which[69] _if the truth was known_, since the invention of\ninstruments has probably been of much greater frequency, he continues:\n\"Then discreet midwives use a certain ointment, anointing the vulva,\nbecause the womb is often injured and wounded in the vulva, and therefore\nit is necessary that discreet women and experienced in this operation\nshould be employed in delivery.[70] But this I have learnt from some\nwomen, that when the foetus presents its head in the outlet, then the\nbusiness fares well, because then the other members follow without\ndifficulty, and an easy labour is the result.\"[71]\n\nTo the casual reader who has the curiosity to wade through the filthy and\ndisgusting details of the ponderous tomes on obstetricity, for the most\npart garnished with engravings at which \"purity must blush and\nlicentiousness may gloat,\" and who incontinently pins his faith upon the\ndogmas thereof, it will seem absolutely incomprehensible how unit after\nunit, of millions on millions numberless, who have peopled earth,\ncontrived to see the light, from the days of our general mother Eve, until\nthat happy hour when first \"obstetric science\" flashed upon the world, and\nby its magic touch scattering the dreams of a primeval curse, vouchsafed\nits \"art\" to teach poor feeble ineffectual nature how to act.\n\nOne result of the frightful tissue of imaginable and unimaginable horrors\ncontained in these books, is that almost every woman in the upper and\nmiddle classes believes that the chances are ten to one in favour of a\n\"cross birth;\" the nurse, instead of relieving her fears, rather confirms\nthem, and on the strength of that understanding which always prevails\nbetween the nurse and the _man_-midwife, she takes care to impress upon\nthe sufferer, wrought up to a pitiable state of nervous excitement, that\nnothing but the beastly manipulations of the \"doctor\" can render the\nlabour successful.\n\nWomen, while suffering under the severe pangs of parturition, most\nfrequently lose much of that natural delicacy belonging to the sex, and at\nthe moment when terror and anxiety overrule every other feeling, the\n_man_-midwife approaches, and offers to the trembling victim that\ndisgusting insult, the examination _per vaginam_; an inquest both morally\nand physically injurious to the patient, and utterly needless, from the\ninformation previously obtained by the female attendant.\n\nFurthermore, these men well know that \"one fool makes many,\" and that the\nmore they are able to convince the public of the dangers and difficulties\nof child-birth, the more sure are they of an unfailing trade in the\npractice of _man_-midwifery. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_, and\nwhen they had successfully achieved one generation of patients, the rest\nwas easy; all henceforward was plain sailing; the mothers, despite the\nqualms of outraged delicacy, once convinced that their safety had been\ndependent on the skill of the _man_-midwife, the daughters, as a matter of\ncourse, followed in their wake; the idea, if perchance it occurred, of the\nindecency of the act, being promptly set at rest by the recollection that\ntheir mothers had done the same. Thus a kind of freemasonry is established\nbetween the _men_-midwives and women, which, from its very nature, cannot\nbe free from gross impropriety, and is sometimes attended with most\npernicious consequences, of which the husband is kept in entire\nignorance.[72] It is a common occurrence in ordinary life to see the\n_man_-midwife seated as a guest at your dinner-table, or as a morning\nvisitor in your wife's drawing-room, who perhaps but a few weeks before\nmay have informed himself both by _touch_ and _sight_ of all the inmost\nsecrets of her person, who knows as well as you do yourself every hidden\ncharm which she possesses. Faugh! the very thought is gall and wormwood,\nand outraged delicacy demands instant and eternal redress.\n\nSir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the Royal College of Surgeons,\nassures us that child-birth, like parturition in the lower animals, is\npurely a natural process, the safety of which Divine Providence has most\nwisely secured; and consequently that it is always mischievous to tamper\nwith pregnant women, under the pretence of hastening, easing, or retarding\ntheir delivery. Roberton, in allusion to the above, says--\"If this be\ncorrect, it follows of course that midwifery is no science, but a\npresumptuous fraud.\"[73] Again he says, \"Admitting, as I do, not that\nninety-nine in a hundred, but that a large proportion of labours, say\nnineteen out of twenty, would terminate well under the eye of an\nintelligent nurse, were they left _solely_ to the energies of nature,\"[74]\n&c.; and again, \"I have admitted that a considerable proportion of labours\nwould do well, unaided, under the eye of a nurse,\" &c.[75] Dr. Johnson\nsays--\"The ordinary treatment of women in child-bed is irrational,\nindefensible, and most preposterously foolish. Nothing can be more absurd.\nChildbirth is not a disease! It is simply the performance of a natural\nfunction, like eating, drinking, &c., yet we treat it as though it were\nsome formidable and dangerous malady. Dr. Conquest, a London accoucheur of\nrepute, says--'Child-birth is that natural process by which the womb\nexpels its contents, and returns to the condition in which it was\npreviously. I call it a natural process; and in my opinion no sentiment is\nmore pregnant with mischief, than the opinion which almost universally\nprevails, that this process is inevitably one of difficulty and danger. I\nam well aware that some degree of suffering is connected with child-birth;\nand this applies equally to the whole animal creation, whether human or\nbrute, though the former suffer more than the latter, _because the habits\nof brutes are less unnatural_. That the suffering of women during\nchild-birth is referrible, in a great degree, to their artificial habits\nof life, and not to their form and make, is evident from a variety of\ncircumstances. History, in all ages of the world, establishes this\nposition. What made the striking difference between the ancient Hebrews\nand Egyptians, of whom it is said: \"The Hebrew women are not as the\nEgyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives\ncome in unto them?\" What, I would ask, made the marked difference in the\nlabours of these two classes of women, but the plain, simple, and\nindustrious habits of the Hebrews, as contrasted with the effeminacy, and\nluxurious living of the Egyptians? Look into more modern history, and you\nwill see the same fact established again and again. I could mention\ninnumerable proofs, but a few must suffice.\n\n\"'The celebrated traveller, Bruce, says, that the Abyssinian women retire\nby themselves, and go through the process of child-birth with so much ease\nand expedition, that they do not confine themselves a day after labour,\nbut return to their usual occupations immediately.\n\n\"'The same simplicity, expedition, and freedom from danger, attend this\nnatural process amongst the natives in most parts of Asia, Africa, the\nWest Indies, and America, where the mode of living among the natives is\nmore simple and abstemious, and their occupations and general habits more\nlaborious, than in more civilized countries.\n\n\"'The Moorish women have no midwives, but are usually alone at the time of\ndelivery, lying on the ground under an indifferent tent. They will even\ntravel, on the same day, a distance of fifteen or twenty miles.\n\n\"'In Morocco the women suffer so little, that they frequently go through\nthe duties of the house on the day after their delivery, with the child on\ntheir back.\n\n\"'One respectable traveller assures us, that with the native Africans\nlabour is so easy, and trusted so entirely to nature, that no one knows of\nits existence till the woman appears at the door of the hut with the\nchild.\n\n\"'Another, equally respectable, tells us, that as soon as an American\nIndian woman bears a child, she _goes into the water and immerses it and\nherself_.[76] One evening he asked an Indian where his wife was: he\nreplied: \"I suppose she has gone into the woods to set a trap for birds.\"\nIn about an hour she returned with a new-born infant in her arms, and\nholding it up exclaimed: \"Here, Englishman, here is a young warrior!\" Were\nit necessary, many more instances might be brought forward. But it has\nbeen said, this occurs only in warm climates, where the heat relaxes the\nparts concerned in parturition. This objection is not consistent with\ntruth, for the natives of Livonia, and the savages of North America,\nretire to some private place, and return immediately after their delivery\nto their customary work; and the Greenlanders do all their common business\njust before, and very soon after their labour, and a still-born or\ndeformed child is seldom seen or heard of among them. Still further to\nestablish the assertion that human parturition is not necessarily a\nprocess of danger, we know that in this country servant girls, who become\nillegitimately pregnant, very often absent themselves for an hour or two,\nand, after giving birth to a child, return to the discharge of their\nhousehold duties immediately.[77] It is, therefore, obvious that the\ndifficulty and danger that so often attend child-bearing in civilized\nsociety,[78] are attributable, principally, to _unnatural customs and\nhabits of living_, in which, women, in this and other countries, indulge\nfrom their infancy,[79] and which operate by preventing the constitution\nfrom acquiring its proper firmness and vigour, and by producing a weak,\nfeeble, and irritable state of body, &c.'\" Dr. Johnson adds: \"This is the\nlanguage of Dr. Conquest--a metropolitan accoucheur physician of much\neminence--a man who, from the long and successful practice of his\nprofession, has deservedly acquired wealth and distinction--a man,\ntherefore, who can afford to be honest--a man who, unlike Archdeacon\nPaley, can afford to keep a conscience. With those, therefore, who put\ntheir trust in authority rather than in the light of their own\nreason--that is to say, with nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of\nevery thousand--the opinions of such a man as Dr. Conquest cannot fail to\nhave more than ordinary weight.\"[80]\n\nIn the foregoing pages we have sought to place before our readers, in the\nclearest light, the opinions of Roussel and other eminent men, touching\nthe practice of man-midwifery; opinions the force and truth of which,\nbased as they are upon principles of the purest morality, and the sound\ndoctrines of physical science, cannot be controverted or denied. We have\nshown that the Royal College of Physicians, so lately as the year 1827,\ndesignated the practice of _man_-midwifery as \"an art foreign to the\nhabits of gentlemen of enlarged academical education,\" and one which might\nsafely be entrusted to discreet matrons. We have, in confirmation of these\nopinions, quoted the sentiments expressed by Sir Anthony Carlisle, late\nPresident of the College of Surgeons, who styles the boasted \"art\" \"a\npretence,\" and accoucheurs \"mere nurses.\" We have proved, by the admission\nof men-midwives themselves, that the great majority of cases of midwifery\nwould do well under the eye of a nurse, and that skilled midwives would be\na benefit in every community. We have before our eyes the example of\nFrance with her schools of midwifery; and against the arguments and\ndispassionate opinions of men of the highest rank in the medical\nprofession, mooted as they have been at various times, and in different\ncountries, yet all tending to the same conclusion, we find absolutely\nnothing but the self-interested doctrine of an anomalous class[81] of\nmedical men, whose policy it is, for the furtherance of their own selfish\nviews, to decry the powers of nature, and to abrogate the employment of\nfemales in the sanctuary of child-birth; a doctrine which suffers its\ndisciples, regardless of all delicacy, and in defiance of the contempt of\ntheir professional brethren, to prey upon the weakness and natural\ntimidity of the sex, and with presumptuous indecency to arrogate to\nthemselves duties proper only to women; a doctrine which, while it deals\nan irreparable blow[82] at the very heart of every family, threatens with\ndestruction virtue, modesty, and honour.\n\nHusbands, fathers, countrymen, THINK OF THESE THINGS!\n\nWe do most heartily believe that if, unbiassed by the self-interested and\nfraudulent assertions of quackery and empiricism, you would exert your own\nreasoning powers on the question, the doom of this abuse would soon be\nsealed. But as, in many another usage which men individually admit to be\nblots in that high state of civilization to which we have advanced, our\napathy overcomes our desire for their correction, and we let them pass;\nso, because this wrong has forced its prostituting influence through the\nlength and breadth of the land, magnified and sustained as it is by the\nterrorism of treatises, and the artistic display of its abettors, despite\nthe warnings of our consciences, we yield ourselves to its guidance, we\ndare not lift up the veil which conceals its abominations, and even fear,\ncowards that we are, to question its privileges, privileges which a\n\"damned custom\" has accorded; privileges the very thought of which should\nmake the blood curdle in our veins with disgust and horror! For if we for\na moment reflect upon the precepts laid down in the indecent farragos of\n\"obstetric science,\" and further upon the fact, that these precepts are\ninvariably carried into effect, whenever the \"patient\" can be induced to\nsubmit to the outrages therein enjoined, we must acknowledge that in all\nsuch cases purity itself can oppose no effectual barrier to these\ninsidious assaults, and that modesty must fly from the chamber when the\n_man_-midwife crosses its threshold.\n\nO hateful, horrible thought! that the young bride, radiant with joyous\ninnocence, and love's glowing fantasies, \"beautiful exceedingly,\" and pure\nas fair, must in a few short months, in blind obedience to a spurious\ncustom, yield herself to the pollution of a stranger's _touch_, and banish\nfor ever from her husband's soul that dear delicious dream, entirety of\npossession!\n\nThis is no exaggerated picture, no overstrained description of that mortal\nstain which rends into very shreds the charm of delicacy; but a simple\ntruth, a terrible reality, not to be glozed over by the fallacious\nreasonings of frigid philosophy. O men! if you have the souls of men, if\none drop of the old chivalrous blood of your ancestors yet palpitates in\nyour veins, if you have not irrecoverably bowed down to the idol custom,\nif mammon, lust of gain and power, with all the fell catalogue of vicious\ninclinations, have left but one cell unoccupied in your heart's mansion,\nif you yet hold woman to be the fairest, purest, best of the Creator's\nworks; oh! let the cry of \"out damned spot,\" rise heavenward from every\nhome in the United Kingdom; let sacred purity once more assert her rights,\nlet nature's illimitable powers do their work unaided, undefiled by the\nsordid infamy of charlatanism, and future generations shall gratefully\ninvoke unnumbered blessings on the memory of those who saved the daughters\nof England from the curse of a cruel degradation.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[1] \"In the midst of our apparent material prosperity, let some curious or\ncourageous hand lift up but a corner of that embroidered pall, which the\nsuperficial refinement of our privileged and prosperous classes has thrown\nover society, and how we recoil from the revelation of what lies seething\nand festering beneath!\" _Mrs. Jameson's_ \"_Communion of Labour_,\" pag. 20.\n\n[2] Anno 1663. Vide Roussel, Systeme Moral et Physique de la Femme, ed.\n1855, p. 224, and Astruc, Maladies des Femmes, t. vii.\n\n[3] This surgeon was most probably a person named Chison, of whom Count\nBussi Rabutin relates the following anecdote:--\"Meanwhile Madame de Crequi\nwent to seek Madame on the day which she had appointed for their party to\nSt. Cloud. She there met Chison, who had come to see one of Madame's girls\nwho was ill; he is La Valiere's medical man, and is facetious and witty;\nafter he had learned the complaint of the young lady, Cheer up, said he to\nher, I have remedies for all, even for lovers' hearts. Ho! G---- G----!\nreplied Madame, teach me them directly, for ten or a dozen that I have,\nwhom I should like to cure, provided it costs me only a few garden herbs.\nHa, Madame, replied he, it costs me much less than herbs, it costs me\nnothing but words. In fine, Chison, who sacrificed everything for the\nentertainment of Madame, related to her how the king had sent to him to\ninquire, and that he had demanded, with extreme emotion, whether\nMademoiselle de la Valiere could really survive, and if her leanness was\nnot a bad symptom. And what was your answer? replied Madame. What, said\nhe, can your highness be in doubt? I assure you that I promised him, with\nas much boldness, the prolongation of her years, as if I had a letter from\nHeaven. I spoke as a philosopher of life, and death, and destinies; it\nneeded nothing (when I saw the joy of the king) but to have promised him\nan immortality for the girl. True, G----, cried Madame; what secret charms\nhas the creature to inspire so great a passion? I assure you, replied\nChison, that it is not her body which supplies them.\"--_Hist. Am. des\nGaules. Amours de la Valiere_, page 430.\n\nThe \"witty and facetious\" Chison spoke with a certainty which experience\nalone could give; he had doubtless attended La Valiere in her\n\"confinement.\" Do such conversations ever occur now? There is nothing new\nunder the sun; what has been will be, and the laureate, not without\nreason, sings in Maud:--\n\n  \"Yonder a vile physician blabbing\n  The case of his patient.\"\n\n[4] Alison's History, page 111, vol. i.\n\n[5] Ibid. page 180, vol. i.\n\n[6] Alison's History, page 217, vol. i.\n\n[7] Astruc, des Maladies des Femmes.\n\n[8] Ex-Maitresse Sage-Femme, Surveillante-en-chef de l'Hospice de la\nMaternite et de la Maison Royale de Sante et de l'Administration Generale\ndes Hopitaux et Hospices Civils de Paris; Docteur en Medecine de\nl'Universite de Marbourg, &c. &c. &c.\n\n[9] Since this was written we have ascertained that a Charity, called the\n\"Royal Maternity Charity,\" has existed for a century in London. \"It was\ninstituted, 1757, for the gratuitous delivery of poor _married_ women at\ntheir _own habitations_. The patients are attended in their lying-in by\nskilful and well-taught midwives, (of whom there are now thirty-five),\nunder the watchful superintendence of appointed physicians, by one of whom\nthe midwives are first carefully instructed at the charge, and expressly\nfor the service of this charity; and, being located in various parts of\nthe metropolis, and not restricted, in the exercise of their profession,\nto the patients of the Charity solely, though such patients are, at all\ntimes and without exception, to have the preference, their services are\navailable to any other persons, who, either from choice or necessity, may\nbe desirous of employing a midwife instead of a medical man; and as these\noccasions are not rare, some of the midwives having from fifteen to twenty\n_private_ patients per month, it is not among the least of the advantages\nincident to the establishment of the ROYAL MATERNITY CHARITY that it is\nthe means of keeping up a class of respectable, intelligent midwives for\nsuch emergencies.\"--_Prospectus of the Royal Maternity Charity, office 17,\nLittle Knight Rider-street, Doctors' Commons, London._\n\n[10] \"It must be acknowledged that, although the function of midwife\nbelongs to the healing art, it was never intended to be exercised by\nmen.\"--_Roussel_, page 217.\n\n\"It is incompatible with the general infirmities of human nature to expect\nthat the medical profession, exercised as it is for the daily means of\nmaintenance, can be filled with men of science, with philosophers, or even\nwith honourable gentlemen, while the greatest number are remunerated\naccording to the quantity of drugs they craftily sell at random, as\npretended antidotes, and others follow the business of mere nurses, with\nall the pomp and state of academic learning.\"--_\"On Health,\" by Sir\nAnthony Carlisle, F.R.S., late President of the Royal College of Surgeons,\nand Surgeon of the Westminster Hospital._ 1841.\n\n[11] \"Others, many others, less industrious, have been amusing and\nfacetious. It is not long since I stood by the bed of a lady, who, between\nevery pain, was making merry in talking with the nurse; and, the moment\nafter the head and no more was born, commenced giving me an amusing\naccount of one of my patients, a relative of hers, whose ailments, she\nassured me, arose from inattention to my rules of diet.\" (!!)--_Roberton,\nPhysiology_, &c., page 459.\n\nOh, Roussel, how prophetic were your words!\n\n[12] Roussel, p. 222.\n\n[13] Female physicians were still known at Rome in the time of the\nEmperors, according to this verse of Martial,\n\n\"Protinus accedunt medici medicaeque recedunt.\"--_Hecquet._\n\n[14] Olympias, Sotira, Salpe, Lais, all cited by Pliny, and many others of\nwhom distinguished authors make mention.--_Hecquet._\n\n[15] _Stevens' Man-Midwifery Exposed._\n\n[16] Hecquet says: \"The provinces at a little distance from Paris still\nfind this custom very revolting.\"--_De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher\nles Femmes_, page 8.\n\n[17] \"In labours strictly natural, terminating after a few hours of\nmoderate suffering, scientific midwifery is passive; its interference\nextending only to the division of the funis.\"--_Roberton._\n\n[18] Lives there a man who would believe that the strongest passion which\nnature has implanted in the human heart is altogether dead in the\n_man_-midwife, that he is in fact emasculated by his profession, although\n\"not necessarily an old woman?\" It is far otherwise, and many of these\ngentry have the organ of philoprogenitiveness strongly developed.\n\n[19] By \"_le toucher indiscret_,\" as the French term this hateful\nindecency.\n\n[20] We are informed that in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital neither nurses\nin training as midwives, nor male students, are permitted to operate in\nany case of difficulty. We are not aware if this remark applies to the\nLondon hospitals and similar institutions in other parts of the kingdom,\nbut we have little doubt that in this respect the practice is the same in\nall. It is not easy to understand how, under these circumstances, either\nnurses or students can acquire much, or indeed any, knowledge for\ndiscrimination. It is most painful to reflect that any experience which\nthese persons may ever possess, must of necessity be gained after they are\nlet loose upon the world, at the sacrifice, it may be, of life, or at\nleast of moral and physical suffering, and injury to those patients who\nare the unfortunate objects of their first essays.\n\n[21] Letter from the Royal College of Physicians to the Secretary of State\nfor the Home Department, dated May 2nd, 1827, in reply to a memorial from\nthe Obstetric Society.\n\n[22] No; because \"unmarried females\" have not themselves endured these\noutrages, and still retain a modesty which is born in every woman, and,\ntherefore, might possibly re-animate in the patient feelings which,\nhowsoever natural, beautiful, and holy, would mar \"the doctor's process.\"\n\n[23] \"Generally, indeed, no _active_ assistance is necessary until after\nthe birth of the child,\" &c. _See ante, Ramsbotham ipse._ \"And another\nreason is, that such patients have been spared the ill effects arising\nfrom vaginal examinations,\" &c.--_Treatise on Midwifery._ Hardy and\nM'Clintock. Page 9.\n\n\"We here feel ourselves obliged to inform women that those persons whom\nthey employ in this kind of examination deceive them by affecting a\nknowledge which they do not possess. All information derived from 'touch'\nis very uncertain.\"--_Roussel Systeme Moral et Physique de la Femme. Chap.\nsur la Grossesse._\n\n[24] Has the doctor first informed the husband of the necessity for this\n_vaginal examination_? Has he, before entering the patient's chamber, or\nat least before he dared to make such \"a request\" to her, gained the\nhusband's confidence by candidly and honestly explaining the indelicate\nnature of the usages which his \"art\" permits him to adopt?\n\n[25] See Roussel, _ante_.\n\n[26] There is a maxim prevalent with accoucheurs, and the hellish aphorism\nis treated as a jest among them, that a woman will usually desire to\npatronise, upon all subsequent occasions, the man-midwife who has once\nintroduced his finger _per vaginam_.\n\n[27] A foul delusion, promoted and encouraged by the doctor, and the\nmidwife, at his instigation, well knowing, that in nine hundred and\nninety-nine cases out of a thousand, nothing else would induce a woman to\nsubmit to so gross an indecency.\n\n[28] \"It has been said that women delivered under circumstances where they\nhad no assistance, generally escape laceration; now this is not\nuniversally true; but supposing that it were, it admits of this easy\nexplanation: namely, that inasmuch as these females are almost always\ninvoluntarily subjected to the deprivation we have mentioned, they\nnaturally use their utmost endeavours to retard the birth of the child\nwhen they feel the head in the vagina, in the hope of aid reaching them\nbefore the critical moment of delivery; and another reason is, that such\npatients have been spared the ill effects arising from vaginal\nexaminations, &c.\"--_Extract from Treatise on Midwifery, by Drs. Hardy and\nM'Clintock_, page 9.\n\nLet the reader compare these observations with those of Dr.\nRamsbotham--\"look on this picture and on that,\"--and then he will be\nastonished, not at the difference of opinion between the men-midwives, but\nat the fact that women do so frequently escape the terrible consequences\nof all this interference with the laws of nature.\n\n[29] As if nature would not of herself direct the position most likely to\nfacilitate delivery.\n\n\"Who ever found the eagle dead upon her eyrie, or the she-wolf in her\nlair?\" and would the doctor have us believe that while giving to man\ndominion over every living thing, thus recognizing his physical as well as\nmental superiority, and greatly multiplying the conception of woman, God\nhad forgotten to instruct her in a faculty which he gave in perfection to\nall the lower animals?\n\n[30] Roberton, Physiology, &c., page 425.\n\n[31] An instrument called the speculum matricis was, however, in use at\nthe beginning of the last century, and is mentioned in the Bibliotheca\nAnatomica, 1712.\n\n[32] The Speculum; its moral Tendencies. By a Fellow of the Royal College\nof Surgeons. London: Bosworth & Harrison.\n\n[33] Vide Ramsbotham, _ante_.\n\n[34] \"It was to the midwives that they applied, in the first ages of the\nChurch, to be assured of that fidelity which Christian virgins had vowed\nto their state of chastity. But, if the Fathers found fault from the time\nwhen Christian females were thus exposed to the judgment of their own sex;\nif they discovered in this practice something shameful and infamous, of\nwhat criminality would they not have taxed the attempt of men at the\npresent day, who, in like cases, are not ashamed to deprive the midwives\nof this employment.\"--_Hecquet, De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les\nFemmes_, page 7.\n\n[35] O ye adepts in chloroform, take heed to your ways, and O ye fools,\nwho submit to be made _dead-drunk_ under its influence, beware lest a\nworse thing happen unto you!\n\n\"It would be absurd to suppose that the cases of sudden death from\nchloroform constitute the full measure of the mortality. How few even of\nthese are generally known or reported. Hardly any in private practice; and\nnow, even in hospitals, they are concealed. It is well known to the\nfrequenters of the London hospitals, that, in the same week in which the\nrecent death from chloroform at St. Thomas's occurred, another took place\nin another hospital, but which did not become the subject of judicial\ninquiry. Humanity, and the character of the profession, demand that the\nwhole subject should be investigated anew.\"--_Medical Times and Gazette._\n\n[36] Roussel, page 177, de la Grossesse.\n\n[37] Maladies des Femmes, t. v., p. 375.\n\n[38] Roussel, de l'Accouchement Naturel, page 208.\n\n[39] \"It is a common notion, that the brute enjoys great advantages,\ncompared with woman, in the act of parturition, from the position and\nconfiguration of its pelvis. Is not this groundless? In the first place it\nis said that the oblique axis of the brim, in woman, is less favourable to\nthe descent of the foetal head than the axis of the brim in the brute,\nwhich is parallel with the spine. But the physiologist knows, that\nordinarily in woman, just before the commencement of the labour pains, the\nuterus slowly, and without pain, descends by a mechanism, which Sir C.\nBell has so beautifully described in his memoir on the muscularity of that\norgan; and that thus a small segment of the foetal head becomes engaged\nin the brim, and in the position most favourable for passing, before the\nuterine pains commence. The truth is, the obliquity of the axis of the\nbrim is, in general, _no disadvantage or impediment whatever_. In the\nsecond place, it is urged, that the great size of the human foetal head\noccasions incomparably more difficulty than the sharp-pointed, small head\nof the brute foetus. For this there is equally no foundation. The size\nand figure of the human brim are as well fitted to give passage to the\nlarge head of the child, as the brim of the brute pelvis to allow the\nentrance of the comparatively smaller head of the foetal brute, &c., &c.\nStill looking at the figure of the human foetus, and comparing it with\nthat of the foetal brute, some may be inclined to imagine,\nnotwithstanding what has been said, that the brute will pass with far\ngreater facility than the child; such was my own opinion till I subjected\nthe point to the test of experiment. We are not to think, but to try, as\nJohn Hunter advises,\" &c.--_Roberton, Physiology, &c._, p. 247.\n\n[40] _L'Histoire General des Voyages._\n\n[41] \"During pregnancy the squaw continues her usual avocations, and, even\nin its most advanced state, she neither bears a lighter burthen on her\nback, nor walks a shorter distance in a day, than she otherwise would. If\non a march she feels the pains of parturition, she retires to the bushes,\nthrows her burthen from her back, and, without any aid, brings the infant\ninto the world. After washing in water, if at hand, or in melted snow,\nboth herself and the infant, she immediately replaces the burthen upon her\nback (weighing, perhaps, between sixty and one hundred pounds), secures\nher child upon the top of it, protected from the cold by an envelope of\nbison robe, and thus hurries on to overtake her companions.\"--_James'\nNarrative of Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains._\n\n[42] \"The Samoeides are a tawny, squat, miserable race of pagan savages,\nsubjects of the Russian empire. They are found along the Frozen Sea, on\nthe European side of the Jugorian Mountains, east of these on the River\nOby, and elsewhere on the vast shores of Siberia. According to Tooke, they\nare mature at a very early age,\" &c.--_Roberton_, quoting _Tooke's Russian\nEmpire_, vol. ii. p. 286.\n\n[43] \"The truth is, that when the pregnant will submit to prepare\nthemselves for what is before them, will be temperate in their eating,\nregular in their hours for sleep, and for exercise daily in the open air,\na considerable proportion may secure benign labours. It is the sedentary\nand luxurious who oftenest suffer severely in parturition,\" &c.\n&c.--_Roberton's Notes on Pregnancy_, p. 460.\n\n[44] Roberton has a remark to the same effect.\n\n[45] \"The beasts ca't manipulated.\"--_Shepherd on the Phrenologists,\nNoctes Ambrosianiae_, vol. ii. p. 21.\n\n[46] \"The calling of 'accoucheur' does not appertain to men. It is with\nthem nothing but a usurpation, or a rash experiment, founded upon the\ntimidity of women, who believe that, by this unworthy submission, they\ninsure their lives; and upon the credulity of husbands, who, by this\ndangerous condescension, imagine that they more surely preserve their\nwives.\"--_Hecquet, De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_, page\n9.\n\n[47]\n\n  \"Ubi non est mulier, ibi ingemiscit aeger.\"\n  Where woman is not, there the sick man groans.\n\n[48] \"At the time when this work was published, there had appeared a\ncatechism, in which M. Dufot, a physician, who was the author of it,\nproposed to himself to instruct the midwives in the country, and he set\nforth in a manner clear, exact, and perspicuous, the principles of the art\nof midwifery. It would be desirable that these ideas, which are sufficient\nfor their purpose, should be disseminated; they would prepare the public\nto do without the help of men in an office where their agency seems\nnecessarily to compromise morals. This object, to which some men only gave\nthe attention which it deserved, is doubtless the one which has urged some\nintendants to occupy themselves in the instruction of midwives. We learn\nfrom the _Gazette de France_, of 25th September, 1776, that the dame\nDucoudrai, commissioned and pensioned by his Majesty, had, by the care of\nM. Fontette, chief magistrate (intendant) of Caen, organized more than a\nhundred and fifty midwives in two public courts which she had held. That\nexample, without doubt, will not be lost on the provinces; whatever the\nprice of knowledge may be, it is in such close contiguity to the\ntemptation to abuse it, that I dare hardly put up any prayers for my\ncountry. In all the County of Foix, where I was born, deliveries are\nintrusted to women of the lower order, who never have the least idea of\nanatomy, and with whom the whole art is reduced to some practical and\ntraditionary customs. But they display zeal, patience, and uprightness,\nwhile the others apply themselves to nothing but the glitter of a\nscientific phantom, and the former cannot but succeed the best. I remember\nto have seen but one woman perish, in my little town, from the\nconsequences of labour. It is true that, contrary to custom, she had been\ndelivered by a man. The event was so distressing, that they had every\ncause to believe that nature reprobated such a fatal innovation.\"\n\n[49] Here let us illustrate the truth of Roussel's observations, by a\nstatement of facts which have occurred in our own day:--The _Portafoglio\nMaltese_ (October, 1856), in describing the frightful effects of a late\nearthquake in Candia, gives the following:--\"In one case a woman was\ndiscovered alive under the fallen ruins. She had been miraculously\npreserved by a beam falling in such a manner as to leave a small space,\nwhere she remained eight days without food before being discovered. During\nthis time she gave birth to a child, which was also alive. Another woman\nwas being delivered when the earthquake commenced; the husband and three\nwomen who were attending her fled. On the husband returning after the\npanic was over, on removing the ruins of his house, he found his wife with\nher child in her arms alive in a corner of one of the rooms, which had\nonly partly fallen in. During the awful moment she had been safely\ndelivered.\"\n\n[50] \"While such are the prominent vices and defects of the poor, vices\nand defects of a different kind, but no less offensive to morality, are\nfound among the rich. Sensuality and excess, selfishness, evil speaking,\nwant of charity and kindness abound. All these are obstacles to moral and\nphilosophical progress. Upon what can we rely to counteract them? Upon the\nforce of civilization? Twice have its powers been tried and found wanting.\nIn the days of Augustus Caesar, when order had been established and\nprosperity revived, when Virgil and Horace flourished at Rome, and the\nvast provinces of the Roman Empire were blest with peace and tranquillity,\neverything seemed to promise a long duration of happiness. But the\nChristian Apostle and the Pagan Satirist alike prove all was hollow and\ndelusive. Vice increased, knowledge decayed, power vanished, and soon\neverything portended the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Again, in\nthe eighteenth century of our era, civilization had reached a very high\npoint. That century, enlightened above all its predecessors, which enjoyed\nthe literature of the age of Louis XIV. in France, and of Queen Anne in\nEngland, when Racine, Moliere, Boileau, La Fontaine, Dryden, Pope,\nAddison, and Swift were read and admired; when Newton's philosophy was\nestablished; when La Voisier, and Black, and Cavendish had advanced\nchemistry to a science, and Watt had, by his improvement of the steam\nengine, rivalled the invention of the printing press, seemed, in its\ncourse, tending to the happiness of nations. But before that century\nended, revolutions tearing up the foundations of society, wars desolating\nall the nations of Europe, bore sad testimony to the mistake that had been\nmade. What was that mistake? The nature of man is so prone to evil that a\nstrong restraint is required to keep down his bad passions, and subdue his\nvicious inclinations. He requires, likewise, some special incentive to\ngood. The legislators of antiquity sought that restraint upon evil, and\nthat incentive to good, in powerful institutions guarded by sanctity of\nmanners. It was thus that Sparta and Rome were led to virtue. But these\ninstitutions perished when manners no longer supported them.\"--_Lord John\nRussell._ Lecture delivered at Exeter Hall, on the Obstacles which have\nretarded Moral and Political Progress, November, 1855.\n\n[51] \"I know that our philosophy, always abounding in singular maxims,\npretends, contrary to the experience of all ages, that luxury forms the\nglory of states; but after having forgotten the necessity of sumptuary\nlaws, will she yet dare to deny that good manners are essential to the\nduration of empires, and that luxury is diametrically opposed to good\nmanners?\"--_Rousseau Discours_, p. 67.\n\n[52] \"It was (says M. Astruc) at the first delivery of Mademoiselle de la\nValliere, and for the safer keeping of the secret. It was feared that the\npresence of a midwife in the palace, where suspicion reigned already,\nwould furnish fresh food for the malign curiosity of the courtiers; to\nimpose on them they made use of a surgeon whose practice attached him to\nthe court. For the rest, it cannot be denied that there have been, in\nevery age, men who studied or taught the art of midwifery. We have\ntreatises on midwifery of very ancient date, written by physicians.\nSurgeons, while exercising themselves in other surgical operations, did\nnot neglect that of midwifery. But the habitual and daily custom of\ndelivery was never established as it is at present; they interfered only\nin difficult cases, where it was believed that an experienced operator was\nrequired.\"\n\n[53] There is a work of M. Hecquet, entitled _De l' Indecence qu'il y a\naux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_.\n\n[54] \"There are, nevertheless, women, even now, whom it would be\nimpossible to induce to be delivered by men. We speak not of those\nlocalities where this employment is confided to women, but in towns, where\nmen-midwives are more in vogue. There is, it is said, a great Queen in\nEurope who has an accoucheur of whom she never makes use. Women deliver\nher, and the _man-midwife_ is in the ante-chamber, as a witness of the\ntribute yet paid to a custom which had been renounced.\"\n\nWe fear that, in these \"days of advance,\" even Majesty itself has\nsuccumbed to the prevailing fashion.\n\n[55] \"Sisters of Charity,\" page 75.\n\n[56] \"While Miss Nightingale is showing the world the great good to be\nachieved by ladies devoting themselves to the sick and suffering in\nhospitals, there is a lady in Paris who has actually worked her way to the\ntitle of M.D. The lady in question is Dr. Emily Blackwell, daughter of the\nlate Mr. Samuel Blackwell, of Bristol, and has, it appears, a sister\npractising in New York, as a regular physician, armed with the authority\nof a diploma. Dr. Elizabeth, like Dr. Emily, completed her medical studies\nin Paris. To the latter lady the Paris hospitals have been freely opened,\nand Dr. Emily Blackwell has followed the clinical lectures of Jobert de\nLamballe, Huguier, Casenove, Guersaint, and Blanche; and on the Register\nof the great hospital of the Hotel Dieu may be seen the first woman's name\never entered, as a medical student, on its books. The intense earnestness\nwith which the lady doctor labours to make herself perfect mistress of\nthose branches of the art which chiefly concern women and children, has\nnot only overcome prejudice, but made her a favourite with her able\ninstructors, who have been brought to say, that there can be no more\nobjection to the presence of ladies in hospitals, practising as\nphysicians, than to nurses. Baron Sentin, one of the Physicians in\nOrdinary to the King of the Belgians, has invited Dr. Emily Blackwell to\nvisit the great women's hospital at Brussels.\"--_Daily News._\n\n[57] A respected correspondent has communicated to us the following\nextract from a recent paper:--\"There are not far from twenty of them, and\nseveral of them are in excellent business. They confine themselves\ngenerally to midwifery, and the diseases of their own sex. Their success\nin the former branch tends to establish them firmly in families. The\nnumber will probably be gradually on the increase, since they are\nbeginning to be employed in the neighbouring cities of Charlestown,\nCambridge, Roxbury, and adjacent towns, much more than formerly.\"\n\nAmong these female physicians the Misses Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell,\nnatives of Bristol, are justly celebrated. See an interesting sketch of\nthe life of Miss Emily Blackwell in the _Englishwoman's Review_, June,\n1857.\n\n[58] A correspondent has kindly communicated to us the following \"ower\ntrue\" tale of humble life:--\"A poor girl, married, at the age of sixteen,\nto a youth not much older than, and equally poor with, herself (so\nimpoverished are they), fell in labour of her first child. She was living\nwith her father and mother, and he with his, for they were too poor to\nkeep house, and her father was an old man and paralyzed, and both\ngenerations, on both sides, were as poor as was possible, consistently\nwith living at all. Nevertheless, the wife's mother, having known better\ndays, was ambitious of having her daughter attended by a doctor, and,\nduring her pregnancy, had, by one device or another, scraped together the\nsum of half a guinea--the doctor's fee--which was laid up in store--an\nuneasy possession, in the meantime, for the poor mother, whose pressing\noccasions often tempted her to break in upon it. Labour, at length, coming\non, late at night, as usual, the chosen doctor was sent or rather gone\nfor, and came. The girl was in considerable pain, but the doctor, after\nthe usual examination, declared his services to be, for the present,\nunnecessary. The doctor, however, was not so occupied with his patient but\nthat he was observed, by her mother, to cast sundry glances around the\nforlorn and desolate apartment, as if doubtful of his fee. It is but\njustice to the apartment to state that it fully warranted the doctor's\nsuspicions. The doctor, however, not being wanted, as he said, went home,\nleaving it to be understood that he would come again. Not coming, a long\ntime having elapsed, and the labour becoming urgent, the mother went to\nthe doctor's house (this was the third time that, full of trouble, she\ntraversed a mile of windy streets at midnight). Her application to the\nknocker was answered from the window by the doctor's wife, who stated that\nher husband was in bed, and meant to stay there unless his fee was paid\ndown. In vain the poor woman urged that the fee was ready, pleading\nbesides her daughter's extremity. 'No,' was the reply, 'if not paid then\nand there the doctor would not stir.' This being simply impossible, the\npoor woman again sought her home, which, by this time, was a scene of\npain, terror, and confusion. And now, instead of the 'usurper,' the 'true\nprince' was first thought of in the person of an old woman in a\nneighbouring court, who was well spoken of, and, by her timely aid, the\nlong protracted labour was at length terminated for the moderate fee of\nfive shillings. So the girl did well, the mother saved five shillings and\nsixpence, and the doctor remains a _respectable man_!!\"\n\n[59] Dr. Stevens mentions, that Dr. Gregory took from a gravestone in \"the\nold burying ground\" in Charlestown the following inscription:--\n\n\"Here lyes interred the body of Mrs. Elizabeth Phillips, wife to Mr. John\nPhillips, who was born in _Westminster_, in Great Britain, and\ncommissioned by John, Lord Bishop of _London_, in the year 1718, to the\noffice of a midwife, and came to this country in the year 1719, and, by\nthe blessing of God, has brought into this world above 3,000 children.\"\n\nAn obituary notice in the _Boston Liberator_ of 1845, runs thus:--\n\n\"Mrs. Janet Alexander died in Boston, September 15, 1845, after an illness\nof nearly four months, aged 61 years. She was a native of Scotland, and\nwas instructed in the theory and practice of midwifery by Dr. James\nHamilton, the celebrated professor of Midwifery in the University of\nEdinburgh. She received her diploma from him in 1817. She arrived in\nBoston in November, 1819, and commenced the exercise of her profession on\nthe ensuing Christmas day; and for a period of more than twenty-five\nyears' practice among the most intelligent and respectable portion of the\ncommunity, was most singularly successful, having NEVER, IN ANY INSTANCE,\nLOST A PATIENT.\"\n\n[60] \"We may, with tolerable safety, estimate the present population of\nthe Chinese Empire as between 350,000,000, and 400,000,000 of human\nbeings. The constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the\ncomplete absence of immigration into China, is striking evidence of the\nredundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly\nconfined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookein, representing\ntogether a population of probably from 34,000,000, to 35,000,000, I am\ndisposed to think, that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from\nthese provinces alone, is located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of\nSiam it is estimated that there are at least 1,500,000 Chinese, of which\n200,000 are in the capital (Bankok). They crowd all the islands of the\nIndian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census, there are\n136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom\nwithout one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California\nand other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the\nSandwich Islands, to the Western Coast of Central and Southern America,\nsome have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British\nWest Indies has been considerable; to the Havannah greater still. The\nannual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and\n20,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China.\"--_Sir\nJohn Bowring._\n\n[61] \"Notwithstanding all our affectation of superior delicacy, and our\nreprehension of the coarse manners of our ancestors, we suspect that they\nwould have been shocked at the idea of the _indelicate_ and _unnecessary_\npresence of a man in the sanctuary of the lying-in room.\"--_Plea for\nPhysicians, Fraser's Magazine_, March, 1848.\n\n[62] \"An institution such as I have in my mind, should be a place where\nwomen could obtain a sort of professional education under professors of\nthe other sex,--for men are the best instructors of women;--where they\nmight be trained as hospital and village nurses, visitors of the poor, and\nteachers in the elementary and reformatory schools,\" &c.--_Mrs. Jameson's_\n\"_Sisters of Charity_,\" page 116.\n\n[63] Roberton says, \"In speaking of the small mortality in child-bed among\nthe poor, I limit my remark to those of this community (Manchester), who\nhave long had the advantage of being attended chiefly by midwives\ncarefully trained and educated in connexion with our Lying-in\nCharity.\"--_Pag._ 437.\n\n[64] We have heard that the almost incredible sum of five hundred guineas\nhas been paid as a fee to one of the fashionable \"ladies' doctors:\" and\nthat another caused it to be understood that he would not take a less fee\nthan fifty guineas, whereupon the number of patients soliciting his\nattendance increased a hundred fold.\n\n[65] We know a case in point, where a lady was anxious to engage a midwife\nwho had been recommended to her as perfectly competent to perform her\noffice without the intervention of the _man_-midwife, but the latter would\nnot hear of this, and insisted on the substitution of one of his \"own\nnurses.\" It is easy to perceive the reason of this manoeuvre. Had the\noriginal midwife attended, she would have undertaken the operation, and\nthe importance of the _man_-midwife would have been materially lessened.\nThe lady's delicacy and comfort were not of sufficient weight to\ncounterbalance this consideration. _Ex uno disce omnes._\n\n[66] \"In 1848 sixty-one mothers died to every 10,000 children born alive.\nSince that year the mortality has progressively declined, as follows:--58,\n55, 53, 52, 50, down to 47 in 1854. This is a gratifying result, and there\ncan be no doubt that by further care and skill, especially by training up\na class of educated nurses, the deaths in child-birth may be largely\nreduced from their present high number, 3009.\"--_Medical Times and\nGazette._\n\n[67] So far from the presence of a _man_-midwife being a source of\nconsolation or assurance to the sufferer, as Dr. Ramsbotham alleges, we\nhave it on the authority of a lady, the mother of many children, that on\nthree occasions, when the \"doctor\" _was not present_, her labours were\nmuch easier, and in all respects more thoroughly natural and happy in\ntheir results; than on those in which the _man_-midwife officiated; and\nfurther, _that the very ring of the bell announcing the arrival of the\nhated accoucheur has frequently \"put back\" the pains of labour_.\n\n[68] Before we laugh at this short-sighted folly and cruelty, which\nsupposes that the interests of the two sexes can possibly be antagonistic,\ninstead of being inseparably bound up together, we must recollect that we\nhave had some specimens of the same feeling in our own country, as, for\ninstance, the opposition to the female school at Marlborough House, and\nthe steady opposition of the inferior part of the medical profession to\nall female practitioners. That some departments of medicine are peculiarly\nsuited to women, is beginning to strike the public mind. I know that there\nare enlightened and distinguished physicians both here and in France who\ntake this view of the subject, though the medical profession as a body\nentertain a peculiar dread of all innovation, which they resist with as\nmuch passive pertinacity as Boards of Guardians and London\nCorporations.\"--_Mrs. Jameson's_ \"_Communion of Labour_,\" p. 40.\n\n\"When educated gentlemen set an example of selfishness and exclusiveness,\nit is only to be expected that the working classes should follow it, and\nso the greed of man is the degradation of woman.\"--_North British Review_,\nNo. 52, p. 837.\n\n[69] \"According to Osborne's testimony, instruments are used _dangerously_\nin parturition, _one thousand one hundred and seventy-six times_ in every\ntwelve hundred cases; and the same author, in his reprobation of Denman's\nculpable and inconsiderate introduction of them into practice, makes this\nmemorable remark: 'I must believe that he must have forgotten THE MANY\nUNHAPPY EFFECTS which have come from their use to our mutual knowledge,\neven when they had been in the hands of very experienced and skilful\nmen.'\"--_The Author of_ \"_The Death-blow to Man-midwifery_,\" quoting\n_Osborne's_ \"_Essays_.\"\n\n[70] \"The conduct of medical men in all former ages proves still farther\nthat which we would establish (that the profession of man-midwife is\nrepugnant to nature). If they required information on the state of their\nfemale patients, it was to the midwives they applied. The midwife,\ntherefore, passed for the eye of the doctor, because it was through her\nministration that he assured himself of what he neither committed to his\nown examination or to that of another man.\"--_Hecquet_ \"_De l'Indecence\naux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_,\" page 6.\n\n[71] Albertus Magnus de Secretis Mulierum. _Ed. Amst._ 1662, p. 85.\n\n[72] The _man_-midwife usually intimates his wish to make the examination\n_per vaginam_, through the medium of the nurse of his own recommendation,\nand should the patient, struck with the daring impropriety of his request,\ndesire to inform her husband of the infamous proposal, the nurse dissuades\nher by saying, that \"husbands are not supposed to understand these\nthings,\" and that she will probably destroy both her own life, and that of\nher child, by refusing to submit to it! After this the accoucheur soon\ntriumphs, the examination is effected without further remonstrance, and\nthe victim is irretrievably entangled in his insidious toils.\n\n[73] Roberton, Apology, page 470.\n\n[74] Roberton, page 486.\n\n[75] Ibid. page 489.\n\n[76]\n\n  \"The moon had gathered oft her monthly store\n    Of light, and oft in darkness left the sky,\n  Since Monnema a growing burthen bore\n    Of life and hope. The appointed weeks go by,\n  And now her hour is come, and none is nigh\n    To help; but human help she needed none.\n  A few short throes, endured with scarce a cry,\n    Upon the bank she laid her new-born son,\n  Then slid into the stream, and bathed, and all was done.\"\n\n  _Southey's Tale of Paraguay._\n\n[77] See Roussel, _ante_.\n\n[78] What will the men-midwives, with all their precautionary humbug, say\nto this?\n\n\"On the 3rd of June, 1857, at Moradabad, amid the terrors of mutiny, the\nwife of Captain M. B. W----, Bengal Native Infantry, gave birth to a son,\nand on the same day, with all the officers and their families, escaped to\nNynee Tal, a hill station distant about sixty-five miles, which they\nreached in safety on the 5th instant at 11 a.m. They fled with only the\nclothes on their backs, having been plundered of\neverything.\"--_Correspondent of the Times._\n\nWell might this English lady exclaim with the Indian mother, \"Here,\nEnglishmen, here is a young warrior!\"\n\n[79] There cannot be a doubt that the habit of wearing stays is as\ninjurious to the internal organization of women as it is to their external\nform. Physiologists are well aware of this, yet European women are so\nenslaved by custom, that we see them tightening up their daughters, from\nvery infancy, in a framework of iron and bone, until their bodies assume\nthe shape which the corset-maker chooses, instead of that which nature, in\nthe perfection of her knowledge, would bestow.\n\n[80] Diseases of Women, by E. Johnson, M.D.\n\n[81] \"The most natural proof that, in the first ages of the world, the\n_man_-midwife (accoucheur) was unknown, is, that there is no word\nwhatsoever in the mother or original tongues to signify this profession in\na man, whereas that which signifies a midwife (accoucheuse) is found in\nall languages.\"--_Hecquet de l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les\nFemmes_, p. 1.\n\n[82] Let any man who disputes this position peruse the case of\nD----against D----, in Robertson's Reports of Cases in the Ecclesiastical\nCourts, a terrible picture of conjugal contention and wretchedness in high\nlife, all clearly attributable to the accoucheur, who insisted upon the\nhusband leaving the lying-in chamber, and influenced the wife, fatally for\nher husband's peace and her own, to concur in his exclusion. A more\nflagrant instance of medical presumption and insolence could not readily\nbe found.\n\n\"Here then,\" says Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, in his judgment, \"is the clue\nto everything that subsequently took place--an end of all that happiness\nand comfort which might have been expected to attend the union between\nthese parties.\"\n\nThe archives of the law would afford the inquirer many a fearful example\nof similar evils consequent on the unnatural and sinful practice of\nman-midwifery.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nPassages in italics are indicated by _italics_.\n\nThe original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these\nletters have been replaced with transliterations.\n\nPunctuation has been corrected without note.\n\nThe following misprints have been corrected:\n  missing \"be\" added (page 24)\n  transposed lines correced (pg 62)\n  \"instrustrument\" corrected to \"instrument\" (page 63)\n  \"aros\" corrected to \"arose\" (Footnote 11)\n  \"Pitsburgh\" corrected to \"Pittsburgh\" (Footnote 41)\n  \"surgica\" corrected to \"surgical\" (Footnote 52)\n\nThe mismatched quotation mark in footnote 68 is presented as in the\noriginal text.\n\nHyphenation inconsistencies have been retained from the original.","title":"Hints to Husbands: A Revelation of the Man-Midwife's Mysteries","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35072}