Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

women at least) even without assistance, according to the following passage:"And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them." EXOD. i. 19. It may be inferred also, from the seventh verse, that great success attended the practice of the ancient midwives, equally as in modern days:-" And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them."

In fact, in ordinary cases of labour almost any woman, who has herself become a mother, will suffice; and as to such as have been termed "extraordinary cases," it is only necessary to have the assistance of a midwife of much practice, and therefore of great experience for midwifery is purely a practical art-nature the book, experience

[ocr errors]

the guide. As it has been shewn that not one case in a hundred requires such extraordinary assistance, why then should any woman imagine that she is not to be as safely delivered of her travail as any other of the ninety and nine? And as to the ten cases in a thousand possibly requiring such extraordinary assistance, the midwife of practice, it has been shewn, is fully equal to assure the safety of the results. Of such ten in a thousand extraordinary cases, (that is to say of the whole thousand cases), there will not probably be one in which it will be necessary to use the crotchet. The nine remaining cases are deemed laborious only because the "extraordinary" assistance of turning and bringing the child by the feet is requisite, which operation every midwife of experience is much better able to perform than a man. If it should be requisite that the child should be turned, there needs no knowledge of anatomy to distinguish by the feel a hand from a foot, or a head from any

other part; and every woman of experience must know the situation of the parts in which she is to operate, they being so plain and obvious that she cannot miss her way: and how much more proper for a woman thus to explore, than that a man should be permitted to do so!

Experienced midwives, although able, if absolutely necessary, to make use of instruments, are averse to the practice of the several methods of tearing children from the womb in manner as the sequel of this treatise will disclose; and being sensible of the pains of labour, they presume not to turn nature out of its course, or to thwart, by affecting to accelerate her natural operations, but patiently await the moment when nature needs assistance the little assistance she in truth requires-not with blades of steel, but with hands which in their sensitiveness inform the operator what she touches, and by which she knows what she is about. So sensible are the members of

the faculty of the actual facts which form the subject-matter of this dissertation, that numbers of them have women to deliver their own wives; and it is not to be supposed they would employ women if they thought the assistance of men safest, not being less affectionate towards their wives, it must be presumed, than other men. An eminent man-midwife once declared, that after a practice of thirty-six years, he had never met with even a single case in which a woman of experience might not have done the business just as well as he could; and there are midwives now in practice who have brought many thousands of children into the world, and seldom or ever met with a case which in fact required a man, but that the custom of the times rendered it prudent in them not to take upon themselves unnecessary responsibility.

It is intended that this treatise should be understood as objecting only against the practice of employing men-midwives

unnecessarily, and not simply as surgeons or physicians. There may be particular situations in which a woman may be taken in the last months of pregnancy, which, if no midwife of great experience be at hand, would indisputably require the assistance of a man; but if no surgeon whose character for humanity and prudence, as well as for skill in his profession is unquestionable, be within distance; the case had better be left to nature and the assistance of women, than that the patient should run the risk of being ruined, as hereafter shewn, by any mere pretender to knowledge, who may be devoid of experience and inexpert in art. In the unhappy case also which possibly may happen out of a thousand, where to save the life of the mother the child must be killed in the womb by the crotchet; when that operation is to be performed, as it necessarily must be out of sight, then indeed the knowledge of anatomy becomes necessary; and this is the only case in

« ZurückWeiter »