Hints to Husbands Part 4

Females, he alleges, are incompetent; and these a.s.sertions of physicians have influenced the minds of females to such an extent, that they are forcibly impressed with the belief that there are no others competent; and when it is proposed to many women to employ a midwife, they appear to shrink with horror, and many even suppose that in trusting themselves to the most accomplished female accoucheur, they jeopardize their lives....

"The physician takes it for granted, and even boasts, that if he can attend one single case of midwifery in a family, he has _for ever after_ secured their patronage; so that both interest and prejudice operate as obstacles and barriers to any improvement or change in the practice; and although the most fearful consequences have (occurred), and are still daily occurring, modern females cling to this unnatural practice.

"Notwithstanding, however, the existence of the above obstacles, we are well a.s.sured that females, if rightly qualified, are not only as fully capable as men, but are even more so; and, therefore, the most valid and conclusive reasons may be a.s.signed why a reformation should take place in this department of the practice. What more conclusive than the fact of the actual attendance of women in child-birth in all nations, previous to the sixteenth century; and the attestation of competent persons during the first century of man-midwifery to the fact, that not half so many fatal cases occurred before as after the innovation. And, in the first settlement of this country (America), when females[59] attended exclusively on such occasions, it was as rare a fact to hear of a woman peris.h.i.+ng in child-birth, as it is now to hear of an Indian or an animal peris.h.i.+ng in labour, who are delivered by the unaided powers of nature."

A letter, addressed by Sir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the College of Surgeons, to the late Sir Robert Peel, on the attempt by some members of the medical profession to legalize man-midwifery, is well worthy of the perusal and consideration of our readers. The letter appeared in the _Times_ newspaper, and raised a ferocious howl from the men-midwives; but the ever gullible British public looked upon the affair as a mere medical question in which it had no concern, and the howl carried the day against reason, morality, and truth:--

"SIR,--The high ministerial station which you deservedly occupy, must often expose you to the various kinds of applications respecting the condition and management of our national inst.i.tutions, and also to personal or partial interference about their several real or pretended interests. In all such instances you must perceive the fairness and the ultimate advantage of preferring direct information from the respective const.i.tuted authorities, of requiring advice from rival inst.i.tutions upon doubtful measures, and of regarding with jealousy the private communications of interested individuals. It is, however, reported that you are, at this time, beset upon the subject of introducing an ordeal for licensing men-midwives, by certain members of the London College of Surgeons, and that you are urged by popular men (whose wisdom and disinterestedness may be questioned) to favour their scheme with your powerful influence.

"As the prevalent vice of avarice may have some share in this professional movement, it is fit that you and the public should be acquainted with the probably concealed effects of granting the solicited privileges; and, for the reasons already given, I am induced to address you through the press.

"Man-midwifery has only been practised in England during the last hundred years, and it was introduced as a French fas.h.i.+on. From the beginning it has been strongly opposed on the score of its indecency, by many distinguished and scientific medical men; and also, because the birth of mankind appears to them to be a purely natural process, so wisely ordered, that it very rarely demands any other aid than experienced mothers can safely give. Even so late as the ill.u.s.trious mother of his present majesty, that exemplary Queen was personally attended by good Mrs. Draper, without difficulties or misadventures; whereas the contrary result, under male management, in the fatal affair of the Princess Charlotte and her infant, will be long remembered.

"If it should be asked why so many professional men addict themselves to a degrading vocation, it may be answered, that the practice of man-midwifery leads to unlimited power in every family, and thence to lucrative ends.

Women, naturally timid, and ignorant of their own structure, are peculiarly exposed, during the most important office of their existence, to the persuasions or menaces of more knowing persons, and they are thence easily made to believe, that the natural and wholesome delays and pains of childbed are within the controul of medical or surgical art--an a.s.sumption which is too generally acted upon, and with unvarying evil consequences; because it is a violation of the ways of nature. Men-midwives have continually alleged that ignorant women pract.i.tioners commit many fatal mistakes, and now they present similar objections against unlicensed men.

If, as I believe, the safeguards of child-bed are amply provided for by nature, and that not one instance in a thousand calls for any other help beyond what any moderately experienced woman can give, why are we to license adventurers, who may seek notoriety by desperate acts, often involving manslaughter--operative acts, the moral propriety of which is very doubtful, and the time and the methods for performing them still subjects for rancorous disputes? But the present affair is not respecting the utility of men-midwives, but the impropriety of empowering any special corporate medical body to coerce the rest; to further impede female-midwives in a becoming duty, and to deprive delicate women of that great resource of self-respect. Already the prevalence of man-midwifery has driven country surgeons and apothecaries to adopt this humiliating office, and the number of women pract.i.tioners has been thence so reduced, that paupers are in many places delivered by apprentice boys under sixteen years of age. The Royal College of Physicians in London, who rank the highest for learning and decorum, have lately rescinded their admission of licentiates in midwifery, whether for considering the practice as derogatory to a physician, or as an overweening privilege towards females and children, is not avowed; but it seems that no London physician, educated at Oxford or Cambridge, has yet condescended to be a man-midwife.

The Royal Colleges of Surgeons in London, in Dublin, and in Edinburgh, have likewise hitherto renounced every connexion with man-midwifery.

"The teachers of midwifery are indiscriminately doctors and surgeons; but at this moment the majority of lecturers and superintendents of lying-in charities are physicians, while a mult.i.tude of legally appointed sub-physicians (styled apothecaries) are equally ent.i.tled, with the other cla.s.ses of the faculty, to establish tribunals for examining and licensing candidates for man-midwifery, if they should deem it expedient. Finally, it may be noted, that the different cla.s.ses of men-midwives have never yet agreed among themselves to adopt a common ordeal for certifying the qualifications of their calling, and you may be a.s.sured, Sir, that many worldly interests will rage against the establishment of any monopoly of this kind in any single inst.i.tution, because man-midwifery is the covert way to medical fortunes. If, however, the greediness of a few individuals should expose this subject to free discussion, and the judgment of married men and modest women should be copiously awakened, perhaps the general custom of employing women may be again resorted to, and their competent instruction publicly enforced.

"It is said, that our changeable neighbours at Paris are already tired of their fas.h.i.+onable freak; and when our countrywomen reflect, that not one in ten thousand of their s.e.x throughout the globe allow of the presence of a man during the rites of child-bed, they may acquire courage, and unite their efforts to replace the routine of midwifery among themselves. I will not offend you and the public by any observations upon the outrageous stories collected on this occasion, to prove the violent and fatal injuries committed by unlicensed men-midwives, because I think the privilege sought for would increase those evils.

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

"ANTHONY CARLISLE.

"_Langham-place_, Feb. 19."

"In a recent number of the _North British Review_ appeared an excellent article on 'The Employment of Women;' under the head of women doctors, the writer says: 'But the something practical--where is it?' We believe that a great deal, which is very practical, is scattered over this article. But we have still some further suggestions to offer. Not very long ago, a statement 'went the round of the papers,' to the effect that there were already eight diplomatized female physicians practising in Boston (U. S.), and that there were thirty-eight students in the Female Medical College.

'Whenever,' says an American writer, 'there are sufficient data to establish the truth (now little if at all disputed in America), that child-birth is freed from its worst difficulties and dangers when the unnatural presence of men is dispensed with, the medical and surgical care of women and children will pa.s.s into the hands for which nature designed it.' There would appear to be nothing very unreasonable in this, but, on the contrary, something extremely rational and hopeful. But see how the facts stated above are received by the faculty in England. The leading medical journal of this country thus comments upon them:--

"'Female physic thrives apace in America. At Boston, where Columbia gave birth to the young Const.i.tution, which is now sowing its wild oats broadcast, there is a female medical college, numbering thirty-eight students. A grant of government money has also been voted towards establis.h.i.+ng a similar inst.i.tution at New York. This is to be under the immediate superintendence of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., late of St.

Bartholomew's, with a bevy of those spinsters mentioned by Shakespeare as free "maids who weave their threads with bones" for anatomical demonstrators.

"'At Boston, moreover, there are eight doctoresses with diplomas in full practice. We suppose some of these female physicians are married, and this involves a great social mystery of which we have as yet received no account. When the Mrs. M.D.'s are attending to patients in their boudoirs of consultation, or pointing out pathological nicknacks in their anatomical drawing-rooms, or going their rounds with stethoscopes in their bonnets, what are their husbands doing? Do they superintend the perambulators, or are these hitched on to the professional broughams of their mammas? Is it a part of the husband's marital duty to manage the nursery--in short, to attend to the domestic affairs generally? Perhaps matrimony is ignored altogether. Indeed, we do not well see how a conscientious doctoress could promise to love, honour, and obey a husband who might order her to give her patients a dose of strychnia all round.'

"Surely this is not the way to deal with so grave a question. Argument must be wanting, or the sneer would not be resorted to by so distinguished an authority. The same questions as are here put might be employed also to write down any description of independent female labour. When women go out to teach drawing or music, or when they attend to shops, or make caps and bonnets, gowns or mantles, what, it may be asked, are their husbands doing? Attending to their own business, if they have any, or living on their wives' earnings, Mantalini-like, if they have not. We do not mean to say that there are no practical difficulties in the way of the effectual working of this scheme. Objections will readily suggest themselves; but they are not insuperable objections. All women may not be fit for such work. But all men are not fit for it. Many women will lack the necessary amount of nerve; but many men lack it also. In difficulty and danger women have great presence of mind. They are often calm and collected where men are unhinged and unbalanced, and incapable of exertion. Women have more tenderness and more patience, and they must necessarily understand many female ailments better than men. They will always have one great advantage over male pract.i.tioners--female patients will be more unreserved in their communications to them. Many women have been sacrificed to their delicacy--to their repugnance to state fully their ailments to men-doctors; perhaps even to call them in until it is too late. Let such objections as these be fairly balanced against those which may be adduced against female pract.i.tioners, and let us calmly consider the average result.

"We do not pretend to know, under the existing order of things in Great Britain, what proportion of children are annually brought into the world without the a.s.sistance of any male pract.i.tioner. But we know that in humble life it is very common to employ only a nurse or midwife. And we do not believe that, under such circ.u.mstances, more dangerous cases of parturition occur than where men are professionally employed. But if such were the case, if the number of deaths or injuries were proportionately greater, no argument could be derived from the fact against the employment of educated and diplomatized women. If, in the present state of things, accidents arise from the absence of men, it is not on account of the s.e.x, but on account of the ignorance of the pract.i.tioner. The same amount of knowledge, as indicated by the diploma, existing in both cases, we cannot help thinking that the advantage, in most cases, will be on the side of the female attendant.

"We might pursue this subject much further; but time and s.p.a.ce have alike narrowed to a small compa.s.s, and we have by no means exhausted our notes.

In the early part of this paper we have touched on the subject of nurses, but rather in connexion with amateur than with professional labour. Many women of a better kind might find profitable employment in this path of life; and if licenses, or diplomas of an inferior cla.s.s, indicating a certain amount of medical and physiological knowledge, were granted to them, the business would not be beneath the adoption of women of birth and education. _But here again, perhaps, the jealousy and selfishness of men would step in and thwart our efforts; for the presence of such educated nurses would often render it wholly unnecessary to call in a regular pract.i.tioner at all."--North British Review_, No. LII. page 333.

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

and the East," says Sir Anthony Carlisle, "ordinary matrons are universally employed in the sanctuary of child-birth: and they would revolt with horror from any proposal to admit the presence of a man." This statement, coming, as it does, from such a high authority, when inveighing against the needless outrage upon the modesty of women, which we commit by the employment of men-midwives, cuts from under them the argument of the interested professors of "the art," who would have us believe, that British women, from the peculiarities of the climate, and a high state of civilization, are more liable to accident and danger in the parturient state, than the women of those countries in which the _fas.h.i.+on_ of man-midwifery is unknown.

Even Roberton, one of themselves, is compelled to admit, that any argument based upon climatic influence is fallacious, and easily capable of disproof, for he says, in his apology for the study of midwifery as a science:--"In reply to such a statement as this (Sir Anthony Carlisle's), it has been common to argue that, in warm countries, the parts concerned in admitting the pa.s.sage of the child are so relaxed, that labour becomes comparatively easy; and that hence we are to account for the nonemployment of accoucheurs. This is a very false view of the subject. In warm countries, whose inhabitants live after the same manner as ourselves, parturition is in no degree easier than it is here. In the town of Sierra Leone, so near the equator as lat.i.tude 8 north, we are a.s.sured by Dr.

Winterbottom, who resided there, that having been present at a number of labours, they in every respect resemble those of women in the same situation of life in England. "I have met," says he, "with instances in England where the foetus was expelled with more ease than I ever knew it to be at Sierra Leone."...

"The prophetical writings of the Old Testament furnish many allusions to painful parturition. The Jews inhabited a warm climate; and yet, were we to judge of parturition among them from the frequent reference the prophets make to it in figures and similes, when predicting the sufferings to be produced by impending judgments, we should conclude that in no people was nature's sorrow more severe. Thus, Jeremiah, the coming miseries of Judah pa.s.sing before his vision, exclaims:--'I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the _anguish_ as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands.' A mult.i.tude of pa.s.sages containing a similar allusion might be cited. In the historical part of the Scriptures, too, there is incidental mention of several cases in which parturition proved fatal. So much for the relaxing influence of a warm climate! a notion which, like various others respecting the influence of climate on the human system, is at variance with facts."

Among the myriad peoples inhabiting the vast Continent which, in the aggregate, we term India, men-midwives are unknown. There have been, no doubt, attempts made by Europeans to introduce the abominable custom, but we believe, excepting in some of the towns most frequented by them, without any considerable success. As the inhabitants of Tahiti, and the isles of the Pacific, once the abode and very Paradise of nature in her glorious perfection, have found to their cost, so we fear in all other portions of the world's surface, where our boasted civilization has set its foot, the evils which accompany its progress invariably take precedence, and largely preponderate over its advantages. Wherefore should we add to the primal curse fulminated against woman, irrespective of locality or race, "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," a far greater one in the ruin of her modesty, by the introduction of man into the sanctuary hallowed by his absence from the beginning of the world. O ye fine ladies of England, who talk so glibly of all the virtues, and blazon your moral excellencies before the nations! if ye will not take example from the highly civilized and numberless ladies and women of China and the East, learn from the poor savage, in whom, though doomed to the lowest grade of earth's inhabitants, there yet glows fresh from Heaven, like a pure star gleaming through the night of heathenism, that loveliest attribute of woman--modesty. Over that mysterious rite which G.o.d has confided to the female s.e.x, the rude, wild, cruel, ignorant, uncivilized, naked, idol-wors.h.i.+pping natives of New Holland, throw a veil impenetrable to man. Roberton says, page 480, "Among them (the New Hollanders) a man is not permitted to approach where parturition is going on." There are, however, rare and beautiful exceptions to that accursed fas.h.i.+on which now so debases the women of this country; for we have undoubted authority for stating that "there are ladies, and ladies of rank, t.i.tled ladies, who would not let a man near them." In these bright examples propriety still finds a refuge; in their chaste minds the light of reason and refinement s.h.i.+nes with a fair and unsullied ray amidst the gloom of apathetic indecency, which shrouds in its cold and clammy cerements so many of their s.e.x. All honour to those true-hearted women who so proudly uphold their native modesty, their s.e.x's loveliest charm, above the rank pollution which, in these sensuous and degenerate days, infects the sanctuary of marriage.[61]

Among the Jews, the peculiar people, guarded and preserved so wondrously by the Providence of G.o.d, from the day that Israel went down into Egypt with three score and ten souls, until they had multiplied "as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea sh.o.r.e," no such violation of decency was permitted or required to insure the fulfilment of G.o.d's promise to Abraham. We learn that females were regularly authorized and appointed as midwives, for the Sacred writings give us the names of two of them: "And the King of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was s.h.i.+phah, and the name of the other Puah: and he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared G.o.d, and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive. And the King of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharoah, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

Therefore G.o.d dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. And it came to pa.s.s, because the midwives feared G.o.d, that He made them houses." We know also that there were physicians in those days, for "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel." Now, it is most certain that if the great protecting power of the Jews--the father of his people, had deemed it necessary or proper, for the safety of mothers or of offspring, to afford any a.s.sistance beyond that which nature and the midwife supplied, it would have been so ordained, and as surely mentioned by the great historian and leader of the Israelites, or by some other of the sacred writers; but of this there is no sign whatever, and we must, therefore, infer that this innovation was not so much as thought of by the Jews, highly civilized and vicious people as they were, and that it was reserved for us, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, to permit such a scandalous breach of decorum as the prost.i.tution of our wives to the impure touch of a _man_-midwife. Roberton says, in his Apology--"But an objector will ask, cannot a matron practise these expedients? and if so, where is the use or propriety of such a cla.s.s as men-midwives? I reply, doubtless a matron may practise many of the expedients referred to, if they have been taught her. It is of the value of midwifery as a science, originating with and practised by men, compared with matron or uncultivated midwifery, of which I have been speaking. A certain proportion of instructed female midwives in a community may, for aught I know, be a benefit." Let the reader mark, learn, and inwardly digest these words! Here is the admission of an accoucheur of the present day, confirming the words of Roussel, and the many other authorities whom we have quoted, as to the fitness of women for the practice of the expedients necessary in midwifery, and, further, a most important acknowledgment, as coming from one of his cla.s.s, that females, properly instructed as midwives, would be a benefit to society. To be sure they would! Who doubts it? And is there not enough of wealth, and energy, and right feeling in England to say--We will that there shall be in every community properly instructed midwives; we will that there shall be organized, in all our great towns, schools of midwifery for the instruction of women,[62] who shall go forth from them fully competent in "nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand," to perform that office which is now, from their s.e.x, so indecently performed by men. The instruction of midwives has nothing of novelty in it: women are so instructed in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, at this day, and we believe[63] that they are so instructed at Manchester and in London; they "walk the hospital," as the term is, for six months, and at the end of that time they receive a "diploma;" but there is a jealousy on the part of the accoucheurs, who fear, naturally enough, that their trade (a very lucrative one[64]) might be injured if these women should a.s.sume too much responsibility, and the consequences of this jealousy[65] are injurious to the full and complete instruction and competency of the "nurses."[66]

These nurses are very much in the power of the accoucheurs, for it is princ.i.p.ally through the latter's recommendation that they obtain employment, at least among the upper cla.s.ses, and the evils which arise from this state of things are fatal to the interests of morality. _The nurse is afraid to act without the man-midwife_, not because she is incompetent, for she has walked the hospital and has her diploma of efficiency, but because it essentially concerns the _man_-midwife to play the princ.i.p.al part, in order that the belief in the necessity for his presence and _a.s.sistance_ should not, by any act of hers, be shaken; such is their jealousy on this head, that we have known the man-midwife, on arriving too late to be present at the birth, roundly rate the nurse of his own appointment for not having sent for him sooner, although the case was of the most ordinary description, and great additional ease of mind and general comfort were experienced by the patient, through the absence of the doctor.[67]

The nurses in their six months' training at the hospital learn much, however, that is useful to them in their own after-practice, for many of them are employed by the humbler cla.s.ses from motives of economy, and we would fain believe of delicacy also. Through one of these nurses we have learnt the frightful indignities to which the poor hospital patients are sometimes subjected. A difficult case of labour, as it is termed, occurs, the wretched victim is stripped naked, candles are placed around the bed, and the students a.s.semble in crowds, perched on ladders and benches, to watch the progress of the labour, and the manipulations of the operator. O G.o.d! that in a Christian land, in our boasted Britain, priding herself on her civilization and proprieties, such orgies, which would raise a blush amidst the rites of devils, should disgrace the name of science!

We have said that women are admitted as pupils at the Lying-in Hospital in Dublin, and that after a six months' probation they obtain a diploma: but, as they are never permitted to operate in any but ordinary cases, it cannot be intended that their education should obviate the necessity for the employment of accoucheurs. Now we would suggest, that instead of this partial instruction they should be afforded ample opportunity for acquiring a perfect knowledge of the expedients necessary for overcoming the difficulties of their profession; that, instead of dismissing them at the end of six months, they should be retained until they are sufficiently instructed to be able with confidence and facility to undertake those extreme cases which are now reserved to men. No man of intelligence, who reflects on this subject, will for a moment doubt that where nicety of touch and delicacy of handling are required, the female organization is more perfectly adapted for them than that of men; and when we consider the delicate duties to be performed in midwifery, we cannot but think (and the thought will find an echo in the minds of thousands) that woman, and woman alone, is both morally and physically fitted for the office.[68] It may possibly be urged by the men-midwives, that, if they were to be deprived of their ordinary practice, and to be superseded by women, in all cases of labour in which no extraordinary difficulty presented itself, they would not be so well prepared to operate when accident might call for their interference. We may in all justice reply, what is that to us? see ye to that; are we to prost.i.tute our wives to your impure touchings, "manipulations," tentatives, and experiments, in nine hundred and ninety-nine needless cases, in order to afford you the requisite experience for the thousandth? We trow not; and the science of surgery must indeed be at a low ebb if, when occasion requires, there are not to be found men of that n.o.ble profession who could undertake with success any needful operation.

In former times the difficulties in certain cases of parturition, which are now trumpeted forth by the writers on man-midwifery "with all the pomp and state of academic learning," were easily overcome by discreet and experienced women, who, although innocent of physical, cla.s.sical, or mathematical science, knew full well how to operate when necessity called for their intervention. We find the following pa.s.sage in Albertus Magnus:--"Whence it is to be known that in some women there is greater suffering than in others, because in some it happens that the foetus sometimes presents a hand, and sometimes a foot, all which are hurtful.

Then the midwives carefully thrust back the foetus, and hence great pain is produced, so that many women, unless very robust, are weakened even to death," &c. Then, after describing the effect of an accident which sometimes occurred even with the more appropriate a.s.sistance of the female hand, but which[69] _if the truth was known_, since the invention of instruments has probably been of much greater frequency, he continues: "Then discreet midwives use a certain ointment, anointing the v.u.l.v.a, because the womb is often injured and wounded in the v.u.l.v.a, and therefore it is necessary that discreet women and experienced in this operation should be employed in delivery.[70] But this I have learnt from some women, that when the foetus presents its head in the outlet, then the business fares well, because then the other members follow without difficulty, and an easy labour is the result."[71]

To the casual reader who has the curiosity to wade through the filthy and disgusting details of the ponderous tomes on obstetricity, for the most part garnished with engravings at which "purity must blush and licentiousness may gloat," and who incontinently pins his faith upon the dogmas thereof, it will seem absolutely incomprehensible how unit after unit, of millions on millions numberless, who have peopled earth, contrived to see the light, from the days of our general mother Eve, until that happy hour when first "obstetric science" flashed upon the world, and by its magic touch scattering the dreams of a primeval curse, vouchsafed its "art" to teach poor feeble ineffectual nature how to act.

One result of the frightful tissue of imaginable and unimaginable horrors contained in these books, is that almost every woman in the upper and middle cla.s.ses believes that the chances are ten to one in favour of a "cross birth;" the nurse, instead of relieving her fears, rather confirms them, and on the strength of that understanding which always prevails between the nurse and the _man_-midwife, she takes care to impress upon the sufferer, wrought up to a pitiable state of nervous excitement, that nothing but the beastly manipulations of the "doctor" can render the labour successful.

Women, while suffering under the severe pangs of parturition, most frequently lose much of that natural delicacy belonging to the s.e.x, and at the moment when terror and anxiety overrule every other feeling, the _man_-midwife approaches, and offers to the trembling victim that disgusting insult, the examination _per v.a.g.i.n.am_; an inquest both morally and physically injurious to the patient, and utterly needless, from the information previously obtained by the female attendant.

Furthermore, these men well know that "one fool makes many," and that the more they are able to convince the public of the dangers and difficulties of child-birth, the more sure are they of an unfailing trade in the practice of _man_-midwifery. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_, and when they had successfully achieved one generation of patients, the rest was easy; all henceforward was plain sailing; the mothers, despite the qualms of outraged delicacy, once convinced that their safety had been dependent on the skill of the _man_-midwife, the daughters, as a matter of course, followed in their wake; the idea, if perchance it occurred, of the indecency of the act, being promptly set at rest by the recollection that their mothers had done the same. Thus a kind of freemasonry is established between the _men_-midwives and women, which, from its very nature, cannot be free from gross impropriety, and is sometimes attended with most pernicious consequences, of which the husband is kept in entire ignorance.[72] It is a common occurrence in ordinary life to see the _man_-midwife seated as a guest at your dinner-table, or as a morning visitor in your wife's drawing-room, who perhaps but a few weeks before may have informed himself both by _touch_ and _sight_ of all the inmost secrets of her person, who knows as well as you do yourself every hidden charm which she possesses. Faugh! the very thought is gall and wormwood, and outraged delicacy demands instant and eternal redress.

Sir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the Royal College of Surgeons, a.s.sures us that child-birth, like parturition in the lower animals, is purely a natural process, the safety of which Divine Providence has most wisely secured; and consequently that it is always mischievous to tamper with pregnant women, under the pretence of hastening, easing, or r.e.t.a.r.ding their delivery. Roberton, in allusion to the above, says--"If this be correct, it follows of course that midwifery is no science, but a presumptuous fraud."[73] Again he says, "Admitting, as I do, not that ninety-nine in a hundred, but that a large proportion of labours, say nineteen out of twenty, would terminate well under the eye of an intelligent nurse, were they left _solely_ to the energies of nature,"[74]

&c.; and again, "I have admitted that a considerable proportion of labours would do well, unaided, under the eye of a nurse," &c.[75] Dr. Johnson says--"The ordinary treatment of women in child-bed is irrational, indefensible, and most preposterously foolish. Nothing can be more absurd.

Childbirth is not a disease! It is simply the performance of a natural function, like eating, drinking, &c., yet we treat it as though it were some formidable and dangerous malady. Dr. Conquest, a London accoucheur of repute, says--'Child-birth is that natural process by which the womb expels its contents, and returns to the condition in which it was previously. I call it a natural process; and in my opinion no sentiment is more pregnant with mischief, than the opinion which almost universally prevails, that this process is inevitably one of difficulty and danger. I am well aware that some degree of suffering is connected with child-birth; and this applies equally to the whole animal creation, whether human or brute, though the former suffer more than the latter, _because the habits of brutes are less unnatural_. That the suffering of women during child-birth is referrible, in a great degree, to their artificial habits of life, and not to their form and make, is evident from a variety of circ.u.mstances. History, in all ages of the world, establishes this position. What made the striking difference between the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians, of whom it is said: "The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them?" What, I would ask, made the marked difference in the labours of these two cla.s.ses of women, but the plain, simple, and industrious habits of the Hebrews, as contrasted with the effeminacy, and luxurious living of the Egyptians? Look into more modern history, and you will see the same fact established again and again. I could mention innumerable proofs, but a few must suffice.

"'The celebrated traveller, Bruce, says, that the Abyssinian women retire by themselves, and go through the process of child-birth with so much ease and expedition, that they do not confine themselves a day after labour, but return to their usual occupations immediately.

"'The same simplicity, expedition, and freedom from danger, attend this natural process amongst the natives in most parts of Asia, Africa, the West Indies, and America, where the mode of living among the natives is more simple and abstemious, and their occupations and general habits more laborious, than in more civilized countries.

"'The Moorish women have no midwives, but are usually alone at the time of delivery, lying on the ground under an indifferent tent. They will even travel, on the same day, a distance of fifteen or twenty miles.

"'In Morocco the women suffer so little, that they frequently go through the duties of the house on the day after their delivery, with the child on their back.

"'One respectable traveller a.s.sures us, that with the native Africans labour is so easy, and trusted so entirely to nature, that no one knows of its existence till the woman appears at the door of the hut with the child.

"'Another, equally respectable, tells us, that as soon as an American Indian woman bears a child, she _goes into the water and immerses it and herself_.[76] One evening he asked an Indian where his wife was: he replied: "I suppose she has gone into the woods to set a trap for birds."

In about an hour she returned with a new-born infant in her arms, and holding it up exclaimed: "Here, Englishman, here is a young warrior!" Were it necessary, many more instances might be brought forward. But it has been said, this occurs only in warm climates, where the heat relaxes the parts concerned in parturition. This objection is not consistent with truth, for the natives of Livonia, and the savages of North America, retire to some private place, and return immediately after their delivery to their customary work; and the Greenlanders do all their common business just before, and very soon after their labour, and a still-born or deformed child is seldom seen or heard of among them. Still further to establish the a.s.sertion that human parturition is not necessarily a process of danger, we know that in this country servant girls, who become illegitimately pregnant, very often absent themselves for an hour or two, and, after giving birth to a child, return to the discharge of their household duties immediately.[77] It is, therefore, obvious that the difficulty and danger that so often attend child-bearing in civilized society,[78] are attributable, princ.i.p.ally, to _unnatural customs and habits of living_, in which, women, in this and other countries, indulge from their infancy,[79] and which operate by preventing the const.i.tution from acquiring its proper firmness and vigour, and by producing a weak, feeble, and irritable state of body, &c.'" Dr. Johnson adds: "This is the language of Dr. Conquest--a metropolitan accoucheur physician of much eminence--a man who, from the long and successful practice of his profession, has deservedly acquired wealth and distinction--a man, therefore, who can afford to be honest--a man who, unlike Archdeacon Paley, can afford to keep a conscience. With those, therefore, who put their trust in authority rather than in the light of their own reason--that is to say, with nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of every thousand--the opinions of such a man as Dr. Conquest cannot fail to have more than ordinary weight."[80]

In the foregoing pages we have sought to place before our readers, in the clearest light, the opinions of Roussel and other eminent men, touching the practice of man-midwifery; opinions the force and truth of which, based as they are upon principles of the purest morality, and the sound doctrines of physical science, cannot be controverted or denied. We have shown that the Royal College of Physicians, so lately as the year 1827, designated the practice of _man_-midwifery as "an art foreign to the habits of gentlemen of enlarged academical education," and one which might safely be entrusted to discreet matrons. We have, in confirmation of these opinions, quoted the sentiments expressed by Sir Anthony Carlisle, late President of the College of Surgeons, who styles the boasted "art" "a pretence," and accoucheurs "mere nurses." We have proved, by the admission of men-midwives themselves, that the great majority of cases of midwifery would do well under the eye of a nurse, and that skilled midwives would be a benefit in every community. We have before our eyes the example of France with her schools of midwifery; and against the arguments and dispa.s.sionate opinions of men of the highest rank in the medical profession, mooted as they have been at various times, and in different countries, yet all tending to the same conclusion, we find absolutely nothing but the self-interested doctrine of an anomalous cla.s.s[81] of medical men, whose policy it is, for the furtherance of their own selfish views, to decry the powers of nature, and to abrogate the employment of females in the sanctuary of child-birth; a doctrine which suffers its disciples, regardless of all delicacy, and in defiance of the contempt of their professional brethren, to prey upon the weakness and natural timidity of the s.e.x, and with presumptuous indecency to arrogate to themselves duties proper only to women; a doctrine which, while it deals an irreparable blow[82] at the very heart of every family, threatens with destruction virtue, modesty, and honour.

Husbands, fathers, countrymen, THINK OF THESE THINGS!

We do most heartily believe that if, unbia.s.sed by the self-interested and fraudulent a.s.sertions of quackery and empiricism, you would exert your own reasoning powers on the question, the doom of this abuse would soon be sealed. But as, in many another usage which men individually admit to be blots in that high state of civilization to which we have advanced, our apathy overcomes our desire for their correction, and we let them pa.s.s; so, because this wrong has forced its prost.i.tuting influence through the length and breadth of the land, magnified and sustained as it is by the terrorism of treatises, and the artistic display of its abettors, despite the warnings of our consciences, we yield ourselves to its guidance, we dare not lift up the veil which conceals its abominations, and even fear, cowards that we are, to question its privileges, privileges which a "d.a.m.ned custom" has accorded; privileges the very thought of which should make the blood curdle in our veins with disgust and horror! For if we for a moment reflect upon the precepts laid down in the indecent farragos of "obstetric science," and further upon the fact, that these precepts are invariably carried into effect, whenever the "patient" can be induced to submit to the outrages therein enjoined, we must acknowledge that in all such cases purity itself can oppose no effectual barrier to these insidious a.s.saults, and that modesty must fly from the chamber when the _man_-midwife crosses its threshold.

O hateful, horrible thought! that the young bride, radiant with joyous innocence, and love's glowing fantasies, "beautiful exceedingly," and pure as fair, must in a few short months, in blind obedience to a spurious custom, yield herself to the pollution of a stranger's _touch_, and banish for ever from her husband's soul that dear delicious dream, entirety of possession!

This is no exaggerated picture, no overstrained description of that mortal stain which rends into very shreds the charm of delicacy; but a simple truth, a terrible reality, not to be glozed over by the fallacious reasonings of frigid philosophy. O men! if you have the souls of men, if one drop of the old chivalrous blood of your ancestors yet palpitates in your veins, if you have not irrecoverably bowed down to the idol custom, if mammon, l.u.s.t of gain and power, with all the fell catalogue of vicious inclinations, have left but one cell unoccupied in your heart's mansion, if you yet hold woman to be the fairest, purest, best of the Creator's works; oh! let the cry of "out d.a.m.ned spot," rise heavenward from every home in the United Kingdom; let sacred purity once more a.s.sert her rights, let nature's illimitable powers do their work unaided, undefiled by the sordid infamy of charlatanism, and future generations shall gratefully invoke unnumbered blessings on the memory of those who saved the daughters of England from the curse of a cruel degradation.