Man-midwifery exposed, or the danger and immorality of employing men in midwifery proved and the remedy for the evil found : addressed to the Society for the Suppression of Vice. / By John Stevens.

  • Stevens, John, -approximately 1849.
Date:
[1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Man-midwifery exposed, or the danger and immorality of employing men in midwifery proved and the remedy for the evil found : addressed to the Society for the Suppression of Vice. / By John Stevens. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    because parturition was attended with no sorrow and danger in those early days, for we read that, in the case of Eachel, it was a hard labor, and she died: nor on this account were the mid wives thrust out of their office. Though it cannot be denied that the pains and difficulties varied according to the circumstances of the lives of the individuals themselves. This distinction is pointed out by the Hebrew midwives. (See Exodus i. 19.) The Redrew women are not as the Egyptian wotnen, for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.'''' Dr. Adam Clarke makes the following observations in his Commemtary on this passage: This is a simple statement of what general experience knows to be a. fact, viz., that women who during the whole of their pregnancy, are accustomed to hard labour, especially in the open air, have comparatively little pain in par- turition. At this time the whole Hebrew nation, men and women, were in a state of slavery, and were obliged to work in mortar and brick, and all man- ner of service in the fields. This at once accounts iov the ease and speediness of Iheir travail. With the strictest truth the midwives might say, ' The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian loomen'. In such cases, we may conclude that midwives were very seldom seut for. And this is probably the reason why we find but two mentioned, as, in such a state of society, there could be but very little employment for persons of that profession, as a mother, an atjnt, ok any FEMALE acquaintance, OB, NEIGHBOUKS, COULD READILY AFFORD ALL THE ASSISTANCE NECESSARY IN SUCH CASES. CommentatoTS, he adds, pressed with imaginary difiiculties, have sought for examples of easy parturition in Ethiopia, Persia, and India, as parallels to the case before us ; but they might have spared themselves the trouble, because the case is common in all parts of the globe where the women labour hard, especially in the opmair. I have known several instances of the kind myself, among the labouring poor. I shall mention one :—I saw a poor woman in the open field at hard labour—she stayed away in the afternoon—but she returned the next morning to her daily work, with her infant child, having in the interim been safely delivered I She continued at her work, having apparently suffered no inconvenience!'' We are further told, that notwithstanding the barbarous com* mand of Pharaoh to the Egyptian midwives, the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. This was the case for upwards of five thousand six hundred years ; not by the aid of male artists, but under the administration of female midwives. Plutarch informs us that— Some of the nations of antiquity had schools, where females were taught the obstetric art. And Dr. Jenks adds— The French Government wisely support such schools at the present day. In the New Testament, after midwives had been in practice four thousand years, there is no intimation that man ever did or ever should assume that delicate office ; but there is a passage, after alluding to the degeneracy and sufi'ering which followed woman's transgression, to the following effect :— Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if she contimiein faith ana charily, and holiness, with sobriety. But what is the object upon which this age of faith is to rest ? —the accoucheur and his recent inventions? or in the great