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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    Why do they not ask these questions in the presence of the husband ? The hushand would chastise any man who woidd daro to use such language to his wife, but under the protection of their profession. Thie professional quotation :— Touching is performed by introducing the forefinger, lubricated with pomatum, into the vagina, in order to feel the os internum and the neck of the uterus ; and sometimes into the rectum, by discovering the streck of the fundas. « * * The design of touching is to be informed whether the woman is or is not with child; to know how far she is advanced in her preg- nancy ; if she is in danger of miscarriage of the os internum and the_pressing down of the membranes with their waters; and, lastly, to distinguish what part of the child is presented. It is generally impracticable to discover by the touch in the vagina whether or not the uterus is impregnated till after tho fourth month. * « * * Now, imagine an apothecary's lad doing tliis! A young creature is but a few months married, and feels a little imwell, before a strange man is sent for: asking a few questions in a soft, simpering, insinuating manner, he then, with the utmost politeness of professional assurance, and as a matter of course, slides his hand * * * Nor does the innocent creature, thus assailed and outraged, rebuke the indecent act. Oh fie ! fie! thy sins are not accidental, but a trade. Monstrous ! Apart from Hymeneal rights, and in violation of those sacred limits where modesty should ever stand sentinel, those outposts where sensitiveness should be ever ready to touch the chords of alarm, which puts the heart and the mind upon guard, and induces circumspection, have been approached—nay, passed, betrayed—^into the hands of the enemy by the pass-word man-midwifery, when the watchword should have been husband. Under cover of such approaches, what can be ex- pected other than that, in very many cases, every defence that modesty could raise, and which virtue ought to maintain, will be overthrown and demolished, and in the end, the citadel of virtue, by her own defection, be profaned and polluted. Ha! but pro- fessional feelings are different, indeed ! Who has ever heard of what passes in the wards of an hospital with young surgeons ? Who has ever heard the term ' mercurial maidenhead,' as a familiar expression of the dressers and pupils, indicative of the object of their desires—a quantum meruit for services—will not hold medical students to be the most immaculate of the Queen's subjects ? These gents will ' Judge it hard and difficult. Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain From love's due rights !' * Do husbands, on their part, need argument or instances to prove that this high-pressure power of the passions is so great, as ' to be often difBcult of control ? Let the reader imagine that popular character amongst tho gents—ihQ medical student; one of the pets of Ptmc/i—a Bob Sawyer, late Knock-'em-off, of Dickens, with his cigars and half- and-half, his joUy larks and midnight sprees ; imagine him just dubbed—let loose upon society—paying his attentions to a young * Joaneasia : a curious work by an M.D., on the danger and immorality of employing men in midwifery, published 1837.