Man-midwifery analyzed; or the tendency of that indecent and unnecessary practice detected and exposed. Addressed to John Ford, late surgeon and man-midwife ...

Date:: 1790

Credit: Man-midwifery analyzed; or the tendency of that indecent and unnecessary practice detected and exposed. Addressed to John Ford, late surgeon and man-midwife ... Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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$\ [ r9 ] wives, and which often deftroy the. life of the child, or mother, or both ; and the cer- tainty of rendering the woman’s perfon dif- agreeable, if not difguftful, to her hufband, ought to have great weight with women, pro- vided the matter of delicacy, decency, and mo- defty, were out of the queftion ; and yet it is , no uncommon thing to hear a Male-midwife- practitioner, call the greateft calamity and misfortune that can befal a woman, by the ludicrous epithet of laying pit and boxes toge- ther % Read Smellie, and you will find this no uncommon misfortune, where men-praftitioners are employed, and where Nature would have effected that which force could not, as he candidly acknowledges. Men$