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self and others on particular occasions, and that such knowledge
does neither qualify all men for physicians, or supersede the practice
of those who profess the art of physic, any more than the study of religion
by families interferes with the duties of the clergy.
If this argument hold good with respect to medicine in general, how
much more as to midwifery? Cannot every mother understand enough of it to
conduct herself during pregnancy and lying-in, or to be useful to others
in cases of emergency, without becoming a professed midwife? Cannot husbands
know how to judge when their wives are treated decently and tenderly, without
turning practitioners? Families have been kept in such extreme ignorance
respecting parturition, that as soon as a woman falls in labour, the whole
house is in confusion, supposing the delivery depends on the presence of
the operator; one runs this way, ano- |
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