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Elizabeth Nihell, A Treatise on the Art of Midwifery

Elizabeth Nihell (1723-?) was married to a surgeon-apothecary. A mother herself, she studied in Paris and returned to London to practice midwifery. She argued that women, not men such as William Smellie, should practice midwifery. Quote from page 71


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Questions to ask these pages:

1. According to Nihell, who earned more for attending childbirth?

2. Whom would Nihell recommend, a female midwife or a "common man-midwife"?


Questions to ask the book:

1. When would Nihell recommend calling a male physician?
Find out in
the archive

2. What did Nihell say motivated most man-midwives?
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the archive



Reading Help

  Title Page Page 70 Page 71  

 

  on
MIDWIFERY
71
       
 

   IF on the contrary, and what the most frequently happens, you fall into the hands of one of the common men-midwives, either of that multitude of disciples of Dr. Smellie, trained up at the feet of his artificial doll, or in short of those self-constituted men-midwives made out of broken barbers, tailors, or even pork-butchers (I know myself one of this last trade, who, after passing half his life in stuffing sausages, is turned an intrepid physician and man-midwife) must not, I say, practitioners of this stamp be admirably fitted, as well for the manual operation, as for the prescriptions? If then it is from thrift they are employed, by way of sparing fees to a real physician, I own, I think this is pushing savingness too far; as I should be almost as much afraid of the prescriptions of these mock-doctors as of their operation. I should have more confidence in the advice of a discreet matron, or of a skilful midwife, who, by habit and a long experience of seeing ladies in their lyings-in attended by the best physicians, is in the most common cases of the labor-pains,

 

   
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