women only. Notwithstanding which, all the women who are there delivered are satisfactorily and skilfully assisted. Vexatious accidents are less frequent there, in proportion to the numbers, than elsewhere, under the eyes and operation of the men-midwives. Mother and child are both more in safety under the hands of those dextrous matrons, than in those of the most renowned men-practitioners *.

   TO those then, who with a contemptuous tone ask what is a woman but a woman? I shall with equal modesty and truth answer, that generally speaking women are inferior to men in most public services. They are scarcely so fit to head armies, to navigate ships, break horses, or the like manly employs : but there are certainly domestic branches, in which they

   * The Commentator on Boerhave's Lectures, vol. V. p. 252. or ?. 694. says, "At Paris women are taken into the Hotel Dieu, fifteen days before their lying-in, at the public expense, so that the business of midwifery can be no where better learn'd."