ANOTHER gentleman-midwife delivered a woman of a fine child, or rather received it, for it came naturally and easily. Upon which, he took it into his head that he would not deliver her of the after-birth, proposing to defer this work till next day. And so he would have done, if he had not casually met with a less senseless practitioner, who represented to him the danger to which, by so doing, he exposed the poor patient he had left, and advised him to go back as fast as he could to deliver her.[31] I HAVE myself been not a little surprized at hearing lately some ladies mention, with much approbation, the inimitable complaisance of certain gentlemen-midwives, who have the patience, as they call it, to wait five, six, seven hours by the clock, before they deliver of the after-birth after the issue of the child, and that out of tenderness to the patients, who, as they say, would be sadly off, if they fell into hands more quick and expeditious. BUT while I am thus taking notice of the errors of practice in the men-practitioners, it may be objected to me, that I deal unfairly with my reader. FIRST, In not furnishing instances of male-practice of the midwives. SECONDLY, That whereas I have confessed the incapacity of some of the midwives, without allowing inferences from them against all the professors of the art who are of the female sex, I ought to make the same equitable allowance as to the men-practitioners, and not condemn all for the sake of those insufficient ones, which the capable ones themselves candidly condemn, witness among others, M. De la Motte. NOW, as to my omitting such a specification of instances of mispractice in my own sex, it is neither from partiality, nor affectation, that this omission of mine proceeds. For could any one be so weak as retaliatively to state cases, in the manner I have done, of mispractice of some midwives; nothing could be more superfluous, nor less to the purpose. My confession, my lamentation, that there are but too many ignorant midwives, palpably obviate the necessity of proving what is granted. The public would be very little the better for a truth, with which it cannot but be too well acquainted, that there are ignorant midwives, and insufficient men-practitioners. The truth then, for which I contend, is, that the faults of the midwives, however it may be wished that they could be prevented, are, comparatively speaking, neither so likely to exist in Nature, nor of that horrid, atrocious kind, that are to be found in the practice of the men-practitioners or instrumentarians. There is nothing among the midwives of the puncturing, tearing with cold pinchers, maiming, mangling, pulling limb from limb, disabling, as must be inseparable in a greater or less degree from the use of those iron and steel-instruments, which are so often and so unnecessarily employed.