“She (the midwife) ought to _avoid_ ALL _reflections_ upon _men-practitioners_, and when she finds herself _at a loss_, candidly have recourse to their assistence: on the other hand, this _confidence_ ought to be _encouraged_ by the _men_, who, when called, instead of openly condemning her method of practice (even though it should be _erroneous_) ought to make allowance for the weakness of the sex, and rectify what is amiss, without exposing her mistakes. This conduct will as effectually conduce to the welfare of the patient, and operate as a silent rebuke upon the conviction of the midwife, who, finding herself treated so tenderly, will be more _apt_ to _call_ necessary assistence on future occasions, and to consider the ACCOUCHEUR as a MAN OF HONOR and a REAL FRIEND. These gentle methods will prevent that calumny, which too often prevail among the male and female practitioners; and redound to the ADVANTAGE of both: for no ACCOUCHEUR is so _perfect_, but that he may err sometimes, and on such occasions he must expect to meet with retaliations from those midwives whom he may have roughly used.” Footnote 23: As the story is told in Hyginus, it should seem that the practice of midwifery at Athens, was, on a season interdicted to the women, who, by a fixt resolution to die rather than submit to be delivered by the men, procured from the Areopagus the repeal of that statute, and the saving from imminent condemnation one Agnodice, who had dressed herself in men’s cloaths, to elude the cognizance of the law. The great practice she had obtained by this means had alarmed the physicians, who thereon accused her as a seducer of the women: against which she easily defended herself by a declaration of her sex. But this brought her under the penalty of the law against women exercising the midwife’s profession. The story imperfectly related in Hyginus, at the same time that it does honor to the modesty of the Athenian women, that is to say, if modesty is not, according to the men-midwives, a false honor, gives room to suspect, that the midwives themselves had perhaps occasioned the promulgation of so absurd a law. It is well known, that in those antient times, there were for female disorders women-physicians in form. Perhaps their encroachments on the province of the men, by exercising the art of physic in general, might make a restraint necessary, which was only so far faulty as that the remedy was in this, as it often is in other cases, carried into extremes. I would no more justify the women overstepping their proper sphere of employment into that of the men, than I would the men sinking into that of women. They are both reprehensible, both dangerous, but assuredly, the last must be the most ridiculous. Footnote 24: