“Can any thing be more shocking to the mother, and to those about her, than to see a man in liquor, scarce knowing what he is about, divested of all compassion, of all sentiment of humanity, his hands _armed_ with a _knife_, a _crotchet_, a _pair_ of _pinchers_, or other _horrible_ instruments, come to the ASSISTENCE of a woman in agonies, begin, for his first attestation of skill, by _wounding_ the _mother_, then go on to _destroy_ the _child_, bring it away piece-meal, with exquisite tortures to the woman, and, after all, grumble in the notion, that he could not be PAID enough for such a fine spot of work? had not such better at once take on to be _butchers_ or _hangmen_, than treat thus the image of God, and render the profession odious?” Have I any where said any thing STRONGER than this? Daventer, however, certainly did not mean by it to insinuate, that _all_ men-midwives answered intirely this description; no, nor I neither. But leaving the brutality out of the question, the mischief and mercenariness of them all differ perhaps in no very considerable degree. Please to remark in the following quotation, the DOCTRINE and practice of that famous _man-midwife_ Peu. “He determines himself, without much ceremony, to the _breaking_ a child’s _arm_ or a _thigh_, when he _imagines_ this _operation_ will facilitate the delivery, and that, on the PRINCIPLE of its being _easy_, to repair such _damages_ of _new-born_ infants. For the same reason the luxation of a jaw-bone gives him no scruple.” (Translator of Daventer’s Preface.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES