OPEN the book of Numbers, you will observe, that God having ordered Moses to number his people: out of seventy individuals of the family of Jacob, who had come to dwell in Egypt, two hundred and forty years before, there had issued above six hundred thousand men fit to carry arms, without taking into the account an almost infinite multitude of children, of youths under twenty years of age, of women, of old men, besides a whole tribe, that of Levi, which was entirely set apart for the divine worship. OBJECTION the Fifth. THERE is no such thing as being a good practitioner of midwifery without understanding anatomy: now this science is the province of a man, of a physician, or surgeon, not of a woman. ANSWER. IT is sufficient that a woman understands and knows the structure and mechanical disposition of the internal parts which more particularly distinguish her sex; that she can discern the container from the contents, what belongs to the mother from what belongs to the child, as well as what is foreign to both. In short, she ought to be skilled enough to give full satisfaction to all questions that the most able anatomist could put to her, in respect to that part purely necessary to the art of midwifery, and to its operations with mastery and safety. NOW the midwife, especially one instructed in hospitals, ought to be well acquainted with all that is essential and necessary to that effect; and she cannot but be so, unless she is of herself incapable, or that those who are charged with the instruction of pupils, wrong the confidence of the public. I MYSELF know more than one midwife, so well educated as to be able to give demonstrations on this subject, to analyze things by their names, either upon drawings of them, upon skeletons, or upon the originals themselves. It is true, that these poor midwives do not understand anatomy enough to make dissections; but I fancy that the ladies who want assistence in their lyings-in, are not very curious of having one that can dissect instead of delivering them. PROPHANE history has preserved to us the names and talents of a number of illustrious women who have distinguished themselves in all kinds of arts. Cleopatra queen of Egypt, is one of the first ladies that have written on the art of midwifery. Mr. Smellie, in his introduction, endeavours to render doubtful this quality of queen and princess, with a design, probably to weaken the credit of it, or rather out of contempt to the women; but as all those who have made collections of antient history, assure us, that notwithstanding the wars in which this princess was engaged, she did not neglect an assiduous application to physic, I had rather adhere to their authority, than to that of Mr. Smellie.