WE are no longer in the times of the Pharaohs and the Herods, who mercilessly massacred the innocents; we are no longer in the times of those pure Arabs, who were the inventors of a number of cruel operations, and of several instruments, which often cause more apprehension and terror to a woman in labor, though concealed from her light, but never from her imagination, than the actual presence of all the apparatus of the rack, where that torture is in use. IT were to be wished, that all the men-midwives, who had wrote on this matter, had suppressed the mention of their instruments; for as their books often fall into the hands of women, so deeply interested as the sex is in that subject, it is not to be imagined what bad effects they have. Their variations among themselves would be sufficient to frighten the women: you meet with authors condemning in the morning the over-night’s sentiment. I can observe them losing their way in systematical errors, which explain nothing to me, and in which nothing can be discovered but disagreement with one another, and with themselves. The wisest and most able of them, after having well examined all the kinds of instruments hitherto invented, have doubtless seen and been convinced of their ridiculousness and usefulness, but all of them have not hitherto dared to speak out and say as much. THE most interested of them would fain persuade us, that, in their display of a whole armory of instruments, they have discovered the philosopher’s stone of midwifery, in virtue of which they have a right to wrest out of the women’s hands, the practice of an art, which nature has appropriated to them. But certainly the point, and the whole point is, to find an expert dexterous hand, the sex is out of the question, provided it is but a human hand, and provided the work is done to the satisfaction of society, it seems to me that nothing more need be required. OBJECTION the Seventh.