of that hospital “had recourse to the assistence of men, in all the difficult cases of midwifery;” which, he observes, “got the better of those ridiculous prejudices the fair sex had been used to entertain.” That is to say, in preference of midwives to men-practitioners. I FREQUENTED this Hôtel Dieu two whole years, before being received an apprentice-midwife, which I accomplished with great difficulty, on account of being born a subject of England, and consequently a foreigner there: my admission, however, I gained at length, through the favor, protection, and special recommendation of his royal highness the duke of Orleans. Now, I dare aver, that in all the time before, and after I was admitted there, I never but once saw Mr. Boudou, surgeon-major called, who did nothing more than to make us, one after another, _touch_ the patient, about whom we had been embarrassed; and as he interrogated, he made us discover an _uterus_ full of schirrous callosities, which joined to its obliquities, impeded the palpation of it properly with the hand, the orifice being very difficult to come at. Every thing, however, was done without his help, and very successfully. And most certainly we should have spared him the trouble of coming at all into our ward, if the head-midwife, who was a little capricious in her temper, had not taken it into her head to keep us in our perplexity, which engaged us to send for Mr. Boudou without her knowledge, and for which she was afterwards heartily angry with us. I NEVER once saw an occasion in which there was any necessity for using instruments, though in my time we had, at least, five or six hundred women a month to deliver. VERY far then are the midwives from having often occasion of recourse to the assistence of the men, in difficult cases; and indeed to those prejudiced in favor of men-practitioners, it may, though true, appear strange, that in a place where there are every year so many thousand women delivered, and consequently many difficult labors amongst them, and even cases of monsters, there is no recourse to the surgeon-major but in the last occurence, which falls out very rarely. ABOUT eighteen or twenty years ago, Madam Poor, head-midwife of this hospital, delivered a woman of a monster with two heads, with no help but only her fingers and a young prentice. Not an instrument was employed: no man assisted her. The child was christened, and died presently after. The mother remained some months upon recovery, and did perfectly well. This fact requires no proofs, being of such public notoriety. The monster was carried to St. Cosmo’s, where any surgeon may see it. I served my time with this same mistress some years after this kind of prodigy had happened.