THE women captivated by that assiduity of the men-midwives, of which they only fail when they are not paid or likely to be paid, in some form or other, up to the value they set upon themselves, lightly take for granted, that, as men, they are also capable physicians. It is enough, in short, for these practitioners not to be women; for the women to think they can prescribe for them in all disorders. A mistake this, often big with the utmost danger to them. THE men-midwives, in general, have never, at the most, carried their studies beyond the disorders commonly incident to pregnant women: the knowledge of all the other possibly collateral ones, is what even the least modest of them will hardly claim, unless to the profoundly ignorant, and is in fact scarce less than impossible to one who has applied himself essentially to the manual function. In such cases the ignorance of a midwife can hardly be greater than that of the men-practitioners, and must be less dangerous from her less of pretention. Her consciousness of her own want of sufficient light, will engage her readily to state the exigency to some able and experienced physician, whom she must allow, in such cases, to be her superior judge: whereas the other, the man-midwife, acknowledges no greater authority than that with which he is pleased to invest himself. He stands, in virtue of a distinct business, and a business for which he never was made, of a sudden the self-constituted sovereign dictator and inspector-general of all female disorders whatsoever, where the woman is with child, that is to say, where the case is only thereby rendered much the more nice and difficult, and, not rarely, does he continue under the same pretext, to extend his practice to where there is no pregnancy at all in the case. And yet ask him for his titles, they are all implicitly dependent on or subordinate to that same midwifery, for which he is so naturally unqualified, even if a due study and exercise of it would permit those avocations, that would contribute to accomplish him in the so necessary general knowledge of physic. But indeed why need he acquire it, since it is so commonly taken for granted, or that he is believed upon his own word, especially if he is backed with a diploma, for form’s sake, that may have cost him little or nothing of medical study, or indeed of any thing but the amount of the fees for it?