THE first treats of our title to the practice of this art, of the pleas used by the men for arrogating to themselves the preference, of the knowledge of Anatomy, of the necessity of the instruments, of the incapacity of women, of the Fashion: and whether the superior safety is on the side of employing men-practitioners. THE answers inserted to each objection, all together, constitute an essay to remove the prejudices, which have been so industriously, and too successfully disseminated against the female practice of this art; and to show that the substitution of the men, more especially of their iron and steel-implements, is attended with greater danger, greater mischiefs, than those which that substitution is pretended to prevent or redress. THE second has more particularly for object to demonstrate the insufficiency, danger, and actual destructiveness of instruments in the art of midwifery. To this purpose I therefore pass all that is needful of them in review, in the several cases, in which the antients and moderns would persuade us they are necessary. I set myself to establish my exceptions to them by incontestable examples; but above all, by the authority of reason and experience. I take notice of some of the manifest contradictions to be met with in almost all the authors, to one another. I have ventured to subjoin some observations, taken from my own observations and practice, in lieu of what I condemn, and to point out a method of operation, much more plain, more tender, more secure, than the one by instruments. I support this by those general principles, which have happily guided me on all occasions, and from which it is even easy to refute the pretentions and system of the instrumentarians, in which I shall note here only three essential defects. THE _first_, in that the origin of the men, insinuating themselves into the practice of midwifery, has absolutely no foundation in the plea of superior safety, and, consequently, can have no right to exact so great a sacrifice as that of decency and modesty. THE _second_, for that they were reduced first to forge the phantom of incapacity in the women, and next the necessity of murderous instruments, as some color for their mercenary intrusion. And, in truth, the faculty of using those instruments is the sole tenure of their usurped office. THE _third_, their disagreement among themselves about, which are the instruments to be preferred; a doubt which, the practices tried upon the lives and limbs of so many women and children trusted to them, have not yet, it seems, resolved, even to this day.