NOW I, who have not the same reason for _circumspection_ in this case, as Monsieur Levret, with strict regard both to matter of fact and to candor, _agree_ with _him_, in averring, that this is not the _only_ example perhaps, by thousands, of the rash resort to the expedient of _opening_ the head, and extracting the child with the crotchet; an expedient which, as Dr. Smellie observes, (p. 248.) “_produced a_ GENERAL CLAMOR _among the women, who observed, that when recourse was had to the assistance of a man-midwife, either the mother or child, or both were lost_.” Now of not filling up the cry of those women, I must own I should be most ashamed. Especially when the good Dr. by way of curing our fears and _weak_ apprehensions, and of shewing the nonsensicalness of them, first very gravely tells you the insufficiency of _all_ hitherto invented instruments, and only modestly concludes, that the forceps of his own ingenious contrivance, is indeed the best, but still imperfect. His homage to truth would however not have been so imperfect as it is if he had said that instruments may be totally left out of good practice, and that no “_artificial hands_”, as he calls them, can, in any case, constitute a worthy supplement to the _natural_ ones; no not even to his own, supposing iron and steel to be ever so little less tender than his fingers. [10] BUT why do these gentry then so much insist on the absolute necessity there is of _sometimes_ having recourse to instruments?——Why? The motive for that insistence is so transparent, that not to see through it would indeed be blindness. It is the capital, and perhaps the only plea that has the least shadow of plausibility for the men to intrude themselves into the women’s business of midwifery. The women do not pretend to the art of handling those instruments, and would be very sorry to pretend to it. Nor do those midwives, who are sufficiently skilled in their art, ever need the supplemental aid of them: whatever is done with them is as well, and infinitely more safely done without them: so that the only grounds of introducing men into that female practice is essentially false. The making then the surgeons art a pandar to a sordid interest, by the incorporation of midwifery with it, is, in fact, engrafting on a noble stock, a scion of another one, both which would bear very well separate, but, thus joined, can produce nothing but a vile poisonous fruit.