SOCIETY especially stands indebted to Nature for her suggestion of modesty in this point. If in all ages, in all civilized countries, the wife is considered as the peculiar property of a husband, insomuch, that all laws human and divine consecrate, if I may use the expression, to him alone, exclusive of all other men, the access to the reserved parts of the wife’s body, certainly such a privilege can hardly be thought lightly communicable. And what can be more so than suffering a man, mercenarily or wantonly, or perhaps both, to invade that so sacred property, under the mask of a service, for which he is by Nature so evidently disqualified? While Nature too has made so ample a provision for this very service, in fitting the women for it, with so much more propriety and safety, both to the concern of the public in the welfare of population, as well as to the domestic honor of families, which is not without some danger, at least, from the practice of midwifery being in the hands of men. AS to this last averment of mine, the truth of it is so glaring, that it does not even need Dr. Smellie’s own implicit confession of it, in his instructions to the men-practitioners in general, or, if you please, to his more than nine hundred pupils. “_He_ (_the_ ACCOUCHEUR) _ought to_ ACT _and_ SPEAK _with the utmost_ DELICACY _of_ DECORUM, _and_ NEVER VIOLATE _the_ TRUST _reposed in him, so as to harbour the least_ IMMORAL _or_ INDECENT _design; but demean himself in all respects suitable to the_ DIGNITY _of his_ PROFESSION,” p. 447.