[15] _Stevens' Man-Midwifery Exposed._ [16] Hecquet says: "The provinces at a little distance from Paris still find this custom very revolting."--_De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_, page 8. [17] "In labours strictly natural, terminating after a few hours of moderate suffering, scientific midwifery is passive; its interference extending only to the division of the funis."--_Roberton._ [18] Lives there a man who would believe that the strongest passion which nature has implanted in the human heart is altogether dead in the _man_-midwife, that he is in fact emasculated by his profession, although "not necessarily an old woman?" It is far otherwise, and many of these gentry have the organ of philoprogenitiveness strongly developed. [19] By "_le toucher indiscret_," as the French term this hateful indecency. [20] We are informed that in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital neither nurses in training as midwives, nor male students, are permitted to operate in any case of difficulty. We are not aware if this remark applies to the London hospitals and similar institutions in other parts of the kingdom, but we have little doubt that in this respect the practice is the same in all. It is not easy to understand how, under these circumstances, either nurses or students can acquire much, or indeed any, knowledge for discrimination. It is most painful to reflect that any experience which these persons may ever possess, must of necessity be gained after they are let loose upon the world, at the sacrifice, it may be, of life, or at least of moral and physical suffering, and injury to those patients who are the unfortunate objects of their first essays. [21] Letter from the Royal College of Physicians to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, dated May 2nd, 1827, in reply to a memorial from the Obstetric Society. [22] No; because "unmarried females" have not themselves endured these outrages, and still retain a modesty which is born in every woman, and, therefore, might possibly re-animate in the patient feelings which, howsoever natural, beautiful, and holy, would mar "the doctor's process." [23] "Generally, indeed, no _active_ assistance is necessary until after the birth of the child," &c. _See ante, Ramsbotham ipse._ "And another reason is, that such patients have been spared the ill effects arising from vaginal examinations," &c.--_Treatise on Midwifery._ Hardy and M'Clintock. Page 9. "We here feel ourselves obliged to inform women that those persons whom they employ in this kind of examination deceive them by affecting a knowledge which they do not possess. All information derived from 'touch' is very uncertain."--_Roussel Systeme Moral et Physique de la Femme. Chap. sur la Grossesse._