[34] "It was to the midwives that they applied, in the first ages of the Church, to be assured of that fidelity which Christian virgins had vowed to their state of chastity. But, if the Fathers found fault from the time when Christian females were thus exposed to the judgment of their own sex; if they discovered in this practice something shameful and infamous, of what criminality would they not have taxed the attempt of men at the present day, who, in like cases, are not ashamed to deprive the midwives of this employment."--_Hecquet, De l'Indecence aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes_, page 7. [35] O ye adepts in chloroform, take heed to your ways, and O ye fools, who submit to be made _dead-drunk_ under its influence, beware lest a worse thing happen unto you! "It would be absurd to suppose that the cases of sudden death from chloroform constitute the full measure of the mortality. How few even of these are generally known or reported. Hardly any in private practice; and now, even in hospitals, they are concealed. It is well known to the frequenters of the London hospitals, that, in the same week in which the recent death from chloroform at St. Thomas's occurred, another took place in another hospital, but which did not become the subject of judicial inquiry. Humanity, and the character of the profession, demand that the whole subject should be investigated anew."--_Medical Times and Gazette._ [36] Roussel, page 177, de la Grossesse. [37] Maladies des Femmes, t. v., p. 375. [38] Roussel, de l'Accouchement Naturel, page 208.