[62] "An institution such as I have in my mind, should be a place where women could obtain a sort of professional education under professors of the other sex,--for men are the best instructors of women;--where they might be trained as hospital and village nurses, visitors of the poor, and teachers in the elementary and reformatory schools," &c.--_Mrs. Jameson's_ "_Sisters of Charity_," page 116. [63] Roberton says, "In speaking of the small mortality in child-bed among the poor, I limit my remark to those of this community (Manchester), who have long had the advantage of being attended chiefly by midwives carefully trained and educated in connexion with our Lying-in Charity."--_Pag._ 437. [64] We have heard that the almost incredible sum of five hundred guineas has been paid as a fee to one of the fashionable "ladies' doctors:" and that another caused it to be understood that he would not take a less fee than fifty guineas, whereupon the number of patients soliciting his attendance increased a hundred fold. [65] We know a case in point, where a lady was anxious to engage a midwife who had been recommended to her as perfectly competent to perform her office without the intervention of the _man_-midwife, but the latter would not hear of this, and insisted on the substitution of one of his "own nurses." It is easy to perceive the reason of this manoeuvre. Had the original midwife attended, she would have undertaken the operation, and the importance of the _man_-midwife would have been materially lessened. The lady's delicacy and comfort were not of sufficient weight to counterbalance this consideration. _Ex uno disce omnes._ [66] "In 1848 sixty-one mothers died to every 10,000 children born alive. Since that year the mortality has progressively declined, as follows:--58, 55, 53, 52, 50, down to 47 in 1854. This is a gratifying result, and there can be no doubt that by further care and skill, especially by training up a class of educated nurses, the deaths in child-birth may be largely reduced from their present high number, 3009."--_Medical Times and Gazette._ [67] So far from the presence of a _man_-midwife being a source of consolation or assurance to the sufferer, as Dr. Ramsbotham alleges, we have it on the authority of a lady, the mother of many children, that on three occasions, when the "doctor" _was not present_, her labours were much easier, and in all respects more thoroughly natural and happy in their results; than on those in which the _man_-midwife officiated; and further, _that the very ring of the bell announcing the arrival of the hated accoucheur has frequently "put back" the pains of labour_.