How it came that English midwives fell gradually from their high estate is partly explained by a very public-spirited book (with the appropriate motto “Non sibi sed aliis”) written by a surgeon in 1736.[21] The writer adverts to the accusations of ignorance then brought against the midwives, and remarks that “the only method by which this fatal distemper can be cured, is to put it in the power of midwomen to qualify themselves thoroughly and at a moderate expense.... To which method of qualifying themselves I doubt not the midwomen will object, and say that they would readily be at any reasonable expense and fatigue to be so thoroughly instructed, but it is not in their power. The midwomen cannot, and the midmen will not instruct them. The midmen will object and say that the midwomen want both capacity and strength (instruct them as ye please). To which I reply (_ore rotundo, plenis buccis_) that it is not want of capacity, docility, strength, or activity ... which is evident to a demonstration from the successful practice of women in the Hôtel Dieu at Paris (the best school for midwifery now in Europe).... Would not any person then be deservedly laughed at who should assert that our women are not as capable of performing their office had they the same instruction as the French women?” This chivalrous surgeon then proposes that regular provision should be made for proper instruction, and for examinations by two surgeons (who have lectured to the women), “and six or seven other persons appointed by His Majesty, because I don’t think it reasonable that so many people’s bread should depend on the humour or caprice of two men only;” adding that “If some such scheme was put in execution, I’m satisfied that in a very few years there would not be an ignorant midwife in England, and consequently the great agonies most women suffer at the very sight of a man would be almost entirely prevented,” and great expense and much life saved. However, we must suppose that these noble words of protest fell upon deaf ears, and the midwives, being left in their ignorance, their practice gradually passed into the hands of the medical men, who had every advantage of learning at their command.[22] It is, however, only very recently that men-midwives have been allowed to attend on royal patients in this country; indeed, I believe that the Princess Charlotte was the first to establish the precedent, and that our present Sovereign was the first queen who followed it. In a very interesting series of papers, by Dr Aveling, recently published in the _Lancet_,[23] accounts have been given of a number of the royal midwives whose names have been honourably preserved in history, such as Alice Dennis, who attended Anne of Denmark, and received a fee of £100 “for her pains and attendance upon the Queen, as of His Highness’s free gift and reward, without account, imprest, or other charge to be set on her for the same.”