Women played a part in treating and caring for the ill and distressed in a number of ways during the century. A few women dispensed medicine and enjoyed reputations as doctors, but it was in the field of obstetrics and as midwives that they made their most important contributions. Although women did what might be described generally as nursing, their contribution in this area was relatively insignificant when compared with the importance of the female nurse today. Any discussion of the place of women in seventeenth-century medicine should note the relationship between women, witchcraft, and medicine. Although the references leave no doubt of the existence of female doctors and dispensers of medicines, the mention of them is infrequent. Mrs. Mary Seal, the widow of a Dr. Power, for example, administered medicine to Richard Dunbar in 1700. The wife of Edward Good was sought out in 1678 to cure a head sore and another "doctress" impressed the Reverend John Clayton, who had some insights into medical science himself, with her ability to cure the bite of a rattlesnake by using the drug dittany. In the same year that Good's wife was sought to treat the head sore, a Mrs. Grendon dispensed medicine to an individual who had injured his eyes in a fight. The exact status of these women, however, is unknown; it is highly unlikely that the female practicing medicine enjoyed the professional standing of a Dr. Pott or a Dr. Bohun--an old female slave also appears in the record as a doctor. With medical knowledge limited and antisepsis unknown, the expectant mother of the seventeenth century fared better with a midwife than she would have with a physician. The midwife, whose training consisted of experience and apprenticeship at best, allowed the birth to be as free from human interference as possible and did not do a pre-delivery infection-producing examination. Both the fees and the prestige of the midwife, judging by contemporary records from other colonies, were high. Unfortunately, the early Virginia sources throw little light on the activities of the midwife in this colony. Among the scattered references from Virginia records are found charges of 100 pounds of tobacco for the service of a midwife; the presence of two midwives assisted by two nurses and other women at a single birth; the payment of twelve hens for obstetrical services; and the delivery of a bastard child by a midwife.