and some would that neither honest nor dishonest should have it. He adds, every one may read it; because no one shall become by it either lewd, unhappy, or knavish. The consideration which prompted the publication he declares to be on account of the manifold, daily, and imminent dangers, which all manner of women, of what estate or degree soever they be, in their labors, do sustain and abide, even with peril of their lives. He considers it to be a charitable and laudable deed, and thankfully to be accepted of all honorable and other honest matrons, if this little treatise were made to speak English, as it hath been long taught to speak Dutch, French, Spanish, and divers other languages. “He enjoins that ladies and gentlemen have this boke in their hands, and cause such parts of it to be read before the midwife and the rest of the women present in labor, whereby the laboring woman may be greatly comforted and alleviated in her travail. And though some midwives would have this boke forbidden, yet, he adds, the good need not be offended, though the evil-hearted endeavored to make it that it was nothing worth, and that he hath exposed the secrets and privities of women, so as that even boys read his boke openly, as the tales of Robin Hood. Notwithstanding all these accusations, he trusts that all good midwives would be glad of his work, because of their familiar knowledge, and that others of them such as could read, would read it themselves, and laud it as its merits deserve.” In regard to the employment of men as midwives in France, it appears that in 1663, the Duchess de Villiers was delivered by the assistance of Julien Clement, a professor of surgery in Paris. He was soon after appointed to the office of midwife to the Princess of France. The princess, it is said, had some scruples in regard to employing Clement. As she desired it might be kept a profound secret, she sent for him, he being a surgeon of great reputation; and he was conducted with the greatest secrecy into a house where the lady was, with her head covered with a hood. The same surgeon was employed in subsequent labors of the same lady, and the princesses made use of surgeons on similar occasions; and as soon as it became fashionable, the name of _accoucheur_ was invented to signify that class of surgeons. Foreign countries soon adopted the custom, and likewise the name of _accoucheurs_, for they had no such term in their own language; but in Great Britain they have more generally been termed midwives.