I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I wish it may have its effects; --and that all good people, both male and female, from her example, may be taught to think as well as read. MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les Docteurs de SORBONNE[1.2] _Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de SORBONNE, qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne sçauroit accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le sein de sa mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous condition, le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le moyen d’une _petite canulle_, de pouvoir baptiser immediatement l’enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mere. ----Il demand si ce moyen, qu’il vient de proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir dans les cas qu’il vient d’exposer._ [Footnote 1.1: The _Romish_ Rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases of danger, _before_ it is born; --but upon this proviso, That some part or other of the child’s body be seen by the baptizer: ----But the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, by a deliberation held amongst them, _April_ 10, 1733, --have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no part of the child’s body should appear, ----that baptism shall, nevertheless, be administered to it by injection, --_par le moyen d’une petite canulle_, --Anglicè _a squirt_. ----’Tis very strange that St. _Thomas Aquinas_, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the knots of school-divinity, --should, after so much pains bestowed upon this, --give up the point at last, as a second _La chose impossible_, --“Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. _Thomas!_) baptizari possunt _nullo modo_.” --O _Thomas!_ _Thomas!_ If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism _by injection_, as presented to the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.] [Footnote 1.2: Vide Deventer, Paris edit., 4to, 1734, p. 366.] REPONSE