Midwifery and the diseases of women : a descriptive and practical work : showing the superiority of water-treatment in menstruation and its disorders, chlorosis, leucorrhea, fluor albus, prolapsus uteri, hysteria, spinal diseases, and other weaknesses of females : in pregnancy and its diseases, abortion, uterine hemorrhage, and the general management of childbirth, nursing, etc., etc. : illustrated with numerous cases of treatment / by Joel Shew.

  • Shew, Joel, 1816-1855.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Midwifery and the diseases of women : a descriptive and practical work : showing the superiority of water-treatment in menstruation and its disorders, chlorosis, leucorrhea, fluor albus, prolapsus uteri, hysteria, spinal diseases, and other weaknesses of females : in pregnancy and its diseases, abortion, uterine hemorrhage, and the general management of childbirth, nursing, etc., etc. : illustrated with numerous cases of treatment / by Joel Shew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    and the pains and perils which we have but too well and sadly often learned that it is her lot to endure, have chastened us, and made us more what we ought to be. Suppose that now and then it may happen—as a rare exception to the rule, it is true—that a physician conducts himself in a las- civious way before a patient, are we for this reason to call all physicians bad men ? Do we not also hear of bad men anions; clergymen ? And because there is now and then a bad one in the clerical profession, are we to scout them altogether, and sav they shall never preach to or converse with women ? I wish, therefore, to be understood, that I speak in strong terms against the foolishness of the cry we so often hear against man- midwifery. On the other hand, too, let it be understood, that I never have and never shall object to female mid wives; the more of them the better, if they become properly qualified, and women choose. I know something of the benevolence, sympathy, kind- ness, and assiduity of woman in her care of the sick. We at- tend a man at a New York boarding house, lonely in the world, without wife or children, or brother or sister to console him in the day of his disease. Death lays hold of him in the morning, and takes away his senses, and all the long day, as he still breathes on, with the cold sweat upon him, the women of the house gather about him, watching anxiously, tearfully, for the last death agony to come. All this have I witnessed, here in this city of New York ; and far be it from me to withhold from woman any share which it may be her duty or privilege to perform in that noblest of earth's callings, the attendance of the sick. I do not, however, wish to conceal the fact, that I do not be- lieve woman will ever, as a general thing, in any well-regulated society, practice the healing art. I give her all credit for her purer and more devoted sympathy with the sick, for her kindness and benevolence, as well as for her capability of acquiring science. But I do not believe that it is her mission to pursue that toilsome and life-wearing calling, which requires, oftentimes, the exercise of all the sterner faculties and powers, mental and physical, of the stronger sex. In the city of Paris, women, so far as I am ac- quainted, have had equal medical privileges to those of men; and yet the great proportion 0* medical practice is done by the latter.