Volume 1

A short account of the state of midwifery in London, Westminster, etc. Wherein an effectual method is proposed, to enable the midwomen to perform their office ... with as much ease, speed, and safety, as the most dexterous midmen ... / [John Douglas].

  • Douglas, John, approximately 1680-1743.
Date:
1736
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short account of the state of midwifery in London, Westminster, etc. Wherein an effectual method is proposed, to enable the midwomen to perform their office ... with as much ease, speed, and safety, as the most dexterous midmen ... / [John Douglas]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/84 (page 10)
    difcover it even to them, becaufe it might preju¬ dice the perfonal intereft of his father and two brothers, who only, in all Europe, know it: But what they may do in Africa, Afia, &c. this deponent fayeth not. His own ftory is as fol¬ lows: 44 My Author, lib. ii. cap. 17. jollifies cc the fattening hooks in the head of a child that 44 comes right, and yet becaufe of fome difficulty 44 or difproportion, cannot pafsj which I confefs 44 has been, and is yet the pradice of the moll 44 expert artitts in Midwifery, not only in Eng- 44 land, but throughout Europe. But I can neither 64 approve of that pradice, nor thofe delays ;” (Pray obferve how long he was in attempting to deliver that woman at Paris, vid. M. M. obf. 26. quoted below * 44 becaufe my father, brothers, 44 and felf, (tho’ none elfe in Europe as I know,) Pray had not Sir David Hamilton more bufinefs, and as good, if not better fuccefs, in the practice of Midwifery than he ? May we not then, reafonably flippofe, that he either knew his fecret, or had one of his own, tho’ he never made any nolle about it, which anfwered as well ? 44 have, 44 by God’s bleffing, and our indullry, attained to, 44 and long pradifed a way to deliver women in 44 this cafe, without any prejudice to them of their 44 infants*, tho’ all others (being obliged, for want 44 of fuch an expedient, to ufe the common way) 44 do, and mull endanger, if not deftroy one or 44 both with hooks.” Pray would it not have been a grateful return, for God’s bleffing them with fo uieful a fecret, to have communicated it to