A midwife's tale.

Martha Ballard, midwife in a small town in Maine, left behind a diary with cryptic entries that gives a social picture of the turbulent times following the American Revolution. Author Laurel Ulrich painstakingly works her way through the diary which unfolds a scarlet fever epidemic sweeping through Hallowell, Maine in the summer of 1787. Martha tends to her neighbours at all times of the day and night. She also delivers the child of a first-time mother who is given 20 drops of laudanum (an opiate) to delay the labour pains. We learn about the everyday lives of ordinary people. We learn that premarital pregnancy was common two hundred years ago. When her niece dies after long illness, she witnesses the autopsy alongside the town's doctors. After the Revolution a period of tremendous upheaval followed. Martha hires help to run her medical practice, but she finds them rude and rebellious. She continues with her midwifery practice into very old age and brings new life into the world. Her diary ends only with her death.