4 



61 TH£ SICK MAN'S COMPANION 



ing fhe blessings of health? but, such questions 

 may be continued to au^ unlimited extent, which 

 a moments reflection will recall to every person's 

 mind who are concerned, and we feel confident 

 that they will decide with us, that never was the 

 like heard of among the women of old, when the 

 midwives delivered them without the aid of such 

 deathly contrivances. Who ever heard of such 

 a circumstance among the squaws of our western 

 Indians? no one. Who ever heard of the like 

 among the first settlers of America? no one. 

 Who ever heard of these misfortunes taking place 

 some thirty or forty years ago, even, when the 

 whole business of midwifery was performed by 

 skilful and attentive women? But very few of 

 these disasterous occurrences ever happened till 

 the practice of midwifery was taken from the 

 rightful operators, by the regular physicians, 

 arftl even then the'y were seldom, till the introduc- 

 tion of the life destroying instruments. Can 

 there be such a vast difference in the conforma- 

 tion of women of the present day as to need a 

 fatanted piece of steel to deliver them of a child, 

 when such a thing was never heard of till lately? 

 we think not; we believe the natural conforma- 

 tion or proper disposition of parts, necessarily 

 relative to each other in women to be the same 

 noW;, that they always were, and consequently 

 require nothing more than the natural aid em- 

 ployed in former ages to assist them in perform- 



