MIDWIFERY. 
upon this subject. Luxury, extrafagance, 
and dissipation, were as common at Atliens 
and Rome, during some periods of flieir his- 
tory, as they have been in any part of Eu- 
rope during the last ttvo centuries ; and 
though it is probable that the Athenian and 
Roman matrons, did not, from the fashion of 
their respective eras, run quite so readily as 
the ladies of the present day, into all the ex- 
cesses of men, yet there can be no doubt 
that the example was contagious, and that 
the result, inregard to debility of frame, and 
consequently occasional mal-conformation 
of organs, if not equal in point of frequency 
and degree, could not have essentially va- 
ried. And in reality, had the Greek and 
Roman ladies been as correct and regular as 
jrossible in their own lives, yet from the ne- 
cessity they must have been too frequently 
under of intermarrying with men of far less 
correctness and regularity, the female 
offspring hence ensuing could not fait to in- 
herit much of the same kind of delicacy 
and debility of frame, and consequently 
misproportion of construction which we too 
frequently witness in the present day. 
Still, however, it was the fashion to em- 
ploy women, and none but women, in the 
momentous process of child-birth, notwith- 
.standing the necessity of a contrary prac- 
tice. Natural modesty, not always in league 
with fashion, gave additional force to the 
general custom, and imperious as was the 
call for the occasional employment of per- 
sons who had been regularly taught at the 
Bchools of anatomy, and had hence acquired 
a scientific knowledge of the organs con- 
cerned in gestation and labour, and of the 
changes they undergo during these respec- 
tive processes,-- life was in general rather to 
be sacrificed than a male practitioner of 
surgery to be resorted to. That the call for 
such assistance was imperious, we could ad- 
duce a thou-sand instances to prove, if it 
W'ere necessary ; we shall only observe, 
that Agnodice, a scholar of Hierophilus, in 
order to acquire a knowledge of this branch 
of anatomy, and finding herself prohibited, 
either by the common law of custom, or tl.e 
written law of the state, from acquiring 
such knowledge in her own sex, consented 
to assume a male appearance, and for this 
purpose cut off her hair, exclianged her fe- 
male for male attire, and in this disguise at- 
tended the lectures of this celebrated phy- 
.sician. She then publicly entered upon 
her profession ; but another difficulty oc- 
.ciirred to her, which was, that from the 
dress and appearance she had so long as- 
sumed, she was still suspected to be a man, 
notwithstanding she had returned to the 
common dress of her sex ; and it w'as long 
before the prejudice thus excited was com- 
pletely overcome. 
On these accounts the art of midwifery 
made less improvement than any other 
branch of medicine. Hippocrates says bi\t 
little upon the subject, and that little but very 
little to the purpose. He appears to have 
known of no other method of delivery, than 
by a presentation of the child’s head ; if 
any other part presented, he advises such 
part to be turned, and this not by an intro- 
duction of the hand of the practitioner into 
the uterus, but by shaking the mother, by 
making her jump repeatedly, or by l olling 
her oh her bed ; and if this do not succeed, 
to destroy the child and deliver it piece- 
meal. In the writings of Celsus, however, 
w'ho flourished during the reign of Tiberius, 
we find hints that prove some advance had 
been made towards a more humane, scien- 
tific, and successful practice ; for we arp 
here told, that children may be safely and 
easily delivered in presentations of tlie feqt 
as well as of the head, by taking hold of the 
legs, and dragging them downwards ; as 
also, that if any othqr parts present tiian the 
bead or feet, the child must be turned in 
the uterus by the introduction of the as- 
sistant’s hand, so that one or the other qf 
these organs be brought forwards into the 
vagina. We also meet with another piece 
of advice, which we are sorry to perceive 
has been of so long standing in the world, 
and which is very injudiciously praised and 
practised in the present day ; and that i.s, 
that the practitioner ought to be perpe- 
tually striving to dilate the os tineas or ori- 
fice of tlie womb, by the introduction 
of the fore finger alone, when the opening is 
only large enough to admit a single finger, 
smeared over with lard or pomatum ; and 
that he should continue progressively to in- 
troduce two, three, or more fingers, and at 
length the whole hand as a general dilator to 
tlie orifice, so that the head, or whatever 
other part of the child presents, may tlie more 
readily pass through. Now it is compara- 
tively very seldom tliat any benefit can be 
derived from this perpetual tampering,; ip 
some few cases of relaxed uteri, where tffe 
orifice is already sufficiently enlarged to al- 
low three or four fingers to enter at once, 
and the pains at the same time are but 
feeble, or at least have but a small propul- 
sive power, some advantage may be obtain- 
ed, but none in any instance wliere the oii- 
Ff a 
