The Daily Advertiser

For the DAILY ADVERTISER.

Mr. PRINTER,

In visiting an elderly lady of my acquaintance yesterday, she put into my hands a paper, which on perusal, I find to be an address to the public, from P. Stansfield, a midwife in this city. This hand-bill, which I find you have inserted in the Daily Advertiser, gave rise to a conversation of some length between us; and as I apprehend the subject of it to be interesting to society, I take the liberty of desiring you to publish the substance of it in your widely circulating paper. I have chosen to communicate our sentiments in the form of an address to those whom it more immediately concerns, for which, in this age of general reform, I feel no disposition to offer any other apology than this--that I have not the most remote intention to wound the ear of delicacy, nor in any shape to injure the feelings of sensibility--that it proceeds from a desire to promote the happiness of the fair sex, and that it has the entire approbation of one of the most amiable amongst them.

To the sensible and delicate of the Fair Sex in New-York.

MANY excellent maxims and much useful information has been given to you by the most eminent authors, for the conduct and government of your lives. Every relative situation in which you may be placed, has been separately, amply, and judiciously dwelt upon by the ablest pens. On these I have not the arrogance to make criticisms, nor the presumption to offer amendments. I shall only beg permission, with every sentiment of respect for the virtuous and delicate females, to point out what I humbly conceive to be one very mischievous error in their conduct, an error hitherto, as far as I recollect, unnoticed, either by the wit, the satirist, or sage, and which produces evil consequences, without exciting any alarm. Be not startled, when I tell you that it is the barbarous custom which so much prevails, and which is daily increasing among you--the employment of Man-Midwives.

This abominable practice has a very pernicious tendency. It robs the delicate female of that nice sensibility, which is the chief guardian of her chastity, and the ornament of her life. It furnishes matter of unprofitable reflection to servants, and particularly to children, at a premature period of their lives, which leaves very disagreeable impressions on their young minds. It is destructive of meek-eyed modesty, and all those amiable delicacies which conduce to the refinement of manners, and I am not sure whether it is not in some measure destructive of that endearing and undivided affection which ought to subsist between a married pair to the latest hours of their lives. At any rate, of this I am well persuaded, that husbands are often taught to consider this process of nature as a very perilous one, and hence, from tenderness to their wives, are frequently obliged to acquiesce in a practice which is mortifying to their feelings, and which they heartily abominate. A woman, who voluntarily, and without any apparent necessity, submits to, and prefers the assistance of a physician, however skillful, to that of a midwife of acknowledged abilities, warrants suspicions which I am unwilling even to hint at. I am sensible, however, that many women perfectly virtuous and modest, permit the assistance of men in child-bed, against their judgment and inclination.

A young and tender female, particularly in her first pregnancy, has doubts and fears for her safety, which would render her an easy dupe to those procurers for male employment, with which the city swarms. It often happens too, that one woman will prevail with another to follow in this instance her hated example--she will urge many ostensible reasons for this advice, but I consider her real motive (with few exceptions) to be simply this.--Having surrendered herself to the management of a man-midwife, (Oh horrible epithet!) she will be desirous of drawing her acquaintances into the same unamiable situation, in order to keep her a little in countenance. There is reason also to fear that some medical gentlemen who know better, connive at this indecent practice--they find it their interest to fall in with the opinions of those, who from ignorance or timidity, view the birth of a child as a very dangerous operation.--When professional reptile, cease to stoop to such meanness it is not to be wondered at, but when men of science stoop so low, to call it disingenuous, is too mild a censure.--That cases of difficulty sometimes occur, cannot be denied--an unhappy structure of body, and occasional accidents, make it necessary at such times to look for other than female help; --but the wise and kind author of nature, has been pleased to make these cases comparatively few. I have heard a celebrated professor of midwifery in Europe, assert, that a case of real danger does not occur once in many hundred times. The fact is, the business I am speaking of, is Nature's Work--sometimes indeed she falters, but more frequently she is irritated by folly, meddling, and over officiousness.

In this city, there are, I am informed, no less than sixteen midwives, who have been regularly educated, whenever a case truly dangerous presents, their own reputation, (to say nothing of their humanity) is so much at stake, that they will be the first to call out for aid, and then--and only then, it should be resorted to without hesitation. But unfortunately for society, there are other causes that militate against the conduct which I am endeavoring to recommend. It is a truth quite undeniable, that there are characters who practice medicine, but who never thought it first necessary to study it :--Those characters, however, have had the sagacity to discern, that a superficial knowledge of midwifery was an excellent introduction to medical practice. Such men know well enough that if they are once permitted to officiate in that way for the mistresses of a family, they need, generally speaking, be no way doubtful as to their employment in the other branches of medicine, in such a family, that one act alone will pretty certainly deprive the husband of every authority that he might be disposed to exercise in favor of another physician, whose abilities he may have reason to think more favorably of---such ignorant pretenders as I allude to, will, by a pliancy of conduct accommodated to the caprices and weakness of the females often succeed so well, that in a short time they will taste all the sweets of the profession without study, education or skillfulness--they will be sought after with avidity, and paid with liberality. Grimace being the leading feature of the system of such a creature, it will aid his plan much to be extremely reserved and sullen; if he says but little on ordinary occasions, this will give him the reputation of great understanding, it will naturally be supposed that he thinks deeply, and much to the purpose-- he will find it too very advancive of his interest to ingratiate himself with a few good old women of much garrulity, and not a particle of understanding ; but above all things he must not fail, should it be necessary, even to purchase the friendly offices of a chosen band of gossip matrons, than whom no instruments can serve his turn better. when he has thus secured that most reputable and influential of all interests, the petticoat interest. to publish his fame, what will he then have to fear ? The contempt of men of abilities need never disturb him; he may laugh at their acquirements, for he will assuredly triumph over their knowledge, through the more easy honorable aid productive means of studied gravity, gross hypocrisy, and female's loquacity. Quacks and pretenders to medical knowledge it is to be lamented, exist under the best regulated governments and America generous, in this instance, too generous in her laws, cannot reasonably hope to be exempted. But since the power of the legislature will not destroy this growing evil—since the name of a physician must be degraded by mountebank-felling wretches, and impostors without any manner of education- since numbers of our fellow men must die daily by the hand of these executioners, let it not be longer said that the locusts derive subsistence-that the reptiles live by despoiling the fair frames of those who are the ornaments of our land, and the pride of our country. Is it possible that in this enlightened age, and in this enlightened city, our eyes should be insulted by a board nailed over a door with this savage inscription "MAN-MIDWIFE." Can the females of New-York endure--can they pass such a door without feeling the illusion of a virtuous blush-- Ye women of sense and spirit, and delicacy--ye who are susceptible of the indignity offered to your nature, rise up against the foul performers--banish from your chambers the nauseating tribe, and give support and encouragement to your own sex, several of whom have ample testimonials of their ability to help you—give them no longer occasion to say, that the fashionable ladies of New-York, in certain situations, prefer being put to bed under the direction of the gentlemen.

But raillery apart--I earnestly recommend to such females as value that beautiful appendage of virtue, unaffected modesty, to employ their own sex; they may rest assured, 'and their friends also may be persuaded, that when a case of real difficulty occurs, it will be the interest of the midwives as well as their duty, to apprise them of it. In women to employ women in this situation, is surely the most natural -it is certainly the most decent—and whether the ladies think so or not, it is infinitely the most agreeable to their husbands. No one I hope will imagine that these observations are designed to throw any odium on those medical gentlemen in this city, who, practicing medicine with reputation; also practice midwifery (I am sick at my stomach with the repetition of the filthy word) as a fashionable branch of it Nothing farther from the writer's intention, whose object is to induce the fair Americans to quit and discountenance an unseemly practice almost always unnecessary, and constantly disgusting.

Oct. 6.

SENEX.