Part 10
THE conclusion against me that I shall oppose the torrent in vain, is a very just one. As to myself, I ought to expect that I should oppose it in vain, if the decision of the public was to turn upon any thing of so little authority as my private opinion, especially in a point where it is so justly liable to the suspicion of its being byassed, both by private interest, and partiality to my own sex. I readily then grant that my own opinion should go for nothing. But what ought to go for a great deal is my reader’s own judgment, formed upon his own reason and knowledge. But that is not all. I have some dependence on Nature and common sense recovering their rights, from this preference of the men-midwives which shocks both, being, in truth, nothing more than a fashion, not even of the growth of this country, but transplanted from a neighbouring one, whose follies are unhappily so contagious, though for the most part so despicable. How a few interested men, for want of business in their own professions, transplanted this baneful exotic here, where it has met with such undue cherishment has already been touched upon.
BUT then as this unnatural preference has all the folly and whim of fashion in it, it may be hoped, that it will also have all the instability and transitoriness of one. Time that confirms the dictates of Nature destroys the fictions of opinion. But in points where Nature is herself attacked or injured, inconveniencies and damages never fail of following thereon, enough to oppose the duration of them. The numbers of lying-in women (thanks to beneficent Nature) rather not destroyed than duly assisted by the men-operators, can neither atone for those who perish, sometimes the mother, sometimes the child, sometimes both, while none of them are but sufferers in some degree; nor long blind a public, that has so much interest not to be imposed upon in a matter so essential to it, by false pretences, or by an injurious and interested degradation of the midwives, who at the worst can hardly be so bad as the very best of the men, in the capital point of their business, the manual function. The oftenest greater _danger_, and always the greater _pain_, under men-operators than under the midwives hands will, sooner or later, determine the parties concerned to open their eyes on their greatest interest, in a point of such infinite importance to them.
GRANTING then to Fashion all the power it really has, and a greater one it is, than for the honor of human kind, can well be imagined, still, it not only has its limits of extension, but duration. It is only for the truth of Nature to be universal and eternal.
FASHION, it is true, may not only govern people in indifferent matters, such as dress, furniture, equipage, or so forth, but even in essential, even in capital ones, such, for example, as is this point of option between the men-operators and the midwives: it may, in short, exert its tyranny in many things, one would rather think left better to the determination of REASON. But then this tyranny cannot well be long-lived. The evils which such a fashion begets destroy at length their own parent. No opinion then, as I have before observed, can be permanent that is not founded on the truth of Nature: but where the consequences of such an opinion are detrimental to the good of society, which is the darling object of Nature; that spirit of self-preservation which she has so manifestly diffused thro’ human kind, will hardly suffer errors pernicious to it long to subsist. There is no fashion can, under such objections, long hold out against victorious Nature, who is sure to revenge the violences offered her.
AND here I even officiously seize on an occasion that rises to me out of the very bowels, I may say, of my subject, of selecting for one proof of the danger of adopting innovations offensive to Nature, a point of such near analogy to midwifery, as that of nursing children, the care of whom, next to that of the mothers, is the true midwife’s tender province.
I wish then that those, who too readily admit that this so recent a fashion of employing men-midwives preferable to female ones, is an improvement receivable on the foot of its supposed advantage to human kind, would consider a little the actual consequences of having flown in the face of Nature with respect to the bringing up young children, in a way scarce more foreign from her dictates, than that of _men_ delivering _women_. That women are by Nature herself formed for the office of aiding women in their lying-in; that they are also formed to bring up children by the breast, are two parts of their destination by Nature, which in all ages, and in all countries seem to have born little or no controversy. Interest has lately invaded both these provinces. With this difference, that as to the first, that of women supplanted in their business of delivering women, an active interest has prevailed; as in that of denying the female breast to children, it is a purely passive one[19]; and we shall soon see what a dreadful effect this sacrifice of Nature to interest has produced.
AS to the mischief produced by the other, of the implicitly excluding the women from midwifery, by the power of prejudice and fashion, it is not, as yet, of a Nature for obvious reasons quite so susceptible of proof, though most certainly not the less therefore existent. And that mischief is palpably owing to the gain which the men-midwives find or presume in the exercise of that profession. This is the active interest: that end to which the means give so justly the construction of base and sordid. The rich are the object of this wretched imposition, which will probably last so much the longer, for the interest to be found in imposing upon them.
BUT for the denying the female breast to children; it has not indeed passed hitherto into a tenet, that children may as well be reared by the spoon as by the breast, because there is not that prospect of the place of a _dry-nurse_ being as lucrative as that of a _man-midwife_. If it was so, I should not dispair of seeing a great he-fellow florishing a pap-spoon as well as a forceps, or of the public being enlightened by learned tracts and disputations, stuffed full of Greek and Latin technical terms, to prove, that water-gruel or scotch-porridge was a much more healthy aliment for new-born infants than the milk of the female breast, and that is was safer for a man to dandle a baby than for an insignificant woman.
AS this unnatural treatment then of children is almost entirely as yet confined to the very poor, that is to say, to new-born babes thrown upon the public CHARITY for their SUSTENANCE, the rearing by the spoon is not yet regularly established as a general _doctrine_, it is only admitted in PRACTICE! As _proper_ wet-nurses, from the difficulty in procuring them, might be _dearer_ than dry ones; the _cheapest_ method is preferred, and forms a kind of passive interest or saving œconomy.
BUT what are the consequences of this violation of Nature, in the grudging her peculiarly appointed aliment to these poor little candidates for life? What follows the substituting, for cheapness-sake, such food as is meant to be afforded them, and is perhaps sometimes even not given them? Death. Death with all that cruelty of torture that attends atrophy or inanition. Thus perish these miserable victims to the false opinion, that the course of Nature can be changed with impunity. I have said here false opinion only, because, with all the obduracy of heart that the spirit of interest so notoriously creates, with all the crimes it so often produces, I cannot think, that such an horror, as the murder of so many innocents, can be entirely imputed to interest without ignorance coming in for its share, though interest has doubtless contributed to the so long continuance of it.
IF that maxim is not a false one, that he who knowingly suffers an innocent person to perish, and can help it, is actually guilty of murder: and I prefer here the term of guilty to that of accessary; because I am told, that where there is guilt of murder, all are in the eye of equity and law, principals. Ignorance then, of the sure murder of these innocents by their method of treatment, can be the only plea for those to whom the national charity had committed the care of them. I should think too, that even I myself sinned against charity, if I did not believe, that there is none of those trustees of the poor children, that would not shudder at the thought, of himself taking an infant up by the leg and dashing its brains out against the wall. And yet that would be balmy mercy, the dispatch considered, compared to the lingering tortures, in which those poor little creatures must expire, in the common way of parish-nursing. What is certain however is, that Death would scarce more assuredly be the consequence of the child’s brains being at once beat out, than of that impropriety of aliment, which in the mildest construction is owing to an error in opinion or belief, that any aliment could be salutarily substituted to the one dictated by Nature.
I HAVE here mentioned barely impropriety, or sometimes negation of aliment, without allowance for other causes of destruction to those infants, such as cold, bad air, uncleanliness, neglect of due attendence, or deficiency, in short, of requisites, which are not to be expected from the very poorer sort of the people, to whom the rearing of those infants is generally committed. But that omission of mine is neither undesigned nor unfair. I presume I shall have the greatest physicians on my side, in averring, that even new-born babes are endowed with a surprizing hardiness. Their little seemingly so delicate bodies bear cold to a degree scarcely credible, but from the commonness of both observation and practice, that they only thrive the better for immersions in cold water. Cleanliness, a good air, and attendence, have doubtless indeed some share in the well-doing of children of that age: but all together are in no degree of comparison to the importance of bestowing on children their appropriate aliment. The physical disquisitions into the reason of this do not belong to me here: nor are a few instances of infants reared by the spoon any valid justification for breaking the general rule of Nature, assigning to the female breast the nutrition of children: of which too there is this salutary consequence, that in the very act of lactation there is, by Nature, generated such an indearment of the suckled child to the nurse[20], as that she who began it perhaps only for hire, finds herself engaged by a growing affection to supply in some measure the place of the mother to the orphan or deserted babe. The rearing by the spoon is so far from inspiring any such dearness, that the innocent infant is considered only as an embarrassment, of which the quicker the riddance, in the death of the _brat_, so much the better.
THE opinion, however, that this one of the greatest institutes of Nature for the preservation of the species, for which she has so admirably organized the female breast, could be dispensed with in favor of a most sordid savingness, has alone caused more human sacrifices, to that black Demon of INTEREST, than probably were ever made to the “grim idol of” Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, while the cries of the poor children could not be heard by ears closely stopped up in honor of that infernal spirit.
BUT if any reader should imagine that I here invent any thing, or that, in favor of my inference of danger from the case of revolting against the unalterable institutes of Nature, I have exagerated matters, nothing will be more easy, nor probably at the same more shocking, than the procuring himself a proof of the scarce not actual murders I have mentioned.
THE parish-registers of this great metropolis are, I presume, open for inspection. There needs but to examine them, to discover the red-letter catalogue of the armies of innocents that have been put to death under the management of the charity destined to preserve their life. There will be found not one but many, even of the most populous parishes, where for fourteen, twenty, or more years, not one poor babe of the thousands taken in have escaped the general destruction, and sacrifice to that inhuman fiend of Hell, _Interest_. Here with what propriety might Nature borrow from one of her most dutiful children and darling, the following exclamation,
—— —— ALL _my pretty ones? Did you say_ ALL! _what_ ALL?
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_I cannot but remember such things were, That were most_ PRECIOUS _to me_: did Heav’n look on, _And would not take their part?_ ACCURSED INTEREST, They were all STRUCK for thee!
This is so rigidly true of some parishes, that if I am not misinformed, the verification was not long ago made, as to one of them before a court of justice, of not a single infant having been brought up in the term of fourteen years. And I could name another, in which, during the course of above twenty years, ALL, ALL the new-born children that fell under the administration of the Parish-CHARITY, perished, except one boy, of whom it is recorded as a prodigy, that he lived till he was five years of age, when he filled up the number, and died like the rest. Will any one here say, that this TOTAL mortality was purely accidental?
BUT this can be no wonder to those who know there is such an expression, even proverbially in use, as that of children being a BURTHEN to the parish. An expression of which it is hard to pronounce whether it is more execrable or more silly. But what is so inconsequential as the spirit, or rather the no-spirit of interest? Children may indeed be a burthen to private families; and yet for the sweetness of it, how chearfully is it oftenest born, or with very few extraordinary exceptions to the general rule? But to a nation, or what is the same thing, to the lawful representative of the nation, a parish, what can be on earth a falser light to view children in, than that of a burthen? What could be so intolerable in the sum to be added to that actually paid for their being worse than murdered out of hand, to save their little lives, and bring them up to that age, in which the national wisdom should have established for them, at once, the means of earning their likelihood, and of earning it with such beneficial retribution to their truly mother-country, as should amply reward her for her not having neglected the duties of humanity towards them? All the good, all the sensible part of mankind allow, that the true riches of a state, are in the numerousness of it subjects. Trade, arts, the navy, the militia, our colonies all open inexhaustible channels of employment and maintenance. And yet there are who can call children, those children too of the public, not in a ludicrous, but in the dearest tenderest sense, since in the public they ought to find that office of a parent, of which the guilt, the inability, the want of nature in their natural relations, or their death may have defrauded them; there are, I say, who can call such children a _burthen_! We complain of the defect of population, and yet have seen interest creative of obduracy, and perpetuating ignorance and error, manifestly thinning the species, by nipping those tender blossoms of human kind.
HERE, if this notice of the treatment of children should even appear a digression, I should, in favor of the intention, hope forgiveness from a humane reader. He would scarce impute it to me as matter for criticism, the having sacrificed propriety to the introduction of a point so important to humanity. But the truth is, that neither as a digression, nor as a false or over-strained argument, nor as a misapplication, can the same well be considered, by any who will withal consider its strict affinity in so many points to the subject of which I am treating.
IT will readily appear, that both these violences offered to Nature in the substituting the men-midwives to the females, and dry-nurses to wet-ones, acknowledge exactly the same common parent, interest, and have exactly the same common effect, the destruction of infants. Is it then possible to be too much on one’s guard against those so flagrant impositions, which are the offspring of that proof-hardened passion? Is any thing sacred from it, since the lives of innocents palpably have not been so, in one branch of practice, nor very presumably are one jot more respected in the other? It is true indeed, that the practice of employing dry-nurses has not yet ascended much among the great and rich; first, because fashions rarely do ascend from the lower classes of life, and next, because there is no such temptation of actual lucre to defend or spread it: but as to that of preferring men-midwives, nothing is so likely as its descending, as it is so much the nature of fashion to descend, and none are more readily adopted by the lower ranks of people from the higher ones, than those fashions which are the most foolish and the most pernicious. And certainly this is not the one that the least deserves those epithets.
WAS it not for this influence of the fashion, in making the most unreasonable as well as the most dangerous things pass into practice from the highest down to the lowest life, many an honest man might escape the bad consequences of his following the example of those, than whom none are so liable to be imposed on in such matters, the great and the opulent. These make it worth the while of interested persons to deceive them, and thus often for being cheated, pay with their money, their health, and even with their lives. In the mean time, many who are seduced by the vogue in which they see the men-midwives, employ them on a principle which cannot be enough commended, their natural affection to their wives and children. The reasoning which occurs to a husband in middling or low life on this occasion is probably as follows. “My wife and child are full as dear to me as those of the greatest man in the kingdom are to him, and shall I grudge a little more expence in the provision for their greater _safety_?” So far he reasons right: all his mistake lies in taking too readily for granted, that same _greater safety_, to be on the side of the men-practitioners in preference to the midwives, because the former are employed by the great, who, by the by, consult Nature the least of any class of life, even in points of their own health. And certainly in many respects to that _sine-quo-non_ of human happiness, the great had better follow the example even of the poor, than the poor theirs. Make the most then of your reasoning from the prevalence of fashion, the gout and the men-midwives, well considered, are no very enviable appendixes of high-life.
IF in some that laudable tenderness for mother and child, is the determining consideration for employing a man-midwife by whom Nature, if consulted, would assure all concerned, that the safety of both was more likely to be endangered than not, there are others again, in whom calling in the aid of a man-midwife is rather matter of luxury, of parade or ostentation, than of opinion of superior safety. These are of that imitative kind of beings, with whom the preference of a man-practitioner for the conducting of his wife’s lying-in, turns upon no other motive, than what would equally make them bestow a silk gown of a new fashion, or a laced-head upon her; from a spirit of emulation of some neighbour or superior.
BUT what is more surprizing yet, is that notwithstanding the kind of loathing and repugnance with which Nature inspires the women to receive such an office from a man, as that of delivering them, a repugnance to which they had so much better listen, since it has all the characters of a salutary instinct; there are women so weak, as not only not to represent to their husbands the expedience of examining, at least, the propriety of such a fashion, before they blindly adopt it on the faith either of others liable to be deceived, or of those interested in the deceiving them; but who even, in a ridiculous complaisance to that fashion, of which themselves and children are not unlikely to be the victims, will make a point of being attended by a man-midwife, by way of a piece of state.
I HAVE myself known women so infected by this silly vanity, that on receiving visits from their friends after lying-in, and being delivered by a woman, with the utmost safety and satisfaction to them, have been ashamed of having had the better sense and regard for themselves, to employ a midwife in defiance of the fashion, and have told their friends, that it is true Mrs. —— had lain them, but that there was a Doctor at hand in the next room. This by the by was false, for such a _Led-Doctor_ is neither needed nor employed, where a midwife that knows her business is called. If any occasion for medical or even chirurgical skill arises from the complication of a case, there is always time to have the advice of a regular physician, or a regular surgeon, because that complication can never escape timely notice. It can only then be, for the sake of his iron and steel instruments, that a man-midwife has so much as the pretext of being necessary, and I hope to prove, that all the needful can be much better done without them. Yes, I repeat it, better done without them.
FOR here and throughout the reader will please to observe, that it is on the superiority of safety in employing midwives that I impugn the growing fashion of a recourse to men-practitioners. It is the side of Nature I take against a set of mean mercenaries, who commit the cruellest outrages upon her, under the falsest of all pretences in them, that of assisting her. I would not be so criminal as to wish the benefit of a false argument, in a point of life and death to those mothers and children, my tender care, even could I be silly enough to imagine, that I could pass such an one upon my reader. I wave therefore all plea of the novelty of this upstart profession of men-midwives. Such a plea I readily confess is not receivable. Were It so, how many valuable discoveries or improvements must have been stifled in their birth, if the objection to their being novelties was a valid one? All that I would contend for is, that an innovation should not be admitted only because it is an innovation; and that the decision of a matter of such capital importance, is better left to Reason, always herself submissive to Nature, than abandoned to Fashion, which so often acknowledges no other jurisdiction than that of whim or humor.
THERE is no prescription for error, no sanction in custom against improvements. But certainly in such a capital point as the life of so many human creatures, in short, in one of the most sacred objects of government, that of population, such a novelty as that of bringing men-midwives into general practice, requires rather a greater authority than that of Fashion, while there is such a standard of essay as Reason.