John Blunt, A man-mid-wife, frontespizio tratto da Man-Midwifery

Dissected, 1793

“great mischief… has been done since man-midwifery became [general], owing to the ignorance and impatience of those professors who erroneously imagined, their instruments must be used on all occasions”

William Smellie, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, pubblicato nel 1752. “A Midwife… ought to void all reflections upon men practitioners; and when she finds herself difficulted, candidly have recourse to their assistance; this confidence ought to be encouraged by the man, who, when called, instead of openly condemning her method of practice, (event though it should be erroneous), ought to make allowance for the weakness of the sex, and rectify what is amiss, without exposing her mistakes”

Elizabeth Nihell, Treatise on the Art of Midwifery, 1760:

"it is, in short, enough for these practitioners not to be women”

Nei confronti dei discepoli di William Smellie:

"That multitude of disciples of Dr. Smellie, trained up at the feet of his artificial doll, or in short, those self-constituted man-midwives made out of broken barbers, tailors, or even pork butchers, for I know myself one of this last trade who, after passing his life in stuffing sausages, is turned an intrepid physician and man midwife. See the whole pack open in full cry : to arms ! to arms ! is the word, and what are those arms by which they maintain themselves but those instruments, those weapons of death." Nihell a proposito di William Smellie: "The delicate fist of a great horse godmother of a he-midwife, however softened his figure might be by his pocket-nightgown being of flowered calico, or his cap of office tied with pink and silver ribbon” William Douglas, accusava Smellie dell'assurdità del suo metodo di insegnamento, sostenendo che molti dei suoi studenti non potessero vantare altro che un certificato di partecipazione a una performance nella quale veniva messa in scena una “nascita meccanica”: "[the student] puts a voucher in his pocket, that the world might believe him qualified. There are Numbers … that have your Certificates in their Pockets, and are no more capable of performing a difficult Labour, than I am able to carry St. Paul's Church on my back."

Bonnie Blackwell definirà The Theater of the Mechanical Mother

William Smellie sosteneva che le levatrici, al pari delle infermiere: “ought to be of middle age, sober, patient and discreet, able to bear

fatigue and watching, free from external deformity, cutaneous eruptions and inward complaints, that may be troublesome or infectious."

TS: "she had been left, it seems, a widow in great distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh year; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage-grave deportment-a woman moreover of few words, and withal an object of compassion."

(Vol. I, Cap. VII): “IN the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who, with the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of dame nature, -- had acquired, in her way, no small degree of reputation in the world” E di nuovo (Vol I. Cap. XIII): “ 'twas right to take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the mean time ; -- because when she is wanted we can no way do without her. I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note and consequence throughout our whole villane and township”

(Vol. I, Cap. XV):

“I was doom'd, by marriage articles, to have my nose squeez'd

as flat to my face, as if the destinies had actually spun me without one”

(Vol. I, Cap. XVIII): “and before the week was well got round, as the famous Dr. Maningham was not to be had, she had come to a final determination in her mind, ---- notwithstanding there was a scientifick operator within so near a call as eight miles of us, and who, moreover, had expressly wrote a five shillings book upon the subject of midwifery, in which he had exposed, not only the blunders of the sisterhood itself, ---- but had likewise superadded many curious improvements for the quicker extraction of the foetus in cross births, and some other cases of ranger which belay us in getting into the world ; notwithstanding all this, my mother, I say, was absolutely determined to trust her life, and mine with it, into no soul's hand but this old woman's only”

(Vol. I, Cap. XVIII): "In a word, my mother was to have the old woman, -- and the operator was to have licence to drink a bottle of wine with my father and my uncle Toby Shandy in the back parlour, -- for which he was to be paid five guineas” E poi, nel Vol. II Cap. XII: “But so full is your head of these confounded works, that tho' my wife is this moment in the pains of labour, -- and you hear her cry out, -- yet nothing will serve you but to carry off the man-midwife. ---- Accoucheur, -- if you please, quoth Dr. Slop. -- With all my heart, replied my father, I don't care what they call you”

(Vol 2, Chapter VI): “Imagine to yourself a little, squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a Serjeant in the Horse-Guards. Such were the out-lines of Dr. Slop's figure, which, -- if you have read Hogarth's analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would”

(Vol. 2, Charter X): “WHEN Dr. Slop entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle Toby were discoursing upon the nature of women, -- it was hard to determine whether Dr. Slop's figure, or Dr. Slop's presence, occasioned more surprize to them ; for as the accident happened so near the house, as not to make it worth while for Obadiah to remount him, -- Obadiah had led him in as he was unwiped, unappointed, unanealed, with all his stains and blotches on him. ---- He stood like Hamlet's ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a half, at the parlour door, (Obadiah still holding his hand) with all the majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his fall, totally besmear'd, -- and in every other part of him, blotched over in such a manner with Obadiah's explosion, that you would have sworn, (without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect”

“Dr. Slop had lost his teeth -- his favourite instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly in a hard labour, knock'd out three of the best of them, with the handle of it”

1752 William Smellie, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, 1753 John Burton, A Letter to William Smellie

Burton:

"If any Thing can be added to shock human Faith, or

prejudice your Character as an Historian or Translator, it is your having converted Lithopaedii Senonensis Icon (which you call Lithopaedus Senonensis) an inanimate petrefied (sic) Substance, into an Author, after you had been six years cooking up your Book."

Tristram Shandy: Vol. 2, Cap. XIX:

“My father, who dipp'd into all kinds of books, upon

looking into Lithopaedus Senonesis de Partu difficili*, published by Adrianus Smelvgot, had found out, that the lax and pliable state of a child's head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that time, was such, -- that by force of the woman's efforts, which, in strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to a weight of 470 pounds averdupoise acting perpendicularly upon it ; -- it so happened that, in 49 instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into the shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook generally rolls up in order to make a pye of. ----

Il titolo e l'editore derivano dall'elenco di eminenze in campo medico del

XVIII secolo stilato da Burton: “John. Adriani Slevogt disputatio, de

muliebre gravida” e “Abraham. Vater. Dis. De Partu Difficili ex Infantis

Braccio prodeunte”.

Smelvogt” è un mix di Slevogt e Smellie.

(Vol. II, Cap. XIX): “The author is here twice mistaken ; for Lithopaedus should be wrote thus, Lithopaedii Senonensis Icon. The second mistake is that this Lithopaedus is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, published by Athosius (sic), 1580, may be seen at the end of Cordaeus's works in Spachius. Mr. Tristram Shandy has been led into this error either from seeing Lithopaedus's name of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr.--, or by mistaking Lithopaedus for Trinecavellius,-from the too great similitude of the names”.

(Vol. II, Cap. XI) "Thou has come forth unarm'd ; -- thou hast left thy tire-tête, -- thy new-invented forceps, - - thy crotchet, -- thy squirt, and all thy instruments of salvation and deliverance behind thee" Volume I, Cap. XX ``It was necessary I should be born before I was christen'd. Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist, that consequence did not follow”

(Vol. III, Cap. XIII): “BLESS my soul ! ---- my poor mistress is ready to faint, ---- and her pains are gone, ---- and the drops are done, ---- and the bottle of julap is broke, -- and the nurse has cut her arm, ---- (and I, my thumb, cried Dr. Slop) and the child is where it was, continued Susannah, ---- and the midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised her hip as black as your hat. ---- I'll look at it, quoth Dr. Slop. ---- There is no need of that, replied Susannah, ---- you had better look at my mistress, ---- but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you would go up stairs and speak to her this moment.” A questo punto il Dr. Slop, spodestato dalla levatrice, era fermamente intenzionato a recuperar terreno (Vol. III, Cap. XIII): “Human nature is the same in all professions. The midwife had just before been put over Dr. Slop's head. -- He had not digested it. -- No, replied Dr. Slop, 'twould be full as proper, if the midwife came down to me. -- I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby” (Vol. II, Cap. XIX): “Of all men in the world, Dr. Slop was the fittest for my father's purpose ; -- for tho' his new-invented forceps was the armour he had proved, and what he maintained, to be the safest instrument of deliverance” (Vol III, Cap. XIV): “UPON my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of the skin quite off the back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle Toby, -- and you have crush'd all my knuckles into the bargain with them, to a jelly. 'Tis your own fault, said Dr. Slop, ---- you should have clinch'd your two fists together into

the form of a child's head, as I told you, and sat firm. ---- I did so, answered my uncle Toby”

Strumenti per craniotomia di epoca greco-romana

Perforatore, uncino e tire-tête di Mauriceau

F. Mauriceau - Traité des maladies des femmes grosses et de celles qui sont accouchées

I forcipi originali dei Chamberlen così come vennero trovati nel 1813, nascosti in una botola nella residenza di famiglia, Woodham Mortimer

Hall (custodia non originale)

L’armamentario originale dei Chamberlen

Uno dei forcipi dei Chamberlen rinvenuti presso Woodham Mortimer Hall nel 1813

Uno dei forcipi dei Chamberlen rinvenuti presso Woodham Mortimer Hall nel 1813

W. Smellie - Feto in utero e forcipe di Smellie, tavola XVIII

W. Smellie - Feto in utero e forcipe, tavola XVI