"make the proper turns, and proceed in "the slow and cautious manner which

"I have since adopted. The child's "head was squeezed into a longitudinal

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form, flattened on the sides, with a

deep impression on the cranium above "the ears; and from an indentation on "the os frontis by a blade of the forceps "which had been fixed on that and the occiput, I discovered that the ears "were not to the sides, as I had imagined."

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Again, as to the danger attending the use of the fillets; the fair professional confession is in these words: "The

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disadvantage attending all fillets is "the difficulty in introducing and fixing "them; and though this last is easier

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applied than the others, yet when the "vertex presents, the child's chin is so pressed to the breast, that it is often impracticable to insinuate the fillet be"tween them, and if it is fixed upon the "face or hind head, it frequently slips

"off in pulling: but granting it com" modiously fixed, when the head is large or the pelvis narrow, so we are

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obliged to pull with great force, the "fillet will gall, and even cut to the

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very bone, and if the child comes out

on a sudden, in consequence of vio"lent pulling, the external parts of the "woman are in danger of sudden lace"ration."

The foregoing descriptions contain, too clearly to admit of doubt, direct and positive evidence (we may almost call it "king's evidence," or queen's,) of the dangerous liabilities to which both women and children are subjected by the use of "forceps" and "fillets;" the woman to inflammation, laceration, mortification, death! the child, if it escape death, to having a squeezed and longitudinal head without ears, cut also to the very bone by the fillet around its tender neck! Ye that have ears, will ye hear? Such is the great danger of in

strumental appliances, to which menmidwives are so prone; liabilities most dreadful; even that some internal part of the woman may be enclosed in the powerful gripe of the forceps at the time they clasp the child's head, and be torn away, or at least lacerated, by the pulling. Heavens! the idea makes one's flesh creep with horror.

Hastening through the ordeal over the red-hot ploughshares of these terrible disclosures as to appliances peculiar to the man-midwife's art, next is presented a description not of legitimate character, but detailed as the awkward operating of a country practitioner, once a pupil of the M. D. whose work is quoted; in which outrageous case the woman died the next morning, after she had been delivered of a dead child: the Moloch sacrifices-mother and child!—of the forceps in unpractised hands.

"First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears."

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And be it remembered, the doctor himself has admitted, that in his own practice, as just detailed, he injured the woman; "because (says he) I did not then "know how to make the proper turns, "and proceed in the slow and cautious manner which I have since adopted." Therefore, as all men have to learn, how many women may fairly be presumed to be sacrificed or injured in unwisely becoming" subjects" for the practice and learning of men in an art professedly for their safety, although nothing is ever said about it? Assuredly a thousand times more than are benefited by the practice when attained; the remedy being worse than the disease a thousandfold; an inverse ratio in which the dangers alarmingly preponderate over the supposed benefits.

But, as to the confessedly awkward operating of the country practitioner, the doctor describes the horrible bungling of his former pupil in the following

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forceps) properly (?), he tried several

times, in vain, to bring the head Finding, however, that the

"lower.

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forceps did not slip, but kept a firm

hold, he resolved to try and make one

effort more, and after pulling with all his strength, and moving the handles

of the forceps over the pubis, he got "the head delivered; yet not without bending backwards that blade of the

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forceps that was next to the pubis. "She was delivered of a dead child "about noon, and expired the next morning."

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Now reflect, husbands, wives, and readers, on the character, circumstances, and result of the foregoing operation, as described; and also as commented upon by the doctor in the following letter to his former pupil; but observe the delicate balance preserved between extenuation and blame; the latter amounting to severe and deserved censure after all,