FEMALE DOCTORS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 410, 25 February 1870, Page 3

FEMALE DOCTORS.

(TO THE EDITOR OF TO?. DtTSSTAK TIMES.) Sir,—Your issue of the IKb inst. contains ixn extract from the Edinburgh University regulations relative to the admission of women as atmleuts of medicine, fcppemle i to which are one or two observations to which 1 beg to take exception. Y..ur reference to Mrs. Parcel* is not a bad gratis advertisement, although 1 feel incdned to question its goo.' taste. That, however, I leave to yourself and your protego to decide upon. Your statistics of that nurse's practice are incorrect, inasmuch as you state that, for four years, she has not lost a single • case, while, to my certain knowledge, she ¥ has hja l more than one case of so-called * "still-born" children. Now, lam ere -'inly informed that many of those eases mk'ht.be saved were the mother properly treated in her confinement, ami also that children, although born apparently dead, may neverthcl ss, by proper management, be resucitnted. It se n ms to me a grave qiiestion in medical jurisprudence how far it is right to allow casea of reported still-birth at which no medical man has been present to pass •without, a Coroner's inquest ? Were »n inquiry always instituted in those cases it hlioht be found that the female midwives, to whom you seem so partial, and who at present have their ignorance and malpracti'cAfelied under cover of public indifare, in the majority of instances, incompetent to practice this branch of the profession. So long as eases are unattended with danger or difficulty female midwives may !, e competent enough to perform their duties; but no patient knows when complications may arise, giving her cause to regret all her life the absence of a | roperiy qualified medical man during her confinement. The inference which yon draw from Mrs. ParceTß small practieo for, after nil, wLat are one hundred and forty four children, in four years—to every refidentin Cljde obviously inconect—tho fact leinf, that for a lorg time past, Ihe jullic IsAt l.'pd iio dtui.ativo but to cmpljfj a fcßftle runt.' Your concluding M nt. uL.ir 1c lit, H'])y W si.te.llipl.le. li f \i " xrttti jijencicr" j<« n.«ii practj.

e»l experirnce, the statupent la founded cupola a gratuitous hypothesis, as many female midwives have never borne children, On the other hand, if by the expression referred to, you mean that a female midwife, because she is a female, must necessarily have more “ actual experience ” than a medical man. The statement is simply absurd. ThatVomen are preferable as midwives where properly qualified men are to be had is contradicted by facta. I believe t'>e great majority of women prefer doctors in their confinements, and I have often heard it staged that they suffer less and are more kindly treated by doctors than by the majority of female nurses, I do not think the profession have any cause to regret the admission of females into their ranks so long as they are properly qualified ; but, as a member of the public, to whose interest it is to see properly qualified medical men in our midst, to whom. In times of danger, we may intrust our lives with confidence. I feel it is too bad that sueh men should be passed over instead of receiving the encouragement which their “superior knowledge "—so much ignored by a certain editor—deserves. I am, &c,, A Believer in Technical Knowledge.