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bill go back 75 to 100 years and there weren't medical books either. Midwivery, and medicine, and law were learned from apprentiships. there weren't formal schools, and there weren't text books. even when the formal schools started (like the first medical and nursing schools) there was very little in the way of "class room" training, and 90% of the training was hands on, not read from a book. (there were lectures, but not text books!)
While the woman might have been somewhat literate, they certainly didn't have opportunites to go to formal schools (even Dr Blackwell had to fight the establishment to get into medical school..just what 100 years ago? )why would a midwife write a book? who would read it? there weren't schools for midwives. (or even schools for woman to be come Ob/Gyn's) let's not forget.. doors where closed to woman. show me the law books and the law school abraham lincoln went to or used? you can't. he read law, not text books, and he learned by working with an other lawyer as clerk. so too, women learned, by doing, and helping.
we know the iliad today, because for 1000 years before the greeks got to writing it down, it was passed on as oral knowledge. a lack of text books is not a lack of knowledge.
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Dear of troy: I had my grandfathers obstetrical books, which I read in the attic when I was ten years oldl
The were published not too long after the Civil war. That's well over a hundred years ago, and they were far from being the first. I am not a male chauvinist. I merely point out that midwives appear to have made no attempt to gather knowledge and perpetuate it.
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Dr bill, you know that 1) most of what women did was considered insignificant, and unimportant (and is still considered unimportant -- just look at the how the US "values" mother's contribuions as part of the gross domestic product vs. how insurance companies values the services a mother provides, and the cost of them --love being still being free) an things are better now now than ever.. first of all, go a google of history and midwifes, and you find out, oh, they did write books.. but the books never got published, they simple were handed down. (which is in keeping with crafts learned apprenticship style.) 2) midwives, and other woman who were "healers" were considered witches (because it was an act of sin to believe anything other than god as a source of healing and health. the catholics churches power has wanned in modern years, but in the 1500's when Pope Innocents VIII banned witches, it was a different story. read about it in History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by Andrew Dickson White Particularly -- in CHAPTER XIII. FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE. I. THE EARLY AND SACRED THEORIES OF DISEASE. http://www.bookrags.com/books/hwswt/PART13.and you can also read about hand books written by mid wives. http://www.albany.edu/feature98/midwife/and there are lot of other places. woman with knowledge and independance (and woman who taught that sickness was sickness, and not sinfullness, challenged men and church authority.. and paid for it with there lives. now days we have wizzards and warlocks, but for ages and ages, witches were woman, and they were hung, burned and drowned for being witches.
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enthusiast
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An aside on this: Although "deadening of pain through potions [potlatch] was known to most ancient civilizations," yet "[d]uring all this time, there was no tradition of using painkiller to relieve the pain of women going though labor. Women midwives could be accused of witchcraft if they employed such drugs. One such case occurred in 1591, when [s]he was condemned as a witch and burned alive at the Castle Hill of Edinburgh."
It was not until 1846, that ether was successfully administered as an anesthetic during an operation. In 1847, Dr. James Y. Simpson, professor of obstetrics at the University of Glasgow successfully used chloroform to relieve the suffering of a woman patient in childbirth. [ellipses omitted] Major controversy followed. The clergy (male) insisted that painkilling in childbirth violated God's judgment as He drove Eve from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:16: "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children"). Many women (mostly past their childbearing years) argued that without the pain of delivery, a new mother would not properly bond with her baby. Eventually, Queen Victoria announced that she wanted chloroform for her childbirth. This effectively ended any question of the propriety of the new-fangled practice. http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/DOCTOR.TXT; scroll about 2/3 of the way down to section on Discovery of Painkiller, and Religious Opposition to "Painless" Labor
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Dear of troy: That paragraph had no bearing on the question. As a matter of fact, opiates are extremely hazadous to baby's repiration. Only recently have safe medications been found. I am unfavorably impressed by your choice of information. I am not willing to discuss it further.
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Bill - I fear you're being a bit narrow in your thinking about this issue.
Books are one way to gather knowledge and perpetuate it, but not the only way. As Helen points out, the oral tradition is a very important way of doing this, and in fact has probably perpetuated far more knowledge over the course of our existence than books, given its much longer track record.
Midwives may not have had access to the means of producing books, whether those means be literacy, or money, or access to the educated circles that publish, or what have you. Lacking any of these key things would have required them to find other means of carrying on their knowledge.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, Dr. Bill.
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Dear Hyla: my point was simply this: A thousand years of midwives could never have made Cesarean section
possible.
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what made Cesarean section possible was thousands of women dying, until doctors got it right.
at little as 50 years ago c-sections were life threatenting surgery. 100 years ago, a c-section was a death sentence to woman.
they became possible only because of Jenner's work on antiseptic surgry, Pastures work on germ theory, and other medical advances..
men were perfectly willing to cut up women, and if some died, so be it.. so women stayed away, until the AMA basicly outlawed mid wives, and forced woman to go to and use doctors. Now that woman have some power and say in their own lives, they are once again going back to midwives.
the medical profession has done wonders, and it has made my life longer, healthier and more pleasant in thousands of ways. I am glad not to have had small pox, or TB, or diphtheria, or to almost die from a paper cut.
I do value what doctors do. i don't think the AMA or doctors much value midwives, and what they did, or do.
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I do value what doctors do. i don't think the AMA or doctors much value midwives, and what they did, or do.
I agree whole heartedly with Helen's statement. I too value what Doctor's do. And I am very grateful to the fine MD who keeps me on my feet and able to accomplish most of what I want to do.
But.
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Let the record show an amicable termination of the debate has been achieved, and no flame war danger.
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