confess that it is with a feeling of regret, something akin to shame,
when I reflect that I am supposed to teach a class of young men the
entire subject of midwifery, and the diseases of women and children,
in a short summer course of something under forty lectures. The
thing is a manifest and ridiculous absurdity, hence we have, of
necessity, to omit, year by year, _at least half of midwifery proper_."

The Principal of Calcutta Medical College writes Dr. Playfair thus:--
"To what a hideous extent is the practice of midwifery carried on in
England, by utterly unqualified men, whom the unhappy women and
their friends believe to be qualified, and the system in your
hospitals sadly favors this."

"Yet there are some women who will smother every feeling of modesty
and morality, and trust their lives to one of these licentiates
rather than commit themselves to the care of a thoroughly trained
midwife of their own sex. Surely nothing can be more absurd and
irrational."]

About this time a friend of my husbands' informed us that the
climate of Canada was very much superior to that of the Eastern
States, and much more like that of Germany, and that in Montreal I
would be likely to find, not only a pleasant city, but a people more
European in style and custom, also a capital field for the exercise
of my profession. For Montreal then we sailed with hearts full of
hope, and, being fifty-four days at sea, I was summoned by the
Captain to attend a lady on board (which I did with the success
which has since invariably attended my efforts), and this was my
debut as a professional accoucheur.