Midwives and Medical Men: A History of the Struggle for the Control of Childbirth

Originally published in 1977 and as a second edition in 1988, this book introduces the reader to the women at the top of the midwifery profession up until the 17th Century who attended the aristocracy and Royalty. The author shows how their successors were gradually driven out of the better paid work until in the middle of the 19th Century it appeared that attendance on childbearing women would inevitably become the male monopoly it has virtually become in North America. This downward trend...