The Student Midwife Summer Issue, Volume One | Page 17

A HISTORY OF BIRTH

SUMMER 2015 ISSUE, VOLUME ONE

CONTINUED

1596
Scipione

Mercurio

instructed attendants that
for a Cesarean section,
you need four strong
assistants to hold the
patient down as the incision is made; then apply a
liquid
concoction
of
varied
herbs
before
removing the baby. He did
not, however, record if this
event would increase the
odds that either the
mother or child would survive.

1600’s
Colonial Times
European and North
American Continent
The importance of midwives to the social order is
shown in the fact that several New England towns
provided a house or lot
rentfree to a midwife on
condition that she does
not refuse when called.
NonEnglish colonies often
kept midwives on the colonial payroll. In New Amsterdam they were called
Zieckentroosters, or comforters of the sick, and
received liberal salaries
and special privileges. The
Dutch West India Company salaried midwives
and gave others free
houses in the city on the
explicit condition that
they attend to the poor
upon request. The French
colony of Louisiana paid
midwives until 1756 and
provided physicians regularly to examine the quality of their practice.

17

1600-1700
Bishops in the Church of
England were the first to
legislate control over midwifery. Richard andDorothy Wertz in the book
LyingIn state:
In the 17 Ѡ