BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 331
only.’ The truth is, that in those days the practice of midwifery was almost
solely confined to that sex, as it was only in difficult cases that the assistance of
male practitioners was called in ; and hence it very frequently happened that the
labour was found to be too far advanced to admit of their aid being of material
service, and thus from want of skill, the lives of many mothers and children
were lost. The public owe it to the strenuous exertions of Dr. Young (the first
Professor of Midwifery in the College of Edinburgh), and of the subject of this
memoir, that so few fatal cases occur in this way, in the metropolitan districts of
. Scotland. Both of these gentlemen were indefatigable in their efforts to impress
upon the public the necessity and advantages of all who practised midwifery, both
male and female, being regularly instructed in the art. In their days they had
very formidable prejudices to encounter. They had not only to contend with
the gross ignorance of those who were in established practice, and whose interests
were so nearly related to the continuance of the system ; but such was the state
of public feeling, that there were many who pretended to the name of philosophers,
who encouraged the prejudice. The principal argument upon which
they insisted, which happens not to be fact in all cases, was, that nature is the
proper midwife. This, combined with certain fastidious notions of delicacy,
had the effect of confining the obstetrical art to females. But such has been
the gradual improvement of the age in which we live, that we have the highest
authority (even that of the present excellent Professor in the University of
Edinburgh) for affirming that the public conviction of the utility of the art is
so great, that there is now hardly a parish of Scotland the midwife of which
has not been regularly taught ; and it may with truth be added, that the propriety
and advantage of males practising as accoucheurs is now so generally
admitted, as to make it very probable that the employment of females in midwifery
may in time be entirely superseded. In three of the four Universities
of Scotland there are Professors of Midwifery, viz., in Glasgow, Marischal College,
and in Edinburgh, in which city there was established, in 1791, a
Lying-in Hospital,’ under the more immediate patronage of the magistrates,
the Lord Provost being President, and the Professor of Midwifery Ordinary
Physician.
The prefixed Plate contains a striking likeness of the late DR. ALEXANDER
HAMILTONT. his gentleman was born in 1739 at Fordoun, near Montrose,
where his father, who had been a surgeon in the army during Queen Anne’s
wars, was established as a medical practitioner. He came to Edinburgh about the
year 1755, as assistant to Mr. John Straiton, a surgeon then in extensive
practice ; and on that gentleman’s death, in 1762, he was urged by a number of
respectable families to settle in Edinburgh. He accordingly, on application,
was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons in that city, for the Royal
College was not incorporated until 1578. Of an active and bustling disposition,
After him Mr. Robert Smith taught the same class for seventeen yeam.
and, on the anniversary of its institution, used to dine aunually with the Professor.
’ The Earl of Leven and Melville took a very active part in getting this Hospital established ;
