Samuel Gregory was born in 1813 in Vermont. He graduated from medical school at Yale. He believed that it was only proper for women to be midwives. In 1848, he founded the Boston Female Medical College with Dr. Israel Talbot to produce qualified female doctors. He died in 1872.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=18891300

While Ewell notes this observation by moralists, he does not acknowledge that the nature of a moralist is to focus on immorality, such as adultery, in society. The moralists attribute the immorality to the married women, not the doctors because social beliefs dictated that women were the weaker vessels and were not in control of themselves.

Ewell attributes midwives' lack of experience to increased male domination in the field, not a lack of formal training in obstetrics.

Ewell means that women without respectable jobs like midwifery to support themselves would turn to socially unacceptable professions like prostitution.

While women were considered to be be weaker in every way to men, men reserved midwifery as a woman's job because they were afraid of adultery by the male physicians, although men supposedly had better control over themselves.

Ewell again acknowledges men's insecurity over a male physician touching their wives during childbirth and the lust midwifery could raise in the physicians.

Thomas Ewell recognized the insecurities of men at having their wives handled in such intimate ways during childbirth. He believes that a way to avoid possible social conflicts between men, their wives, and physicians is to encourage women to dominate the field of midwifery. Midwifery is also an important source of income for women.

In his pamphlet on man-midwifery, Samuel Gregory relies exclusively on testimonies by famous physicians. The information he presents does not include accounts by midwives or the women who were treated by the physicians. Gregory also excludes the testimonies of numerous other physicians who were not considered to be at the top of the medical social circles. While Gregory claims that no arguments or counter evidence will invalidate the claims of the "greatest physicians," realistically, there are other schools of thought on man-midwifery that were practiced.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon lived from 1707 to 1788. He was a French naturalist who was well known for his studies in botany, geology, natural history, and anthropology.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/83673/Georges-Louis-Leclerc-count-de-Buffon

Definition: "The state of being a cuckold." (A cuckold is man whose wife commits adultery)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cuckold

Thomas Ewell was born in Prince William County, Virginia in 1785. He studied with Dr. George Graham, Dr. John Weems, and Dr. Benjamin Rush. Ewell received his degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After service in the Navy, he published numerous works including "Ewell's Family Medicine" and the first American chemistry text for the layman. He also became involved with the manufacturing of gunpowder and the Anacostia Bridge Company. He died in 1826.

http://www.geni.com/people/Thomas-Ewell/6000000012251529415

Maubray draws attention to the unwillingness of the British to allow man-midwifery by lauding women from Continental Europe's acceptance of help from midwives of both genders. He believes that the European women's temporary rejection of decorum during childbirth allows them to have the best medical assistance available for themselves and their children. He implies that British society would be better off as a whole if the women accepted skilled and knowledgeable man-midwives.

Maubray invests in the period social beliefs of female inferiority to justify men-midwifery. He claims that men should become midwives because they have more physical and mental capabilities than women. He also references the lack of formal training among female midwives. However, he does not advocate for their education because he believes that men are superior, regardless of schooling.

Male midwife

Maubray justifies his interests in midwifery through the belief that women's most important role in society is to increase the population.

Maubray was part of a movement that did not believe in the use of instruments in childbirth.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15257350

Archaic form of ancient.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antient

Hydatidiform moles are a form of gestational trophoblastic disease that originate in the placenta and are a more prominent cause for elective pregnancy terminations.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/254657-overview#showall

An abnormal conception when a mole or fleshy mass grows in the uterus instead of a normal, organized fetus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfetation

Also known as superfetation. When two fetuses are conceived at different times and develop simultaneously in the uterus. This is a rare occurrence in humans, although some sets of twins that show different stages of development are thought to have been conceived at separate times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfetation

Maubray establishes a definition and a limit to the practices of midwifery, an important move for a man-midwife because midwifery was commonly a woman's job. Man-midwifes were sometimes looked upon with suspicion because social norms relegated to position to less-threatening women.

Maubray believes that midwifery can cure barrenness.

John Maubray was a Scottish physician who lived from 1700 to 1732. He was a leading man-midwife in Georgian London. Unusual for the time, Maubray emphasized the importance of physical examinations, theory, and practical experience in the instruction of midwifery.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15257350

Gregory attributes doctor's light conversation regarding childbirth to immorality, not a shared experience. He also condemns later conversations between women and their doctors when many women most likely had similar followup sessions with their midwives, especially when there were complications.

Gregory unwittingly provides evidence that a number of families trust this doctor over the local midwives, reflecting that there are clients with a counterargument against Gregory, Ewell and their like-minded colleagues.

The women were indoctrinated into the social standards of privacy and propriety, which dictated that they should have a midwife instead of a doctor. Documents by women regarding their views of the privacy of a midwife versus the additional skill and knowledge of a doctor would provide stronger evidence about how women actually felt about man-midwifes.

While the most noted authors on midwifery believe that a physician should only attend a complicated birth, it would be difficult for the authors to deny that some of the complications have arisen from midwives lacking the knowledge and skill of physicians.

Ewell provides contradictory reasons for not hiring a man-midwife. His anecdote explains men's jealousy and insecurity at having another man touch his wife. However, Ewell then attributes men's unwillingness to hire a doctor to sheer concern for their wive's well being, not their fear of adultery.

Ewell provides only one account of lust by a physician. More evidence is required to draw conclusions about the frequency of adultery between physicians and the women whose children they deliver.

Ewell attributes adultery in cities to man-midwifery instead of other factors, such as lack of marital satisfaction coupled with easy access to other partners, unlike rural communities.

Because of the social standards for modesty, Count Buffon believes that even a physician's examination of a woman is a rape of her privacy.

Definition: A male midwife.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/accoucheur