Abstract

The Midwives Book; or, The Whole Art of Midwifery Discovered, published in London in 1671 by the midwife Jane Sharp and now edited and annotated by Elaine Hobby, is a valuable contribution to an important topic in women's history that makes a relatively obscure female author accessible to a wider audience. Although Sharp's manual has been generally available as a primary source through a reprint edition published by Garland in 1985, Hobby's notes and glossary of medical terms will assist the lay reader as well as those with a special interest in early modern midwifery in coming to terms with information Sharp thought would be of value to midwives of the period.Recent research has cast new light not only on who London midwives were but on how they were trained and licensed. As Hobby rightly points out, it is also important to understand the type of manuals available to them, even though these manuals were of limited use for the actual practice of child delivery. Since the medical practices of the early modern period embraced the humoral theory , The Midwives Book contains much advice that modern medical practice would decry. However, it has been demonstrated elsewhere that experienced, licensed midwives, trained in a “hands‐on” system, did not rely on the printed word for their knowledge. Just as well, since even such an experienced practitioner as Sharp has borrowed from earlier male medical authors, trained in the Galenic tradition, in addition to publications that may have been authored by other London midwives.Aside from the short introduction, this book is Sharp's original six‐part work, with minor emendations as well as brief definitions and explanations. It begins with a description of female and male “generative parts” and moves on to conception, sterility, the conduct of labor, “miscarrying,” illnesses and diseases related to pregnancy, postpartum care, wet nurses, and, finally, a discussion of the normal newborn as well as common childhood diseases.The main strength and contribution of this new edition of The Midwives Book is that it makes readily available a carefully edited and annotated primary source by a seventeenth‐century woman who is addressing her peers. Although the subject matter was generally acknowledged as relating to “women's work,” female authors rarely entered the domain of the male medical “expert.” Sharp's was a voice normally excluded from the public forum provided by publication. This edition will be welcomed by those working in women's history, especially the history of medicine and midwifery, as well as those with a general interest in early modern English texts