Chapter III: OF Her own personal Duty (as MIDWIFE) both to the MOTHER and

the _CHILD_ after _Delivery_; as also towards all _Labouring Women_, to whom she may be call’d, upon _critical Conjunctures_.

THESE I call _practical Heads_, because they depend more upon _Practice_ and _Experience_, or _Judgment_ and _Charity_, than upon any _fundamental Rules_; which however yet ought also to be reckon’d _Branches_ of her _THEORY_.

BUT notwithstanding all these natural and acquir’d _Qualifications_, the _young MIDWIFE_ is not to run at once into the _Practice_: Nor to hurry herself rashly to lay _Hands_ upon the _ARK_, before she is thoroughly well accomplished for so sacred a _Work_; lest (like _Uzzah_) _she_ be punished for her _Temerity_; whereof I have seen several exemplary _Precedents_. No, the _Work_ is too important, and the _Concern_ too weighty for that hasty indiscreet _Undertaking_; for there is no less than the _Life_ of the MOTHER, and _one_ CHILD at least, (if not sometimes _more_) at _Stake_: Both which may be soon saved, or quickly lost, according to the Good or Bad _Conduct_ and _Management_ of the _MIDWIFE_.

WHEREFORE, to the End, that she may obtain the necessary _Experience_, and perfect her Judgment, _&c._ in due Course, she ought to satisfy herself at first to go (for some time) as an _Assistant_ to some _skilful Woman_ of good Business, and so by degrees advance herself into the _Practice_: Because _Dexterity_ in this _ART_, is only acquir’d by _Time_ and _Exercise_; the _practical Part_ of _MIDWIFERY_ being attended with so many complicated Circumstances of _accidental Difficulties_, that it is almost impossible for any Persons, who never apply’d themselves this way, to believe how much it differs from all the _THEORY_, that the most ingenious _MAN_ can make himself _Master_ of.