A Treatise on the Art of Midwifery

In 1760, a female midwife published a radical treatise defending her craft against the rising tide of male obstetricians, and the argument still resonates today. Elizabeth Nihell was not fighting to preserve tradition; she was fighting for women's bodily autonomy in an era when men of medicine increasingly wielded forceps and authority over the delivery room. Her treatise is both a meticulous defense of traditional midwifery and a fierce polemic against the medicalization of childbirth, arguing that patience and experience save more lives than instruments and impatience ever could. Nihell writes with the conviction of someone who had witnessed too many women harmed by eager hands reaching for tools where gentle skill would suffice. She urges women to trust their own judgment, to educate themselves, and to resist the assumption that male expertise automatically supersedes female knowledge. This is a foundational text of feminist thought, a rare 18th-century voice from a woman in a man's world, and a window into the origins of debates about medical intervention, informed consent, and who gets to define the rules of women's healthcare.