The Mysteries of Montreal | Page 2

specie, and an increased one as regards future candidates for the Presidency, on our way back to our common Fatherland. Through the influence of his friends, Gustav procured a good situation in a merchant's office, but he was altogether unsuited both by temperament and education for such a position, and I soon made up my mind that I must either prepare to enter the world's great battlefield in person, or live in helpless dependence on my husband's relations.
I had often while in America wondered why the ladies of that Republic (so advanced and enlightened in everything else) should submit to a practice so revolting, so contrary to all ideas of morality and refinement as is the system of man-midwifery so widely practiced in the United States. No German lady would think of permitting the attendance of a man at her bedside on such an occasion, and though custom in England seems generally to sanction the absurd practice, yet Her Majesty Queen Victoria never allows her medical advisers to be in attendance in any other capacity than that of consulting physicians. I had discussed the matter frequently with married ladies in New York, and they were generally agreed, that, could only competent ladies be found in the United States, man-midwifery would soon cease to be practiced in that Republic. I accordingly resolved to devote all my energies to the study of that particular branch of the medical profession, and my efforts were crowned with success. In two years I obtained a diploma from the Hamburg University, and soon after prepared to return to America.
[Footnote: Dr. Playfair, President of the Obstetrical Society of London, in his address delivered in February, 1879, said:--"I confess that it is with a feeling of regret, something akin to shame, when I reflect that I am supposed to teach a class of young men the entire subject of midwifery, and the diseases of women and children, in a short summer course of something under forty lectures. The thing is a manifest and ridiculous absurdity, hence we have, of necessity, to omit, year by year, at least half of midwifery proper."
The Principal of Calcutta Medical College writes Dr. Playfair thus:-- "To what a hideous extent is the practice of midwifery carried on in England, by utterly unqualified men, whom the unhappy women and their friends believe to be qualified, and the system in your hospitals sadly favors this."
"Yet there are some women who will smother every feeling of modesty and morality, and trust their lives to one of these licentiates rather than commit themselves to the care of a thoroughly trained midwife of their own sex. Surely nothing can be more absurd and irrational."]
About this time a friend of my husbands' informed us that the climate of Canada was very much superior to that of the Eastern States, and much more like that of Germany, and that in Montreal I would be likely to find, not only a pleasant city, but a people more European in style and custom, also a capital field for the exercise of my profession. For Montreal then we sailed with hearts full of hope, and, being fifty-four days at sea, I was summoned by the Captain to attend a lady on board (which I did with the success which has since invariably attended my efforts), and this was my debut as a professional accoucheur.
On our arrival at Montreal we presented letters of introduction to the German Consul, and the leading members of the German Society, and I soon became fully occupied in the exercise of my profession. Dr. X---- (now one of our most distinguished physicians) not only tolerated my vocation, but, with a magnanimity worthy of his genius and ability, gave me counsel and advice, and recommended me as highly as possible to his confrères and the public. Some few resident doctors threw cold water on my enterprise, but, to their credit be it spoken, the profession at large treated me invariably with the greatest kindness and courtesy, shewing thereby a liberality and largeness of heart which is ever the outcome of real ability.
I was not long installed in my new home when, as we were sitting cosily round the fire, the door bell was rung furiously, and on my going down to receive my visitor, I was astonished to find a gentleman with a newborn baby wrapped in the tail of his broadcloth coat. He said he was its father, and that the mother had taken suddenly ill before any provision could be made for its reception, and he implored me to take it, as he would otherwise feel impelled to throw it in the river. I thought my heart would break to see the poor infant so ruthlessly treated, so I took it from him, promising to see it safely