When the midwife Jane Sharp wrote The Midwives Book in 1671, she became the first British woman to publish a midwifery manual. Drawing on works by her male contemporaries, and weaving together medical information and lively anecdotes, she produced a book that is instructive, accessible, witty, and constantly surprising.
When the midwife Jane Sharp wrote The Midwives Book in 1671, she became the first British woman to publish a midwifery manual. Drawing on works by her male contemporaries and weaving together medical information and lively anecdotes, she produces a book that is instructive, accessible, witty, and constantly surprising.
Maintains the series' high standards ... this work is not only significant in itself (as the first modern edition of the full text of Sharp's manual), but also for the way in which it might require us to reassess the work of Laqueur and Butler
