witch trials

Witch trials

The case i mentioned is interesting as it attests

to a large body of individuals, who would be natural victims

of the witch persecutors: the midwives.

I have been looking at the history of midwifery,

and doesn't it just have a bearing on the situation?

There are many cases of older women, giving assistance at a birth

Or standing in after birth to look after the newly born 

children, and those children dying, so that the midwife is accused 

of bewitching the children to death!

But the fact is that they were just local women called on

for their experience of helping with birth and looking after babies

who maybe had herbalist knowledge too,

and delivery of children was frought in those days, 

with no medical treatment, no medical training, no 

medical utensils. They didn't even have forceps to help

the process until years afterwards.

Many babies would naturally have died in the process of birth

or in the ensuing weeks. 

These women were therefore perfect targets 

and thus accused of causing the child's death.

It is always a risk of offering medical care to superstitious oeople,

that a failure can be taken as a sign of malice.

It isn't only that, either. 

I could add a feminist take on the situation, 

that men would have no awareness at all of the birthing process....

More to come......