Provincial Obstetrics in late eighteenth-century England: Thomas Higgins of Wem, 1759-1803

这项研究将构成对省级男助产士的主要案例研究，这是18世纪下半叶出现的一种新的医疗从业者类别。托马斯·希金斯（1759-1803）是什罗普郡韦姆的一名男助产士和外科药剂师，从1781年开始从事产科工作，直到去世。他留下了一份珍贵的档案，里面有一组不同寻常的手稿材料，包括助产案例手册、一本药品销售手册、家庭账目、家庭法律文件和信件。幸运的是，这个收藏得到了一套丰富的关于Wem教区的手稿的支持，包括对土地所有者/占领者的调查，语法学校受托人的记录和一系列遗嘱。因此，本项目将通过研究从业人员的个人和医疗接触，来研究从业人员的职业和社会平等问题。这项工作很重要，因为对省级男性助产士的研究在很大程度上被伦敦男性助产士的研究所掩盖，尽管前者意义重大，数量也更多。此外，助产案例簿的证据可以与教区登记册中发现的当地洗礼、婴儿埋葬和妇女埋葬联系起来。这些综合数据可用于解决有关当地人口出生登记不足、婴儿死亡率和产妇死亡率的问题。这种调查是非常不寻常的，因为人口统计历史通常只依赖于教区登记。

This research will constitute a major case study into a provincial man midwife, a new category of medical practitioner that emerged over the second half of the eighteenth century. Thomas Higgins, a man midwife and surgeon apothecary of Wem in Shropshire (1759-1803), undertook obstetrical work from 1781 until his death. He left a valuable archive containing an unusual combination of manuscript materials including midwifery casebooks, a drugs sales book, household accounts family legal papers, and correspondence. Fortunately this collection is supported by a rich set of manuscripts relating to the parish of Wem including a survey of landowners/occupiers, the records of grammar-school trustees and a series of Wills. Therefore this project will examine the question of a practitioner's professional and social equals by making a study of his personal and medical contacts. This work is important because research on provincial man midwives has been substantially overshadowed by work on London men, despite the significance and greater numbers of the former. Furthermore the evidence of the midwifery casebooks can be linked to local baptisms, infant burials and women's burials found in parish registers. The combination of data can be used to address questions about the local population concerning the under-registration of births, infant mortality, and maternal mortality. This sort of investigation is very unusual, since demographic history usually relies on parish registers alone.