Elizabeth Nihell

Background

Nihell was born in 1723 in London to French Catholic parents. There is little evidence on her earlier life before 1740 when she moved to Paris and married a man named Edmund or Edward Nihell, an Irish Catholic surgeon-apothecary from Clare. He was the fourth son in a well-known family of merchants, medical men, and priests. He also took his M.D. at Reims in 1740. They did have at least one child, however there is little documentation on whether the child lived or not. In 1754, Nihell and her husband moved to Haymarket Street in London, where she started her career in midwifery. By 1771, her husband had abandoned her, leaving her unable to financially support herself with just her work as a midwife. Finally, in 1775 after facing many struggles, she had to turn to the parish for financial assistance. She was sent to the St Martins-in-the-Fields workhouse. A year later in May 1776 Nihell died and was buried in a pauper's grave. However, the cause of her death and location of her grave is unknown today.

Career

Nihell started her midwife training in 1747 at the Hôtel Dieu in Paris for two years under Marie-Claude Pour. This was a long stay, however it was facilitated by the Duke of Orlèans which may have been the reason for the long stay. There she was able to train and witness over 2,000 births. This was a big accomplishment because women in this time did not attend schooling, especially in the medical field. The Hôtel Dieu in Paris was common hospital around this time, which taught midwifery especially by one famous midwife, Madame du Coudray, who was supported by King Louis XV. In 1754, Nihell and her husband moved to Britain and settled in Haymarket. After settling in, Nihell started to advertise herself as a midwife in the London Evening Post. This allowed Nihell to attend over 900 births as a midwife. In 1760, she published her first book called a Treatise on the Art of Midwifery, which was a criticism of William Smellie’s methods of childbirth and his use of forceps. Before the eighteenth century, male midwives in the birthing room were so rare there was little need for debate. However, due to the creation and spread of forceps, male midwives became more popular and the status of female midwives declined due to the acceptance of male midwives by the upper class English and the belief that women were unable to understand and perform obstetric techniques. Nihell's publication spoke about how instruments brought into the birthing room by male midwives were usually unnecessary and caused harm to the baby. Nihell also told readers that they had the right to any decisions in the birthing room, not the male midwives. Nihell's main concern was how these new obstetrical instruments would replace female midwives at a much greater cost to infant’s lives. Nihell believed that for an easy delivery, assistance from a midwife was all that was needed and for extreme situations all that was required was knowledge, experience, tenderness, and presence of mind. She even stated that male midwives would get paid more than female midwives. After publishing her work there were many people who criticized her. However, Nihell fought back with anonymous publications, letters to the press, and a treatise titled The Danger and Immodesty of the Present too General Customs of Unnecessarily Employing Men-Midwives (1772). She even called one critic a buffoon, which was unheard of as women in this time period were not supposed to be outspoken.

List of Works

Treatise on the Art of Midwifery. Setting forth various abuses therein, especially as to the practice with instruments: the whole serving to put all rational inquirers in a fair way of very safely forming their own judgment upon the question; which it is best to employ, in cases of pregnancy and lying-in, a man-midwife; or, a midwife, 1760

The Danger and Immodesty of the Present too General Custom, 1772