The writer, obstetrician James Hamilton (1767-1839), writes to Attorney-General Sir William Garrow (1760-1840) to protest a bill that restricts the practice of midwifery to surgeons. Garrow, an 18th-century barrister, often took the side of the poor and coined the phrase "innocent until proven guilty." Hamilton, Chair of Midwifery at Edinburgh University, also took the part of the lower classes, refusing to attend great ladies in private homes and preferring to treat impoverished women in the slums. Here he clearly states why midwifery should be practised by physicians as well as surgeons; we know his arguments were successful for this bill did not become law.
