Satire in Eighteenth-Century Medical Discourse: Elizabeth Nihell, Tobias Smollett and the Advent of Man-Midwifery

Abstract

This paper examines Tobias Smollett’s scathing assessment in the Critical Review of Elizabeth Nihell’s midwifery treatise, Treatise on the Art of Midwifery (1760), a polemic against the use of instruments in childbirth and the increasing popularity of man-midwifery. This continues with Nihell publishing a response to Smollett’s review, and then Smollett responding to Nihell’s response. The Nihell-Smollett exchange brings discourses surrounding two concomitant medical controversies – the use of instruments in childbirth and the presence of men in the birthing chamber – to the fore, and it is particularly remarkable due to the satirical tone adopted in this exchange, particularly by Smollett. Using Simpson’s model of satirical discourse, this paper explores the textual-linguistic practices adopted by both Smollett and Nihell and elucidates how satire both construes and is construed by rival medical ideologies in mid-eighteenth-century England.