How to be a midwife in late nineteenth-century Spain

Abstract

Since the mid-eighteenth century Spanish midwifery has been shaped along gender lines, differentiating between male theory, obstetric surgical science, and mostly female parctice, in one of the few professions carried out by women. After the mid-eighteenth century surgeons, the physicians, and the local authorities governed the profession between them. In this chapter we shall analyse the changes that took place with respect to access to the profession throughout the nineteenth century, and the practice of midwifery in the city of Granada at the beginning of the twentieth century.